[Music] hey there and welcome to our introduction to the marbury versus madison supreme court case a case from 1803 which is the first of the landmark supreme court cases for the ap government exam and also the most important because it sets the stage for everything that's going to come later because this is the beginning the first time that the supreme court has ever claimed the power of judicial review before marbury versus madison the constitution wasn't very clear about the exact powers of the judiciary and in fact if we remember from federalist 78 which is one of our required documents alexander hamilton wrote whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive that in a government in which they are separated from each other the judiciary from the nature of its functions will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution because it will be leased in a capacity to annoy or injure them the executive not only dispenses the honors but holds the sword of the community the legislature not only commands the purse but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated the judiciary on the contrary has no influence over either the sword or the purse no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society and can take no active resolution whatever it may truly be said to have neither force nor will but merely judgment and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments now we may remember that brutus and brutus number one had something much different to say about the judiciary where he warns that this is a body that's going to strike down laws not only from the federal government from congress but also laws of the states we'll see that later but right now we're going to focus on congress so when it comes down to it hamilton was trying to persuade the people of new york to ratify the constitution because the judiciary is going to be harmless and at first it looked like that might be the case so the constitution actually says very little about the federal judiciary basically that there will be a federal judiciary and there will be a supreme court and congress can make laws about the details now for some years what hamilton said remained true the judiciary did not seem like something that was going to be that important but then the clock came very close to midnight in the adams administration john adams was the first president to be defeated in an election so what you saw happen here is before thomas jefferson and the republican party could come into power congress which was controlled by the federalist party passed the so-called midnight judges act and what this act did was it created several more federal judgeships that could go into the hands of federalists that would then continue to control the judiciary and keep it out of the hands of the jeffersonians now before john adams left office he asked his secretary of state john marshall how would you like to be the chief justice of the supreme court john marshall being out of a job decided well yes and john marshall's decision to become the chief justice of the supreme court is really a game changer for the history of the united states because john marshall would be very instrumental in championing the power of the central government over the power of the states and also someone who would claim powers for the supreme court and for the federal government now the biggest question here is who interprets the constitution remember that the constitution never says so and so gets to have the last word in interpreting this the constitution never says that the federal judiciary has some kind of special role to play which is partly why hamilton says this is going to be the least dangerous branch you don't have to worry about them jefferson and madison had said in 1798 that it's actually the job of the states to interpret the constitution so that's why this is such a big deal is that marbury versus madison begins this practice of judicial review now judicial review is this practice of the federal court specifically the supreme court being able to look at a law or an executive action and determine is this law or executive action unconstitutional and the supreme court gets in our legal system today the final word on what is constitutional another thing we want to consider is the separation of powers and checks and balances we want to think about how that works and what is the proper relationship between these three branches of government and where does the power of one start and where does the power of the other begin the specific law in question here is the judiciary act of 1789 and the judiciary act of 1789 authorized the supreme court to issue writs of mandamus that comes from the same word that we get mandate or mandatory and this allows the supreme court to say to the executive branch you have to do this we are requiring you it really puts the judiciary in a situation where they're telling the executive something very very specific so our law in question is the judiciary act of 1789 which was passed almost immediately after the ratification of the constitution so let's get to the facts of the case this is of course the lead up to the case how did this case get to the supreme court how did it start what was the controversy now while chief justice john marshall got his job at the very end of the adams administration after congress passed this midnight judges act they made so many new judges that there wasn't time to get all of these commissions delivered and a judge does not become a judge until the commission is delivered into their hand so what happened was john marshall when the clock struck the proverbial midnight left a note for his successor secretary of state james madison who was thomas jefferson's right-hand man somebody who was not on good terms politically with john marshall john adams and the federalist so when james madison gets to his desk he sees this note from none other than john marshall that says hey we've got a few more commissions that need to be delivered would you mind delivering these commissions to these judges who hate your politics and who are going to harass you from the bench and really that federal judges serve on good behavior so they can do this for many many years james madison decides no i'm not delivering these commissions we are going to just throw these in the trash i'm not going to deliver commissions to hostile federal judges now william marbury here is a guy who was supposed to get one of these commissions and marbury's sitting around waiting for it and he realizes that this commission is not coming so marbury files suit and of course the judiciary act of 1789 gave the supreme court original jurisdiction in a case like this that they could go right to the court and say give the executive a writ of mandemus so what marbury wants the supreme court to do is that his federalist buddy john marshall he wants him to tell james madison you had better deliver this commission that i'm issuing a writ of mandamus you don't have a choice you have to do this now of course we get to john marshall's dilemma because the supreme court really wasn't that big of a deal there had been multiple chief justices it didn't really have a lot of clout at the time the supreme court met in a windowless chamber not in a big building that they have today and marshall if he told james madison well the judiciary act of 1789 gives me the ability to issue a writ of mandamus and you'd better do this then this is something that we could end up with a situation like several decades later andrew jackson in a quote that may or may not have been said said that john marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it good luck with that because as hamilton said in federalist 78 the judiciary really doesn't have any means to enforce its decision without the cooperation of the executive so marshall is in a situation where if he sides with marbury he runs the risk of jefferson and madison saying no we're just not even going to enforce this decision so this gives john marshall a real quandary and this is part of the genius of john marshall because he yields the immediate fight he is conceding the battle and is really in a position where he is going to win the war because of that what we need to remember here is that there is no precedent for this case this is the case that began it all now for the decision john marshall escapes this dilemma that he was in by declaring the judiciary act of 1789 unconstitutional he says that the supreme court has no constitutional basis for getting involved in this because the judiciary act of 1789 actually gave the supreme court original jurisdiction where the constitution did not so that congress in the interest of separation of powers congress cannot give a power to the judiciary that the constitution does not give it now what marshall does then is he turns around and he gives the judiciary a power that the constitution did not specifically give it and he proclaims for the court the power of judicial review the power to nullify federal laws and of course later on state laws and executive actions to nullify these laws that are repugnant to the constitution that don't agree with it putting the supreme court in the position of chief interpreter of the united states constitution in the marbury decision chief justice john marshall wrote it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is now what we must remember about that is that that is never in the constitution this is something that the supreme court claimed for itself and it was accepted because in the short term madison won madison didn't have to deliver the decision but this created really the modern court that we see today it was the very beginning of the supreme court as a very powerful and influential part of our government it is not at all like federalist 78 the judiciary is not the least dangerous branch in the federal government and arguably the most powerful branch because they're given this unconditional check against the other branches with judicial review so this case leaves a legacy every landmark supreme court case after marbury versus madison is built on this principle that it is the supreme court's power to determine whether a law in this case a law passed by congress is in line with the constitution and if it's not to nullify it and strike it down so our big takeaway here is judicial review which we always associate with marbury versus madison in which the supreme court claims the power to interpret the constitution and strike down laws that are in conflict with it and this has become part of our unwritten constitution and of course the reason why you as an ap government and politics student are having to learn 15 supreme court cases and it's always a pleasure [Music]