Virginians dominate the early history of the United States, with
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry, George Mason,
George Wythe, and John Marshall figuring prominently in that narrative.
Fellow Virginian Spencer Roane (1762-1822), an influential jurist and
political thinker, was in many ways their equal. Roane is nonetheless
mostly absent in accounts of early America. The lack of interest in
Roane is remarkable since he was the philosophical leader of the
Jeffersonians, architect of states' rights doctrine, a legislator,
essayist, and, for twenty-seven years, justice of the Virginia Supreme
Court. He was the son-in-law of Henry, a confidant of Jefferson, founder
of the influential Richmond Enquirer, and head of the "Richmond
Junto."
Roane's opinions established judicial review of legislative acts ten
years before Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall did the same in
Marbury v. Madison. Roane also brought down Virginia's state-sponsored
church. His descent into historical twilight is even more curious given
his fierce criticism--both from the bench and in the Richmond
Enquirer--of Marshall's nationalistic decisions. Indeed, the debate
between these two judges is perhaps the most comprehensive discussion of
federalism outside of the arguments that raged over the ratification of
the United States Constitution.
In Irreconcilable Founders, David Johnson uses Roane's long-lasting
conflict with Marshall as ballast for the first-ever biography of this
highly influential but largely forgotten justice and political theorist.
Because Roane's legal opinions gave way to those of Marshall, historians
have tended to either dismiss him or cast him as little more than an
annoying gadfly. Equally to blame for his obscurity is the comparative
inaccessibility of Roane's life: no single archive houses his papers, no
scholars have systematically reviewed his legal opinions, and no one has
methodically examined his essays. Bringing these and other disparate
sources together for the first time, Johnson precisely limns Roane's
career, personality, and philosophy. He also synthesizes the judge's
wide-ranging jurisprudence and analyzes his predictions about the
dangers of unchecked federal power and an activist Supreme Court.
Although contemporary jurists and politicians disregarded Roane's
opinions, many in today's political and legal arenas are unknowingly
echoing his views with increasing frequency, making this reappraisal of
his life and reassessment of his opinions timely and relevant.
