Full Description
Foundations of Power: John Marshall, 1801-1815 is the second volume of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States. The volume covers the beginnings of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall and surveys the first fourteen years of John Marshall's tenure. The authors describe the judicial business transacted by the chief justice and the ten Associate Justices with whom he served during those years. They argue that John Marshall's great accomplishment as Chief Justice was to establish the rule of law as the basis of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence. The book chronicles how, by becoming 'a bulwark of an identifiable rule of law as distinct from the accommodations of politics', the relatively feeble institution of the 1790s moved toward the authoritative Marshall Court of 1819.
Contents
Part I: Preface; 1. The state of the union; 2. The posture of American politics in 1801: the clash of ideologies and the roots of political allegiance; 3. The court in Washington; 4. The federal judicial system - 1801-1802; 5. Jefferson's attack on the federal judiciary; 6. Marbury v. Madison; 7. Impeachment; 8. Habeas corpus, treason, and the trial of Aaron Burr; 9. Executive power and the judiciary: the embargo; 10. States' rights and the national judiciary; Part II: 1. Introduction: the business of the court; 2. Illegal trade and prize cases; 3. Marine insurance and instance cases; 4. The articulation of American nationality; 5. International law and the Supreme Court; 6. Business enterprise and the Supreme Court; 7. Public land policy and the Supreme Court; 8. Jurisdiction and procedure of federal courts and the federal common law of crimes; 9. Conclusion.
