Maurbury v. Madison Reading Re essays

Maurbury v. Madison Reading Re essays In the article Maurbury v. Madison, author John A. Garraty analyzes the famous supreme court case of 1803. Garraty describes the events leading up to Maurbury v. Madison, and explains the significance of the trials outcome today. The stage for the trial was set on the evening of March 3, 1801, as John Adams was spending his last evening in the white house. Garraty states, President Adams was in a black and bitter mood. The conservative President John Adams was quite disturbed, knowing that he was to be replaced by Thomas Jefferson, who had defeated him in the previous election. Jefferson was a liberal, often referred to by Federalists as, a dangerous radical. Garraty states, Conservatives of Adams presuasion were deeply convinced that Thomas Jefferson was a dangerous radical. He would, they though, in the name of individual liberty and states rights, import the worst excesses of the French Revolution and undermine the very foundations of American society. Jeffersons political viewpoints directly contradicted the Federalists belief in a strong central government, with the nation being sovereign. Adams felt that upon Jeffersons inauguration the government that had been so laboriously erected would fall apart. Knowing that he had to protect the government from Jeffersons democratic ideals, Adams signed sixteen commissions appointing conservative Federalists to the supreme court. Since Supreme Court judges serve until they retire or die, Adams was confident that he had created a Federalist stronghold in the judiciary branch, that would balance and check power of the democratic Congress. Adams replaced his retiring Chief of Justice Ellsworth with Secretary of State John Marshall, a solider and polictican that despised Jefferson. By nine o clock that evening Adams went to bed and sent the papers to the State Department to be...