# 1301.9a - Marbury v.  Madison (1803)

**Channel:** Chad Tomaselli
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fO0oqc2iuk
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/1fO0oqc2iuk

## Chapters

- 0:01 — Jefferson's Election and the Lame Duck
- 1:17 — Judicial Act and Midnight Appointments
- 5:49 — Marbury Versus Madison Explained
- 11:37 — Judicial Review and Its Significance

## Transcript

**[0:01]:** Thomas Jefferson won the election of 1800 and John Adams was now the outgoing president and as we'll see with the dates here Jefferson was a two-term president but to start his presidency we actually need to go backwards a little bit and talk about what's called The Lame Duck period for atoms the lame duck period is the period of time between election day and inauguration day when an outgoing president is still in pres in office but is essentially powerless presidents often use this time to issue pardons make last minute appointments and similarly new Congress members are not sworn in until January so the outgoing Congress has about two months to try to pass laws before the election results take effect in the election of 1800 Adams had lost was outgoing but as I also told you in that uh when we discussed the election of 1800 the Congress had flipped to be majority Democratic Republicans so

**[0:59]:** the new Congress had not been sworn in yet the old Federalist majority was still there and a lot of those members were the same it's just that enough election seats changed congressional seats changed so that the majority were Democratic Republican so

**[1:17]:** we understand the lame duck right it's this last thing and what this leads to is that once Adams and his outgoing Federalist Congress knew that they had lost in the election of 1800 they decided to pack the last branch of government open to them which was the courts and this leads to the to the judicial Act of 1801. it created 16 more courts that needed appointees and atoms rushed to fill them and other existing Court openings in the 19 days before he was no longer president and all of these new courts all of these openings in the courts were all on the national level so this new tiered system of courts that came out of the judicial Act of 1789 it's filling openings there and then it created 16 more Court openings so in just basically the last three weeks of his time as president Adams is filling those positions the most important of those openings and appointees was John Marshall John Marshall the opening that he was appointed to was Chief Justice of the Supreme

**[2:25]:** Court chief justice is the administrative uh uh the head of the Supreme Court that deals mostly with the administrative stuff uh you know there's still a judge they're still waiting on the cases but they also basically like the head of the committee as far uh the head of the Supreme Court they can't tell the other justices what to do but they keep the rules all that kind of stuff uh and he's one of our two best or most significant Chief justices it's usually if you look at a list of this it's Marshall and it's Earl Warren Earl Warren was Chief Justice in the 1940s 50s and 60s basically any major civil rights case or most of the civil rights cases are under Earl Warren if you stick with me through us2 or you've already been through us too we talk a lot about him but here we are with Marshall now Marshall will be appointed

**[3:21]:** chief justice all of this the lame duck period packing the courts the judicial Act of 1801 and the appointing of these last minute justices called the midnight appointees not because they were literally appointed at midnight his last day but because in the scope of a four-year presidency appointing people in the last three weeks is basically like you know compare that to a a clock that's like doing it at midnight or 24 hour day so this leads to one of the most important Supreme Courts Supreme Court cases and the first one we're talking about in this class that is Marbury versus Madison William Marbury the gentleman on the left was one of those midnight appointees the process for being appointed as a judge here to one of these National courts is first the president picks you says I want you in this case William Marbury to be this judge then you are approved by the Senate

**[4:19]:** then once they approve you the government draws up the paperwork signs it makes it all official and the final step as they deliver it to you that paperwork is called a commission I should have had that on the slide but here we are a commission so the paperwork the hiring paperwork basically is the commission so the steps you're picked by the president you're approved by the Senate the government draws up and signs the paperwork the commission and then they deliver it to the person who's been appointed by the time Jefferson took office everything had been completed for Marbury except the commission had not been delivered So Adam said appointed him the senate had approved him and all the paperwork was done they just hadn't quite literally delivered it or mailed it out so Jefferson understanding this ordered his secretary of state James Madison the good old creeper peepers on the right he ordered Madison to

**[5:24]:** stop and not deliver those undelivered commissions Marbury wasn't the only one because Jefferson believed they were no longer valid if they weren't delivered by the end of the of Adam's presidency basically those appointments and commissions aren't valid if the president's no longer in office by the time they're delivered

**[5:49]:** think of it this way you apply for a job you get an interview and at the end of the interview they shake your hand and say you got the job then they have you fill out the paperwork but they don't give you a copy did you get the job yes regardless of whether or not you got a copy of that and actually that job interview process is not so different from a judge being appointed by the president is essentially applying or being picked to come in for an interview being approved by the Senate is the interview and then the paperwork is the paperwork so they just hadn't delivered his paperwork and Jefferson says nope that's that means it doesn't count but legally and in every other situation like this it does count so when Marbury learns of this he sues Madison for his Commission because Madison was the Secretary of State and he was the

**[6:46]:** one who technically hadn't delivered it when Marbury sues he asks as part of his lawsuit for what's called a writ of mandamus which is a type of court order that allows the courts to compel lower courts or subordinate government officials to do their jobs we've talked about risks before the writs of assistance this is a writ is just a court order this is different than the rose rates of assistance this is basically the Supreme Court or whatever Court uh in this case the Supreme Court can tell lower level courts and subordinate government officials to do something that they do something that's part of their job that they were not getting done Marbury wanted the Supreme Court to order Madison to deliver his Commission the Supreme Court supreme Supreme Court had granted the power to issue this writ in the Judiciary Act of 1789. or judicial Act of 1789.

**[7:46]:** so the Supreme Court got this power from the not the the one we talked about in this video but when we talked about at the start of unit two right Washington in the first Congress that set up the courts one of the things they set up was that the Supreme Court had the power of the writ of mandamus so that's where this comes from the these lawsuits take time to get to the Supreme Court and this is no different so it doesn't make it to the Supreme Court until 1803 and one quick note whenever you see the title of a Supreme Court case you have Marbury versus Madison the first name the name before the V whether it's a person or an organization or whatever is always the person suing and the second name or organization is always the person being sued so in this case Marbury was suing Madison and the Brown versus Board

**[8:36]:** of Education which is which desegregated schools Brown was suing the Board of Education in the abortion case Roe was suing Wade so just a little thing to understand it's not necessarily relevant I'm not going to ask you on the exam but you know it's a good thing to know especially when Supreme Court cases are always relevant to the world around us let's look at the case and look who is presiding over the Supreme Court it's John Marshall one of the midnight appointees we just talked about the way that we're going to break down these cases when we talk about Supreme Court cases is to look at the major questions and so that's what we're going to do there are three main questions here that Marshall and the Supreme Court have to solve first did Marbury have the right to his commission should he have received the paperwork Marshall in the court said yes the process

**[9:32]:** was completed except for delivery which is essentially a formality and Marshall even specifically called out Jefferson and Madison for not delivering that Commission in their decision when they announced their you know wrote out their decision and announced it they they said we shouldn't be here this case should not have happened you should have just delivered his paperwork but since we're here let's talk about it which leads to question two did Marbury have the legal means to address this issue did he have a way legally to fix this problem Marbury and the court and Marshall said yes and they said that normally a writ of assistance or not assistance a rid of mandamus would fix these issues but this was different this is a different situation because of the people involved the high level individuals this actually was setting up for the third question a bit of a knockout blow for Marshall third question is asking

**[10:35]:** the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus the proper legal remedy for this situation and the court said no in other words did the Supreme Court have the power to force Madison to give Marbury his Commission the court said no because Madison was Secretary of State and part of the executive branch not subordinate to the Supreme Court not support or or or not part of the judicial branch as part of this Marshall and the court went back and looked at the judicial Act of 1789 and they ruled that the part of it that said the writ of mandamus could do this was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of powers it violated checks and balances because no one branch should have the power to tell someone or the another Branch what to do without there being a balance or a recourse so

**[11:37]:** stop and think about this did Marshall just take away one of his powers and a pretty big one yes but there was a trade-off and this was a pretty genius maneuver because Marshall and the court gave up the power of the writ of mandamus

**[11:56]:** and instead they gained the power of judicial review

**[12:06]:** judicial review is the power of the courts to interpret the Constitution and determine if something was unconstitutional remember the Constitution said that the judicial branch had the power to interpret the law but it did not Define that further this judicial review is the defining power of the Supreme Court to this very day judicial review is also confirming contract theory not compact contract theory and that contract the area of government uh remember that is that the people created the Constitution and they interpret it through the courts so this is confirming contract theory and is therefore a indirect refutation or repudiation or condemnation or attack or criticism or whatever words you want to throw in here of compact Theory and nullification and remember who interpreted the constitution in compact theory that was the states and remember who put that out there Jefferson so even though the marsh uh the Marshall even though John Marshall and the Supreme

**[13:28]:** Court did not specifically set you know mentioned compact Theory or nullification or even contract theory this was an implied thing right because judicial review is the how of contract theory of course as we discussed despite this compact Theory and nullification did not go away but this established the Court's power of judicial review and that's the first significance here the first significance of the case of Marbury versus Madison it established judicial review that's Supreme Court was The Interpreter of the Constitution the judicial branch this is all part of point one the judicial branch now held legitimate power meant to check the other branches every significant Supreme Court case to this very day is based on this power any Supreme Court case you can think of or have learned about or you will ever come across in the future happens because of judicial review right that's the power of the courts to interpret the Constitution and that

**[14:29]:** is finally and specifically defined and resolved and established here with this case second significance it's an indirect repudiation or condemnation again whatever word you want to throw in there of compact Theory and nullification and third this is Jefferson's biggest defeat as president now not a significance but just to wrap the story up here real quick I never told you what happened to Marbury right the first two questions were yes for him but the last question was I know what this means is that because the last question was a no Marbury did not use the right thing to force Madison to give him his Commission which means Marbury failed the court couldn't Force Mark Madison to give him his commission even though he should have so Marbury did not become the judge he was supposed to be he wasn't actually appointed to that position at that point Marbury just gave it up but nope he he lost the case and

**[15:36]:** and Marshall appointed by a federalist you would think maybe would side with Marbury because Marbury was also leaning Federalist but Marshall valued the law over Party politics something that every judge should always do so this is Jefferson's presidency starting off a pretty bad note because his compact Theory and nullification are shot down he technically loses I mean he technically wins the case but not necessarily in a satisfying way because of that but it's not a great start so what look we're going to at next is the opposite Jefferson's greatest Victory while in office