Talk:Marbury v. Madison
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I don't like this table at all. There are far too many cases to list every single one, and selection of which cases to choose is too POV to say "preceded by" and "followed by". anthony 22:03, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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Background
The first paragraph says that Jefferson was inaugurated on March 4, which is correct. Then, a few paragraphs later, the article indicates that Adams signed the commisions on March 3, the same day Jefferson took office. My understanding of the history is that all of the "Midnight Justices" were confirmed by the Senate on March 3, that Adams signed and Marshall sealed them on March 3, but that they weren't all delivered before March 4, when Jefferson took office. I don't think any of them were signed or sealed on Inauguration Day, but I might be wrong about that.
Also, my Constitutional Law professor (Laurence Tribe for those in the know) indicated an interesting bit of background that I'd never heard before. According to him, John Marshall gave some of the commissions to his brother, Jim, to deliver on March 3 (including Marbury's), but Jim didn't deliver them. If some enterprising researcher want's to fact check this and include it in the background, have at it. --Kronius 20:13, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Judicial review
I deleted the following from the end of the article:
"The case is widely cited to support the court's first use of the tool of Judicial review in finding that a statute or action taken by the government is unconstitutional. However, the case only applied to the Supreme Court itself, as the court was only refusing to exercise a power that it thought to be unconstitutional. The first major case in which an unconstitutionality ruling was applied to the other branches of government was Dred Scott v. Sandford."
I have no idea where the person who put this article together got this, but it's simply incorrect. The Marbury Court invalidated a portion of Section 13 the Judiciary Act of 1789 on the grounds that it exceeded the original jurisdiction granted to the Court by Section 2, Article III of the Constitution. (The merits of the view that Section 2 was intended to set a ceiling on original jurisdiction as opposed to a floor are somewhat doubtful, but Marshall apparently decided to go with this bizarre interpretation in order to stage a conflict between a statute and a provision of the Constitution.) The fact that this incidentally deprived the Court of a power that it might otherwise have exercised does not in any way alter the import of the action it took. SS451 22:03, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Question
Did the Supreme Court declare the entire Judiciary Act of 1789 unconstitutional as this article says? Or just a clause within the act, as it seems to say on the Judiciary Act (United States) article? It should be clarified. -R. fiend 22:35, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I believe they found only Section 13 to be unconstitutional (the section that gave the court the power to issue mandamus), not the entire act.
- The Supreme Court didn't didn't declare any of the Judiciary Act unconstitutional. What Marshall said was that if the Judiciary Act meant what Marbury claimed it meant, it would be unconstitutional, therefore Marbury loses. Kronius 18:20, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Jackson quote
For the record, the sources I consulted say that:
- The Andrew Jackson "let him enforce it" quote is apocryphal, and
- It is alleged to have been said in response to Worcester v. Georgia, not Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
I have update the article accordingly. Gwimpey 23:42, Feb 22, 2005 (UTC)
- Would you mind identifying your sources? Most sources that I've seen conflict with both of your assertions. Pencil Pusher 17:29, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Original Jurisdiction
- Marshall assumed, for no stated reason, that Article III's language regarding original jurisdiction constitutes a ceiling, not a floor, for the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Marshall asserted that the only alternative to a "ceiling" construction of the original jurisdiction clause would require that Congress be allowed complete discretion in determining what sort of cases shall constitute the Court's original jurisdiction, meaning that an act might cause cases "affecting ambassadors" to be heard only on appeal to the Court. Consequently, Marshall finds that the Constitution and the Judiciary Act conflict. Some have questioned whether Marshall may have intentionally construed Article III in a manner calculated to create such a conflict, finding arbitrary Marshall's question-begging conclusion that Congress is not empowered to expand the Court's original jurisdiction.
I took this out for two reasons. First, the way it is written is too POV. Second, it isn't true that (i) Marshall assumes that Art. III creates a ceiling, nor is it true that (ii) he asserts the only alternative is complete discretion. These last two positions are mutually exclusive since an assertion that the only alternative is complete discretion would be a reason for a construction of Art. III as a ceiling, therefore both (i) and (ii) can't be right. However, it turns out that both are wrong, because in the opinion, Marshall states:
- If the solicitude of the convention, respecting our peace with foreign powers, induced a provision that the supreme court should take original jurisdiction in cases which might be supposed to affect them; yet the clause would have proceeded no further than to provide for such cases, if no further restriction on the powers of congress had been intended. That they should have appellate jurisdiction in all other cases, with such exceptions as congress might make, is no restriction; unless the words be deemed exclusive of original jurisdiction.
Marshall is saying that if original jurisdiction had been a floor, then Art. III would just say "The supreme court shall have original jurisdiciton in cases X, Y, Z." and end there. Because Art. III goes on to say "In all the other cases...the supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction" the clause has to be establishing a ceiling because otherwise the last sentence would be without meaning.
- Makes perfect sense to me. The removed text should stay removed. Postdlf 17:57, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
