Editing Marbury v. Madison (section)

===Political dilemma===
[[File:Marshall-john-engraving-LOC-1808.jpg|thumb|An 1808 engraving of Chief Justice John Marshall by French portrait painter [[Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin]]]]

Besides its legal issues, the case of ''Marbury v. Madison'' also created a difficult political dilemma for John Marshall and the Supreme Court.{{sfnp|McCloskey|2010|p=26}} If the Court had ruled in Marbury's favor and issued a writ of mandamus ordering Madison to deliver Marbury's commission, then Jefferson and Madison would probably have simply ignored the writ. This would have made the Court look impotent and emphasized the shakiness of the early American judiciary.{{sfnp|McCloskey|2010|p=26}} On the other hand, a simple ruling against Marbury would have given Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans a clear political victory over the Federalists.{{sfnp|McCloskey|2010|p=26}}

Marshall solved both problems. First, he had the Court rule that Madison's withholding of Marbury's commission was illegal, which pleased the Federalists. Then, however, he also ruled that the Court could not grant Marbury his requested writ of mandamus, which gave Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans the result they desired. Lastly, in what the American legal scholar [[Laurence Tribe]] calls "an oft-told tale ... [that] remains awe-inspiring", Marshall had the Court rule in a way that maneuvered Marbury's simple petition for a writ of mandamus into a case that presented a question that went to the heart of American constitutional law itself.{{sfnp|Tribe|2000|p=208, note 5}} The American political historian [[Robert G. McCloskey]] described:

{{blockquote
|text=[''Marbury v. Madison''] is a masterwork of indirection, a brilliant example of Marshall's capacity to sidestep danger while seeming to court it. ... The danger of a head-on clash with the Jeffersonians was averted by the denial of jurisdiction: but, at the same time, the declaration that the commission was illegally withheld scotched any impression that the Court condoned the administration's behavior. These negative maneuvers were artful achievements in their own right. But the touch of genius is evident when Marshall, not content with having rescued a bad situation, seizes the occasion to set forth the doctrine of judicial review. It is easy for us to see in retrospect that the occasion was golden, ... but only a judge of Marshall's discernment could have recognized it.{{sfnp|McCloskey|2010|pp=25–27}}
}}

Marshall had been looking for a case suitable for introducing judicial review and was eager to use the situation in ''Marbury'' to establish his claim.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 1.4(a), p. 55}} He introduced judicial review{{mdash}}a move Jefferson decried{{mdash}}but used it to strike down a provision of a law that he read to have expanded the Supreme Court's powers, and thereby produced Jefferson's hoped-for result of Marbury losing his case.{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§ 2.2.1, p. 46}} Marshall "seized the occasion to uphold the institution of judicial review, but he did so in the course of reaching a judgment that his political opponents could neither defy nor protest."{{sfnp|Fallon|Manning|Meltzer|Shapiro|2015|p=69}} Although Jefferson criticized the Court's decision, he accepted it, and Marshall's opinion in ''Marbury'' "articulate[d] a role for the federal courts that survives to this day."{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§ 2.2.1, pp. 46–47}} The American legal scholar [[Erwin Chemerinsky]] concludes: "The brilliance of Marshall's opinion cannot be overstated."{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§ 2.2.1, p. 46}}