The Papers of John Marshall

This twelfth volume of The Papers of John Marshall concludes the first scholarly annotated edition of the correspondence and papers of the great statesman and jurist. In providing an accessible documentary record of Marshall’s life and legal career, this collection has become an invaluable scholarly resource for the study of American law and the Constitution in their formative stages.

Volume XII covers the final years of Marshall’s life, from January 1831 to his death in July 1835. It also includes an addendum of documents (mostly letters) from 1783 to 1829 that came to light after publication of their appropriate chronological volumes. More of Marshall’s correspondence survives from his last years than from any other period of his life. Nullification, the Cherokee cases, the bank bill, the election of 1832, the anti-Masonic movement, slavery, and African colonization are among the topics that prompted Marshall’s comments and reflections. Family letters provide intimate details of Marshall’s 1831 operation for the removal of bladder stones, his companionate marriage to “dearest Polly” (who died at the end of 1831), and his relationships with his children and grandchildren. Judicial opinions published here in full include Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832). Major editorial notes set forth the background and circumstances of these celebrated cases.