Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 18

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

455, 478 (2005).  His arguments were published as a pam-
phlet, which “may well have been the most prominent dis-
cussion  of  judicial  review  at  the  time  of  the  Philadelphia 
Constitutional Convention.”  Id., at 477. 

The North Carolina Supreme Court played its own part 
in establishing judicial review.  In Bayard v. Singleton, the 
court considered the constitutionality of a 1785 Act by the 
State’s  General Assembly that prevented British loyalists
from challenging property seizures before a jury.  1 Mort. 
48 (1787).  The court held the Act “abrogated and without 
any effect,” for “it was clear” that the legislature could not 
pass  an  Act  that  “could  by  any  means  repeal  or  alter  the
constitution.”  Id., at 50.  Otherwise, the legislature “would
at the same instant of time, destroy their own existence as 
a Legislature, and dissolve the government thereby estab-
lished.”  Ibid.  James Iredell, who would later serve as an 
inaugural Justice of this Court, penned at the time an open
letter “To the Public” expounding a robust concept of judi-
cial review.  2 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell 145 
(1846).  “[T]he power of the Assembly,” he wrote, “is limited 
and defined by the constitution.”  Id., at 146.  The legisla-
ture, after all, “is a creature of the constitution.”  Ibid. 

North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  did  not  stand  alone. 
See,  e.g.,  Holmes  v.  Walton  (N. J.  1780),  described  in  A.
Scott, Holmes vs. Walton: The New Jersey Precedent, 4 Am. 
Hist. Rev. 456 (1899); State v. Parkhurst, 9 N. J. L. 427, 444 
(1802) (citing Holmes as holding that a statute providing for
a six-person jury was “unconstitutional”).  All told, “[s]tate
courts in at least seven states invalidated state or local laws 
under  their  State  constitutions  before  1787,”  which  “laid 
the foundation for judicial review.”  J. Sutton, 51 Imperfect
Solutions 13 (2018). 

The  Framers  recognized  state  decisions  exercising  judi-
cial review at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  On 
July 17, James Madison spoke in favor of a federal council
of revision that could negate laws passed by the States.  He