7 What Case Established Judicial Review for the Supreme Court

Judicial Review

The Upshot:  Does the Constitution Give the Supreme Courtroom the Power to Invalidate the
Actions of Other Branches of Regime?

Introduction
In 1800 the Federalists and their candidate, President John Adams, lost the election to Thomas Jefferson.  Early on in 1801 the lame-duck Federalist Congress enacted a controversial Judiciary Act that created 58 new judgeships, including 42 justiceships of the peace, for Adams to appoint.  Jefferson complained that the Federalists "have retired into the judiciary equally a stronghold."  On the night March three, 1801, John Marshall, acting as secretary of state, affixed the official seal to the commissions for the justices of the peace.  He did not, however, evangelize the commissions.  The next twenty-four hours, after Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, he directed the new secretarial assistant of state, James Madison, to withhold delivery of 17 of the 42 commissions, including that of William Marbury.  William Marbury sued for a writ of mandamus to require Madison to hand over his commission.
William Marbury The decision in Marbury's example, written by Chief Justice John Marshall (the very same John Marshall who affixed the seal to Marbury's commission--talk nearly a conflict of interest!) established and justified the power of judicial review.  It is the first example read by virtually every showtime-year law educatee and is generally considered the greatest of all landmark cases.  Marshall strained to reach his upshot.  The plain words of Department 13 of the Judiciary Deed point that Marbury went to the wrong court or invoked the wrong statute (or both), but Marshall proceeded every bit if the adapt were authorized by Section xiii and then declared the statute unconstitutional on the grounds that it purported to aggrandize the Court'southward original jurisdiction in violation of Article Iii.  Marbury's arrange was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.  Marshall's conclusion--brilliant in its conception--allowed the Court to brand Jefferson a violator of civil rights without issuing an order that the President could have ignored.

Case
Marbury vs. Madison (1803)

Fragment from John Marshall's Handwritten Conclusion

Questions

1. Is judicial review a good idea? Should ix unelected judges be able to tell our elected representatives what they tin and cannot exercise?
2. Are courts more likely to block an enlightened consensus with their adherence to outdated principles or to protect the politically weak from oppressive majorities?
3.  Are judges, protected with lifetime tenure and drawn by and large from the educated course, more than likely to be reflective and above the passing enthusiasms that bulldoze legislative activeness?
4.  Does Marbury mean that legislators or members of the executive branch have no responsibility to judge the constitutionality of their ain deportment?
v.  Could we have a workable organization of government without judicial review?

"The prime number and most necessary function of the Courtroom has been that of validation, non that of invalidation.  What a regime of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some means of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers."

--Professor Charles L. Black

Links
Marbury v. Madison Groundwork & Players
(James Madison Univ.)

Judicial Review (Wikipedia) 1800-1809 American Events Timeline

John Marshall - Definer of a Nation

1803 Petition, Fence & Vote of Wm. Marbury & Others
(from Annals of Congress)

Pitching quoits

Q uoits, Anyone?: The Personality Differences of John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson "[John Marshall] was proud of his skills in pitching quoits--a game involving a kind of round horseshoe--and could be observed at the Quoits Social club in Richmond toward the end of his life downing Madeira and rum  punch, getting downwards on his hands and knees earnestly measuring the distance between his quoit and those of his opponents, and and then shouting in unaffected happiness when he won.  Information technology is difficult to imagine the withdrawn and aloof Jefferson in a similar posture." --Jeffrey Rosen, The Supreme Courtroom: The Personalities and Rivalries That Divers America (2006).

Chief Justice John Marshall

The Judiciary Human action  (Department 13):

     The deed to establish the judicial courts of the The states authorizes the supreme courtroom "to issue writs of mandamus, in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law, to whatsoever courts appointed, or persons holding role, nether the authorization of the The states."

Article 3 of Constitution
Section. 2

     The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the U.s. shall be a Political party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--betwixt a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of dissimilar States; --between Citizens of the same Land claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a Country, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

      In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall take original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Courtroom shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both every bit to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations every bit the Congress shall brand.

Original Intent & Judicial Review

The Constitution does not expressly provide for judicial review.  What should be fabricated of this fact?  Does information technology advise that the framers did not intend to give the courts such a power?  Not necessarily, although that is one explanation for its absenteeism.  Information technology is too possible that the framers thought the ability of judicial review was sufficiently articulate from the structure of government that information technology need not exist expressly stated.  A third possibility is that the framers didn't think that the issue would ever come up, because Congress would never pass legislation exterior of its enumerated powers.

Only 11 of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, according to Madison's notes, expressed an opinion on the desirability of judicial review.  Of those that did so, ix generally supported the idea and two opposed. I delegate, James Wilson, argued that the courts should accept the even broader power to strike down any unjust federal or state legislation.  Information technology may also be worth noting that over half of the 13 original states gave their own judges some power of judicial review.

Footnote: The Flying Fish Instance Two Views on Seizures John Adams T. Jefferson Vice President Thomas Jefferson opposed the 1799 gild of President  Adams allowing the seizing of ships.

Many people know the first  Supreme Court decision to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional (It's Marbury, of course), but few people could identify the Courtroom's outset decision declaring Executive Co-operative action to exist unconstitutional. Trivial five Barreme (1804), called the Flying Fish example, involved an social club by President John Adams, issued in 1799 during our brief war with French republic,  authorizing the Navy to seize ships jump for French ports.  The president's order was inconsistent with an act of Congress declaring the government to take no such potency.  Subsequently a Navy Captain in December 1799 seized the Danish vessel, the Flight Fish, pursuant to Adams'due south order , the owners of the ship sued the helm for trespass in U. S. maritime courtroom.  On appeal, C. J. Marshall rejected the captain's argument that he could not exist sued because he was simply post-obit presidential orders.  The Court noted that commanders "act at their own peril" when they obey invalid orders--and the president'south society was outside of his powers, given the congressional action.

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Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/judicialrev.htm

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