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On the similarities between Chief Justices John Marshall and William Rehnquist
Transcript
You know when you think about Chief Justice Rehnquist, I was reading a description of, of Chief Justice Marshall not too long ago, and I was amazed at how much it resonated with Chief, what I know of Chief Justice Rehnquist. It was talking about how Marshall was unassuming. How people would you know talk with him for hours without knowing he was on the Supreme Court. Someone who was interested in people and people were interested in him. And liked people and people liked him. The parallels are actually quite extraordinary. My colleague, Justice Kennedy, talks of, has a talk on Marshall where he explains Marshall should really be regarded as someone from the West, from the frontier. At the time Marshall's home in Virginia was, was not in the tide water but in the west and the frontier. And of course Chief Justice Rehnquist was a, a Midwesterner and educated in, in, in the west and, and carried those attitudes with him on the Court. Unassuming, unpretentious, in and also very direct and straight forward not only in their dealings with people but in their jurisprudence. An opinion by John Marshall, although written, you know, centuries ago, is pretty easy to read today. The same with opinions by Chief Justice Rehnquist. It's straight forward, common sense, every day English and with tremendous persuasive force to it.
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