Marbury v. Madison (1803).In this decision, the U.S.
Supreme Court, speaking through Chief Justice John
Marshall, for the first time declared an act of Congress unconstitutional and thus established the precedent for
judicial review of legislative acts. The case arose from the appointment of the so‐called “midnight judges”—judicial appointments made by President John
Adams during the last days of his administration. Adams appointed William Marbury a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia, and his commission was signed by the outgoing secretary of state, John Marshall, but not delivered. When Thomas
Jefferson's Republican administration took power, the new secretary of state, James
Madison, refused to deliver the commission. Marbury filed suit against Madison in the Supreme Court under section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which had established the particulars of the new federal court system. That section, Marbury contended, gave the Supreme Court the right to hear the case and issue a writ of mandamus directing the secretary of state to deliver his commission.
Marshall well knew that an order to Madison to deliver the commission might be ignored, irreparably damaging the authority of the Supreme Court and effectively neutralizing the
Federalist party's strength in the federal judiciary. Marshall began his opinion by stating unequivocally that Marbury deserved the commission and that the Republican administration was wrong in not delivering it. That said, however, Marshall held that the Supreme Court did not have the power to aid Marbury because section 13 of the Judiciary Act had improperly enlarged the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction (the right to hear a case in the first instance). That jurisdiction had been established by the
Constitution itself, Marshall stated, and a federal law in contravention of the Constitution was void.
The notion that courts could strike down acts of a legislature did not originate with Marshall. In both seventeenth‐century England and late eighteenth‐century America, courts had suggested that legislation that violated “natural law” or the fundamental principles of government might be void. Alexander
Hamilton, defending the proposed Constitution in
Federalist Paper No. 78, had sketched out the logic of judicial review that Marshall would follow in
Marbury v.
Madison. Marshall, however, established this specific judicial power in the American constitutional system, and while no other federal law was declared unconstitutional until 1857, the Marshall court subsequently reaffirmed in a number of cases its power to consider the constitutionality of federal laws. Marshall's opinion also first articulated the distinction between political questions (in this case, the powers of a coordinate branch of the government), which the court would not resolve, and judicial ones, which were properly its responsibility.
See also
Early Republic, Era of the;
Federal Government, Judicial Branch;
Jurisprudence.Bibliography
Robert L. Clinton , Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review, 1968.
Charles F. Hobson , The Great Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Rule of Law, 1996.
Paul G.E. Clemens
