John Marshall was probably the greatest Chief Justice the United States ever had. He sat before several famous trials, and wrote many of the opinions for those trials. These opinions affected the course of history and set the direction of constitutional law. One of the trials in which he acted as Chief Justice was the Aaron Burr trial.
John Marshall was born in 1755 to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Marshall in the woods of Virginia. John's mother was part of the Randolph family making John related to Edmund Randolph (the defense attorney in the Burr trial) and Thomas Jefferson (the president who brought treason indictments upon Burr). John Marshall was educated early in his life by his father using religious materials and poetry. At the age of fourteen Marshall was sent away to study with the Reverend Archibald Campbell. Upon his return from the studying with the Reverend Marshall began to study English literature with his father, and decided to start studying the law on his own.
As Marshall was finishing up his education he started serving as the Sheriff of Fauquier County, Virginia in which he lived. He was also a legal clerk for Dunmore County, and a delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses. During this period he became good friends with Patrick Henry and George Washington. Once the revolution became imminent Marshall trained an army of his neighbors for battle. During the revolution he served as a captain in the Continental Army and served under George Washington. While on a brief leave from the army Marshall attended law lectures and became a member of the bar in Fauquier County.
After Marshall left the army he was elected to the Virginia legislature. Because of his new position Marshall had to move to Virginia. While in Richmond Marshall started a very successful law practice. While in the Virginia legislature Marshall helped get the constitution ratified, he turned down requests to run for congress, he rejected a position as the attorney generalship from George Washington, he refused an appointment as the minister to France (but went on a successful peace mission there), and turned down a seat on the Supreme Court.
After leaving the Virginia legislature Washington talked him into running for Congress on the Federalist party ticket. With strong support from George Washington and Patrick Henry Marshall was able to win his congressional candidacy. President Adams then nominated him for the position of Secretary of War, but Marshall turned it down. Then Adams nominated him for the Secretary of State position which Marshall accepted. The following year, after accepting the secretary of State position, Marshall was nominated by Adams to replace Oliver Ellsworth as a Chief Justice.
Marshall accepted the Chief Justice position and his impact on the Supreme Court was felt immediately. Marshall changed the way in which opinions were written. Before he started as the Chief Justice each justice wrote there opinion separately. Under this procedure it was hard to see where the common ground was and where each justice agreed and/or disagreed. Justice Marshall implemented a system where the justices collective decision was written in a single opinion usually authored by Marshall. Any concurring or dissenting opinions were written separately.
While Chief Justice, Marshall presided over several famous trials. He made several rulings that directed the future of constitutional law. He wrote opinions in Marbury v. Madison, Fletcher v. Peck, Dartmouth v. Woodward, McCullough v. Maryland, Cohens v. Virginia, Gibbons v. Ogden, Barron v. Baltimore, and wrote the dissent in Ogden v. Saunders for the only time in a constitutional case. He also sat the bench on the Aaron Burr trial. This was not a constitutional case, but it does involve a treason indictment against one of the nations political leaders. This trial may not have given Marshall the chance to make an impact on the future of the law, but it was a very important trial in American history.