Published in 1998 by the University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0-8078-2404-6

 Publication of this volume has been assisted by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities,  the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation.

 The chronology of Volume IX begins in January 1820 and proceeds through December 1823. During these four years, straddling the first and second administrations of President James Monroe, the Supreme Court of the United States maintained the high public profile it had earned at the eventful 1819 term. The Supreme Court's most celebrated cases during these years was Cohens v. Virginia (1821). What began as a prosecution for the sale of lottery tickets eventually brought forth from Chief Justice Marshall a major statement of the scope and extent of federal judicial power. Like McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Cohens decision provoked the wrath of the guardians of states' rights in Virginia. As shown by his correspondence, the chief justice was deeply concerned that the reaction to Cohens and other nationalizing decisions would translate into proposals to curb the Supreme Court's powers.

Besides chronicling his judicial activities, this volume yields illuminating glimpses of Marshall's private life. When not sitting in court, Marshall was busily employed in revising his Life of Washington and in preparing an edition of General Washington's letters. Family life continued to revolve around home in Richmond, the farm just outside town, and extended summer sojourns in the upper country. Marshall's letters reveal his constant anxiety about the delicate state of his wife's health. Approaching seventy, Marshall was not yet free of parental obligations. In 1823 he decided his youngest son Edward was ready for college and sent him off to Cambridge to enter Harvard.