John Marshall was a Virginian -- by birth, upbringing, disposition, and property. "His thirty-four years as Chief Justice of the United States overshadowed his early life, yet the Chief Justice always remained what his early years had made of him. The words of his youth left enduring marks upon his character" (1). John Marshall was the son of Thomas Marshall and Mary Randolph Keith. The eldest of fifteen children, he was born September 24, 1755, in his family's little cottage in Prince William County, Virginia. When John was ten, his father decided that they were going to move into a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains called" The Hollow," almost thirty miles from the house where they lived. John spoke of his father as a man who possessed " scarcely any fortune, and who had received a very limited education, but he was a man to whom nature had been bountiful, and who had assiduously improved her gifts." The books were very hard to take care of and were very expensive. The Marshalls had a house Bible, but other than that, they had almost no books to refer to. Young John Marshall received a very limited education, a one-year study of the classics at fourteen and a few months' studies under a private clergyman.
             John's father, Thomas, was a good friend of George Washington. Washington had a library that he let John use, and the books were very helpful. From his father, John acquired "an early taste for history and poetry." John would accompany his father to court on court day as a part of his education; the Marshall family had decided that John would be a lawyer. John went to William and Mary College where he attended the law lectures of George Wythe. John Marshall joined the Culpeper Minute Men and was chosen as the lieutenant. John's grandfather on his mother's side had been one of Yorktown's wealthiest men, but the war had ruined him financially. The family had taken a small tenement apartment next to the...