Brion McClanahan on how John Marshall believed in an "aggressive central authority"

[John] Marshall distrusted the people's capacity to govern and believed that liberty was best secured by an aggressive central authority and not by local or state governments.  John Randolph of Roanoke, a friend and bitter rival, agreed with Marshall on the dangers of democracy, or "King Numbers" as he called it.  Marshall truly believed the Constitution was, as Madison argued in Federalist No. 10, the only safeguard against the "demagoguery" of Patrick Henry and other state factions.  But, he unknowingly set the stage for the rapid growth of the central government in the twentieth century.  His goal was a conservative one - but in the end he only established the precedents for an over-mighty central government that was as subject to demagogues as any state or local faction.

~ Brion McClanahan, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, pp. 293-294

Brian McClanahan on John Marshall's view of the Constitution as a "living," "elastic" document

"The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it.  It is a creature of their own will, and lives only by their will."  Those are the words of Chief Justice John Marshall in his 1821 Supreme Court ruling of Cohens v. Virginia.  It declared that the Supreme Court could review state supreme court decisions, reinforced the "supremacy clause" of the Constitution,and solidified the idea that the Constitution was a "living," "elastic" document.  Marshall was wrong in 1821, at least in regard to how the ratifiers intended the Constitution to be read, but his opinions have outlasted those of his opponents.  John Marshall might not be a household name to most Americans, but he is, along with Hamilton, one of the most important Federalists in American history.  The federal government would not be the same (or as powerful) without him.

~ Brion McClanahan, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, p. 285

John Marshall
1894

John Marshall on taxation

The power to tax involves the power to destroy.

~ John Marshall, 1819

John Marshall
1954-1968

John Marshall on federalism

No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States and compounding the American people into one common mass.

~ John Marshall, 4th U.S. Chief Justice from 1801-1835

John Marshall
1902-1903

Tom DiLorenzo on the men who destroyed the Constitution

After a lucid explanation of each section of the Constitution [Judge Napolitano, in his book The Constitution in Exile] discusses how the nationalist/mercantilist coalition, led by Alexander Hamilton and his accomplice Judge John Marshall, conspired to effectively rewrite (and undermine) the Constitution almost as soon as the ink was dry on the original copy. The "Federalists" (who would eventually morph into the Whigs, and then the Republicans) never accepted their defeat in the Constitutional convention (which created a federal, not a national government). Nor did they accept Jefferson’s election as president. Thus, two days before his term ended the Federalist President John Adams appointed dozens of "midnight federal judges" and appointed John Marshall to the Supreme Court on March 3, 1801, one day before he would leave office. Marshall "spent the remainder of his career finding clearly disingenuous, historically inaccurate, and highly questionable justifications for ruling that federal power is not limited," writes Judge Napolitano.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "The Men Who Destroyed the Constitution," LewRockwell.com, August 26, 2006