40 Fun Facts About Marbury V. Madison

Which principle of American law was established when the Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison in 1803?

Judicial review lets American courts strike down laws that violate the Constitution, a power the Constitution itself never spells out.

What was the outcome for William Marbury himself when the Supreme Court ruled on his lawsuit in February 1803?

He lost the case: the justices ruled 4–0 that they had no power to give him the order he wanted, and he never served in the post.

Which chief justice wrote the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in Marbury v. Madison?

John Marshall had led the Court for about two years when he used a minor patronage dispute to claim the power to strike down acts of Congress.

Which mocking nickname did Thomas Jefferson's allies give William Marbury and other last-minute appointees of 1801?

Midnight Judges got the name because the outgoing president was said to be signing their appointments late into his last night in office.

Which outgoing president appointed William Marbury to office just two days before his own term ended in 1801?

John Adams had lost the 1800 election, so he packed newly created court posts with loyal supporters before his rival could take office.

Which 1974 case drew on Marbury v. Madison to make a president surrender tape recordings for a criminal trial?

United States v. Nixon forced the president to hand over his Watergate tapes, and he resigned soon afterward.

Marbury v. Madison strengthened which system by making the judiciary an equal of Congress and the president?

Checks and balances finally reached the bench: federal judges could now refuse to enforce a law that Congress had passed.

What office did James Madison hold when William Marbury sued him over a withheld commission in 1801?

Secretary of State was then the office that sent out federal commissions, so Thomas Jefferson's order to hold them back fell to Madison.

According to Marbury v. Madison, what is the status of an act of Congress that conflicts with the Constitution?

It is void, the opinion declared, because a written constitution would mean nothing if ordinary legislation could override it.

James Madison, the defendant in Marbury v. Madison, went on to win which higher office in the election of 1808?

The presidency went to Madison just five years after the ruling, and he served two terms as the fourth person to hold it.

William Marbury sued James Madison in 1801 to obtain his commission for which minor court office?

Justice of the peace was a relatively powerless, low-paying local post, an unlikely prize to have reshaped American government.

Which type of court order did William Marbury ask the Supreme Court to issue against James Madison in December 1801?

Writ of mandamus is an order commanding a government official to carry out a duty the law requires, in this case handing over a signed commission.

Marbury v. Madison struck down part of which law, passed by the First Congress to create the federal courts?

Judiciary Act of 1789, section 13, was the casualty: the justices read it as handing them more power than the Constitution allows, and refused the gift.

Which part of the Constitution, the one creating the federal courts, did Marbury v. Madison say Congress violated?

Article III lists the few kinds of cases the Supreme Court may hear first, and a lawsuit like William Marbury's was not among them.

William Marbury and the president who appointed him both belonged to which group, voted out of power in 1800?

Federalist Party loyalists filled the new posts because the party, beaten at the polls, hoped to keep its grip on the courts.

Which candidate tied Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 Electoral College, months before the Marbury v. Madison dispute began?

Aaron Burr and Jefferson each won 73 electoral votes, and it took the House 36 ballots to break the deadlock, just weeks before the inauguration.

Which infamous 1857 ruling is often cited as the next to strike down a federal law after Marbury v. Madison?

Dred Scott v. Sandford struck down the Missouri Compromise more than fifty years later, a ruling that helped push the country toward civil war.

Which Founding Father's 1788 essay on the judiciary, published as Publius, shaped the reasoning of Marbury v. Madison?

Alexander Hamilton had argued fifteen years earlier, in essay No. 78 of his famous series, that judges must put the Constitution above any statute.

Which body confirmed William Marbury and dozens of other last-minute appointees in a single day in March 1801?

The Senate approved the whole batch on March 3, the day after the names were sent over and the last full day of the outgoing administration.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the chief justice who decided Marbury v. Madison were all natives of which state?

Virginia produced all three, and the idea that courts should enforce only legitimate laws was already widely accepted there.

Marbury v. Madison barred Congress from enlarging which Supreme Court power over cases involving states and ambassadors?

Original jurisdiction is the power to hear a case first rather than on appeal, and the Constitution gives the Supreme Court very little of it.

Where would William Marbury have served as a local judge had James Madison handed over his 1801 commission?

District of Columbia posts like his were new: Congress had only recently created them, and dozens were filled in a single batch.

What did the Supreme Court conclude in 1803 about James Madison's refusal to hand William Marbury his commission?

It was illegal, the justices said, because the appointment became complete once the commission had been signed and sealed.

How did James Madison respond when the Supreme Court heard Marbury v. Madison in February 1803?

He refused to appear, leaving the attorney general to be questioned on the stand about what had become of the commissions.

How do historians think Thomas Jefferson was likely to treat a court order to deliver William Marbury's commission?

Ignore it, most likely: the young Court had no means of forcing a hostile administration to comply, and defiance would have exposed that weakness.

Marbury v. Madison declared that wherever a legal right is violated, the law must also provide what?

A remedy must follow a right, a rule long settled in English common law before the Court applied it to William Marbury.

The Marbury v. Madison opinion ended its case for courts' power over statutes by citing which part of the Constitution?

The Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution, and only laws made in pursuance of it, the supreme law of the land.

How were political foes Thomas Jefferson and the chief justice who decided Marbury v. Madison related to each other?

Distant cousins through the Randolph family, the two were kin only on paper: Jefferson decried the power his relative claimed for the courts.

Whom did the chief justice in Marbury v. Madison send out to deliver the last-minute commissions in March 1801?

His younger brother James had a single day to hand out the sealed commissions, and a few, including William Marbury's, never reached their owners.

What did Congress do to the Supreme Court in 1802 that delayed Marbury v. Madison until the following year?

Canceled its term: Congress pushed the justices' next sitting back to 1803, so its repeal of the 1801 court law took effect before they could rule on it.

Before Marbury v. Madison, the 1801 court law aimed to free Supreme Court justices from which exhausting duty?

Riding circuit meant travelling the country to sit on lower courts in an era of slow, costly travel, and the justices had complained about it for years.

Weeks before Thomas Jefferson took office, the outgoing Congress passed a law doing what to the Supreme Court's size?

Shrank it by one seat, effective at the next vacancy, which would have denied Jefferson his first chance to name a justice; the change was soon undone.

Which justice on the Supreme Court during Marbury v. Madison, a Declaration signer, was later impeached but acquitted?

Samuel Chase was impeached in 1804 after attacking the repeal of the 1801 court law in a charge to a grand jury, but he kept his seat.

The Marbury v. Madison opinion borrowed its famous phrase about a government of laws from which state's constitution?

Massachusetts owes the phrase to the very president whose last-minute appointments started the case: he drafted it for the state in 1779.

Which former U.S. attorney general argued William Marbury's case before the Supreme Court in 1803?

Charles Lee had served as attorney general from 1795 to 1801, so he was suing the administration that had replaced his own.

Which senator, later chief justice, was chief author of the law partly struck down in Marbury v. Madison?

Oliver Ellsworth drafted the act as a senator, and his retirement as chief justice later opened the seat for the man who struck part of it down.

Which 1958 Little Rock desegregation case cited Marbury v. Madison in declaring Supreme Court rulings binding on states?

Cooper v. Aaron refused the Little Rock school board a 30-month delay, holding that states must obey the Court's rulings even when they disagree.

Which 1796 case about a tax on carriages saw the Supreme Court weigh a federal law's validity before Marbury v. Madison?

Hylton v. United States upheld the carriage tax, so the justices never had to use the power they would claim seven years later.

Which case, decided one week after Marbury v. Madison, upheld Congress's repeal of the 1801 law creating new judgeships?

The repeal stood without a dissent, averting a showdown between Congress and the Court. The chief justice sat out Stuart v. Laird, having tried the case himself in the court below.

The chief justice who decided Marbury v. Madison first won fame as an envoy in which diplomatic scandal of 1797?

XYZ Affair: French agents demanded bribes before talks could begin, and his conduct there later helped him win a seat in Congress.