page_title: Marbury v. Madison
section_title: Political dilemma
hierarchical_section_title: Marbury v. Madison / Analysis / Political dilemma
context_page_description: Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that they find to violate the Constitution of the United States. Decided in 1803, Marbury remains the single most important decision in American constitutional law. The Court's landmark decision established that the U.S. Constitution is actual "law", not just a statement of political principles and ideals, and helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
  The case originated from an incident that occurred in early 1801 as part of the political and ideological rivalry between outgoing President John Adams, who espoused the pro-business and pro-national government ideals of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Party, and incoming President Thomas Jefferson, who favored agriculture and decentralization and led the Democratic-Republican Party.
context_section_description: Besides its inherent legal questions, the case of Marbury v. Madison also created a difficult political dilemma for Marshall and  the Supreme Court itself. If the Court had ruled in favor of Marbury and issued a writ of mandamus ordering Madison to deliver Marbury's commission, Jefferson and Madison would probably have simply ignored it, which would have made the Court look impotent and emphasized the "shakiness" of the judiciary. On the other hand, a plain and simple ruling against Marbury would have given Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans a clear political victory.
  Marshall avoided both problems and solved the dilemma. First, he ruled that Madison's withholding of Marbury's commission was illegal, which pleased the Federalists. But in the end he said the Court could not give Marbury his requested writ of mandamus, which gave Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans the result they desired. But he did so in a way that simultaneously maneuvered Marbury's simple petition for a writ of mandamus into a case that presented a question that went to the heart of American constitutional law itself, in what the American legal scholar Laurence Tribe described as "an oft-told tale ... [that] remains awe-inspiring". In his history of the Supreme Court, the American political historian Robert G. McCloskey wrote:
  [Marbury v. Madison] is a masterwork of indirection, a brilliant example of Marshall's capacity to sidestep danger while seeming to court it. ... The danger of a head-on clash with the Jeffersonians was averted by the denial of jurisdiction: but, at the same time, the declaration that the commission was illegally withheld scotched any impression that the Court condoned the administration's behavior. These negative maneuvers were artful achievements in their own right. But the touch of genius is evident when Marshall, not content with having rescued a bad situation, seizes the occasion to set forth the doctrine of judicial review. It is easy for us to see in retrospect that the occasion was golden, ... but only a judge of Marshall's discernment could have recognized it.
  — Robert G. McCloskey, The American Supreme Court, pp. 25–27.
  Marshall had been looking for a case that was suitable for introducing judicial review, and was eager to use the situation in Marbury to establish his claim. He introduced judicial review—a move Jefferson decried—but used it to strike down a provision of a law that he read to have expanded the Supreme Court's powers, and thereby produced Jefferson's hoped-for result of Marbury losing his case. He "seized the occasion to uphold the institution of judicial review, but he did so in the course of reaching a judgment that his political opponents could neither defy nor protest." Though Jefferson criticized Marshall's opinion, he accepted it, and Marshall's decision in Marbury "articulate[d] a role for the federal courts that survives to this day." The American legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky concluded: "The brilliance of Marshall's opinion cannot be overstated."
caption: Chief Justice John Marshall as painted by Henry Inman in 1832, after having presided over the American judiciary for over 30 years
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