I find it much harder to defend Marshall though, with the exception of Barron v. Baltimore. His career was fraught with self-contradiction and politicized decision making. At times he was outright stupid, such as when he made the constitutionally absurd claim (along with Madison) in 1794 that the government did not have the power to impose an excise tax on carriages. Even his famous McCulloch ruling was a farce when the case is scrutinized. He quite literally had the AUTHOR of the supremacy clause in his courtroom during the case telling him exactly what was intended at the convention when it was written, but ignored him in favor of a contrary interpretation that meshed with his own political preferences at the time. Sadly most judges since then have followed Marshall's model of decisionmaking, hence the government we have today.
Hamilton’s death was just political murder. Burr never would specify what Hamilton was supposed to explain. As regards his economics compared to his contemporaries he was Malthus, Adam Smith and John Stewart Mill rolled into one. His policies were consistently directed at building National economic strength and did just that.
Marshall was critical in strengthening the Union and his thwarting of Jefferson was a thing of beauty. Thank God for John Marshall.
We have the government we have today because of Jeffersonian democratization of the electorate.