marbury v madison

background:

john adams was on his last days in his terms of presidency and was quickly appointing
members of his political party (the federalist party) to be judges of the peace aka the midnight
judges. it was two days before his end of presidency that he did this and had gotten the people
he appointed approved by the senate. it was mostly done in order to aggravate the oncoming
president, thomas jefferson, who was adams’s rival and a part of the rivaling party
(democratic-republican). the commission letters that marshall’s was supposed to deliver didn’t
all get sent out in time for jefferson’s term. due to that, jefferson had believed that the
commissions were in void and had ordered his secretary of state, john madison to not deliver
some of the letters. one of the people that had not received his commission letter was william
marbury, a member of the federalist party. he had sued madison for not giving him his letter and
had asked the supreme court to right up a writ of mandamus on madison, forcing him to comply.

jurisdiction:

-there were 6 supreme court judges at the time, but 2 did not vote in this case
-marshall
-chase
-washington
-paterson
-in marshall’s opinion it was shown that through this case they had to think about these 3
questions
-did marbury have a right to his commission?
-if marbury had a right to his commission, was there a legal way for him to get it, and if
so, what is it?
-if there was a way, would the supreme court legally be able to enforce it or issue it?
-it was a unanimous agreement siding with marbury (4-0)
-they had found that it was illegal for him to withhold the commission from marbury’s vestal legal
right
-^february 24,1803
-the law (judiciary act of 1789) that had allowed marbury to sue jefferson had been shut down
by the supreme court because they had noticed that it was unconstitutional
-he couldn’t have sued madison anymore
-the act had given more power to the supreme court than the constitution let on
-though they gave up some of their power after shutting down the judiciary act of 1789,
they had opened up the ideals of judicial review
-if they could declare that the judiciary act was unconstitutional that gave them free reign
to take any law that congress passed and over see it if they deem it breaking the rules of
the constitution
Reasoning:

They had all agreed that Marbury was in the right and had deserved the writ of
mandamus. They had wanted to give him the writ of mandamus, but the document that allowed
the Court to, the Judiciary Act of 1789, was then deemed unconstitutional. The Act was deemed
unconstitutional because it gave too much power to the Supreme Court. Due to it being
unconstitutional, they were not able to force Madison to give Marbury his commission. In a
sense, Madison won the case, but as a bigger picture, the Supreme Court won. This case was
the case that issued Judicial Review and was the first real case that had established it. Although
Marshall had known that Madison was in the wrong, he had thought of the bigger picture. If they
could declare that the Judiciary Act that had given them more power, they could take any law
that was passed by Congress and over see it if they thought that it was unconstitutional. They
reasoned the case the way that they did so that they could strengthen Judicial Review and
further strengthen our system of checks and balances. It gave them equal power and the ability
to check over the other branches.