The Life ofJohn Marshall Revisited AlexanderWohl While perusing the law section of a used bookstore recently, I was pleased to find for only thirty dollars a somewhat worn, but handsomelybound copy ofAlbertBeveridge’s classicfour-volumeThe LifeofJohnMarshall. Having intended for some time to read this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, I eagerly snatched it up, pausing only briefly to consider a $250.00 set that had been autographedby the author. I was interestedto see how this masterpiece had stood the test of time since 1916, when the first two volumes were published, particularly in light of a number of new books about Marshall1 and a renewed interest in judicial biography gener ally.2 I was not disappointed. Although no one is likelyto mistake Beveridge’s work forany of the books on the current bestseller list, given its often dated prose style and weighty subject matter, itnonethelessholds up well fromboth a literary and historical point of view. The author offers a rich and engaging descrip tion of Marshall’s life, legal opinions, and impact, as well as the formative historical period in which Marshall lived, capturing fully the frequent overlap of law, politics, and history. This approach is no doubt a direct consequence of Beveridge’s background which, as aformerU.S. Senator, is anythingbut traditional for a biographer. As one reviewer noted, “it is encouraging to learn that an exSenator ofthe United States has the ability and the inclination to give several years to the preparation of so careful a piece of historical scholarship.”3 Another reviewer, citing the uniqueness of such a “public man of Mr. Beveridge’s eminence” turning “historian and man of letters,” compared the book to President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Winning of the West.”4 And Roosevelt himself, in reviewing favorably his political supporter’s work, wrote: 132 JOURNAL 1997, VOL. II President Theodore Roosevelt (above) praised Albert Beveridge upon publication of his biography of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1916. “During his brilliant service of twelve years in the United States Senate” gushed Roosevelt, “he championed with fidelity all the honorable causes for which Marshall and his fellow-Federalists stood a century before.” Mr. Beveridge is peculiarly fitted to write the biography of the great Nationalist Chief Justice. He has himself played a distinguished part in ourpolitical life, and during his brilliant service of twelve years in the United States Senate he championed with fidelity all the honorable causes for which Marshall andhis fellow-Federal ists stood a century before[.]5 Albert Jeremiah Beveridge’s passion for politics, law, and government began early in life. Bom in 1862 in an old fashioned farmhouse in rural Ohio, he quickly demon strated an interest in political oratory, at a young age attending Republican debating society meetings.6 He also began to hone his own speaking skills, and as a college student at Asbury (later DePauw) University in Indiana, he was a champion debater and orator, so eloquent that a Republican party leader enlisted his skills in the 1884 presiden tial campaign ofJames G. Blaine.7 After graduating from college Beveridge gravitated to the study of law, and in 1886 began practicing in Indiana. His reputation for political oratory continued to grow, and ten years later, at the age of thirty six, his fellow Hoosiers sent him to the Senate. He was one of the Progressive Republicans, and a strong supporter of President Teddy Roosevelt, supporting an agenda of labor reforms and imperialism.8 After two terms in which he made a mark as a first-rate orator, Beveridge lost his bid for a third term in 1911. He stayed active in organized politics, including Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, and in 1922 mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge to the Republican Senator Harry S. New. He never again held elective office, instead beginning a new career as an historian and biographer. Beveridge was first exposed to Marshall BEVERIIJGEREVISITED 133 during his legal studies. From the beginning, he felt that Marshall’s nationalist opinions mirrored his own Anglo-Saxon nationalist political philosophy, and when he learned that no “adequate biography” had been written about Marshall he began to consider undertak ing such a project.9 The loss ofhis Senate seat affordedhim the...