"The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says."
— John Marshall

January 1, 1970

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Academics from the United StatesEpiscopalians from the United StatesMembers of the United States House of RepresentativesUnited States Secretaries of StateChief Justices of the United States
Original Language: English

Sources

Reportedly said to a young John Bannister Gibson, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, when Gibson remarked that Marshall had reached the acme of judicial distinction; in David Goldsmith Loth, Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Growth of the Republic (1949), p. 275. See also Albert J. Beveridge, "Life of John Marshall" (1919)