MARTIN V. HUNTER'S LESSEE

The framing of the U.S. Constitution came after the articles of confederation failed to create a viable national government. The 13 former colonies had retained most of their political power, and the resulting national government was impotent. In contrast, the U.S. Constitution allocated powers between the national government and state governments. Moreover, the three branches of the national government were given specific grants of power. Despite these provisions and the history of the confederation era, some states were outraged that the U.S. Supreme Court could review and reverse state court decisions. The high court issued such rulings and asserted its jurisdiction without incident until 1813, when the Virginia Court of Appeals refused to enforce the high court's judgment. The case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1816 and led to a landmark decision, Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816). In a lengthy and magisterial opinion, Justice joseph story reaffirmed the Court's jurisdiction and set to rest the idea that state courts could decide whether or not to honor federal court decisions. In addition, the Court raised for the first time that the federal government wielded implied powers as well as enumerated powers.

The legal dispute in question reached back to the Revolutionary War. Following the Declaration of Independence, Virginia passed a law that authorized the confiscation of property held by Loyalists to the British regime. Thomas Lord Fairfax, a Loyalist, held substantial property in Northern Neck, Virginia. After his death, his heir, Denny Martin, sought to claim this property but discovered that it had been confiscated and sold to a private party by the state of Virginia. Martin filed suit in Virginia court, asking the court to eject the current owner and to restore title to him. He based his claim on the treaty of paris (1783) and Jay's Treaty (1794), which the U.S. had signed with Great Britain. The Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence, and Jay's Treaty resolved lingering disputes over parts of the peace treaty. Both treaties contained provisions that forbade the confiscation of Loyalist property. Martin pointed to Article III of the Constitution, which grants the judicial power of the U.S. to the U.S. Supreme Court and gives it jurisdiction to hear disputes involving treaties. He contended that federal treaty provisions trumped state laws. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in 1813 and ordered Virginia to enforce the Court's judgment restoring title to Martin.

Martin was to be disappointed, as the Virginia Court of Appeals, the commonwealth's highest court, refused to enforce the judgment. It claimed that the U.S. Supreme Court had no power to review state court decisions. Several other states were sympathetic to this viewpoint, signaling a looming crisis over the judicial powers of the national government. It was in this light that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in March 1816. Chief Justice john marshall, a Virginian with financial and other conflicts of interests, did not participate in the decision, leaving it in the hands of Justice Story and the five other justices.

The Court, in a unanimous decision, rejected Virginia's argument and held that the U.S. Supreme Court had the constitutional and statutory authority to review state court decisions. Justice Story, writing for the Court, conducted a lengthy review of the language of the constitutional and statutory provisions, but he also looked at the historical factors that had led to the framing of Article III. Story, one of the great legal thinkers of the nineteenth century, bluntly dismissed Virginia's claim that the states, in agreeing to the Constitution, had retained their absolute sovereignty. This compact theory of government was, in Story's view, the basis for the Articles of Confederation but not the Constitution. He noted that the Constitution's preamble states that the document was ordained and established "by the people of the United States" and not by the states in their sovereign capacities. The Constitution was not "carved out of existing state sovereignties, nor a surrender of powers already existing in state institutions." In essence, the people had drawn up their government on a clean slate and had allocated powers to the states, the federal government, and to the three branches of the federal government.

This clean slate was evidenced in the allocation of judicial power. Article III laid heavy emphasis on the superiority of the national judicial power in its statement that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in such inferior courts as the Congres may from time to time ordain and establish." Story reviewed the text of this provision, using the "natural and obvious sense" of each word. It was illogical to grant the judicial power to a supreme court and then to argue that inferior state courts could take away such power. Therefore, Story concluded that Congress had the duty to vest the "whole judicial power" to the U.S. Supreme Court. The word "shall" loomed large in this discussion, as it signified that Congress did not have discretion to vest less than absolute judicial power. Story also suggested that the federal government held implied powers to execute the commands of the Constitution as well as the enumerated powers contained in the document. Without such implied powers, the government could be hamstrung by pinched readings of its authority to carry out policies for the good of the people.

Having established the constitutional grounds for the right to review state-court decisions, Story turned to Virginia's statutory challenge. Section 25 of the judiciary act of 1789, one of the first acts passed by the first Congress, gave the U.S. Supreme Court the authority to issue judgments involving treaty-based lawsuits. Virginia claimed that this violated Article III and the tenth amendment, which in essence states that all powers not delegated to the three branches of the federal government are reserved to the states. Justice Story rejected this claim. The U.S. Supreme Court needed to retain jurisdiction over treaties as well as other types of lawsuits named in the Judiciary Act. Story was frank in his criticism. The Constitution had been drafted, in part, to prevent "state attachments, state prejudices, state jealousies, and state interests." Without a manifestly supreme court, states could "obstruct, or control … the regular administration of justice." Moreover, the uniformity of decisions was an important goal. Great mischief would take place if each state could interpret laws, treaties, and the U.S. Constitution. Finally, Story noted that if Virginia's interpretation were to be adopted, the U.S. Supreme Court would have no power to review any state criminal case. Such an interpretation made no sense when the intent of the Framers was reviewed. Therefore, the U.S. Supreme Court had the power to review state-court decisions, and federal judicial supremacy was affirmed.

further readings

Hall, Kermit L. 1989. The Magic Mirror: Law in American History. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Stephens, Otis H., Jr., and John M. Scheb III. 1993. American Constitutional Law. St. Paul, Minn.: West.

Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. (14 U.S.) 304 (1816), argued 12 Mar. 1816, decided 20 Mar. 1816 by vote of 6 to 0; Story for the Court, Marshall not participating. This case involved the constitutionality of section 25 of the 1789 Judiciary Act, which empowered the Supreme Court to review the final judgments of the highest state courts where federal statutes or treaties were involved, or when a state statute or common law rule had been upheld, though challenged under the federal Constitution. Several states, most notably Virginia, condemned section 25 as an unconstitutional authorization for the federal judiciary to usurp state power. States' rights advocates believed that the Union rested on a compact among the states that granted the central government only limited and enumerated powers (see State Sovereignty and States' Rights).

During the War for American Independence, Virginia enacted legislation confiscating Loyalists' property. Thomas Lord Fairfax, a Loyalist, subsequently devised his vast holdings in the Northern Neck to a British subject, but the property had passed into private hands because of the confiscatory statute. The Fairfax interests challenged the Virginia legislation as inconsistent with the state's obligations under the Treaty of Paris (1783) and Jay's Treaty (1794), which protected Loyalist holdings. In Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee (1813), Justice Joseph Story sustained the Fairfax interests. (Chief Justice John Marshall did not participate because of pecuniary interest and prior involvement as counsel.) Story's decision fueled already intense criticism of the Court. States' rights advocates, such as Spencer Roane and Thomas Ritchie, claimed that Story had reduced the states to mere administrative units lacking real sovereignty. The Virginia judiciary refused to enter judgment in favor of Fairfax, effectively denying the validity of section 25 of the 1789 Judiciary Act. The Virginia judges stated that they were under no obligation to obey the Supreme Court.

Virginia's intransigence brought the dispute back to the Supreme Court, this time as Martin v. Hunter's Lessee. Marshall again recused himself, although he played an important behind‐the‐scenes role. The Chief Justice framed the writ of error that brought the case to the Court and consulted extensively with Joseph Story, who again wrote the Court's opinion.

Story's opinion, the most important of his thirty‐four years on the Court, rebuked Virginia for failing to comply with the Court's previous order. Story rejected the compact theory and Virginia's claim that it was equally sovereign with the United States. The American people, Story argued, had created the nation and lodged the national judicial power exclusively in the federal courts. Story sustained section 25 of the 1789 act and insisted that the power to interpret the Constitution had to rest with one ultimate source of authority, which was the United States Supreme Court. He also noted that the national government possessed certain implied powers, a position that Marshall adopted three years later in upholding the Bank of the United States in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).

Story's opinion was a landmark in the history of federal judicial supremacy. More than even Marshall, Story upheld federal judicial supremacy over the states. Without Story's decision, the Supremacy Clause of the federal Constitution would have lost much of its salience, since the states would not have been bound to conform their laws to a national constitutional standard.

See also Judicial Power and Jurisdiction; Judicial Review.

Bibliography

G. Edward White , History of the Supreme Court of the United States, vols. 3–4, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815–35 (1988).

Kermit L. Hall

Martin v. Hunter's Lessee case decided in 1816 by the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1779 to 1785, Virginia passed a series of laws by which the state confiscated all lands owned by foreigners. David Hunter was granted 800 acres of confiscated lands that had been willed to Denny Martin Fairfax, a British subject. Fairfax brought suit against Hunter for return of the land. On Fairfax's death the suit was taken over by his heir, Philip Martin. Martin argued that Fairfax's ownership had been protected by treaties between the United States and Great Britain guaranteeing British subjects the right to hold land in America. The Virginia court of appeals upheld the grant to Hunter, but on appeal the U.S. Supreme Court voided the grant (1813). The Virginia court refused to obey the Supreme Court ruling, declaring that it had no right to review the decisions of state courts under the U.S. Constitution. When the case again came before the Supreme Court, Justice Story ruled that section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which granted the U.S. Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over state courts in certain situations (as in this case, where a state court denied the validity of a federal statute), was constitutional. His decision affirmed the Supreme Court's right to review state court decisions.

MARTIN V. HUNTER'S LESSEE

MARTIN V. HUNTER'S LESSEE. Justice Joseph Story's opinion in this 1816 case upheld the power of the U.S. Supreme Court to review decisions of all state courts on federal questions as defined in the 1789 Judiciary Act, and upheld the constitutionality of that statute. Story insisted that the framers of the 1787 Constitution had intended the Supreme Court to be supreme in interpretation of the federal Constitution, laws, and treaties to correct "state prejudices" of local judges and assure "uniformity of decisions throughout the whole United States" on such federal questions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Warren, Charles. The Supreme Court in United States History. Boston: Little, Brown, 1932.

White, G. Edward. The Marshall Court and Cultural Change,1815–1835. New York: Macmillan, 1988.

William M.s Wiecek

See alsoJudiciary Act of 1789 ; Supreme Court .