Marbury v. Madison: Summary

• Marbury v. Madison began as a seemingly simple Supreme Court case.
• William Marbury, along with three others, did not receive their appointments as justices of the peace for the District of Columbia.
• The claim was a result of President John Adams' administration attempting to place Federalist supporters in newly created judicial positions before leaving office. Adams' administration occurred after Thomas Jefferson was elected the new President.
• The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which served as both judicial reform and political strategy.
• The act reduced the size of the Supreme Court from six to five justices.
• Sixteen new federal circuit court judgeships were created by the act.
• A separate measure established 42 justices of the peace in Washington, D.C., where the federal Congress had full control.
• President Adams appointed the new judges and signed the commissions just before leaving office; the appointees were known as “midnight judges."
• John Marshall failed to deliver the commissions to the justices of the peace, even though he was secretary of state and chief justice of the United States for a brief period.
• James Madison (the new secretary of state) refused to deliver the commissions to Marbury and the others.
• President Jefferson and his supporters in Congress intended to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801.
• Marbury and the other appointees protested Madison's action.
• The case was brought under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction.
• The Supreme Court can hear cases in two ways:
  • Cases on appeal from another state or federal court
  • Cases under the Court's original jurisdiction
• Cases under the Court's original jurisdiction are only narrowly tailored to those involving ambassadors, public ministers, and consuls and suits involving states as parties.
• Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 provided that the Supreme Court could issue writs of mandamus.
• A writ of mandamus is an order by a court that directs an individual to do something.
• In this case, Marbury asked the court to tell James Madison to deliver the signed commissions to Marbury and his colleagues.
• Chief Justice Marshall was in a compromised position, even though he participated in the case and wrote the opinion for the Court.
• Marbury v. Madison Quick Facts:
  • 5 U.S. 137 [1 Cr. 137] (1803)
  • Decided: February 24, 1803
  • Vote: 4-0
  • Opinion of the Court: John Marshall
  • Not participating: William Cushing and Alfred Moore
• Marshall asked the Jefferson administration to respond to Marbury in December 1801, but Madison ignored the request.
• The Jeffersonian Republican Congress ordered that the Court would not meet for the 1801 term.
• Article III, section 2 stated that “the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Face, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
• The Federalists complained that such action was unconstitutional because it denied citizens access to the Court.
• Marbury's case did not reach the Court until 1803.
• The Jeffersonian Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801.
• Jefferson and his followers determined to use the courts to frustrate the Republicans' legislative program.
• Republicans in Congress were threatening to impeach Federalist judges.
• Chief Justice Marshall had to settle Marbury's case in this highly charged political atmosphere.
• The case raised two distinct issues:
  • Whether the justices could exercise the power of judicial review in order to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional and invalid.
  • How extensively the justices should be involved in political battles.
• The Jefferson administration assumed that the Court did not have the authority to address the question of the commission and refused to give Marbury his commission.
• Marbury's counsel demonstrated through testimony that the commissions had been signed but had disappeared.
• Marshall's opinion was that Marbury was entitled to his commission and that Madison had wrongfully withheld it from him.
• Marshall sidestepped the critical questions while establishing the right of the justices to settle such matters conclusively (to exercise judicial review) and to remain free of political entanglements.
• Marshall's opinion made clear that the power of the Court derived from its role as a legal, not political, institution.
• Marshall held that a writ of mandamus was the appropriate remedy.
• Marshall compared the text of Article 3 with Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the section giving the Court the power to issue a writ of mandamus in the first place.
• Marshall found that Congress could not provide for the Court to use a writ of mandamus because no such power was granted to it in the Constitution.
• When a statute conflicted with the federal Constitution, Marshall explained, it was “the essence of judicial duty” to follow the Constitution.
• Marshall: the particular phraseology of the Constitution confirms and strengthens that a law repugnant to the constitution is void.
• Marshall: The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, not of men.
• Marshall established two enduring principles of American law:
  • Courts determine what the law means.
  • Courts can overturn those laws that fail to conform with the Constitution.
• Marshall affirmed that Marbury was due his commission, but because the justices could not issue a writ of mandamus because Section 13 of the 1789 Judiciary Act was unconstitutional, there was no means by which Marbury could receive his commission.
• Marshall's decision made it clear that Marbury had lost an important property right when the commission was not delivered to him, but that the Court could do nothing to help him.
• Marshall underscored his respect for property rights and used the judiciary to protect individual rights against legislative action.
• Because the Jefferson administration was not asked to do anything and Marbury was not going to receive his commission, there was no way to limit the Court's power.
• Marshall affirmed that what the Court said the Constitution meant was final.
• Marshall asserted unequivocally the Court's power to rule on the constitutionality of congressional laws, which kept the justices free from direct political conflict.
• The Jeffersonian Republicans were frustrated by Marshall's constitutional dexterity.
• Judge Spencer Roane attacked the Marbury decision in newspaper articles
• Judge John Bannister Gibson asserted in the case of Eakin v. Raub (1825) that the decision in Marbury was nothing more than judicial usurpation.
• The Jeffersonian Republicans launched a political attack on sitting federal judges appointed by the Federalists in the summer of 1803.
• John Pickering of New Hampshire was the victim in 1804; he became the first federal judge to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.
• Samuel Chase helped Marshall prepare important parts of the Marbury opinion.
• Chase was a Federalist who taunted his Republican detractors.
• He denounced the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 and characterized President Jefferson as immoral.
• Jefferson asked his party's leaders in the House to impeach Chase.
• In 1805, the House of Representatives did just that, but the Senate acquitted Chase.
• The verdict discouraged further attempts to impeach justices simply because of their political views.
• Chase's impeachment sent another message: members of the judiciary were expected to avoid partisan politics.
• Vice President Aaron Burr was wanted for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New Jersey.
• Burr was tried for treason in a case over which Marshall presided.
• Judicial review had certainly been used by other courts before Marbury; it was important as the first statement of the doctrine of judicial review by the nation's highest court.
• Marshall drew his authority from the colonial Massachusetts lawyer James Otis, who had argued in the Writs of Assistance Case (1761) that judges were prohibited from enforcing laws that were patently unconstitutional.
• Sir Edward Coke articulated the principle that parliamentary statutes contrary to custom and right reason must be held invalid in Dr. Bonham's Case in 1610.
• Alexander Hamilton argued for the adoption of the Constitution in The Federalist No. 78 (1788); Marshall's opinion in Marbury reflected Hamilton's reasoning.
• Marbury stated the principle of what is called "coordinate branch” judicial review, in which the Supreme Court limits the power of one of the two other branches of the federal government.
• The act of judicial review is also important in striking down state laws and judicial decisions that are contrary to the Constitution.
• The justices found that when such state measures violate the supremacy clause of Article 6, they cannot pass federal constitutional muster.
• The justices did not attempt to void another act of Congress until 1857, when in the Dred Scott case it held invalid the 1820 Missouri Compromise.
• The significance of Marbury has grown over time, even for critics like Roane.
• It granted to future generations of justices one of their central powers by establishing the practice of judicial review.
• Today, no other decision by the Court is more frequently cited for its role in American government than Marbury.

The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land

• Marbury was not the first case in which courts invoked the power of judicial review; it was the first time that the Supreme Court had done so to invalidate an act of Congress.
• In his 1803 opinion, Marshall addressed both judicial review and the doctrine of "political questions.”
• He asserted a fundamental principle that the Constitution is law and that judges are therefore uniquely positioned to interpret its meaning.

"An Act of Suicide"

• The Supreme Court decided Marbury during President Thomas Jefferson's first term in office.
• Jefferson objected to the practice of judicial review because he believed that it violated the principle of separation of powers.
• He proposed that each branch or department of government decide constitutional questions for itself, with the ultimate responsibility resting with the people.
• Letters Jefferson wrote between 1804 and 1823 outline his views on judicial review and his “departmental” theory of constitutional review.
• Jefferson (1804): Nothing in the Constitution has given the judges exclusive exposition to the Legislature.
• Jefferson (1815): Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given the power of judicial review to the judicial branch more than to the Executive or Legislative branches.
• Jefferson (1815): The Legislature alone is the exclusive expounder of the sense of the Constitution in every part of it whatever.
• Jefferson (1819): The Supreme Court usurps the explaining of the Constitution.