To the John Marshall is judged by lawyers and historians to be the greatest Chief Justice in the history of the Supreme Court. He may also be the most unappreciated and neglected figure in American history, for the imprint he left on our nation and government was enormous, yet he is not well known. After years of public service in various capacities, including military duty under George Washington during the Revolution, and a distinguished legal career, Marshall was appointed Chief Justice by President John Adams in one of his final acts before leaving office.
Marshall was a Federalist who brought his attitudes of political nationalism to the bench. Yet within a few years of his appointment, most of the Federalist judges on the court had been replaced by Republicans appointed by Jefferson or Madison. The decisions that Marshall wrote were, nevertheless, all unanimous or nearly so, a tribute to Marshall's astute legal reasoning, his persuasiveness and his leadership of the Court. Appointed by Adams in 1801, Marshall served as Chief Justice of the United States through almost nine presidential terms—Jefferson through Jackson. When Marshall died in 1835, John Quincy Adams said that Marshall's appointment was his father's greatest gift to the nation. John Adams himself had called the appointment his proudest act.
Jefferson had little use for courts in general or for John Marshall in particular. (There may have been personal animosity between the two men, who were distantly related, that had nothing to do with politics.)34 In any case Jefferson went to his grave calling Marshall a detriment to American government. The two great men were at their worst when confronting each other. It began with the case of Mar-bury v. Madison.
William Marbury, appointed by John Adams as Justice of the Peace for the District of Columbia, was one of the "midnight judges," so called because they were appointed by Adams at the last minute under the Judiciary Act of 1801. When Jefferson became president he discovered that Marbury had not received his warrant, ironically because of an oversight by Marshall, who had been acting Secretary of State before becoming Chief Justice. Under the 1789 Judiciary Act, judges could sue for writs of mandamus—in this case getting the court to order the warrant delivered. Marbury sued for his warrant, but Jefferson ordered Secretary of State Madison not to deliver it. The case eventually made its way to the Marshall Court.
Marshall was in a tight spot. By now it was clear that Jefferson wanted to keep the courts, including the Supreme Court, weak. If Marshall ordered Madison to deliver Marbury's warrant and Madison (as directed by Jefferson) refused, there was little Marshall could do, and the Court would be further weakened. There was no constitutional means for the Court to enforce its own rulings in the face of presidential defiance.
Marshall found a clever way around the dilemma, a way that sacrificed poor Marbury but strengthened the Court immeasurably. Marshall said that Marbury was entitled to his warrant, but could not sue for it in the Supreme Court, as he had been granted the right to do in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Marshall found that portion of the act in conflict with the Constitution, which said that the Supreme Court had only appellate jurisdiction in such cases.
He asserted the right of the Court to declare that section of the law null and void—in other
34 Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (New York: Holt, 1996) 11.
Words, unconstitutional. Authority to review legislation is called "judicial review," and while Marshall did not invent it, he claimed that power for the Supreme Court. Marbury is considered by many to be Marshall's most famous and important decision. (Later Marshall decisions will be discussed below.)
World History
