• Events
• Legal Proceeding

Marbury v Madison

The power of the Supreme Court has evolved over time, through a series of milestone court cases. One of the Court's most fundamental powers is judicial review - the power to judge the constitutionality of any act or law of the executive or legislative branch. Some of the Framers expected the Supreme Court to take on the role of determining the constitutionality of Congress's laws, but the Constitution did not explicitly assign it to the Court. Marbury v Madison, the 1803 landmark Supreme Court case, established the power of judicial review. From the modest claim of William Marbury, who sought a low-paying appointment as a District of Columbia Justice of the Peace, emerged a Supreme Court decision that established one of the cornerstones of the American constitutional system.

In March 1801, in the final days of his administration, President John Adams appointed William Marbury as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia, but the Secretary of State, John Marshall, failed to deliver it. When the incoming Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver Marbury's commission, Marbury sued to obtain it. He asked the Supreme Court to order Madison to deliver the commission.

John Marshall, who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1801, wrote the landmark decision. The Court's opinion declared the law that authorized the Supreme Court to act on Marbury's behalf to be unconstitutional. Never before had the Supreme Court exercised its authority to declare an act of Congress to be unconstitutional. With this ruling on an apparently trivial matter, Marshall set the course for the judiciary to be a coequal branch of government.

This document bears the marks of the Capitol fire of 1898. - US National Archives