John Marshall may be one of the most influential founders to never become President. As an early chief justice, he was a principal founder of the U.S. system of constitutional law. But more than that, his story is entwined with the entire founding of America.

In this episode, Sam Wang discusses Marshall's legacy with historian and author Robert Strauss. The pair go into great detail on the American issues Marshall helped to shape, which is the subject of a new book by Strauss titled “John Marshall: The Final Founder.”

Strauss has been a reporter at Sports Illustrated; a feature writer for The Philadelphia Daily News; a news and sports producer for KYW-TV, the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia; and the TV critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Asbury Park Press. For the last two decades, he has been a freelance journalist, his most prominent client being The New York Times, where he has had more than 1,000 bylines. He has taught nonfiction writing at the University of Pennsylvania since 1999 and has been an adjunct professor at Temple University, the University of Delaware, and St. Joseph’s University as well. He is the author of "Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents," among other books. He lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey.