Back in 1800, there was about a four-month gap
between the presidential election and the transfer of power.
And the same was true of the Congress.
So the Federalist Congress and the Federalist
President Adams, both knowing they were going to be out
of office in a few months because they lost
the election of 1800, tried to pack the courts.
The day before he was set to leave office,
President Adams signed about three
and a half dozen commissions representing the appointment
of these judges and justices of the peace.
John Marshall and his brother James Marshall
were running around Virginia and Maryland,
frantically delivering these commissions to various people.
Marbury was one of the 20 or so
who they didn't get to in time.
So President Jefferson comes in,
instructs his secretary of state,
"Don't give Marbury his commission."
You're William Marbury. What do you do?
Marbury probably could have brought his suit
in a lower federal court.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, he didn't do that.
He brought his suit directly in the Supreme Court
of the United States, thinking that there was a statute
that authorized the Supreme Court to give him
a special kind of order from the court,
something called a writ of mandamus.
Now switch gears.
You're the Supreme Court of the United States.
Before you decide any of these questions,
you first have to decide whether you're even
the right court to be answering those questions.
If the court doesn't have jurisdiction power
to hear the case, then there's no occasion to decide
any of those questions about appointment
or removal or remedy.
The Supreme Court ultimately decided in Marbury
versus Madison that it was in fact the wrong court,
that Marbury should not have been bringing his action
directly, specifically in the Supreme Court
of the United States as a matter of first stop.
But before coming to that conclusion,
it addressed all of those other questions:
proper appointment, could the person be removed,
was this the right remedy.
Page after page on that, all then culminating
in "oh but by the way, we can't actually decide
"any of those questions because we're the wrong court."
Now the fun begins.
How did the Supreme Court decide
that it was the wrong court?
The Supreme Court in Marbury versus Madison went along
with Marbury's interpretation of the statute.
They said, "Yes, we read the statute.
"And it does seem to suggest that we are the proper court,
"that we don't just hear these kinds of cases
"on appeal from some other decision
"that some other court has rendered."
"But," says the Supreme Court, "We think that statute,
"if it really means what we in Marbury
"say it means, is unconstitutional."
Why, because the Constitution of the United States
contains a provision dealing with the kinds of cases
the Supreme Court can hear.
And it identifies some of them as cases that the court
can hear as what's called original jurisdiction,
in the first instance.
And it identifies the rest of them
as within the court's appellate jurisdiction,
things that it hears after some other tribunal
has already decided the case first.
"This particular case," the court says correctly,
"is not among those specifically listed cases
"in which the court has original jurisdiction."
And here's where there's a constitutional issue.
"We, the Supreme Court," says Marbury versus Madison,
"Don't think Congress has the power
"to change that allocation."
They can't move things around between original
and appellate jurisdiction when the Constitution
has already made that allocation.
That is the constitutional holding of Marbury
versus Madison.
"The power and," says Marshall,
"Duty of courts to exercise independent judgment
"about number one, what the Constitution means.
"And number two, to give effect to their own judgment
"in their decisions and not just be bound
"by the judgments of other actors."