The Activist

by Lawrence Goldstone

  TWENTY-ONE: SAYING WHAT THE LAW IS

  1 Conrad and McMunn’s had burned down, and Stelle’s had become the justices’ new residence.

  2 The opinion is in 5 US 137–80.

  3 These sections of the opinion are rarely cited, since they were rendered moot when Marshall effectively annulled them when he declared Article 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 unconstitutional. The omission is unfortunate, since these tortuous arguments are more important to understanding Marshall’s overall strategy than are the meatier sections later in the opinion. Marbury’s density is of particular contrast to the simple, straightforward language of Stuart.

  4 Emphasis added.

  TWENTY-TWO: MARGINALIZATION: STUART, PICKERING, AND CHASE

  1 Beveridge, v. 2, p. 142.

  2 Ibid., v. 2, p. 154.

  3 J. Smith, p. 325.

  4 Dewey, p. 100. The second case was Stuart v. Laird, to be discussed below.

  5 Quoted in Warren, v. 1, pp. 246–48.

  6 Dewey, p. 138.

  7 Jefferson wrote in a letter to George Hay in June 1807, during the Burr trial, that Marshall’s decision was an “attempt” to gain “control . . . in subversion of the independence of the Executive and Senate within their peculiar department.” Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Papers.

  8 By far the most rigorous and penetrating analysis of Stuart is by Ackerman, who demonstrates that Lee’s argument, largely reflective of Marshall’s Marbury decision, must therefore have been made after the chief justice had finished his reading (pp. 182–88).

  9 As Justice Washington had sat on Talbot v. Seeman.

  10 Ackerman, pp. 187–88.

  11 Whether or not Adams had actually become unhinged, High Federalists certainly believed he had.

  12 5 US 299.

  13 Ibid.

  14 Ibid., pp. 308–9.

  15 Ibid., p. 309.

  16 Ackerman notes, “Paterson does not say that the justices could rightfully ride circuit, any more than he says that Congress could rightfully strip the circuit judges of their commissions.” In other words, he adds, “Marbury was yesterday, and today is today” (p. 186).

  TWENTY-THREE: WHAT THE LAW ISN’T

  1 Levy, Original Intent, p. 77.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Clinton, p. 100.

  4 Speech to the Federal Judges Association, May 2001. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/speeches/sp_05–08–01.html.

  5 Beveridge, v. 3, p. 32.

  6 McCloskey, p. 40.

  7 5 US 299.

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