Video: 'Why the Supreme Court Is Relevant | Marbury v. Madison'
(Thursday, February 24, 1803) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in today‘s Marbury v. Madison decision, established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes that they find to violate the Constitution of the United States.
Marbury is regarded as the single most important decision in American constitutional law.
The Court’s landmark decision established that the U.S. Constitution is an actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals, and helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
The case originated in early 1801 as part of the political and ideological rivalry between outgoing President John Adams and incoming President Thomas Jefferson. Adams had lost the U.S. presidential election of 1800 to Jefferson.
Video: 'Marbury v. Madison'
In March 1801, just two days before his term as president ended, Adams appointed several dozen Federalist Party supporters to new circuit judge and justice of the peace positions in an attempt to frustrate Jefferson and his supporters in the Democratic-Republican Party.
The U.S. Senate quickly confirmed Adams’s appointments. But outgoing Secretary of State John Marshall was unable to deliver all of the new judges’ commissions before Adams’s departure and Jefferson’s inauguration.
Jefferson believed the undelivered commissions were void and instructed his Secretary of State, James Madison, not to deliver them.
One of the undelivered commissions belonged to William Marbury, a Maryland businessman who had been a strong supporter of Adams and the Federalists.
In late 1801, after Madison had repeatedly refused to deliver his commission, Marbury filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court asking the Court to issue a writ of mandamus forcing Madison to deliver his commission.
Video: 'Marbury v Madison Explained: US History Review'
In an opinion written by John Marshall, the former Secretary of State who by then had been appointed Chief Justice of the United States, the Supreme Court held firstly that Madison’s refusal to deliver Marbury’s commission was illegal, and secondly that it was normally proper for a court in such situations to order the government official in question to deliver the commission.
But in Marbury’s case, the Court did not order Madison to comply. Examining the law Congress had passed to define the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over types of cases like Marbury’s—Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789—the Court found that the Act had expanded the definition of the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction beyond what was originally set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
The Court then struck down Section 13 of the Act, announcing that American courts have the power to invalidate laws that they find to violate the Constitution—a power now known as “judicial review.”
Because striking down the law removed any jurisdiction the Court might have had over the case, the Court could not issue the writ that Marbury had requested.
