ighest form, of his other notable qualities as a judicial
stylist: his "tiger instinct for the jugular vein"; his rigorous pursuit
of logical consequences; his power of stating a case, wherein he is
rivaled only by Mansfield; his scorn of the qualifying "buys," "if's,"
and "though's"; the pith and balance of his phrasing, a reminiscence of
his early days with Pope; the developing momentum of his argument; above
all, his audacious use of the obiter dictum. Marshall's later opinion
in Gibbons vs. Ogden is, it is true, in some respects a greater
intellectual performance, but it does not equal this earlier opinion
in those qualities of form which attract the amateur and stir the
admiration of posterity.

At the very outset of his argument in the Bank case Marshall singled out
the question the answer to which must control all interpretation of
the Constitution: Was the Constitution, as contended by counsel for
Maryland, "an act of sovereign and independent States" whose political
interests must be jealously safeguarded in its construction, or, was it
an emanation from the American people and designed for their benefit?
Marshall answered that the Constitution, by its own declaration, was
"ordained and established" in the name of the people, "in order to form
a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity."
Nor did he consider the argument "that the people had already
surrendered all their powers to the State Sovereignties and had nothing
more to give," a persuasive one, for "surely, the question whether
they may resume and modify the power granted to the government does not
remain to be settled in this country. Much more might the legitimacy of
the General Government be doubted, had it been created by the States.
The powers delegated to the State sovereignties were to be exercised
by themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty created
by them." "The Government of the Union, then," Marshall proceeded, "is
emphatically... a government of the people. In form and in substance
it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be
exercised on them, and for their benefit." And what was the nature of
this Government? "If any one proposition could command the universal
assent of mankind we might expect it would be this: that the government
of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within the sphere
o