well hey there and welcome back to heimler's history in this video we're looking at another one of your required Supreme Court cases for the AP Government curriculum namely Marberry versus Madison in 1803 which is arguably the most significant case in Supreme Court history so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked judicial review Style with then let's get to it so as always let's begin with the facts of the case remember that the first two political parties to emerge in our Fair Nation were the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans and they fought bitterly on just about every issue available to fight about and as it turned out the Federalist president President John Adams lost the election of 1800 to democratic Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson that was a bitter loss for the Federalist but Adams hatched a plan to try to dilute the power and influence of the Democratic Republicans once Jefferson took office the Federalist dominated Congress created a slew of new courts and judgeships and as you probably remember it is the president who is constitutionally responsible for appointing federal judges so Adams in his last days as president packed the federal Judiciary full of federalist judges who would likely frustrate Jefferson's policy agenda during his presidency that's why they called him old sneaky Adams they didn't don't don't write that down anyway Adams was signing commissions for these judges right up until the moment he left office and most of them were delivered but a few of them were not and when Jefferson took office he ordered his secretary of state to leave those undelivered commissions undelivered well that really chapped the thighs of a guy named William Marbury who was one of those judges who had been appointed but had not yet received his commission and so he sued Madison in the Supreme Court to get his commission by what's known as a RIT of mandamos which is just a court order for an official to do what they're legally required to do so Marbury wanted the court to issue a RIT of mamos in order for Madison to deliver the commission okay now let's talk about the constitutional principle at stake in this case now what I'm about to tell you is not going to sound relevant to this case so you're just going to have to stick with me here the constitutional principle at stake in this case is the jurisdiction Clauses in article 3 of The Constitution now remember article 3 is all about the judicial branch and how it gets its power and what kinds of cases it can hear jurisdiction means the scope of power the court exerc izes over those different kinds of cases so article 3 states that the Supreme Court has both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction original jurisdiction means the court has power to hear certain cases for the first time appell at jurisdiction means that the court has power to hear appeals from lower federal courts in other cases now I'm not slinging vocabulary around just for funsies you really have to understand jurisdiction to understand this case now according to article three of the Constitution there are only a narrow set of circumstances which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over and they are as follows all cases affecting ambassadors other public ministers and councils and those in which a state shall be party the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction so the Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction in cases involving States or foreign ambassadors or consult okay put that in your pocket we'll come back to it later so as the case came before The Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall distilled the essence of it into three questions number one does Marbury have the legal right to his commission number two if yes is the court ordered RIT of Mand mamos the proper legal means to get the commission and number three if yes does the court have the authority to Grant the RIT of mandamos okay so now let's look at how the court decided the case with respect to the three questions the answer to number one did Marbury have the legal right to his commission the answer was yes Congress established the new courts and the judgeships and the president did his constitutional duty to appoint judges to them and the fact that some of them were undelivered was just a technicality everything on that count was above board and perfectly legal okay so if marber was legally entitled to his commission then the answer to the second question is the RIT of mandamos the legal means to get it yes and at this point Marberry is feeling pretty good about himself like everything is going in his favor and he's about to get the Supreme Court to issue a RIT of mandamus for his commission but regarding the third question Marberry better get on his disappointment pants because things are about to take a turn and it's the answer to this third question that makes this case the most important Supreme Court case in history so pay attention and do not miss this the third question was does the court have the authority to Grant the RIT of mandamos and John Marshall's answer to this question was no let me explain if you were paying attention earlier when we looked at article 3 you might have noticed that it says precisely nothing about the court issuing rits of mandamos so why did Marberry think the court could do so well he thought so because the Judiciary Act of 1789 which in addition to establishing all the lower federal courts also said in Article 13 that the Supreme Court has authority to issue RIT of mandamus in original jurisdiction cases that is the the law so marber's case is being heard before The Supreme Court for the first time and that means it's within original jurisdiction and therefore according to the Judiciary Act the court has the authority to issue the Writ but John Marshall saddled his judicial horse of power and did something unbelievable he said that article 13 of the Judiciary Act conflicted with article 3 of The Constitution remember article 3 gives the court original jurisdiction over cases involving States and ambassadors but Marbury and Madison are neither States nor ambassadors Marbury is a judge and Madison is a cabinet secretary so while the RIT would be legal under the Judiciary Act because it in essence expanded the scope of the Court's original jurisdiction John Marshall said that's not what the Constitution says about the Court's Authority and therefore Article 13 of the Judiciary Act is unconstitutional and therefore null and void so ultimately Marberry did not get his commission so that brings us to why this case matters when John Marshall declared that law unconstitutional he essentially invested the Supreme Court with the power of judicial review now Hamilton had written about this in Federalist 78 but it wasn't explicitly mentioned in the Constitution however with this case the judicial branch became the final interpreter of the Constitution and took up the mantle of striking down or upholding laws passed by Congress based on their constitutionality massive case watch this video again if you didn't get it all right thanks for watching click right here to grab my review packet which is going to help you get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May I've got videos on all the other required cases right here and if you want me to keep making these videos then by all means subscribe and I shall oblig himler out