It started off with a disputed Act of Congress. In the lame-duck session between the election of Thomas Jefferson and his taking office as the third president of the United States, still-president John Adams and his Federalist supporters attempted to pack the courts with other federalists. Congress passed the “Organic Act” and under its auspices Adams named forty-two justices of the peace and sixteen new circuit court justices for the District of Columbia, among them William Marbury. The following day, Jefferson and his cabinet took over, but refused to deliver the commissions for the selected judges. Marbury filed suit in the Supreme Court.

On this day, February 24, in 1803, the Supreme Court rendered its decision in the Marbury v Madison court ase. It was a complicated case, and the justices essentially split it into five different questions. They agreed that Marbury was wronged, and Jefferson’s Secretary of State James Madison should have delivered the commission. The Supreme Court did have the power to review and check Congressional acts, but the justices also noted that power did not expand beyond what was stated in the Constitution, and was not applicable to Marbury’s case. They ruled they could not compel Madison to deliver the commission. Marbury never did get it.As a landmark court case, Marbury affirmed the principle of Judicial Review – that judges can oversee the actions of the executive branch. Likewise, it affirmed the “Supremacy Clause” of the Constitution, holding it as the final and highest law of the land. Marbury is required reading for every first-year law student, signifying its importance to this day.