US History - Supreme Court Cases Webquest

Supreme Court Case	Background
	The election of 1800 transferred power in the federal government from the Federalist Party to the Republican Party. In the closing days of President John Adams’s  administration, the Federalists created many new government offices, appointing Federalists to fill them. One of the last-minute or “midnight” appointments was that of William Marbury. Marbury was named a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia. President Adams had signed the papers, but his secretary of state, John Marshall, somehow neglected to deliver the papers  necessary to finalize the appointment. The new president, Thomas Jefferson, was angry at the defeated Federalists’ attempt to “keep a dead clutch on the patronage” and ordered his new secretary of state, James Madison, not to deliver Marbury’s commission papers. Marbury took his case to the Supreme Court, of which John Marshall was now the Chief Justice, for a writ of mandamus—an order from a court that some action be performed—commanding Madison to deliver the commission papers in accordance with the Judiciary Act of 1789.