Judicial Reviewand Chief Justice John Marshall

Presentation by Robert L. MartinezPrimary Content Source: The New Nation by Joy Hakim.Images as cited. http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/images/sc/004_marshall.jpg

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In 1799, John Marshall was elected to Congress. The following year, President Adams named him secretary of state. The year after that he became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

President John Adams

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The Supreme Court met in the basement of the Capitol, because although a site for the Court had been planned, nothing had been built there yet.

Original Supreme CourtChamber in lower levelof Capitol building.

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But fancy rooms weren’t any more important to John Marshall than fancy

clothes. What he cared about was the way the United States was governed.

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Marshall believed that a strong government would help protect the rights of all people. He tried to make the federal government stronger than the state governments.

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In 1803, in a very important Supreme Court case called Marbury v. Madison, Marshall

said the Court could throw out any law passed by Congress if the Court thought

that law was unconstitutional.

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Marbury v. Madison began a process called “judicial review.” It gave the Supreme Court the power to decide if a law passed by Congress meets the requirements of the Constitution.

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Imagine that tomorrow Congress passed a law saying you can’t criticize the president. Suppose your mother does that and she goes to jail. That actually happens in some countries.

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In those countries people are even afraid to talk to their friends. It happened here in 1798 with the Sedition Acts.

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Judicial Review helps guarantee our freedoms. Judicial Review made the Constitution stronger. It made the Court a real check and balance to the two other government branches.

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Thomas Jefferson didn’t like the idea of judicial review. He thought it made the court too powerful. Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, not elected.

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Marshall and Jefferson couldn’t stand each other. Their dispute was all about ideas. Here is a surprise, Marshall and Jefferson were also cousins.

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When John Adams ran for a second term, he was defeated in 1800. Many people think it was because of his support of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

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The election of 1800 was a tie. Democratic Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each got 73 electoral votes (Adams

65). It was up to the House of Representatives to break the tie.

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After an all-night session and 36 ballots they were still deadlocked. Alexander

Hamilton persuaded some Federalists that a vote for Jefferson was “the lesser evil.”

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Jefferson became president and Burr the vice-president. Burr would hold a grudge against Hamilton. That messy election led to the passage, in 1804, of the 12th amendment.

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The 12th amendment calls for separate ballots for president and vice president.

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