Marbury v. Madison

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that established the principle of judicial review, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes they find to violate the Constitution of the United States. Decided in 1803, Marbury is regarded as the single most important decision in American constitutional law.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp It established that the U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals. It also helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.

The case originated in early 1801 and stemmed from the rivalry between outgoing President John Adams and incoming President Thomas Jefferson.Template:Sfnp Adams, a member of the Federalist Party, had lost the U.S. presidential election of 1800 to Jefferson, who led the Democratic-Republican Party. 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 the Democratic-Republicans.Template:Sfnp The outgoing 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.Template:Sfnp Jefferson believed the undelivered commissions were void and instructed his Secretary of State, James Madison, not to deliver them.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp

In an opinion written by Marshall, who by then had been appointed Chief Justice of the United States, the Supreme Court held that Madison's refusal to deliver Marbury's commission was illegal. The Court also held that it was normally proper in such situations for a court to order the government official in question to deliver the commission.Template:Sfnp In Marbury's case, however, the Court did not order Madison to comply. Examining the law Congress had passed to define Supreme Court 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.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp 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.

Background

In the fiercely contested U.S. presidential election of 1800, the three main candidates were Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and the incumbent president, John Adams.Template:Sfnp Adams espoused the pro-business and pro-national-government politics of the Federalist Party and its leader, Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and Burr were leaders of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party, which favored agriculture and decentralization. American public opinion had gradually turned against the Federalists in the months leading up to the election. The shift was mainly due to the Federalists' use of the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, but also due to growing tensions with Great Britain, with whom the Federalists favored close ties.Template:Sfnp Jefferson easily won the election's popular vote but only narrowly defeated Adams in the Electoral College.<ref name=":0" />

After the results of the election became clear, Adams and the Federalists became determined to exercise their remaining influence before Jefferson took office, and they did everything they could to fill federal offices with "anti-Jeffersonians" who were loyal to the Federalists.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp On MarchTemplate:Nbsp2, 1801, just two days before his presidential term ended,Template:Efn Adams nominated nearly 60 Federalist supporters to new circuit judge and justice of the peace positions the Federalist-controlled Congress had recently created. These last-minute nomineesTemplate:Mdashwhom Jefferson's supporters derisively called the "Midnight Judges"Template:Mdashincluded William Marbury, a prosperous businessman from Maryland.Template:Sfnp An ardent Federalist, Marbury was active in Maryland politics and had been a vigorous supporter of the Adams presidency.Template:Sfnp

The following day, March 3, the Senate approved Adams's nominations en masse. The appointees' commissions were immediately written out on parchment, then signed by Adams and sealed by Secretary of State John Marshall, who had been named the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in January but agreed to continue serving as Secretary of State for the remaining weeks of Adams's presidency.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Marshall then dispatched his younger brother James Markham Marshall to deliver the commissions to the appointees.Template:Sfnp With only one day left before Jefferson's inauguration, James Marshall was able to deliver most of the commissions, but a fewTemplate:Mdashincluding Marbury'sTemplate:Mdashwere not delivered.Template:Sfnp

The day after, March 4, 1801, Jefferson was sworn in and became the third President of the United States. Jefferson instructed his new Secretary of State, James Madison, to withhold the undelivered commissions.Template:Sfnp In Jefferson's opinion, the commissions were void because they had not been delivered before Adams left office.Template:Sfnp Without their commissions, the appointees were unable to assume their new offices and duties. Over the next several months, Madison steadfastly refused to deliver Marbury's commission to him. Finally, in December 1801, Marbury filed a lawsuit against Madison at the Supreme Court, asking the court to force Madison to deliver his commission.Template:Sfnp This lawsuit resulted in the case of Marbury v. Madison.

Decision

On February 24, 1803,Template:Efn the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 4–0Template:Efn decision against Marbury. The Court's opinion was written by Chief Justice John Marshall, who structured the Court's opinion around a series of three questions it answered in turn:

• First, did Marbury have a right to his commission?
• Second, if Marbury had a right to his commission, then was there a legal remedy for him to obtain it?
• Third, if there was such a remedy, then could the Supreme Court legally issue it?Template:Sfnp

Marbury's right to his commission

The Court began by holding that Marbury had a legal right to his commission. Marshall reasoned that all appropriate procedures were followed: the commission had been properly signed and sealed.Template:Sfnp Madison had argued that the commissions were void if not delivered. The Court disagreed, saying that the delivery of the commission was merely a custom, not an essential element of the commission itself.Template:Sfnp

The Court said that because Marbury's commission was valid, Madison's withholding it was "violative of a vested legal right" on Marbury's part.Template:Sfnp

Marbury's legal remedy

Turning to the second question, the Court said that the law provided Marbury a remedy for Madison's unlawful withholding of his commission. Marshall wrote that "it is a general and indisputable rule, that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law, whenever that right is invaded." This rule derives from the ancient Roman legal maxim Template:Lang ("where there is a legal right, there is a legal remedy"), which was well established in the English common law.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp In what the American legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar called "one of the most important and inspiring passages" of the opinion,Template:Sfnp Marshall wrote: Template:Blockquote The Court then confirmed that a writ of mandamusTemplate:Mdasha type of court order that commands a government official to perform an act his official duties legally require him to performTemplate:Mdashwas the proper remedy for Marbury's situation.Template:Sfnp But this raised the issue of whether the Court, which was part of the judicial branch of the government, had the power to command Madison, who as secretary of state was part of the executive branch of the government.Template:Sfnp The Court held that so long as the remedy involved a mandatory duty to a specific person and not a political matter left to discretion, the courts could provide the legal remedy.Template:Sfnp Borrowing a phrase John Adams had drafted in 1779 for the Massachusetts State Constitution, Marshall wrote: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men."<ref>Template:Harvp, quoting Marbury, 5 U.S. at 163.</ref>

The Supreme Court's jurisdiction

File:USCapitol1800.jpg

A painting of the U.S. Capitol as it appeared around the time of the Marbury decision (Template:Circa). In addition to being the home of the U.S. Congress, the Capitol also housed the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 until the Supreme Court Building's completion in 1935.<ref>Template:Cite report</ref>

This brought the Court to the third question: did the Supreme Court have proper jurisdiction over the case that would allow it to legally issue the writ of mandamus that Marbury wanted?Template:Sfnp The answer depended entirely on how the Court interpreted the Judiciary Act of 1789. Congress had passed the Judiciary Act to establish the American federal court system. Section 13 of the Judiciary Act sets out the Supreme Court's original and appellate jurisdictions.

Marbury had argued that the wording of Section 13 had given the Supreme Court the authority to issue writs of mandamus when hearing cases under exclusive (original) jurisdiction, not only under appellate jurisdiction.Template:Sfnp As Marshall explains in the opinion, Template:Em gives a court the power to be the first to hear and decide a case; Template:Em gives a court the power to hear an appeal from a lower court's decision and to "revise and correct" the previous decision.Template:Sfnp The portion of Section 13 that speaks of the Court's power to issue writs of mandamus appears after its sentence on appellate jurisdiction, not with the earlier sentences on original jurisdiction, but a semicolon separates it from the clause on appellate jurisdiction. Section 13 does not make clear whether the mandamus clause was intended to be read as part of the appellate clause or on its own—in the opinion, Marshall quoted only the end of the sectionTemplate:Sfnp—and the wording of the law can plausibly be read either way.Template:Sfnp

In the end, the Court agreed with Marbury and interpreted Section 13 of the Judiciary Act to have authorized the Court to exercise original jurisdiction over cases involving disputes over writs of mandamus.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp This interpretation, however, meant that the Judiciary Act conflicted with Article III of the Constitution. Article III defines the Supreme Court's jurisdiction as follows:

Article III says that the Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction over cases where a U.S. state is a party to a lawsuit or where a lawsuit involves foreign dignitaries. Neither of these categories covered Marbury's lawsuit, which was a dispute over a writ of mandamus for his justice of the peace commission. According to the Constitution, therefore, the Court did not have original jurisdiction over a case like Marbury's.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Because the Court had interpreted the Judiciary Act to have given it original jurisdiction over lawsuits for writs of mandamus, this meant the Judiciary Act had taken the Constitution's initial scope for the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, which did not cover cases involving writs of mandamus, and expanded it to include them. The Court ruled that Congress cannot increase the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction as it was set down in the Constitution, and it therefore held that the relevant portion of Section 13 of the Judiciary Act violated Article III of the Constitution.Template:Sfnp

Judicial review and striking down the law

File:Marbury v Madison John Marshall by Swatjester.jpg

Inscription on the wall of the Supreme Court Building from Marbury v. Madison, in which Chief Justice John Marshall (statue, foreground) outlined the concept of judicial review.

After ruling that Section 13 of the Judiciary Act conflicted with the Constitution, the Court struck down that section in its first ever declaration of the power of judicial review.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The Court ruled that American federal courts have the power to refuse to give any consideration to congressional legislation that is inconsistent with their interpretation of the ConstitutionTemplate:Mdasha move colloquially known as "striking down" laws.Template:Sfnp

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly give the federal judiciary the power of judicial review.Template:Sfnp Nevertheless, the Court's opinion gives many reasons in support of the judiciary's possession of the power. First, Marshall reasoned that the written nature of the Constitution inherently established judicial review.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Borrowing from Alexander Hamilton's essay Federalist No. 78, Marshall wrote: Template:Blockquote Second, the Court declared that deciding the constitutionality of the laws it applies is an inherent part of the American judiciary's role.Template:Sfnp In what has become the most famous and most frequently quoted line of the opinion, Marshall wrote: Template:Blockquote Marshall reasoned that the Constitution places limits on the American government's powers, and that those limits would be meaningless unless they were subject to judicial review and enforcement.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp He reasoned that the Constitution's provisions limiting Congress's powerTemplate:Mdashsuch as the prohibitions on ex post facto laws and bills of attainderTemplate:Mdashmeant that in some cases judges would be forced to choose between enforcing the Constitution or following Congress.Template:Sfnp Marshall held "virtually as a matter of iron logic" that in the event of conflict between the Constitution and statutory laws passed by Congress, constitutional law must be supreme.Template:Sfnp

Third, the Court said that denying the supremacy of the Constitution over Congress's acts would mean that "courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law."<ref>Template:Harvp, quoting Marbury, 5 U.S. at 178.</ref> This, Marshall wrote, would make Congress omnipotent, because none of the laws it passed would ever be invalid.Template:Sfnp Template:Blockquote

Marshall then gave several other reasons in favor of judicial review. He reasoned that the authorization in Article III of the Constitution that the Court can decide cases arising "under this Constitution" implied that the Court had the power to strike down laws conflicting with the Constitution.Template:Sfnp This, Marshall wrote, meant that the Founders were willing to have the American judiciary use and interpret the Constitution when judging cases. He also said that federal judges' oaths of office—in which they swear to discharge their duties impartially and "agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States"—requires them to support the Constitution.Template:Sfnp Lastly, Marshall reasoned that judicial review is implied in the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, because it declares that the supreme law of the United States is the Constitution and laws made "in Pursuance thereof".Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Having given his list of reasons, Marshall concluded the Court's opinion by reaffirming the Court's ruling on the invalidity of Section 13 of the Judiciary Act and, therefore, the Court's inability to issue Marbury's writ of mandamus. Template:Blockquote

Analysis

Political dilemma

File:Marshall-john-engraving-LOC-1808.jpg

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.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp On the other hand, a simple ruling against Marbury would have given Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans a clear political victory over the Federalists.Template:Sfnp

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.Template:Sfnp The American political historian Robert G. McCloskey described:

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.Template:Sfnp He introduced judicial reviewTemplate:Mdasha move Jefferson decriedTemplate:Mdashbut 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.Template:Sfnp 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."Template:Sfnp 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."Template:Sfnp The American legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky concludes: "The brilliance of Marshall's opinion cannot be overstated."Template:Sfnp

Legal criticism

The Supreme Court's historic decision in Marbury v. Madison continues to be the subject of critical analysis and inquiry.Template:Sfnp In a 1955 Harvard Law Review article, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter emphasized that one can criticize Marshall's opinion in Marbury without demeaning it: "The courage of Marbury v. Madison is not minimized by suggesting that its reasoning is not impeccable and its conclusion, however wise, not inevitable."<ref name=":0">Template:Harvp</ref>

Criticisms of Marshall's opinion in Marbury usually fall into two general categories.Template:Sfnp First, some criticize the way Marshall "strove" to reach the conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court has constitutional authority over the other branches of the U.S. government. Today, American courts generally follow the principle of "constitutional avoidance": if a certain interpretation of a law raises constitutional problems, they prefer to use alternative interpretations that avoid these problems, as long as the alternative interpretations are plausible.Template:Sfnp In Marbury, Marshall could have avoided the constitutional questions through different legal rulings. If the Court had ruled that Marbury did not have a right to his commission until it was delivered, or if he had ruled that refusals to honor political appointments could only be remedied through the political process and not the judicial process, then it would have disposed of the case immediately and the Court would not have reached the case's constitutional issues.Template:Sfnp Marshall did not do so, and many legal scholars have criticized him for it.Template:Sfnp Some scholars have responded that the "constitutional avoidance" principle did not exist in 1803 and that it is "only a general guide for Court action", not an "ironclad rule".Template:Sfnp Alternatively, it has also been argued that the claim that Marshall "strove" to create a controversy largely vanishes when the case is viewed from the legal perspective of the late 18th century when American colonies' and states' supreme courts were largely modeled on England's Court of King's Bench, which inherently possessed mandamus powers.Template:Sfnp

Second, Marshall's arguments for the Court's authority are sometimes said to be mere "series of assertions", rather than substantive reasons logically laid out to support his position.Template:Sfnp Scholars generally agree that Marshall's series of assertions regarding the U.S. Constitution and the actions of the other branches of government do not "inexorably lead to the conclusion that Marshall draws from them."Template:Sfnp Marshall's assertion of the American judiciary's authority to review executive branch actions was the most controversial issue when Marbury was first decided, and several subsequent U.S. presidents have tried to dispute it, to varying degrees.Template:Sfnp

Additionally, it is questionable whether Marshall should have participated in the adjudication of the Marbury case, because he had played a role in the underlying dispute.Template:Sfnp Marshall was still the acting secretary of state when Adams nominated Marbury and the other "Midnight Judges". He had signed Marbury and the other appointees' commissions and had been responsible for their delivery.Template:Sfnp This potential conflict of interest raises strong grounds for Marshall to have recused himself from the case.Template:Sfnp In hindsight, the fact that Marshall did not recuse himself from Marbury is likely indicative of his eagerness to hear the case and use it to establish judicial review.Template:Sfnp

Legacy

Marbury v. Madison is regarded as the single most important decision in American constitutional law.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp It established U.S. federal judges' authority to review the constitutionality of Congress's legislative acts,Template:Sfnp and to this day the Supreme Court's power to review the constitutionality of American laws at both the federal and state level "is generally rested upon the epic decision of Marbury v. Madison."Template:Sfnp

File:Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum to Richard M. Nixon to Testify and Bring Documents or Objects Listed, with Attached Schedule of Documents or Objects to be Produced by or on Behalf of Richard M. Nixon - NARA - 7582824 (page 1).jpg

The subpoena duces tecum (order to bring items as evidence) issued to President Richard Nixon that was the center of the dispute in the 1974 judicial review case United States v. Nixon.

Although the Court's opinion in Marbury established the power of judicial review in American federal law, it did not invent or create it. Some 18th-century British jurists had argued that English courts had the power to circumscribe Parliament.Template:Sfnp The idea became widely accepted in Colonial AmericaTemplate:Mdashespecially in Marshall, Jefferson, and Madison's native VirginiaTemplate:Mdashunder the theory that in America only the people were sovereign, not the government, and so the courts should only implement legitimate laws.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp American courts' "independent power and duty to interpret the law" was well established by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787,Template:Sfnp and Hamilton had defended the concept in Federalist No. 78. In addition, the 1796 Supreme Court case Hylton v. United States considered whether a tax on carriages was constitutional, though the Court ruled that the statute in question was in fact constitutional and did not actually exercise the power.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nevertheless, Marshall's opinion in Marbury was the Supreme Court's first mention of, and exercise of, that power. It made the practice more routine, rather than exceptional, and prepared the way for the Court's opinion in the 1819 case McCulloch v. Maryland, in which Marshall implied that the Supreme Court was the supreme interpreter of the U.S. Constitution.Template:Sfnp

Marbury also established that the power of judicial review covers actions by the executive branch—the President and his cabinet members. However, American courts' power of judicial review over executive branch actions only extends to matters in which the executive has a legal duty to act or refrain from acting, and does not extend to matters that are entirely within the President's discretion, such as whether to veto a bill or whom to appoint to an office. This power has been the basis of later important Supreme Court decisions. In its 1974 decision United States v. Nixon, for example, the Supreme Court held that President Richard Nixon had to comply with a subpoena to provide tapes of his conversations for use in a criminal trial related to the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Although it is a potent check on the other branches of the U.S. government, federal courts rarely exercised the power of judicial review in early American history. After deciding Marbury in 1803, the Supreme Court did not strike down another federal law until 1857, when it struck down the Missouri Compromise in its now-infamous decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, a ruling that contributed to the outbreak of the American Civil War.Template:Sfnp Template:Clear

References

Works cited

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Further reading

• Template:Cite book (one introduction to the case)
• Template:Cite book (Claims that it is a mistake to read the case as claiming a judicial power to tell the President or Congress what they can or cannot do under the Constitution.)
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• James M. O'Fallon, The Case of Benjamin More: A Lost Episode in the Struggle over Repeal of the 1801 Judiciary Act, 11 Template:Smallcaps 43 (1993).
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External links

• Template:Caselaw source
• Primary Documents in American History: Marbury v. Madison from the Library of Congress
• "John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and Judicial ReviewTemplate:SndHow the Court Became Supreme" Lesson plan for grades 9–12 from National Endowment for the Humanities
• The 200th Anniversary of Marbury v. Madison: The Reasons We Should Still Care About the Decision, and The Lingering Questions It Left Behind
• The Establishment of Judicial Review
• The 200th Anniversary of Marbury v. Madison: The Supreme Court's First Great Case
• Case Brief for Marbury v. Madison at Lawnix.com
• Template:Internet Archive short film
• "Supreme Court Landmark Case Marbury v. Madison" from C-SPAN's Landmark Cases: Historic Supreme Court Decisions
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