One biography I recommend often is about Chief Justice John Marshall, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation by Jean Edward Smith.

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In his numerous paeans to Chief Justice John Marshall, Roberts has recognized that the court must attend to its institutional stature with great care.

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That made him the youngest chief justice since John Marshall, who took office in 1801 at the age of 45.

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And as a previous Chief Justice, John Marshall, wrote in McCulloch v.

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John Marshall, our nation's fourth Chief Justice, led the Supreme Court in deciding several key cases that established the sanctity of contract law and breathed life into the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.

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The man who handled the duties 196 years ago was John Marshall, widely acknowledged as the most influential chief justice in U.S. history.

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