Jefferson, Thomas
The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States
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2005
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Jefferson, Thomas (b. Shadwell [now Albemarle County], Va., 13 Apr. 1743; d. Monticello, Va., 4 July 1826), statesman and president of the United States, 1801–1809. Thomas Jefferson exerted a profound influence on the Supreme Court and the course of American constitutional development. As political leader and president, his thoughts on the role of judges and on the federal system provided a significant contrast to the nationalizing ideas of Alexander
Hamilton, John
Marshall, and Joseph
Story.
Jefferson and James
Madison produced the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798–1799, which supported the compact theory of the Constitution and denied that the Supreme Court alone had authority to determine if the laws of Congress were constitutional. Jefferson argued that the Court was a creation of the Constitution and to give it the power of
judicial review would make “its discretion and not the Constitution the measure of its powers.” He argued that when the federal government assumed a power not granted to it by the Constitution, each state, as a party to the constitutional compact, had a right to declare the law unconstitutional (see
State Sovereignty and States' Rights). He also believed that each branch of the federal government had a coordinate right to resolve questions of constitutionality.
As president, Jefferson confronted Federalist judges of the Supreme and
lower federal courts who enjoyed tenure during good behavior. He did not support radicals in his party who wished to amend the Constitution to eliminate the federal judiciary and who favored a broad construction of the impeachment clause of Articles I, II, and III in order to remove judges for political reasons (see
Impeachment). But he resisted Federalist attempts to broaden the powers of the national courts and to politicize them. He promoted repeal of the
Judiciary Act of 1801, which had increased the number of federal judgeships and expanded the jurisdiction of the circuit courts. Jefferson did not overreact to the Court's decision in
Marbury v. Madison (1803), although he found Chief Justice Marshall's reproof distasteful. Rather, he ignored the decision because he had gotten his way: the Court did not order the administration to deliver the commissions. Though Marshall claimed for the Court the power to interpret the Constitution, he did not explicitly claim that its power to do so was either exclusive or final. Jefferson helped initiate impeachment proceedings in 1803 against John Pickering, an alcoholic and insane district court judge, and worked behind the scenes for his conviction. But he did not support impeachment proceedings against Justice Samuel
Chase, who was eventually acquitted in 1805. In the treason trial of Aaron
Burr (1806), Jefferson refused to obey Marshall's subpoena to testify but accepted Burr's acquittal.
After his retirement in 1809, Jefferson criticized Marshall and the Supreme Court more directly. He opposed such nationalist decisions as
Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816),
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and
Cohens v. Virginia (1821). He encouraged Spencer Roane and John Taylor to criticize the Court publicly. In private correspondence, Jefferson raised a number of important questions about the Supreme Court's power. Could the Court claim to be the final arbiter in conflicts between the states and the federal government, since this power was not explicitly granted in the Constitution? Could the Supreme Court arrogate this power to itself? What is the relationship of the Court to the will of the people, especially since its members are appointed during good behavior? Should the Court hold its discussions in secret and hide internal dissent by handing down unanimous decisions? Could the Court be an impartial arbiter in disputes between the federal government and the states, since it was a part of the federal government and its judges' salaries were paid by that government?
These questions do not lend themselves to easy answers, even today when we generally accept the idea of judicial supremacy on constitutional issues. As a consequence, Jefferson's criticism of the Supreme Court has resonated throughout American history and has formed the theoretical basis of the positions taken by presidents such as Andrew
Jackson and Franklin
Roosevelt, as well as other critics of an activist Court, who have attempted to confine the force of its decisions (see
Judicial Self‐Restraint).
See also
History of the Court: Establishment of the Union.
Bibliography
Richard Ellis , The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (1971).
Richard E. Ellis
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Distribution of freshwater sponges and bryozoans in northwest Indiana.
Magazine article from: Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science; 7/29/2003; ; 700+ words
; ...sponges (Porifera) and bryozoans (Ectoprocta and Entoprocta) are poorly known in...composition over time. Keywords: Porifera, Ectoprocta, Entoprocta, freshwater bryozoan...limited in scope. Although bryozoans (Ectoprocta and Entoprocta) are widely distributed...
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Research findings from University of Hamburg update understanding of life sciences.
Newspaper article from: Health & Medicine Week; 9/8/2008; 700+ words
; ...consistently indicated that the three lophophorate lineages, Ectoprocta, Brachiopoda and Phoronida, are more closely related to...lophophorates was not recovered but that of Bryozoa including Ectoprocta and Entoprocta and monophyly of Brachiozoa including Brachiopoda...
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New phylum found residing on lobsters. (Danish researchers discovered a new phylum of metazoans called Symbion pandora on the lips of Norwegian lobsters)(Brief Article)
Magazine article from: Science News; 12/16/1995; ; 700+ words
; ...example, Funch and Kristensen state that the new creature most nearly resembles the phyla Ectoprocta and Entoprocta. Yet scientists fail to agree that Ectoprocta and Entoprocta are closely related, Morris notes. Tom Fenchel of the Marine Biological...
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New zoology findings from University of Copenhagen described.
Newspaper article from: Ecology, Environment & Conservation; 4/24/2009; 700+ words
; ...to that of the other two lophophorate phyla, Phoronida and Ectoprocta, does not indicate homology of individual larval muscles...the ontogenetic pathways of Brachiopoda, Phoronida, and Ectoprocta that gave rise to the morphological diversity of these phyla...
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Testing the water.(marine natural products used in pharmaceutical and chemical preparations)
Magazine article from: Chemistry and Industry; 1/18/1999; ; 700+ words
; ...are sponges (Porifera), soft corals (Octocorallia), sea squirts (Ascidiaceae), sea mats (Bryozoa or more correctly Ectoprocta) and sea slugs (Mollusca). All of these are soft-bodied and either sessile (fixed to a surface such as rock) or slow...
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Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States: Porifera to Crustacea
Magazine article from: Northeastern Naturalist; 1/1/2002; ; 388 words
; ...Cividaria, Platyhelminthes, Rotifers, Nemertea, Gastrotricha, Tardigrada, Nematoda, Nematomorpha, Annelida, Entoprocta, Ectoprocta, Mollusca, Arachnids, an introduction to the Crustacea, Phyllopodous Branchiopoda, Cladoceran Branchiopoda, Copepods...
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Ectoprocta
Book article from: A Dictionary of Zoology
Ectoprocta 1. (phylum Bryozoa ) The major subphylum of bryozoans, in which the lophophore surrounds the mouth but not the anus (in contrast...
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Bryozoa
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Bryozoa , name of a phylum, in older systems of classification, that included the invertebrate animals now classified in the phyla Entoprocta and Ectoprocta . The term bryozoan (or moss animal) is still commonly used for members of the Ectoprocta.
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Phylactolaemata
Book article from: A Dictionary of Zoology
Phylactolaemata (phylum Bryozoa , subphylum Ectoprocta ) A class of nonmineralized, freshwater ectoprocts in which the lophophore is U-shaped. The mouth is covered by a lip. The class has a probable Upper Cretaceous representative, but otherwise is known only from the Holocene .
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Brachiopoda
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...species brood their young. Brachiopods are believed to be related to the shell-less bryozoans, or moss animals (phylum Ectoprocta ), which also have a lophophore. Abundant at the start of the Cambrian period, brachiopods were widespread and numerous...
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bryozoans
Book article from: The Oxford Companion to the Earth
bryozoans The bryozoans, sometimes also called the Ectoprocta, are a phylum of colonial, mostly marine, organisms. The individuals or zooids are physically connected and form a calcareous...
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