It goes back to the election of 1800,
when Thomas Jefferson and the Democrat-Republicans
beat the Federalists of John Adams.
And it's full of politics because
Adams, the last time he was in office,
appointed these judges.
And when Jefferson came in,
he decided he didn't want those judges.
Back then,
the inauguration, the change of administration...
it didn't really happen until March,
so you had this period where
Congress was in session,
but the president really hadn't changed.
In that two or three months,
the Federalists and President Adams,
who had just lost,
they realized
they're about to become the minority party
for the first time ever.
And both the executive
and the legislative branches
were gonna be dominated by their opponents.
So, John Adams and his Federalist colleagues
are trying to do whatever they can
to stay in power.
So, one of the plans that they devise
is to expand the number of judgeships
in the federal judiciary.
Adams's thought in all this was,
on the way out,
I'm going to appoint a whole bunch of judges
and they're gonna carry on my legacy.
They passed a law
that is nicknamed the Midnight Judges Act.
John Adams is literally signing judicial commissions,
nominating people,
getting them confirmed by the Senate,
into the waning hours of his presidency,
before Jefferson takes office.
And what's interesting about this
is that John Marshall,
who ultimately becomes chief justice
of the Supreme Court
as a part of this whole process,
previously, he is secretary of state,
and he's the one that physically has to
deliver the commission
to all of these new judges.
But they ran out of time.
Whenever Thomas Jefferson comes into office,
he realizes that there's all these
undelivered judicial commissions
for Federalist judges.
There's a stack of commissions on the desk,
and Jefferson says,
we don't want Federalists as judges.
And he orders his secretary of state,
James Madison,
to not deliver them.
It's really a political decision.
Jefferson resented the Federalists;
he thought there were too many Federalists
in the judiciary.
So he wouldn't deliver these appointments.
One of these judges was
Marbury.
It just so happened that
Marbury had a friend
who was the former attorney general
for the United States.
And his friends said,
well, there was a statute passed
several years prior
that allowed the Supreme Court
the authority to issue
something called a writ of mandamus.
A writ of mandamus –
it's basically a mandate.
So Congress said,
if need be
Supreme Court, you can mandate
that something happen.
So, Marbury says,
I know – I'll ask the Supreme Court
for a writ of mandamus
to give me the commission as a federal judge.
Now, there's a lot of irony in this
because John Marshall,
who was the Supreme Court Chief Justice,
was also in charge of delivering
the appointments.
John Marshall,
who had wanted to deliver the commission
to Marbury in the first place,
but just ran out of time.
So, John Marshall gets this request
He's like, I really want Marbury
to get this commission.
He's a Federalist.
On the other hand,
I have this new administration
full of anti-Federalists;
I don't want to piss them off.
And as evidence for that belief,
the Congress of the United States
actually suspends
the Supreme Court for a full year.
This was a signal to John Marshall
and the other justices on the bench
that if you decide this case
in the wrong way
against the Democratic-Republicans,
against the Jefferson administration,
there are going to be dire consequences.
So, John Marshall
is faced with a dilemma.
If Marshall rules
that Jefferson has to turn over the commissions,
he's going to ignore the court order.
Imagine that for a second.
A president of the United States's
secretary of state ignoring an order
from the United States Supreme Court.
What precedent would that set?
It would make the Supreme Court
an inferior branch
of the federal government.
And what's remarkable about this case
is the way John Marshall navigates this decision.
In Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion,
he essentially poses three different questions.
First, he wants to know
whether or not there's some sort of legal harm
suffered by William Marbury.
He says, fundamentally, that
what the president did was illegal.
By refusing to deliver the commission,
President Jefferson did not faithfully execute the law.
Next, he wants to know
whether there's a remedy at law
for those legal injuries.
And Marshall says
because Marbury didn't receive that commission,
he has a right to sue.
And so here we are,
now two-thirds of the way through the opinion,
and it looks like Marbury's about to win.
Then we get to that third question:
Can the Supreme Court do anything about it?
And Marshall turns around,
and basically does a 180-degree turn,
and says, but we have a problem.
He decides to go back
to the Judiciary Act of 1789.
And he finds
that this writ of mandamus
was an expansion of original jurisdiction.
It expanded the power that the Court has
under the Constitution.
What would happen
if we could add to the Court's original jurisdiction
outlined in the Constitution
just by passing legislation?
Well, that means you could amend the Constitution
with any old act of legislation.
Why not amend Article I,
the powers of Congress?
Why not amend Article II,
the powers of the presidency?
So, what does Marshall do?
He says, you know what,
I don't think that that part
of the Judiciary Act of 1789
is Constitutional.
Chief Justice John Marshall reasons that
the Judiciary Act of 1789
essentially amends the Constitution.
The Supreme Court
doesn't have the power
to issue a mandate
that something happen.
Therefore, the part of the Judiciary Act of 1789,
section 13,
that adds to the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction,
must be null and void.
It cannot stand because it directly conflicts
with Article III, section 2
of the United States Constitution.
And as a result,
he declared a law of Congress unconstitutional.
And from then on,
established the precedent
for judicial review.
Judicial review.
Judicial review,
which is the Court's greatest power
that only the Supreme Court
can say what the Constitution is.
This ability to examine laws,
to compare them to the Constitution,
and when there's a discrepancy,
to actually declare that law,
or part of that law,
null and void.
It is a seminal case
that defines the power
of the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court today
has the power to interpret the Constitution
and say what the law is
solely because of Marbury versus Madison.