“It has been our happiness to believe, that in the
partition of powers between the general and State governments, the
former possessed only such as were expressly granted, or passed
therewith as necessary incidents, while all the residuary powers were
reserved by the latter.”
--Spencer Roane
Had one-time friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not
had such a high-profile and historic falling out, Spencer Roane would
have been Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was Jefferson’s pick,
but Adams tapped his fellow nationalist John Marshall to occupy that
powerful position.
As it was, Spencer Roane served on the highest court in
his home state of Virginia and became one of Jefferson’s staunchest
allies and one of the ablest defenders of federalism and the
Constitution, including the concept commonly called “states’ rights.”
Roane was born on April 4, 1762 in Essex County,
Virginia. Roane’s father was a member of the House of Burgesses until
the War for Independence, at which time he joined the militia of the Old
Dominion, rising to the rank of colonel.
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