The US Supreme Court was an untested institution in 1801 when businessman William Marbury filed a lawsuit there seeking to finalize his appointment as a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia.
Marbury had been part of a tranche of “midnight judges” appointed by John Adams in the last hours of his presidency. But the outgoing administration missed a final step amid the frenzy, failing to deliver Marbury’s signed commission to him. The lawsuit asked the Supreme Court to order the new secretary of state, James Madison, to perform what Marbury said was the ...
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