HAMILTON AND JOHN ADAMS

After seeing the great musical Hamilton when it premiered on Disney+ earlier this month I found myself enjoying it immensely.  I thought it would be fun to do a short compare and contrast with another great work that I have enjoyed: John Adams.  This was a miniseries that HBO produced and aired in 2008, which like Hamilton was met with rave reviews from critics and was given numerous awards.   

The differences are immediate and visually obvious Hamilton is a stage play while John Adams is mini-series for television.  John Adams has seven episodes each slightly over an hour making the entire project over eight hours long, where Hamilton total run time is two and half hours.  It is true that Hamilton only lived about half as long as John Adams but that the play has less than a third of the time to tell his story.   The star of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, also wrote the play, while John Adams starred Paul Giamatti and was written by Kirk Ellis.

David Morse as George Washington in John Adams. 

Then there are the aesthetics.  Hamilton is a musical and it bills itself as “the story of America then told by America of today.” The genre of music is a diverse selection of R &B, soul, hip-hop, and traditional-style show tunes.  The casting of Hamilton is revolutionary diverse with roles of white historical figures going to actors who are people of color.  This is done following the “America then told by America today” standard.  The nation is a much more diverse place then it was in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  Not only has the diversity increased, but as a measure of the country’s progress, the positions people of color now have the opportunity to fill has changed as well.  The play was written and premiered during the presidency of Barrack Obama.   It was a powerful message of inclusion in a narrative where people of color were traditional excluded.   

Christopher Jackson as George Washington in Hamilton. 

John Adams on the other hand is a period piece which does its best to retain an authentic look from the period.  This can be seen from the wardrobe trying to replicate the type of fabrics of the period; to the props trying to insure authentic appearance to the carriages, fire arms, etc; finally to the make-up trying to make the actors look more like the historical figures they are trying to represent.  In short, their set tries to re-create the world as it existed in the late 18^th century.

Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. 

Now we come to the similarities.  Both works are based on a life of an American Founding Father.  Both works are closely based on popularly written biographies about those founders.  John Adams was based on David McCullough’s 2001 biography of the same name, while Hamilton was based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography titled Alexander Hamilton. 

Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson in John Adams. 

The most important similarity between the two works (and if you take anything away from this review let be this) is while the settings of these works are the American Revolution and the establishment of the U.S. Constitution these events are not what either is about.   Both are about its principal subject be it Alexander Hamilton or John Adams.  Every event we witness and every other historical figure we meet is based on what the subject perceived.  However when one glances back with that in mind it again brings us to important distinctions in each work. 

In John Adams the American Revolution is a gruesome and undesirable necessity carried out in order to defend the rights of the colonists as citizens, because that is what the Revolution was to Mr. Adams.  In Hamilton, the American Revolution is exciting and wonderful opportunity for talented people born without high privilege to “rise up” and above their station.  This is because that is what Revolution meant to Alexander Hamilton.   Hamilton presents George Washington as this courageous general who doubles as a father figure, because that is who he was to fatherless Alexander Hamilton.  While the John Adams George Washington is a noble, stoic, and often distant figure because that is how he appeared to Adams.     

Then there is Thomas Jefferson.  The Thomas Jefferson of Hamilton comes off as the villain of the piece.  Easily one of the most enjoyable characters of the play Jefferson is exciting to watch and he is foil to poor Mr. Hamilton in every instance of the play’s second act. Again, this is who Jefferson was to Alexander Hamilton, so they play presents him as such.  In John Adams, Jefferson is often quiet and self-conscious, Adams is one of those who help him find his voice.  He recruits him to write the Declaration of Independence.  Once Jefferson has his voice and once America becomes a nation complete with a new Constitution the two friends become rivals.  The relationship of Adams and Jefferson as one-time friends who turn on each other mirrors the relationship between Hamilton and Burr in the play, except for that disastrous ending. 

Speaking of Burr, he had no role in the HBO miniseries.  Not only was Aaron Burr absent but James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, is mentioned only in passing.  This has little to do with the historic importance rather their impact on the life of John Adams in comparison with other figures.  Likewise the play Hamilton does not include the John Hancock, Samuel Adams (mentioned only as the name of a drink) and most importantly does not have a character of Benjamin Franklin.  This is not an over-site of Lin-Manuel Miranda just a reflection of those historical figures impact on Alexander Hamilton.

What is most interesting is how Adams and Hamilton are presented in each other’s drama.  In Hamilton Adams never makes an appearance, but he comes up in discussion and song a number of times.  He first mentioned by Eliza as she tries to get her husband to come out to the country pointing out that Adams does this for his wife.  To which Hamilton responds that, as Vice President, Adams does not have a real job.  Later after Adams becomes President, Jefferson and Madison are discussing how he and Hamilton had a fall out leading to Adams dismissing Hamilton and Hamilton coming out and publicly attacking the leader of his own party.  This damages the Federalists so badly that it practically hands the election to the Democratic-Republicans.  After Jefferson and Madison are done talking it over the audience sees Hamilton from the raised flat of the stage and dropping a book down to the floor shouting John Adams name.

Rufus Sewell as Alexander Hamilton in John Adams

In John Adams, Hamilton as a character appears in two episodes.  His first appearance is in the fifth episode “Unite or Die.” In this episode Hamilton appears at an early meeting of George Washington’s cabinet.  During the meeting he basically schools Thomas Jefferson on economics and lays out plans to set up a National Bank and assume the states’ debts.  This of course laid the ground work for stability of the United States Government.  A success from the Washington Administration that when Jefferson became President in 1801 he found that messing with it would be detrimental to the Union.  Hamilton’s second appearance is in the sixth episode “Unnecessary War” in which shows the clash between Adams/Hamilton more sympathetically to Adams.  Their fallout shows a Hamilton who has bitten off more than he can chew and needs Adams to bring him back to reality.

In closing I highly enjoyed both works and would encourage anyone to watch them.  Just remember when doing so with each presentation you are learning about a great historical figure who existed in an extraordinary setting of the American Revolution.  The setting and the characters in it are seen only from the view of the main character.  This is not to say you might not learn a thing or two about these periods but just keep in mind how it is slanted.                  

THOMAS JEFFERSON’S INVISIBLE FAMILY

A review of Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008)

(Rating 5 of 5)

Despite that the rumors of the relationship between he and Sally Hemings plagued President Jefferson throughout his presidency, as people faded into history Thomas Jefferson’s secret family became more invisible to historians.  Some of this is understandable; after all, if James Callender reported a sunny day, you would logically assume that it had been hailing.  Also, Jefferson’s legal white family did a good a job of covering it up, making sure that there would be no letters surviving in which Sally was acknowledged. 

            In 1998, with DNA test results it was confirmed that it was most probable that Thomas Jefferson was father of Sally Hemings’s children.  When the DNA results came out denial was replaced with a different reaction.  Jefferson suddenly became a sex-crazed man who fornicated with every female slave he saw.  (Remember the Jefferson DNA results came out when President Clinton was being investigated.) Every story about him was now believed.  By the year I graduated High School a TV movie was made called An American Scandal: The Sally Hemings’s Story starring Sam Neill (from Jurassic Park) as Thomas Jefferson.[1] The movie seemed to involve everything that was said about Jefferson from Callender himself. 

Early attack ad against Jefferson

 

            Dr. Gordon-Reed wrote her first book on the Jefferson-Hemings story in 1997.   That book titled Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, which I have not yet read, was proven right within a year.  This book continues on some of the themes of first one with a larger scope.  The Hemingses of Monticello focuses on the entire Hemings family that resided at what is now a historic landmark.  Gordon-Reed recreates events for her readers as best possible with the remaining evidence to uncover what really went on at Monticello.

            The author tends to write from a left-wing academic perspective.  That is not a criticism just an observation.  What is interesting however was reading some of the reviews of goodreads, many accused the professor of being ‘angry’ something I find absurd.  Yes, she calls American slavery out for the evil oppressiveness that it was.  Yet, if anything she almost strikes me as a Jefferson apologist; when discussing Jefferson she often brings up the culture he was raised in, political, economic, and social pressures that he was facing.  One can argue that she makes a ‘judge by his own time period not ours' defense except, unlike some of her critics, she actually does it very well.  

 

As a teenager I thought was movie was bad, after reading this book I downgraded it to awful.

            

          The most famous member of the Hemings family is Sally, seeing that she is the one who was involved intimately with President Jefferson.  This makes sense, as Dr. Gordan-Reed points out, when one considers the only reason we know about any of these people is because of the legal status of ownership that Jefferson had over them.  Since Thomas Jefferson was so important to the history of the county and the world, anyone who played a role in his life by default becomes important.  

           Anyone who had spent any time at Monticello in Jefferson's time would know who the Hemings were.  In slave hierarchy of Monticello the Hemings family was one of the two at the top.  (The other was the Grangers.) Nevertheless while explaining this Dr. Gordon-Reed reminds the reader that they are still slaves, and cautions us against thinking of them as privileged.  Most of Jefferson’s personnel body servants were Hemings.  Members of the Hemings family did not wait on guests as maids or waiters; they were carpenters, chefs, and other artisans.  Most of the men had free reign to come and go as they pleased, the reason why is most of the story.  

The story of the Hemings family begins with the birth of Elizabeth Hemings.  Her mother was an African who had been brought to Virginia as a slave by the international slave trade; her name is lost to history but the name of the man she was with is not.  He was Captain John Hemings, and he was not her owner.  As Dr. Gordon-Reed explained, slave status was inherited from your mother. (Mom was free, you were free; Mom was a slave, you were a slave.)  Captain Hemings would try to buy his lover and their daughter but was denied.  Instead, they would be sold to the Wayles family. Gordon-Reed also explained what the term concubine meant in an early eighteenth-century context, far from the more foreign exotic definition the word would later take on, in this time period it meant ‘unofficial’ wife.  She explains that it was rather common for Southern slave owners who were widowed, to take a concubine.  This would be the fate of Elizabeth Hemings as she became the concubine for John Wayles, whose daughter Martha would go on to marry Thomas Jefferson.  Elizabeth Hemings was already a mother before she became involved with Wayles, they would several children together mostly famously Sally Hemings.  When Wayles died the Hemings matriarch and her children would have their world transferred to Monticello.  

This story however is not only about one person or a couple but about a family.  Robert and James Hemings, who were the famous Sally’s full-blooded brothers, were a major part of both her life and Jefferson’s.  Their lives were interesting and atypical for slaves, the brothers had freedom of movement, could earn money by hiring out their services during times that Jefferson had no need of them.  Robert would go on to marry outside of Jefferson’s slave system and James who would go on to be become a fully trained chef in France. 

             It is very rare that a book can completely change your view of something.  This book however made me change my view on a very important historical topic.  That is oral history and tradition.  I have been one of those who compared oral history to playing the game of telephone throughout the generations.  I think my overall hostility to it is driven from some of the way some of its advocates will often present it: as if these are almost sacred words that can not be challenged.  To me, evidence should always be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism, one of the things that studying written sources show us is there can be contractions in various accounts, trying to get at the truth can rather tricky and I tend to distrust people who claim ‘my relative’ was there and get really weary when someone tries to add it to the historical record.  How Dr. Gordon-Reed won me over was showing how oral tradition can be balanced against written and archeological sources and used as evidence. 

First, not every person who had a family history that claimed linage to Jefferson was right.  Gordon-Reed actually debunks a couple of them, while showing the strong case for Jefferson and Hemings.  She also shows how actions of family and descendants can be used to determine what the relationship between a mother and a father who were slave and owner actually was.  Gordon-Reed explains that sexual encounters were often between slave women and free white men were done in one of three ways.  Rape was a primary method through violence or threat.  The second was a causal consensual sexual encounter, and third was in an actual secret relationship.  How the family of the woman acted and later spoke of the man is a good indicator on what happened.  When investigating the question of whether or not Hemings and Jefferson actually loved on another the author concludes in the affirmative, and she bases this not only on Jefferson’s actions but the actions of those around him.                               

“On the other hand, if they saw him acting in as decent a fashion as possible, that he was now bound to them by blood might have made at least some of them more inclined to see him in a positive light, thus shoring up the affective role that they certainly played in his life.  As will be shown in the chapter to come, members of the Hemings’s family, free and enslaved, sometimes responded to Jefferson in ways that suggest they thought of him as more a version of an in-law than the rapist of their family member.” (p.363)

            In a bizarre and twisted way in that relatives owned members of their own kin, the Jeffersons and the Hemingses were family.  Thomas Jefferson was united to them by both blood and marriage, his lover was his late wife’s half-sister and her children were his.  When each of them became adults they were freed and left Monticello with pockets full of money and, for the boys, a completed training in carpentry.  By leaving they would never see either parent again, for they would go into society with their true identities hidden.  This book is full of eye-opening information.  I highly recommend it.

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[1] I think since the movie’s release the name has changed a couple of times. 

{Video is and interview Dr. Gordon-Reed did for the Big Think. Video is located on their page.}

THE SON OF INDEPENDENCE

A review of Paul C. Nagel’s John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life (1997)

(Rating 4 of 5)
 

There is a phrase in the United States that asks, “How good does one have to be in order to bad in the NBA?”  The answer to this question is “pretty damn awesome!”  To be bad in the NBA, the MLB, or the NFL one has to be an incredible ball player.  Only by being great at the lower levels can one find the opportunity to be bad as a professional. 

            I think you can take this same view with American statesmen and the presidency.  The American presidency is the highest office that any American can possibly obtain.  If an American becomes the President he (or, someday, she) has their picture in the back of every U.S. history textbook, their names are added to the president rap, and presidential history buffs such as myself make it a point to learn interesting details about their lives.  In order to become president the statesmen have to use the electoral process to convince the nation that they should be the leader.  Even presidents who achieve the presidency through vice presidential succession do so because to be elected vice president is to be elected stand-by leader[1].  Just doing that is amazing. 

            In some ways my analogy fails because I would not say the presidency was the professional level but rather the presidency, Congress, state governors, and Supreme Court justices are all part of that professional league.  The presidency is simply an instant ticket to the Hall of Fame located in the back of American history textbooks. Yet someone can become president and be considered a failure because their administration was unsuccessful.  And that, why factual true, is morally wrong.  Yes, it is hard to imagine Millard Fillmore as a winner, but men like Herbert Hoover who had public careers that were enormously beneficial to the nation should not be written off as failures.  

young John Quincy Adams

            John Quincy Adams is one of these individuals.  He was serving his country since he was a boy when he worked for his father on the elder Adams' foreign ministries during the American Revolution.  He would rise to be a senator, a diplomat in his own right, and at the peak of his first career he would become the Secretary of State.  

JQA as Secretary of State

            Adams would emerge as one of the greatest to occupy the office of America’s top diplomat.  As the Secretary of State, Adams would be responsible for one of the greatest—if not most cited—diplomatic achievements in U.S. history: the Monroe Doctrine.

            “Amid this hue and cry, Adams calmly insisted that it would be wiser if the nation remained alone in warning the world that the Western Hemisphere was on longer to be intruded upon.  He added that if Europe should tamper with strivings for independence in Latin America, the United States must consider such action as hostile.  He proposed the same response to Russia’s encroachment in the Northwest quarter.” (p.270) 

President James Monroe under whom Adams excelled

         
          Much like the next son of a president to become the President, John Quincy Adams election was mired in controversy.  Failing to win the electoral or popular vote the election was decided by the House of Representatives in which Adams would prevail but paid a terrible price.  As President of the United States he got off to a bad start and never recovered.  All because of a perceived bargain made with Henry Clay. 

            “Nevertheless, despite Clay’s merits, giving the Kentuckian the second most important office in the national government showed JQA’s political ineptness.  Since the new president had a long record of doing what he thought was right in the face of warnings, his action was not surprising.  What was surprising was that Clay, normally so shrewd, accepted the position.  For the rest of his life, he readily admitted that joining the Adams administration was the stupidest act of his career.” (p.298) 

Henry Clay whom Adams was accused of having a 'corrupt bargain' with by the Jacksonians

          
          Two years after being tossed out of office in ‘the Revolution of 1828’ Adams would begin a new career as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  As a congressman, he would lead battles that were controversial in his day: over slavery and war.  He would also have a long-standing impact in helping to create the Smithsonian. 

            “Consequently, Adams was outraged when, after sharp debate, the House of Representatives adopted a new parliamentary procedure in May 1836 that became known as the gag rule.  He had done what he could to oppose approving the rule, which decreed that all petitions or memorials touching in any way on slavery would be laid on the table without being printed, discussed or referred to committee.  Southern congressman had demanded the rule after the anti-slavery movement began flooding Congress with petitions calling for the ending of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.  Adams had found his mail bulging with them.” (p.355) 

            Nagel’s book however is not just about Adams’ public career—as the title suggests—it is also about his private life.  His family relationships with his parents, spouse, and children are all heavily featured in this book.  

            What I find really interesting however is Adams’ religious beliefs. Although a lifelong Christian he had a strong disrespect for those who considered other supernatural beliefs and he also when confronted with some tenets of his own faith he had a hard time accepting them. 

 

            “Inevitably, his scriptural meditation brought him to an element of Christian doctrine that always upset him: was Christ sent by God to atone for humanity’s sins?  ‘I cannot believe it,’ he said of atonement.  ‘It is not true.  It is hateful.  But how shall I contradict St. Paul?’  He wished the Calvinist ministers would leave him in peace.  Inn his last years, he was even more impatient with those clergymen who habitually declared their congregants to be standing on the brink of Hell.  He could not conceive of how persons of decent character would gather each Sunday in church to be treated like the vilest malefactors.  ‘It seems to me as if the preacher considered himself a chaplain to a penitentiary, discoursing to the convicts.’

            Would that clergy could stress the moral teachings of the New Testament, for Adams said here was where he had come to build his faith—which he now summarized with remarkable succinctness: ‘I reverence God as my creator.  As creator of the world.  I reverence him with holy fear.  I venerate Jesus Christ as my redeemer; and, as far as I can understand, the redeemer of the world.  But this belief is dark and dubious.’”(p.407)   

            Paul Nagel has written a good little book about a great American.  Much more than just a failed president he was an incredible statesman whose contributions can still be felt to this day.         

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[1] Even the appointed vice president, Gerald Ford, achieved the vice presidency through the confirmation of the people’s representatives in Congress. 

“I BELIEVE I MUST NOMINATE YOU”

A review of Jean Edward Smith’s John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (1996)

(Rating 5 of 5)

When President John Adams utter the words “I believe I must nominate you” he committed—as Smith points out—the most important nomination since he had recommended that General Washington be made Commander-In-Chief of the American Army during the Revolutionary War.  John Marshall is known as the ‘Great Chief Justice’.  He was not the first but the fourth man to serve as Chief Justice of the United States; nevertheless it was he who would turn the Court into the institution it is today.  John Marshall’s accomplishment makes him probably the greatest public servant never to serve as president. 

Chief Justice John Marshall

            I have read and reviewed Professor Smith’s biographies of Presidents Grant and Franklin Roosevelt.  One of the things that Professor Smith does extremely well is his ability to cut through the myth of any particular individual and get straight to the substance of who they really were.  Here, in his first attempt, Smith succeeds in getting to the man behind the myth.

            Smith’s Marshall is a Revolutionary solider whose nationalism is strengthened at Valley Forge along with men like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.  He becomes a successful lawyer who finds himself thrust into public service.  Often he is pressured to enter the arena by the man who he admired the most: George Washington.  Marshall greatly admired Washington and after the death of the first President of the United States, Marshall became his biographer.               

“In Marshall’s opinion, the power of government derived from the express authority granted by the people.  Unlike the British parliament, the American government was not sovereign, and when it acted in the economic sphere, it was bound by the same laws of contract as a private citizen.  This view became law of the land in such leading decisions of the Marshall Court as Fletcher v. Peck and the Dartmouth College case.  The holding in those cases reaffirmed the vested rights of property against governmental intrusion and helped set the stage for the growth of American capitalism.” (p.108)

George Washington, Marshall's idol

            As the Chief Justice of the United States, Marshall laid down what was to be the foundation of American constitutional law.  Smith shows that Marshall was helping to do that even before he was on the bench, his action concerning the Robbins case during his stay in Congress is a good preview of what he would do on the court.  This book was written in 1996, I wish some Supreme Court justices had read this prior to the disaster that was Bush v. Gore.

“Marshall was drawing a distinction between legal issues and political questions.  Not everything that arises under the Constitution involves a legal issue.  Some matters are political.  And the courts are empowered to render decisions on legal issues only.  They have no authority to decide political questions.  These are the province of the executive and the legislature.  Three years later in the great case of Marbury v. Madison, Marshall employed that distinction to establish the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution in matters of law.  While explicitly recognizing that political questions might raise constitutional issues, Marshall stated that these questions were ultimately the responsibility of the president and Congress.  The distinction that Marshall drew has become one of the cornerstones of American constitutional law.  In the case of the Vietnam war for example, important constitutional questions were raised about war powers, but these were political questions not legal ones.  Federal courts consistently declined to entertain suits testing the war’s constitutionality, citing the distinction first articulated by Marshall in his speech on the Robbins case.”(p.261)

One of the myths that Smith shoots down is with the rivalry and hatred between him and President Jefferson.  Smith does not say the rivalry did not exist but he shows that this developed as time went on; each side built up reasons not to like the other.  A major part of myth that Smith breaks down is Jefferson’s reasons for not liking the famous Marbury v. Madison decision, not because of the decision’s ultimate result but rather minor technicalities with it.      

“It was judicial tour de force.  Marshall had converted a no-win situation into a massive victory.  The authority of the Supreme Court to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional was now the law of the land.  Typically, Marshall’s decision paid heed to the claims raised on both sides of the case.  The High Federalists were awarded the nominal prize of hearing that Marbury was entitled to his commission, and the Republicans gained a victory with the dismissal of the rule to show cause.  But the real winner was the Supreme Court an, some might say, the Constitution itself.

The legal precedent for judicial review, that unique American doctrine that permits the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress and the executive unconstitutional, traces the holding in Marbury v. Madison.  Marshall did not say that the Supreme Court was the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution.  He did not say that the authority to interpret the Constitution rested exclusively with the Court, and he certainly did not endorse grandiose schemes that envisaged the Supreme Court as a board of review sitting in judgment of each act of Congress to determine its constitutionality.  He simply stated that the Constitution was law, and that as a judicial matter, it could be interpreted by the Court in cases that came before it.” (p.323-4)

Thomas Jefferon, he and Marshall were cousins but not friends

           Marshall would also lay down what would be the bane of the South’s argument of the nature of the Union with important decisions that reinforced the position of the Federal Government over the states.  

“Marshall returned to Washington in early February for the 1810 term of the Court, a term that, with possible exception to 1803, would prove to be the most important during his tenure as chief justice.  In 1803, in Marbury v. Madison the Court had established its authority to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional.  In 1810, in another landmark case, Fletcher v. Peck, it would assert its authority to strike down state laws repugnant to the Constitution.” (p.388)

            Probably the decision that most affected the nation as a whole, was the restatement of national supremacy that would become the bedrock of Constitutional law, John C. Calhoun be damned. 

“The Court’s decision in McCulloch v. Maryland is a ringing restatement of national supremacy.  Marshall’s eloquent phrases have been invoked repeatedly by later generations of jurists and legislators to justify the expansion of national authority at the expense of the states.  At the time, however, Marshall could not have envisioned the modern federal government with its greatly augmented powers to regulate the economy and promote social welfare.  His decision was a defensive one.  In 1819 the Court was concerned with preserving the Union against the powerful centrifugal forces that constantly threatened its dissolution.  McCulloch did not so much expand federal sovereignty as restrict state sovereignty.  As one scholar has written, the Court’s intention was to enable the federal government to exercise its powers effectively and to prevent state encroachments upon its legitimate operations.” (p.445)

          
 
The final chapter deals with the Chief Justice’s last years.  He dies waiting for President Andrew Jackson to get done being president so that he can retire as the Chief Justice.  Marshall does not make it; Jackson is elected to a second term defeating Marshall’s favorite Henry Clay.  Although President Jackson did not make any Supreme Court appointments that Marshall did not like, he clashed directly with Jackson on the rights of Native Americans. However popular support was not on the aboriginal people’s side.  The Court stood powerless to stop what would become the trail of tears.     

“The Supreme Court was on record.  The Indian laws passed by the state of Georgia were unconstitutional.  ‘The Court has done its duty,’ Story wrote, ‘let the nation now do theirs.’  But the nation was unwilling.  Georgia again ignored the Court; Worcester and Butler remained in prison; and President Jackson is reported to have said, ‘Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.’  Jackson probably did not say that, and at that point the president had no responsibility for enforcing the judgment.  The degree issued by the Supreme Court merely instructed Georgia to reverse its decision and release the missionaries.  The Court adjourned shortly thereafter, which meant that the decree could not be enforced until the 1833 term and that the state would not be in defiance until then.” (p.518)

Andrew Jackson, a president Marshall did not like

Like the other two books I read by Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation is a great read.  It is the book you want to read if you want to know about one of our most important figures in American jurisprudence, John Marshall.

{Video is a little movie about McCulloch v. Maryland.}