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9780807174807

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This is an excellent work, and one that the American constitutional historians have been awaiting for about 100 years. We all know about Marshall's disagreements with Roane, which were of fundamental significance, and we know all about Marshall, the person. But who was Spencer Roane? This biography gives a well-balanced understanding of who he was and what his constitutional ideas were--W. Hamilton Bryson, editor of Virginia Law Books: Essays and Bibliographies We have reached a point in American history where the federal government wields a disproportionate influence over American life, and where the federal Supreme Court is the all-powerful voice interpreting the Constitution. In this splendid, lucid, and concise treatment of the life and jurisprudence of one of our great neglected state judges, Virginia's brilliant and irascible Spencer Roane--son-in-law to Patrick Henry and nemesis of Chief Justice John Marshall--David Johnson limns a competing tradition in American Constitutional thought that just might offer a crucial corrective to our current Constitutional quandaries.--Stephen B. Presser, author of Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law

This is an excellent work, and one that the American constitutional historians have been awaiting for about 100 years. We all know about Marshall's disagreements with Roane, which were of fundamental significance, and we know all about Marshall, the person. But who was Spencer Roane? This biography gives a well-balanced understanding of who he was and what his constitutional ideas were--W. Hamilton Bryson, editor of Virginia Law Books: Essays and Bibliographies We have reached a point in American history where the federal government wields a disproportionate influence over American life, and where the federal Supreme Court is the all-powerful voice interpreting the Constitution. In this splendid, lucid, and concise treatment of the life and jurisprudence of one of our great neglected state judges, Virginia's brilliant and irascible Spencer Roane--son-in-law to Patrick Henry and nemesis of Chief Justice John Marshall--David Johnson limns a competing tradition in American Constitutional thought that just might offer a crucial corrective to our current Constitutional quandaries.--Stephen B. Presser, author of Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law

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David Johnson graduated from the College of William & Mary and the University of Richmond School of Law. He serves as a judge of the circuit court of Chesterfield County and is the author of John Randolph of Roanoke. He and his wife live in Midlothian, Virginia.

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