AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN HERITAGE HOMEPAGE
Week 3 - How we got off Track !
1. On September 24, 1789, the new American Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789.
This set up the structure and workings of the courts in America.
Key points of this act were :
a. Six Supreme Court Justices � one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices. Any
four would constitute a quorum.
i. Each of the original 13 states constituted a single District. There was to be one
District Judge who resides in the district for which he is appointed.
b. The 13 Districts would be divided into 3 circuits, Eastern, Middle and Southern
Circuits. Each would be presided over by two Supreme Court Justices and the
District Judge
assigned to that District. Any two votes would constitute a quorum.
c. However, a District Judge could not vote on a case he had already rendered a decision
on.
d. �The Supreme Court shall also have appellate jurisdiction from the circuit courts and
courts of the several states in the cases hereinafter specially provided for and shall have
power to issue writs of prohibition to the district courts, when proceeding as courts of
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and writs of mandamus, in cases warranted by the
principle and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office under
the authority of the United States�
2. In 1803, William Marbury sued President Thomas Jefferson�s administration to deliver on a
promise from the previous Administration to commission him as a justice of the peace. The
case is known as Marbury v. Madison
3. Marbury bypassed the lower courts and filed his action with the U.S. Supreme Court. He
wanted the court to force James Madison, Jefferson�s Secretary of State, to commission him.
This was proper because of the Judiciary Act of 1789.
4. Chief Justice John Marshall of Virginia said that Madison should have given the appointment,
but then he held that the section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that gave the Supreme Court
original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus exceeded the authority allotted the Court under
Article III of the Constitution.
5. Though not in the specific language, he essentially declared that an Act of Congress was
unconstitutional. Ironically, he used the very Act he cited as unconstitutional to grab the
authority to override Congress to declare the Act unconstitutional. This was seen as minor
then as it dealt with an obscure law case about an arcane action dealing with a low-level
federal employee.
6. Until the decision in Marbury v. Madison, each President and each member of Congress, since
he or she had taken an oath to defend the Constitution, was considered perfectly capable of
deciding constitutional interpretations.
7. Thomas Jefferson fought the power grab bitterly and in 1820 wrote: �To consider the judges
as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed,
and one that would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest
as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power,
and the privilege of their corps�Their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for
life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are to the elective control. The Constitution
has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided with the
corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.�
8. Much Later, Abraham Lincoln voiced the same warning when in his inaugural address he
declared:��the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital
questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme
Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions,
the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned
their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.�
9. In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise allowing the Missouri territory to adopt
their state constitution having no restrictions on slavery and still apply for membership in the
Union.
10. In 1857, in the case Scott v. Sandford, Dred Scott and his wife filed suit to be freed from
slavery as they had once lived in the slave-free state of Illinois and territory of Wisconsin.
They sued under the Missouri standing legal doctrine of "once free, always free." Since they
had resided for a time in free Wisconsin Territory, they reasoned, they should be entitled to
their freedom under this doctrine.
11. First, Sandfords attorneys proposed that, as a slave, Scott was not a citizen of the United
States and, therefore, had no right to sue at all. Secondly, they argued that, since slaves were
in fact private property, Congress had exceeded its authority when it passed the Missouri
Compromise of 1820 regulating slavery within the territories. The court agreed that Congress
had exceeded it�s authority.