Pope was the lad's especial textbook, and we are told that he had
transcribed the whole of the "Essay on Man" by the time he was
twelve and some of the "Moral Essays" as well, besides having
"committed to memory many of the most interesting passages of
that distinguished poet." The result is to be partially discerned
many years later in certain tricks of Marshall's style; but
indeed the influence of the great moralist must have penetrated
far deeper. The "Essay on Man" filled, we may surmise, much the
same place in the education of the first generation of American
judges that Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics" filled in that of
the judges of a later day. The "Essay on Man" pictures the
universe as a species of constitutional monarchy governed "not by
partial but by general laws"; in "man's imperial race" this
beneficent sway expresses itself in two principles," self-love to
urge, and reason to restrain"; instructed by reason, self-love
lies at the basis of all human institutions, the state,
government, laws, and has "found the private in the public good";
so, on the whole, justice is the inevitable law of life.
"Whatever is, is right." It is interesting to suppose that while
Marshall was committing to memory the complacent lines of the
"Essay on Man," his cousin Jefferson may have been deep in the
"Essay on the Origin of Inequality."

At the age of fourteen Marshall was placed for a few months under
the tuition of a clergyman named Campbell, who taught him the
rudiments of Latin and introduced him to Livy, Cicero, and
Horace. A little later the great debate over American rights
burst forth and became with Marshall, as with so many promising
lads of the time, the decisive factor in determining his