Constitutional law: Judicial review (Part 2 of 2)

Responses to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.

In 1798, the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures passed a series of resolutions asserting that the states have the power to determine whether acts of Congress are constitutional. In response, ten states passed their own resolutions disapproving the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Six of these states took the position that the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional lies in the federal courts, not in the state legislatures. For example, Vermont's resolution stated: "It belongs not to state legislatures to decide on the constitutionality of laws made by the general government; this power being exclusively vested in the judiciary courts of the Union."

Thus, five years before Marbury v Madison, a number of state legislatures stated their understanding that under the Constitution, the federal courts possess the power of judicial review.

Marbury v Madison.

The Supreme Court's landmark decision regarding (Cranch) (1803). Marbury was the first Supreme Court decision to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court.

The case arose when William Marbury filed a lawsuit seeking an order (a "writ of mandamus") requiring the Secretary of State, James Madison, to deliver to Marbury a commission appointing him as a justice of the peace. Marbury filed his case directly in the Supreme Court, invoking the Court's "original jurisdiction", rather than filing in a lower court.

The constitutional issue involved the question of whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to hear the case. The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in cases involving writs of mandamus. So, under the Judiciary Act, the Supreme Court would have had jurisdiction to hear Marbury's case. However, the Constitution describes the cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, and does not include mandamus cases. The Judiciary Act therefore attempted to give the Supreme Court jurisdiction that was not "warranted by the Constitution."

Marshall's opinion stated that in the Constitution, the people established a government of limited powers: "The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written." The limits established in the Constitution would be meaningless "if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained." Marshall observed that the Constitution is "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation", and that it cannot be altered by an ordinary act of the legislature. Therefore, "an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void."