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What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States

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This book is written for a broad audience and aimed at exploring one of the oldest and most persistent problems in American history; the proper role of the Federal Government. Simon frames this book as a conflict between Jefferson, representing those who supported a weaker central government and emphasized the importance of individual states, and John Marshall, the great Chief Justice who led the Supreme Court to establish its critical role as arbiter of constitutional questions. The Marshall court's work strengthened the importance not only of the Supreme Court but of the Federal Government in general. This is not a new story, indeed, most of what Simon describes is the standard understanding of this period of our history. Simon is a good writer who describes the politics and legal issues quite well. His description and analysis of the behavior of the Marshall court is shrewd, emphasizing Marshall's careful attention to both politics and crucial legal issues. For example, it is clear that Marshall worked very hard to maintain unanimity among the justices, even for difficult decisions. Similarly, many of his important decisions were crafted to simultaneously achieve the goal of establishing his brand of moderate Federalism while avoiding inflammatory political consequences. Readers will finish this book with an increased appreciation for Marshall's considerable intellect and remarkable political skills. Beyond this, the book is disappointing in terms of explaining the wellsprings of these conflicts and important aspects of the debate. I think the emphasis on the rivalry between Jefferson and Marshall, which Simon probably chose as a framing device, actually tends to limit understanding of the nature of this conflict. While I respect Simon's desire to produce a relatively concise and accessible book, some aspects deserve enlargement. For example, Jefferson found the Court's tendency to rely on Common Law traditions irksome, believing the Court should have been more deferential to the wished of state legislatures. Does this represent a conflict between individuals like Jefferson whose primary intellectual influences came from the British Enlightenment versus a legal culture that grew up in the shadow of the great British Common Law theorists? To what extent did individual experience of the Revolution influence subsequent political positions? Jefferson spent the war as governor of Virginia or abroad. Marshall, in contrast, was an officer in the Continental Army and experienced in very concrete ways the inadequacies of the confederation government that preceded the establishment of our present constitution. This book is a good point of departure for individuals unfamiliar with this period of our history but further reading will be needed for anyone who really wishes to understand our early history. I recommend the The Age of Federalism by Elkins and McKitrick, a superb treatment of the Federalist period, as a starting point.

The world needs a book about John Marshall's contribution to America. In my opinion, "What Kind Of Nation" by James F. Simon is it. Though the nature of the subject almost guarantees that the reading will be somewhat dry, scholarly, and lawyerlike, the author did a nice job with it. As a scholar myself, I recommend it. If you're looking for an easy read on Thomas Jefferson, I also recommend Norman Thomas Remick's excellent book "West Point: Character Leadership Education, A Book Developed From Thomas Jefferson's Readings And Writings", in which West Point is posited as a metaphor for Jefferson's worldview of the way America ought to be.

I read "What Kind Of Nation" by James Simon and found it to be quite informative. I would recommend it, especially to those who have a legalistic bent. Is it about the early influence of the Court on what kind of nation? Yes. Is it the epic struggle that created the USA? No. For that, a book that could be called "the epic of the USA" is a good read entitled (and hold your breath) "West Point: Character Leadership Education, A Book Developed From The Readings And Writings Of Thomas Jefferson" by Norman Thomas Remick. Its the epic struggle of mankind that led to founding the USA. But that does not take away from my opinion that James F. Simon did a wonderful job with "What Kind Of Nation"

This is surely the winter of Thomas Jefferson's discontent. His political credo of limiting the power of the federal government is invoked to restrict the rights of individual citizens against giant commercial entities and his defense of executive privilege is used to limit public and Congressional investigation into administrative wrongdoing. To make matters worse, he is attacked by present-day historians as hypocritical, petty, and perhaps worst of all -- trivial.

In James F Simon's What Kind of Nation, Jefferson comes off as all three in his battles over constitutional interpretation with his cousin and nemesis John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. One of the blurbs on the jacket describe Simon as
"eminently fair". That would be accurate if the title of the book were "What Kind of Court". But taken as a study of the two men's contribution to the kind of nation the United States became, it is skewed. What Kind of Nation is the story of Marshall's contribution, but it is far from the full record of Jefferson's.

Simon, a law professor, is admirable in his clear, readable exposition of how Marshall expanded the powers of the US Supreme Court during his thirty-year stewardship. Nearly single-handedly Marshall established the court as co-equal with the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and superior to the individual states' courts. Both Marshall and Jefferson were political partisans who bent legal ideology to suit their own pragmatic objectives, but Marshall was unquestionably better at it. For example, Marshall was a loyal if unenthusiastic supporter of the Alien and Sedition Acts which Federalist judges used to make political dissent a crime. Yet thirty years later he stage-managed the acquittal of Aaron Burr on charges of treason brought by Jefferson's administration that were based on very real grounds. There were certainly political differences and personal animosity between the two, but matching them off as the primary antagonists in a struggle to shape the future of the nation is artifical. The court was Marshall's forum and its power and well-being his prime concern. Jefferson's arena was broader.

As President, Jefferson more than doubled the size of the United States. Marshall did not join his old Federalist allies in opposing the Louisiana Purchase. Lacking an adversarial confrontation, Simon spends no time reflecting on the importance of Jefferson's acquisition in shaping the economic and physical form of the United States. The Louisiana Purchase has had more to do with this country's place in the sun than the powers of the Supreme Court. I would also argue that Simon's focus upon the judicial undervalues Jefferson's importance to the "kind of nation" we are morally and philosophically. Jefferson's words -- not Marshall's -- still express the ideals to which we aspire as a nation. As Jefferson's actions sometimes fell short of his aspirations, so do ours.

What Kind of Nation is a well-written thought-provoking book based on careful historical documentation. I enjoyed it thoroughly even though I do not agree with the dialectic it proposes. Like David McCullough's John Adams, it broadens one's understanding of the foundations of our nationhood.

On a recent vacation to Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello, my 14-year-old nephew commented that Thomas Jefferson didn't get along with Alexander Hamilton. The four adults accompanying him replied patronizingly that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr certainly didn't get along, but didn't remember anything between Hamilton and Jefferson...

Of course, my nephew was absolutely correct. In an effort to rectify my obvious educational deficiency, I immediately embarked on a reading plan which led me to "What Kind of Nation", where I discovered that Thomas Jefferson also didn't along with John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

By the time I got to this book I had a pretty good feel for the politics of the period, having read "Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis, "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington" by Richard Brookhiser, "Alexander Hamilton: American" by Richard Brookhiser and "James Madison" by Garry Wills. I believe this background helped me to maximize my enjoyment of "What Kind of Nation" because I was able to focus on Marshall's brilliance and perseverance in establishing the authority of the Supreme Court on an equal footing with the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Jefferson's antics were amusing, but old news. The way that Marshall dealt with Jefferson who was, after all, the President of the United States during the first 8 years of Marshall's 34 years as Chief Justice, is fascinating.

James Simon does a great job of telling the story without getting overly technical with the legal side of things. I think he strikes just the right balance, so that the lay reader (i.e., non-lawyer) can appreciate the significance of Marshall's extraordinary accomplishments.

History is never finally written, and is subject to fashions and whims. It has been surprising over the past decade or so to find Thomas Jefferson's star falling. Certainly, he is on Mount Rushmore, and has a lovely memorial in Washington, and his words ringing of independence and freedom will be read forever. But a recent Jefferson biography was called _American Sphinx_, and we still don't know what to make of his holding slaves and fathering children by Sally Hemings. Now comes _What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States_ (Simon & Schuster) by James F. Simon. The book documents the great differences between the two men, their philosophies of government, and the particular court fights that defined the new republic, but it also makes clear that at almost every turn, Marshall snookered or thwarted Jefferson so that the new republic was guided on a course far from the Jeffersonian ideal.

The two founders had plenty in common; they were distant cousins, both Virginia slaveholders, who took office in 1801, Jefferson as third President, and Marshall as fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But they loathed each other. In summary, Jefferson felt that the American Revolution had freed his country from power directed from foreign lands. He detested King George III, of course, but he had a high distrust of any strong central power. It was his idea that the strong unit of government was the state, and that the states had been united under the Constitution only into a loose confederacy. Marshall felt that the Constitution had made an essential change in the balance of powers, with a strong federal government able to make laws that would apply to all Americans, and also able to compel states to keep within federal bounds. What Simon has done is to show the specific legal battles that pitted one against the other and made Marshall's view victorious. He is a fine guide to landmark decisions in _Marbury vs. Madison_, the impeachment trial of Judge Samuel Chase, and the treason trial of Aaron Burr, all of which have affected our current government and even recent headlines.

Repeatedly, Marshall's victories harassed and worried Jefferson, who wrote that "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric." In a way this was true. Marshall's decisions indeed made the federal government, not a confederation, supreme in ways that Jefferson loathed, ways which would not be settled permanently until the Civil War. Just as important, his decisions made the Supreme Court an essential third part of the federal government, a role we take for granted today. Simon is a lawyer, and takes pains to show the legal niceties of the various decisions by which Marshall bested Jefferson. The ground he covers here is familiar, but in setting up the decisions as battles between the two founding giants, he has brought innovative light on a particularly interesting, not to mention combative and messy, way that our nation was founded.

Lawyers often make poor historians. That might strike some as counter-intuitive as precedents are by their nature `historical'. But legal precedents are a narrow technical field and though they can encompass the political, economic and social issues of their day the legal logic and argument that surround them are usually- with some major exceptions- divorced from them. And perhaps it's that their [the lawyer as historian] early years have been shaped by legal reasoning and in spite of exposure to history such as an undergrad or grad degree, this legal mindset often limits a more holistic approach to the subject matter.

Not so with James F. Simon's "What Kind of Nation". Simon writing eschews the sort of legal analysis best left to law textbooks in favor of a clear, fairly encompassing and biographically based approach. And a fine approach it is. With healthy portions of legal analysis but an even finer biographer's paintbrush Simon comes close to bringing to life many of the individuals and their ideological stands.

At the center is of course Jefferson and Marshall. Both get sympathetic, but honest treatment from Simon. Jefferson, the idealist, strongly holding the belief that favored the limiting of government and the Federalists as the greatest threat to liberty in the young nation. His horror at the Sedition acts and the steps taken by the Republicans are highlighted as are the equally strong beliefs and actions taken by the Federalists to implement them.

Marshall is painted in an even finer light I think. Perhaps it's because Jefferson's more volatile temper got the best of him at times or perhaps Marshall's nature was to be a more moderating influence, he comes across a intelligent and subtle thinker. Read his approach to Marbury, where he takes the long road to come to his final conclusion. It was an approach that made upheld many of the Federalist tenets yet gave the victory to Jefferson. Masterfull.

Simon does a great job in describing two important events in that era. The first is the impeachment of Samuel Chase a justice on the Supreme Court. Simon presents the legal arguments in clear precise prose. But he does more than that, he describes the individuals involved-their strengths and weaknesses, the drama behind the scenes and sets it all in the context of the political mechanizations of the era. Equally compelling is the description of Burr's fall from grace and subsequent trial for treason. Marshall and Jefferson's role in both events are given in some detail and their rationales analyzed within the framework of the issues each was faced with.

James F. Simon has given a well written and immensely interesting picture of the dynamics between Jefferson and Marshall and the era in which they lived. With a clear, precise and entertaining writing style and with one foot firmly planted what seems like a historian's mindset I'm anxious to read more of his works. I would love to read a more in depth study of Chase or Burr- for example- written by Simon.

Highly recommended.

Written like a lawyer. Minimal research, not enough facts, spinning the truth, yielding on nothing, and flooding the reader with opinions. Sorry, this is not a court of law in which opinions can become case law. This is a court of intelligent readers who know the difference between opinion and history. I don't find much in this book to commend except, as Michael Moore might say, having the right connections.

Perhaps the greatest myth about our Founding Fathers is that they were a unified group. This book describes the ongoing battle -- sometimes intellectual, sometimes political, between one of our most well-known Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall.

This book makes several important contributions to history. First, it describes Marshall's career and life. Marshall's career -- even before becoming Chief Justice of the United States -- takes a back seat to no one. Captain serving under Washington in the Continental Army, Virginia legislator who was chosen to argue the case for ratifying the Constitution, Ambassador to France, Secretary of State, etc.

The book largely focuses on the division between the Federalists and Republicans, as expressed by Jefferson and Marshall, possibly the two most eloquent spokesmen for their respective parties. Marshall believed in the strong executive power, and the primacy of the Federal Government over the states. Jefferson believed in a weak executive (except when he himself served as President), and State primacy over the Federal Government.

The questions they debated -- can a state nullify a federal law? Can the Supreme Court declare laws unconstitutional? Can the judiciary order the legislature or executive branches to act? These are questions with a profound impact on the shaping of our country. They are brought to life in this vivid and compelling chronicle.

Simon writes clearly, using many anecdotes and stories to personalize his narrative and help the reader capture the significance of it. If you are interested in the founding of the USA, this book is a "must-read."

In all great conflicts, North vs. South, Ali vs. Fraser, Lakers vs. Celtics, and Jefferson vs. Marshall, it is difficult to remain neutral and unbiased. Simon clearly sides with John Marshall in the epic struggle between our nations Third President and Fourth Chief Justice, but Simon's partiality to Marshall does not detract from the accuracy of this book.

Readers will come away with a solid understanding of what fueled the fire of this great relationship of adversaries. Using myself as an example, I strongly disagreed with the SCOTUS' recent ruling against the Texas sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, and though I still disagree with the decision, I now clearly understand how Marshall set the precedent for SCOTUS to be the final arbiter for all things judicial and clearly placed the state courts into the role of subservient.

At times, this book is rather dry, but Simon successfully imparts a good flow of information. This book isn't for everyone, but is essential reading for the pre-law student or anyone interested in the relationship between these two monumental early Americans. Also, for anyone who, like me, is a state's rights advocate, this book gives tremendous insight into how the judiciary became the monarchial behemoth we are saddled with today.

Whether you are a Jeffersonian style state's rights advocate, or a Marshall style Federalist, you will finish this book with a greater understanding of how and why things became the way they are.