Significance: This ruling established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, giving the Court the final decision on whether laws passed by Congress were constitutional. This decision firmly set the judiciary’s place in the system of checks and balances.
Background: Late in the administration of Federalist president John Adams, William Marbury and several others were given commissions as justices of the peace, but they did not take office before the new Democratic-Republican government took over. The new government, led by Thomas Jefferson as president and James Madison as secretary of state, refused to deliver the commissions. Marbury sued Madison, taking advantage of a law passed by Congress that allowed him to complain directly to the Supreme Court. He asked the Court to order the delivery of the commissions in defiance of the president.
Decision: This case was argued on February 11, 1803, and decided on February 24, 1803, by a vote of 5 to 0. Chief Justice John Marshall spoke for the unanimous Court, which ruled against ordering Madison to deliver Marbury’s commission. Chief Justice Marshall stated in his ruling that although the law allowed Marbury to take his case directly to the Supreme Court, the Constitution had already determined that this type of case must go through the lower courts first, and the Constitution must take priority over congressional law.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?
“. . . Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.”
