marbury v. madison wayback wednesday

Humanities for Wisdom

marbury v. madison wayback wednesday

12/14/2016

4 Comments

Left to right: William Marbury, John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison.

This case was very important in that it gave the Judiciary [US Supreme court] the power to decide what is legal precedent and become an equal check and balance on the other branches: the legislative [Congress] and executive [President]. This case changed the way in which the United States Supreme Court was operating as an institution. This court has been making law for the United States for many years, and it does effect all of us. Below are links to watch the video we watched in class, research, and play online legal court video games. There is also the transcript link here. On page 231 of your textbook it has this information:

"Marbury v. Madison
(1803)

Background of the Case Shortly before Thomas Jefferson took office, John Adams had appointed William Marbury to be a justice of the peace. Adams had signed Marbury’s commission, but it was never delivered. Marbury sued to force Madison to give him the commission.

The Court’s Ruling
The Court ruled that the law Marbury based his claim on was unconstitutional.

The Court’s Reasoning
The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court the authority to hear a wide variety of cases, including those like Marbury’s. But the Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not have the power to make such a law. Why? Because the Constitution limits the types of cases the Supreme Court can hear. Thus, the law was in conflict with the Constitution and had to be struck down.

Why It Matters
Marbury v. Madison was important for several reasons. It confirmed the Supreme Court’s power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. By doing so, it established the Court as the final authority on the Constitution. This helped make the judicial branch of government equal to the other two branches. Chief Justice John Marshall and later federal judges would use this power of judicial review as a check on the legislative and executive branches. "

Also there is extra credit on the back side of the Handout from class. Please do not lose the papers; additionally, add them to the Table of Contents of your interactive notebook. Do not forget about the Supreme Court cases that were discussed in Race:The Power of an Illusion. The cases like Ozawa, Thind, Dred Scott, Cherokee cases, Plessy v. Ferguson, and others that changed people's lives forever. Facts presented in court and in everyday life are important, and our role is important that we try our best to tell the truth to seek a just outcome to peoples' unreasonable behavior.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/5/137/

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/about/episode1_video.html=1

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/5/137#

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/landmark_marbury.html

http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/supreme-1

http://games.sunnylandsclassroom.org/Preview/Default.aspx#

Here are three pdfs you might find interesting to download to your phone

First Freedoms

Under one Law transcript

Speak truth to power

4 Comments

Mr.C

12/13/2016 04:10:03 pm

Transcript of "One Nation Under Law" for your notes

KLARMAN
The issues change. Before the Civil War, the issues were slavery or state sovereignty, federalism. In the last part of the twentieth century, the issues are culture war issues. But again, you have this Constitution that doesn't yield real clear answers.

POWE
Justices are trying to apply the Constitution in light of all of American history and in light of the peculiar circumstances that we, as a nation, find ourselves in today. And it's hardly surprising that under all these circumstances, different people will have different views on what the Constitution means. It would be an incredibly weird country if everyone agreed on everything.

GILLMAN
The Court will never be that far out of tune with the prevailing attitudes and prejudices of its time. Nevertheless, when the Court speaks, it's supposed to speak for what the country stands for, our basic values, our highest aspirations. And so we put a lot of faith in the Court and a lot of us want the Court not to let us down.

NARRATOR
The Supreme Court did not always hold such sway in the life of the nation. In the early years of the Republic, justices were unsure how far their power extended and shy to exert it. One man changed all that.

POST
I think nobody until Marshall, until Marshall comes along, I think did anybody really have a coherent vision of how powerful this institution could become.

KOBYLKA
The base that Marshall built in law, and in tradition, transcends his life and animates the rest of American history. Part of the genius of John Marshall, is that in a very real sense, he invented the Supreme Court.

SHOW TITLE: ONE NATION UNDER LAW NARRATOR
The United States Supreme Court was written into being at the Constitutional Convention in 1787: "The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The Framers knew they wanted an independent judiciary, free from the pressures of politics, but little else was determined. The Supreme Court's inaugural session did not portend a powerful future.

POST
For the first year, nothing comes to the Court. They literally, they, they have a two-hour session in 1790. They have no cases, and they all go home. They were given a second floor room in some building in New York, I mean nobody sees this as having the, the majesty of the executive branch or the legislative branch.

ROBERTS
The Supreme Court was a Court of law, but it wasn't established as a Constitutional Court. So its early decisions tended to be just every day run-of-the-mill legal disputes, not great constitutional questions.

NARRATOR
Congress originally set the number of seats on the Court at six, lifetime appointments all. But it was no mean task keeping the bench filled, in part because the justices were compelled to ride circuit-hundreds of miles, twice a year-to preside over lower Courts.

POWE
It was terrible. Justice Chase, in 1800, is driving his carriage across the iced-over Susquehanna River and the ice breaks. And he is rescued almost dead from that. Circuit riding just, well, in some case you could say it came very close to killing the justices.

ROBERTS
It was not a job for those with a weak constitution. Membership on the Supreme Court was in a great deal of flux. People didn't stay on the Court very long. The first Chief Justice, John Jay, left to be governor of New York.

LAW
The president wanted to appoint John Jay to the Court again and he refused. He declined. He said, 'The Supreme Court is not an institution with lot of a lot of energy. It's just not a great job. I'm gonna take a pass on that.'

POST
It had so little prestige as an institution, at that point, that it was really an afterthought. The Court was off on the sideline and played almost no role.

NARRATOR
It was the tumble of partisan politics-not the imperatives of the Constitution, not the majesty of the law-that drew the Supreme Court into the momentous battles of the early Republic, that vaulted a 45-year-old Virginia politician named John Marshall to the bench, and that started the Court toward its destiny as a dynamic and co-equal branch of the federal government.

By the time George Washington retired from the Presidency in 1797, the country had split into factions, the first political parties: new President John Adams and Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall on one side, Vice President Thomas Jefferson and his new party on the other. Their differences seemed fundamental-and had widened as each side watched the democratically-fueled French Revolution devolve into mass murder of the aristocracy.

KLARMAN
For Marshall, the French Revolution was anarchy, attacking order, attacking property. Jefferson's response was it's a good thing to spill a little blood every once in a while. You need to do that. A little revolution is a good thing. It shakes people up.

NARRATOR
Feder

mrC

12/13/2016 04:13:20 pm

NARRATOR
Federalists didn't intend to let unchecked democracy-the mad passions of the people-threaten their fragile new Republic. To hold the mob in check, they championed a stout national government led by the educated and landed elite.

SIMON
Jefferson believed that the Federalists represented a new monarchy, not much different from that which we'd declared our independence from in Great Britain.

YOUNG
When Hamilton said "I think we need a standing army,"the Jeffersonians immediately assumed the worst. What are you gonna use this army for? To oppress us? To draw all power to yourself?

NARRATOR
The Federalists had, in fact, consolidated their power in government. They controlled the executive branch and the Congress and had appointed each and every federal judge.

From his Virginia plantation, Vice President Jefferson began running an all-out insurgency against the ruling party-a "second revolution" he called it. He meant to ride people power to the Presidency. As Jefferson stirred dissent, visions of the French Revolution danced in Federalist heads.

POST
Jefferson was known for his Francophile leanings. And there was real concern that there would be bloodshed in, in Washington, um, if Jefferson came in. And you know, heads would roll, um, almost literally.

GORDON-REED
You could look back at and say it was ridiculous to think that Jefferson was going to lead a revolution that led to bloodshed. But at the moment, things were pretty much up for grabs.

NARRATOR
The politics of the day were partisan . . . and ugly. And there was no precedent or tradition that demanded the judicial brand steer clear. Federalists-appointed lower-Court judges enforced the plainly unconstitutional Sedition Act, tossing Jeffersonian pamphleteers and politicians in jail for merely criticizing President Adams.

And as the election of 1800 neared, many of those judges campaigned openly against Thomas Jefferson. Then the Jeffersonians won . . . big.

Jefferson took the White House from Adams, and his party-men swept into majorities in the House and the Senate. But there was no way to sweep the nation's courts of Federalist partisans Jefferson despised. Judges were appointed for life. "The Federalists," wrote Jefferson, "have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold."

And John Adams meant to shore up the Federalist breastworks. In the aftermath of the election, the angry lame-duck President installed his close friend and then-secretary of state, John Marshall, as the new Chief Justice of the United States.

Marshall's appointment blocked Jefferson from naming his own Chief. And it sent a clear signal to the incoming President: John Marshall would be watching him.

GORDON-REED
Jefferson was building a country and he had a very extended vision of where things were going to go. And I think he became pretty hardcore about people who got in the way. And he saw Marshall as someone who was getting in the way.

NEWMYER
The swearing-in of Thomas Jefferson has got to be one of the great ironic moments in American history because you have Chief Justice Marshall swearing in his second cousin, Thomas Jefferson, and both men pretty much by that time hated one another.

They feel that the policies represented by the other person was detrimental to American civilization. It was as fundamental as that. So you have Marshall holding the Bible, Jefferson has his hand on the Bible swearing to uphold the Constitution, which Marshall is absolutely sure he was going to destroy.

NARRATOR
The first fight between Jefferson and Marshall was a fight picked by John Adams on his way out of town. That quarrel would spill into the United States Supreme Court . . .

On paper, Marbury vs. Madison involved a small technical question of administrative housekeeping, but in the political swirl of 1801, this seemingly straightforward legal case would determine the future of the Court-and test the cunning and ability of the new 45-year-old Chief Justice.

Marbury vs. Madison began with another breathtaking act of partisanship by the outgoing President, John Adams. Just weeks before Jefferson's inauguration, the lame-duck Federalist Congress had passed legislation swelling the federal courts - and Adams stuffed them full of anti-Jeffersonians.

SIMON
At the very end - literally, the last day - of Adams's presidency, he was busy signing commissions for these federal judgeships, including these justices of the peace. And the hour got very late. And he had to get the commissions signed. And then they were sent over to the secretary of state, who happened to be John Marshall. And Marshall had to put the seal of the United States on it. And then they were to be delivered to these designated justices of the peace.

YOUNG
John Marshall knows he can't deliver them all. He gives about half of them to his brother James to deliver. James doesn't get around to delivering them before time runs out. The key lesson of Marbury vs. Madison is: Don't give important documents t

Mr.C

12/13/2016 04:13:59 pm

NARRATOR
When Thomas Jefferson arrived at the executive offices, seventeen commissions sat signed, sealed and undelivered. He directed his new secretary of state, James Madison, to leave them lay.

Ten months later, a would-be Justice of the Peace named William Marbury showed up at the Supreme Court asking Marshall and his brethren to compel Madison to deliver his commission. John Marshall ordered Madison to show just cause for withholding Marbury's commission.

Madison didn't feel obliged to bow to the Court. He simply didn't answer. But when word of Marshall's demand spread through the Capitol, the Jeffersonians in Congress were not so passive.

YOUNG
Congress passes a law that basically closes down the Supreme Court for a full term. They just cancel the term by statute. Now there's nothing in the Constitution that says they can't do that specifically. On the other hand, it's a pretty aggressive attack on the Court.

NEWMYER
There was the real feeling on the part of the Justices that their days were numbered. And Marshall himself, I think, felt under considerable threat of impeachment.

NARRATOR
The Court was in its Congressionally-enforced recess for fourteen months while the Jeffersonians threatened to dismantle the entire Adams-built judiciary.

Marshall stayed home in Richmond, Virginia with his wife Polly and their six children, puzzling out his next move in Marbury v. Madison. He didn't have a lot of good options.

WEINBERG
If he backed down, if he was seen to back down, the Court would lose all prestige. It would take generations for the Court to recover from that act of cowardice. If, on the other hand, Marshall bravely gave an order to President Jefferson-"Command the secretary of state to convey the commission!"-the administration would disobey, pay no attention to the court order. And in that case, the Supreme Court of the United States would be a laughingstock.

YOUNG
Marshall doesn't want to have that situation because then the Court looks powerless,s and it sets a precedent that the Court doesn't have to be obeyed. Everything people do in this time is setting a precedent. They're very aware that it's the first time for everything.

NARRATOR
When Congress permitted the Supreme Court to reconvene in February of 1803, the first case on the docket was Marbury vs. Madison. The Court was meeting in the lobby of a Washington hotel, and partisans on both sides milled the halls, anxiously awaiting the Court's judgment. When Marshall announced the decision . . . it confounded almost everyone.

LAW
He says, well, "Mr. Marbury, you have been wronged. The Jefferson administration has completely illegally withheld your commission and that's a horrible, terrible thing. And we deeply feel your pain. However -- just when Marbury thought he had won -- see, you're in the wrong place to get any help. And this is not the proper tribunal for us to help you. So good luck with that. Bye."

GILLMAN
Most Jeffersonians thought of it as a victory for the Jeffersonian administration, because, in fact, they had won. This guy wanted to have a court order Madison to do something, and Marshall said no.

POST
It was trumpeted as something of a victory for Jefferson. Um, it made it hard for Jefferson, who I think realized very quickly that it wasn't such a big victory.

NARRATOR
It took some doing to untangle Marshall's opinion. The Chief Justice had taken Jefferson to task for trampling Marbury's rights; he'd also asserted the power to force the President to comply with a court order. But he'd run away from the real fight, explaining that he was powerless to issue such an order in Marbury, because in this particular case, the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction.

YOUNG
In order to hold that there's no jurisdiction, he has to strike down an act of Congress. And so as part of his holding that there is no jurisdiction, his way of backing out, in a sense, he reaches out and takes the power of judicial review to boot.

Mr.C

12/13/2016 04:15:19 pm

NARRATOR
The Court's power of judicial review-the ability to strike down any law 'repugnant to the Constitution'-was not written into the Constitution itself. Jefferson believed the Court had little standing to be the final word on the constitutionality of laws. In fact, he thought it dangerous to give so much power to men who were appointed for life and did not answer to voters.

But in his Marbury opinion, in his own hand, John Marshall scrawled into the record the Court's central power.

KOBYLKA
Judicial review is the capacity to say, 'This law does not comport with the Constitution; it's not really law, it's void.' The trick is that nothing in the Constitution says that the Supreme Court has this power, no language in Article Three, which creates the Courts, no language in any part of the Constitution says, 'The Court has the power to strike legislation.' We know the president can veto legislation because Article One, Section Seven says he can. We know the Supreme Court can strike down legislation as unconstitutional because John Marshall said it could.

ROBERTS
It was emphatically, as he said in Marbury vs. Madison, emphatically the province and duty of the Courts to say what the law is. And the Constitution is law. In most governments, if not all at that time, a Constitution was regarded as a political document. Marshall's real significant and unique contribution was to view the Constitution as law. And once you accept that, that the Constitution is law, then the courts have a significant role because courts tell you what the law means.

POST
He's asserting the constitutional equality of the Court in the constitutional scheme; that they were gonna push back; that they had a role to play, a major role to play, the major role to play perhaps, in interpreting the meaning of the, of the Constitutional text.

KOBYLKA
Marshall holds down a decision that Jefferson despises-the Court has power of judicial review-but does so in a way that Jefferson can't evade it. I mean, the only way Jefferson can get around the decision in, in Marbury v. Madison is to give Marbury his commission. Say, "I don't care what Marshall says. Here, here is your commission." Well, Jefferson's not gonna do that. That is classic Marshall.

YOUNG
So, pretty good day for John Marshall, right? He's avoided a political crisis. He's publicly scolded the President for behaving badly. And he's established the most important power that the Court owns. There is no Brown versus Board of Education, there is no Roe versus Wade, there is no Bush v. Gore without a power of judicial review.

NARRATOR
In 1803, the notion of the Supreme Court having the stature to decide a presidential election was laughable. John Marshall had barely extricated the Court from the political noose in Marbury . . . and its future hardly appeared secure.

Court sessions took place in a cramped, 'meanly furnished' Senate committee room. "An old potato hole of a place," one writer called it. Justices had no private chambers, no conference room, no library . . .nothing to suggest permanence.

Marshall was careful not to further antagonize the President. The Chief Justice shed the scarlet and ermine robe reminiscent of the British judges Jefferson despised, choosing to wear a plain, black robe. The other justices followed his lead. More important, Marshall was careful not to challenge the elected branches of the federal government.

GILLMAN
Marshall never again uses the power of judicial review against the national government. In effect, what you had was a negotiated settlement between Marshall and the Jeffersonians. The Jeffersonians were willing to agree to the idea of judicial review as long as they knew that federal judges could be trusted with the power. Marshall made the exercise of judicial power appear safe.

ROBERTS
Marshall established a much lower tone. He was very sensitive to the vulnerability of the Court and was quite anxious to establish it as a nonpartisan, non-political branch of government.

NARRATOR
His fellow justices quickly came to appreciate their Chief's ability to steer the Court through the roughest of political storms. They also came to appreciate his ability to add flair to their otherwise dull days and nights.

No justice was willing to subject his family to the swampy, mosquito-infested and primitive capital-under-construction, Washington City. So for the six to eight weeks the Court was in session each year, the justices lived as bachelors.

ROBERTS
John Marshall convinced the early justices that they oughta board together in the same boarding house so they could take their meals together. And he made sure they had plenty of Madeira to have at those meals. He was a very social, convivial host.

POST
Part of the atmosphere of being on the Court, was you were all in it together in this, almost a martial way, I guess. This was like their barracks. And you li-, you lived together, and then you, you, you think of ourselves as a, the band of

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