How Did John Marshall Influence The Supreme Court?

On President John Adams last day in office in 1803, he named forty-two justices of the peace and sixteen new circuit court justices for the district of columbia. John Adams signed the commissions and Secretary of State John Marshall sealed them, but they were not delivered by the end of Adams’s presidential term. Thomas Jefferson refused to honor the commissions because they were not delivered by the end of John Adams’s term. William Marbury was one of the justices of the peace appointed by John Adams on the last day of his term. Marbury petitioned for the Supreme Court of the United States to issue a writ of mandamus to Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State, James Madison, to compel him to issue the commissions. Chief justice John Marshall concluded that William Marbury did have a right to the commission. The commission takes effect …show more content…
If the court gave in and required James Madison to deliver the commission and Madison did not, the Court would have no way to force him to comply, and the Court would seem weak. If the Court did not act, it would seem like they ignored the case because they feared Madison would not comply. The Supreme Court decided to turn to the constitution. They concluded that William Marbury was entitled to his commission, but that the constitution did not authorize issuing a writ of mandamus to James Madison. The dispute revolved around the difference between the Court’s original jurisdiction, and its appellate jurisdiction. If the Court has original jurisdiction, it means that the case can go right through to the Supreme Court and make the Court the first ones to decide on the case. If the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction, the case must first be decided by lower courts. Marbury brought his case under original jurisdiction, so the Court ruled that it would be a poor exercise of the Court’s original jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus in this