MARBURY Vs. MADISON. The title of a famous decision rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1803 and reported in the fourth volume of Ora neh's Reports. Its impor tanee in the constitutional development of the United States lies in the fact that this was the first instance in which the Supreme Court as sumed the right to declare a statute of Congress null and void on account of its repugnance to the Constitution. it is popularly regarded as the chief basis for the American doctrine of the right of the courts to disregard unconstitutional stat utes. although the right had been asserted by State courts in some half a dozen instances be fore the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The ease of Marbury rs. Madison arose out of an attempt of the plaintiff to seenre a writ of man damus from the Supreme Court to compel dames Madison. then Secretary of State, to deliver to him a commission as justiee of the peace of the District of Columbia. Marbury had been ap pointed to this office by President Adams, the Senate had confirmed the nomination, and his commission had been made out. signed and sealed, but had not been delivered. When Madison en tered upon his duties as Secretary of State he found the eommission and refused to deliver it. Marbury. in bringing his snit, relied upon an act of Congress, which empowered the Supreme Court to issue the writ of mandamus to exeentive offi cers to compel them to perform their ditties in certain eases. But as the Constitution expressly enumerates the eases in which the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction and nowhere mentions the right of issuing the writ of man damus, the Congressional net in question was clearly without constitutional warrant. This
evident repugnance of the statute to the Con stitution was the first question decided bur the court. The seeond point in the decision related to the power of the court to declare the act null and void and to refuse to be hound thereby when its repugnance to the Constitution was onec established. Chief Justice Marshall, who delivered the opinion of the court, declared that if two laws conflict with eaeh other. the courts must decide on the operation of each, and if a law be in opposition to the Constitution so that the court would have to decide the case conform ably to the law disregarding the Constitut ion, or eonformably to the Constitution disregarding the law, the court must decide which of these con flicting rules governs the ease. if then, lie said, the eonrts are to regard the Constitution, and if the Constitution is supreme over any ordinary statute. the Constitution and not the statute must govern the case to which they both apply. Marshall's argument was readily accepted as the only correct and just rule, and thus was laid the foundation of a judicial prerogative which has immensely intlueneed the legal and eonstitutional development of the United States—a power, too, which is peculiar to the American courts.