Marbury V. Madison

Sarah P. ‘10

Gaul and Pederson

American Studies

9 March 2009

Marbury v. Madison: A Valid Application of the Constitution

When I thought about the Constitutional Convention, I pictured a room full of old men bickering about the ideal word choice—that was certainly what our seventh grade class’ mock debate seemed to indicate. For that exercise, I even powdered my own hair, strutted around the room and adopted a pompous accent to get into the spirit of the times. However, I failed to understand the intense and passionate arguments that went into the Constitution on issues such as slavery, the balance of power, and the strength of the federal government, and that some of the people involved violently hated each other. What I found to be even more shocking is that today’s government did not spring directly from the Constitution; the government has evolved over the years. The current Supreme Court, for example, is radically different from the weak Court that existed immediately after the Constitution was implemented. After realizing how many misconceptions about the country’s early history had survived a year of U.S. History class, it seemed to me like the subject merited more discussion. In order to remedy those oversights, I decided to write my research paper on something that would reflect the political atmosphere, eventually choosing the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison for my topic.

I initially researched the antipathy between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice Marshal, the two main men involved, although I was soon drawn into a detailed study of the case itself and the events surrounding the ruling. It is clear that Marshall’s view prevailed over Jefferson’s: the Court acquired the power of judicial review, and unlike Marshall, Jefferson would probably have seen the current Court as an unconstitutional bastion of power designed to rob the states of their rights. Jefferson’s desires for a limited central government prevented...