One thing that I have not yet seen any commentary on is Chief Justice Robert's quotation from the essay that John Marshall published in defense of McCullough in the Alexandria Gazette. Marshall wrote "“The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.” (This was conveniently reprinted by Gerald Gunther in a wonderful little volume, John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland (1969). Gunther prepared this as he was working on the volumes on the Marshall Court for the Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court, which G. Edward White eventually finished and published in 1988 as The Marshall Court and Cultural Change.)
Close followers of this story may recall that after McCullough Marshall took to the papers to defend the decision, under the name "A Friend of the Constitution." It wasn't until later that we learned Marshall was the author. The Supreme Court wasn't leaking as much back then, I guess. So … that leads to a question: do we think that Chief Justice Roberts is off posting on a blog somewhere under a pseudonym defending the decision?