AP® United States History · Unit 4 · Topic 4.2
The Marshall Court and Judicial Review
The Marshall Court gave the Supreme Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional, then used that power to steadily expand federal authority over the states.
John Marshall, Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835, faced a trap in Marbury v. Madison in 1803. Outgoing President John Adams had appointed William Marbury as a justice of the peace, but incoming Secretary of State James Madison refused to deliver his commission. If Marshall ordered Madison to deliver it, the new Jefferson administration would likely ignore him, exposing the Court's weakness. If he simply let it go, Marbury would have no remedy. Marshall's way out was a decision tree with a sting in the tail: yes, Marbury had a right to the commission, yes, the law should give him a remedy, but the law that let him bring his case straight to the Supreme Court was itself unconstitutional. The Court struck down that law, dodging a fight with Madison while claiming something far bigger, the power to declare an act of Congress void. The Constitution never spells this out. Marshall reasoned it from the logic of a written Constitution: judges swear to uphold it, so when a statute conflicts with it, the Constitution must win.
Marshall then spent two decades turning that power outward, against the states. In McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, Maryland taxed the Bank of the United States, hoping to strangle it. Marshall ruled Congress could charter a bank even though the Constitution never mentions one, reading the necessary and proper clause broadly, almost exactly as Hamilton had argued in 1791. He then ruled the state tax unconstitutional, declaring 'the power to tax is the power to destroy,' and a state cannot destroy a federal institution. In Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, he struck down a New York steamboat monopoly, ruling that only Congress regulates interstate commerce. Case by case, the Marshall Court built federal supremacy into constitutional law, finishing the argument Hamilton started against Jefferson's narrow reading.
Key terms
- Judicial review
- The power of courts to declare a law or government action unconstitutional and void.
- Necessary and proper clause
- Constitutional clause letting Congress pass laws to carry out its enumerated powers, used to justify implied powers like chartering a bank.
- Implied powers
- Powers not explicitly listed in the Constitution but reasonably inferred from its enumerated powers.
- Federal supremacy
- The principle that valid federal law overrides conflicting state law.
Watch it explained
- How it worksWalk me through Marbury v. Madison as a decision tree and see where Marshall boxes himself a win.
- How it worksHow do McCulloch and Gibbons steadily widen federal power over the states, case by case?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't judicial review a power the Constitution actually spells out?
- Ties togetherHow does the Marshall Court's reading of the necessary and proper clause continue Hamilton's argument?
Check yourself
End of topic.