Overview

The first biography of George Washington's extraordinary nephew, who inherited Mount Vernon and was Chief Justice John Marshall's right-hand man on the Supreme Court for nearly thirty years.George Washington's nephew and heir was a Supreme Court Justice for over thirty years and left an indelible mark on American law. Despite his remarkable life and notable lineage, he is unknown to most Americans because he cared more about establishing the rule of law than about personal glory. In Washington's Heir, Gerard N. Magliocca gives us the first published biography of Bushrod Washington, one of the most underrated Founding Fathers. Born in 1762, Justice Washington fought in the Revolutionary War, served in Virginia's ratifying convention for the Constitution, and was Chief Justice John Marshall's partner in establishing the authority of the Supreme Court. Though he could only see from one eye, Justice Washington wrote many landmark decisions defining the fundamental rights of citizens and the structure of the Constitution, including Corfield v. Coryell--an influential source for the Congress that proposed the Fourteenth Amendment. As George Washington's personal heir, Bushrod inherited both Mount Vernon and the family legacy of owning other people, one of whom was almost certainly his half-brother or nephew. Yet Justice Washington alone among the Founders was criticized by journalists for selling enslaved people and, in turn, issued a public defence of his actions that laid bare the hypocrisy and cruelty of slavery. An in-depth look at Justice Washington's extraordinary story that gives insight into his personal thoughts through his own secret journal, Washington's Heir sheds new light not only on George Washington, John Marshall, and the Constitution, but also on America's ongoing struggle to become a more perfect union.

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9780190947040

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Magliocca has himself provided superb academic service in bringing to life a figure who is largely forgotten but for his famous surname and showing his contemporary relevance to some of our own important legal debates. * John O. McGinnis, Law & Liberty *

Gerard Magliocca has a corner on illuminating the history of the Constitution through the stories of neglected but instructive historical figures. His Bushrod Washington enlivens our understanding of the Constitution in its first decades in action. Required reading for constitutional historians and for anyone who wants to understand the legal legacy of the Founding-and the long shadow of George Washington himself. * Noah Feldman, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School * I never cease to learn new things from Gerard Magliocca's research that fundamentally inform and even change how I teach and think about our constitutional narrative. This book is no exception. It fills a gap that we were not even aware existed: the crucial role played by Justice Bushrod Washington in the formative years of the Marshall Court. * Randy E Barnett, Georgetown Law, and author of The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit * Magliocca's biography is a remarkable achievement. It invites the reader to explore, through Washington's experience, the deeper political and social culture in which the nation's Founders were embedded — and to consider the extent to which America's current crisis is shattering its fundamental constitutional commitments. * Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University * Magliocca has himself provided superb academic service in bringing to life a figure who is largely forgotten but for his famous surname and showing his contemporary relevance to some of our own important legal debates. * John O. McGinnis, Law & Liberty *

Author Information

Gerard N. Magliocca is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree at Stanford, his law degree at Yale, and spent one year as a law clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Professor Magliocca is the author of four other books on constitutional law, including The Heart of the Constitution (Oxford, 2018).

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