John Marshall Becomes Chief Justice

Date: February 4, 1801 • Location: Bloomingdale, United States

John Marshall, whose court opinions helped lay the basis for U.S. constitutional law and made the Supreme Court a coequal branch of government, took office as chief justice.

John Marshall was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fifth-longest-serving justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential justices ever to serve. Prior to joining the court, Marshall briefly served as both the U.S. secretary of state under President John Adams and a U.S. representative from Virginia, making him one of the few Americans to have held a constitutional office in each of the three branches of the United States federal government.