APUSH – Marshall and the Court – Cases

Sec. of State James Madison held up one of John Adams' \"Midnight Judges\" appointments. The appointment was for a Justice of the Peace position for William Marbury. Marbury sued. Fellow Hamiltonian and Chief Justice John Marshall dismissed Marbury's suit, avoiding a political showdown and magnifying the power of the Court. This case cleared up controversy over who had final say in interpreting the Constitution: the states did not, the Supreme Court did. This is judicial review.

Individuals suing states. Two citizens of S. Carolina sued Georgia in the Supreme Court. The court accepted the case and handed down a decision for the South Carolinians, who were acting as agents for a British creditor. Georgia refused to participate in the case. The case angered many, who saw it as an infringement on the sovereignty of the states. The 11th Amendment ended such suits. Said citizens of one state have the right to sue another state in federal court.

- Situation: Land speculators bribed legislators to approve a land, the public wanted land back, and (although the deal was tainted) there was a contract. - Constitutional Issue: Can a state void a legal contract? - Finding of the Court: States cannot void a legal contract - Impact of the Decision: Further protects property rights; the Supreme Court can invalidate a state action that conflicts with the Constitution Held sanctity of contracts.

This case upheld the right of the Supreme Court to review the decisions of state courts.

In 1819, in this case Marshall confirmed the \"implied powers\" of Congress by upholding the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, even thought it had become very unpopular in the south and west. This case presented two constitutional questions to the Supreme Court: Could Congress charter a bank? And if so, could individual states ban it or tax it? Daniel Webster defended the bank, and argued that establishing such an institution came with it the \"necessary and proper\" clause of the Constitution and that the power to tax involved a \"power to destroy.\" What he was saying was that if the states could tax the Bank at all, they would tax it to death. Marshall ended up deciding for the Bank.

In 1810, this further expanded the meaning of the contract clause of the Constitution. After the Republicans gained control of the New Hampshire government, they tried to revise the Dartmouth College charter, to make it a public school instead of private. Daniel Webster defended the college, he argued that the charter was in fact a contract that was protected by the same doctrine that the court had already upheld in Fletcher v. Peck. The Court ruled for Dartmouth, proclaiming the corporation charters such as the one the colonial legislature had granted the college were contracts and this inadvisable. This decision placed important restrictions on the ability of state governments to control corporations.

In 1821, in this case Marshall explicitly affirmed the constitutionality of federal review of state court decisions. The states had given up part of their sovereignty in ratifying the Constitution, he explained, and their courts must submit to federal jurisdiction. The Cohen brothers began the fight of their lives. This case was very controversial because the two brothers were going head to head against the Supreme court. The United States Congress had just authorized the selling of lottery tickets in the District of Columbia, but the Cohen brothers sought to resell them in the state of Virginia. In Virginia the law clearly states that the selling of lottery tickets is forbidden.

Happened in 1824, in this case the Court strengthened Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. The state of New York had granted the steamboat company of Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston the exclusive right to carry passengers on the Hudson River to New York City. They then gave Aaron Ogden the business of carrying passengers across the river between New York and New Jersey. But Thomas Gibson, with a license granted under an act of Congress, began competing with Ogden for ferry traffic. Ogden brought a suit against him and won in the New York Courts. Gibbons then appealed to the Supreme Court. The important question in this case was whether Congress had the power to give Gibbons a license to operate his ferry superseded the state of New York's power to grant Ogden a monopoly. Marshall claimed that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce was \"complete in itself\" and might be \"exercised to its utmost extent.\" Ogden's state-granted monopoly was void.

In this court case in 1831, the Cherokees fought for defense against the Indian Removal Act and against the Georgia Legislature's nullification of Cherokee laws. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee had \"an unquestionable right\" to their lands, but that they were \"not a foreign state, in the sense of the Constitution\" but rather a \"domestic, dependent nation\" and so could not sue in a United States court over Georgia's voiding their right to self-rule. Although this was a blow to the Cherokee case against Georgia, it cast doubt on the constitutionality of the Indian Removal Act.

In this 1832 court case, the Supreme Court reversed itself and ruled that the State of Georgia could not control the Cherokee within their territory. The case revolved around two missionaries, Samuel Austin Worcester and Elizur Butler, who were welcomed by the Cherokee but who had not obtained a license under Georgia law to live on Cherokee lands. Worcester and Butler, unlicensed missionaries welcomed by the Cherokee, disobeyed Georgia's orders to take an oath of allegiance to the state or leave Cherokee land. In 1832, when the court invalidated a Georgia law that attempted to regulate access by U.S. citizens to Cherokee country. Marshall claimed only the federal govt. could do that. He explained that the tribes were sovereign entities in much the same way Georgia was a sovereign entity. In defending the power of the federal government, he was also affirming and explaining the rights of the tribes to remain free from the authority of state governments.