Question #f2bdd
1 Answer
Marbury v. Madison, (1803), was a landmark US Supreme Court case in which the Court formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution.
Explanation:
So basically, the Supreme Court could deem a law unconstitutional.
So the story behind this case is super interesting... (I know it's pretty long and you don't have to read it to understand Marbury v. Madison, but it gives you a good background to the story...)
Let's rewind to 1800. John Adams is President of the United States and he is a Federalist. And by the way, the Federalists were decreasing in number by this point. Also, Thomas Jefferson, a Republican/Anti-Federalist was running for office. This was not looking good for these Federalists.
Now, 1800 is almost coming to a close and Thomas Jefferson actually gets the nomination for the presidency. The Federalists are pretty nervous now that their party is going to die forever. So, John Adams signs the Judiciary Act of 1801. Basically, he crams as many Federalist judges into the Court system as he can. These federalist judges were known as midnight-appointees. Adams also officially appointed John Marshall [Federalist] as Chief Justice.
The year 1801 rolls around and Thomas Jefferson becomes president. The "Peaceful Revolution" takes place and the Federalist party peacefully passes the presidency on to Republican party. Things aren't looking so bad, right?
The first day of office, James Madison, Secretary of State, goes up to Thomas Jefferson with a problem. Some of these midnight-appointee papers were not complete, meaning that they were not officially judges until these papers were completed. I could literally see this conversation happening:
[Madison] "So do I complete them or something?"
Pause....
[Jefferson} "They're Federalist judges, right. Just leave them. I'll choose my own Republicans to be in the Supreme Court."
I mean, which president would want most of the judges during their presidency to be of the opposing party?
However, one midnight-appointee whose papers were ignored sued Madison. His name? Marbury [Federalist]. So this is basically coming to the court case part...
Marbury's like... "James Madison has no right to ignore John Adams' Judiciary Act of 1802..."
Counterargument... "The papers were not officially complete so we totally have the right to ignore it."
The case goes to the Supreme Court, meaning that John Marshall has the final say now. He's Federalist, so he is going to either stand for the Federalists and with Marbury or he's going to defend James Madison and Jefferson. If he stands with Jefferson, then he will be going against "his people," but if he goes with Marbury, then he will be going against the president.
Thomas Jefferson is pretty satisfied with John Marshall being in the predicament. He knows that he can't stand for Marbury since that would show how weak of a Chief Justice he is. But he doesn't see this coming...
John Marshall basically said that his right to say the final say of court cases was unconstitutional. He argued that it off-balanced the 3 branches of government. Thomas Jefferson definitely did not see that coming.
He set up a judicial review system, meaning that judges could decide whether or not a law was constitutional or unconstitutional based on the Constitution.
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Hope this helps!
