<P> The Marshall Court also made several decisions restraining the actions of state governments . The notion that the Supreme Court could consider appeals from state courts was established in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821). In several decisions, the Marshall Court confirmed the supremacy of federal laws over state laws . For example, in McCulloch, the Court held that a state could not tax an agency of the federal government . At the same time, however, the Marshall Court held in the landmark case Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights restricted the federal government alone, and did not apply to the states . Nonetheless, the Supreme Court would in later years hold that the Fourteenth Amendment had the effect of applying most provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states . </P> <P> Marshall's forceful personality allowed him to steer his fellow Justices; only once did he find himself on the losing side in a constitutional case . In that case (Ogden v. Saunders in 1827), Marshall set forth his general principles of constitutional interpretation: </P> <P> To say that the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this intention must be collected from its words; that its words are to be understood in that sense in which they are generally used by those for whom the instrument was intended; that its provisions are neither to be restricted into insignificance, nor extended to objects not comprehended in them, nor contemplated by its framers;--is to repeat what has been already said more at large, and all that can be necessary . </P> <P> Marshall was in the dissenting minority only eight times throughout his tenure at the Court, partly because of his influence over the associate justices . As Oliver Wolcott observed when both he and Marshall served in the Adams administration, Marshall had the knack of "putting his own ideas into the minds of others, unconsciously to them". However, he regularly curbed his own viewpoints, preferring to arrive at decisions by consensus . He adjusted his role to accommodate other members of the court as they developed . </P>

Who defined the united states through his tenure as chief justice of the supreme court