The History of the United States Part 15

Marbury vs. Madison-An Act of Congress Annulled.-He had been in his high office only two years when he laid down for the first time in the name of the entire Court the doctrine that the judges have the power to declare an act of Congress null and void when in their opinion it violates the Const.i.tution. This power was not expressly conferred on the Court. Though many able men held that the judicial branch of the government enjoyed it, the principle was not positively established until 1803 when the case of Marbury vs. Madison was decided. In rendering the opinion of the Court, Marshall cited no precedents. He sought no foundations for his argument in ancient history. He rested it on the general nature of the American system. The Const.i.tution, ran his reasoning, is the supreme law of the land; it limits and binds all who act in the name of the United States; it limits the powers of Congress and defines the rights of citizens. If Congress can ignore its limitations and trespa.s.s upon the rights of citizens, Marshall argued, then the Const.i.tution disappears and Congress is supreme. Since, however, the Const.i.tution is supreme and superior to Congress, it is the duty of judges, under their oath of office, to sustain it against measures which violate it. Therefore, from the nature of the American const.i.tutional system the courts must declare null and void all acts which are not authorized. "A law repugnant to the Const.i.tution," he closed, "is void and the courts as well as other departments are bound by that instrument." From that day to this the practice of federal and state courts in pa.s.sing upon the const.i.tutionality of laws has remained unshaken.

This doctrine was received by Jefferson and many of his followers with consternation. If the idea was sound, he exclaimed, "then indeed is our Const.i.tution a complete felo de se [legally, a suicide]. For, intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation.... The Const.i.tution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.... A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." But Marshall was mighty and his view prevailed, though from time to time other men, clinging to Jefferson's opinion, likewise opposed the exercise by the Courts of the high power of pa.s.sing upon the const.i.tutionality of acts of Congress.

Acts of State Legislatures Declared Unconst.i.tutional.-Had Marshall stopped with annulling an act of Congress, he would have heard less criticism from Republican quarters; but, with the same firmness, he set aside acts of state legislatures as well, whenever, in his opinion, they violated the federal Const.i.tution. In 1810, in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, he annulled an act of the Georgia legislature, informing the state that it was not sovereign, but "a part of a large empire, ... a member of the American union; and that union has a const.i.tution ... which imposes limits to the legislatures of the several states." In the case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, decided in 1819, he declared void an act of the Maryland legislature designed to paralyze the branches of the United States Bank established in that state. In the same year, in the still more memorable Dartmouth College case, he annulled an act of the New Hamps.h.i.+re legislature which infringed upon the charter received by the college from King George long before. That charter, he declared, was a contract between the state and the college, which the legislature under the federal Const.i.tution could not impair. Two years later he stirred the wrath of Virginia by summoning her to the bar of the Supreme Court to answer in a case in which the validity of one of her laws was involved and then justified his action in a powerful opinion rendered in the case of Cohens vs. Virginia.

All these decisions aroused the legislatures of the states. They pa.s.sed sheaves of resolutions protesting and condemning; but Marshall never turned and never stayed. The Const.i.tution of the United States, he fairly thundered at them, is the supreme law of the land; the Supreme Court is the proper tribunal to pa.s.s finally upon the validity of the laws of the states; and "those sovereignties," far from possessing the right of review and nullification, are irrevocably bound by the decisions of that Court. This was strong medicine for the authors of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and for the members of the Hartford convention; but they had to take it.

The Doctrine of Implied Powers.-While restraining Congress in the Marbury case and the state legislatures in a score of cases, Marshall also laid the judicial foundation for a broad and liberal view of the Const.i.tution as opposed to narrow and strict construction. In McCulloch vs. Maryland, he construed generously the words "necessary and proper" in such a way as to confer upon Congress a wide range of "implied powers" in addition to their express powers. That case involved, among other things, the question whether the act establis.h.i.+ng the second United States Bank was authorized by the Const.i.tution. Marshall answered in the affirmative. Congress, ran his reasoning, has large powers over taxation and the currency; a bank is of appropriate use in the exercise of these enumerated powers; and therefore, though not absolutely necessary, a bank is entirely proper and const.i.tutional. "With respect to the means by which the powers that the Const.i.tution confers are to be carried into execution," he said, Congress must be allowed the discretion which "will enable that body to perform the high duties a.s.signed to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." In short, the Const.i.tution of the United States is not a strait jacket but a flexible instrument vesting in Congress the powers necessary to meet national problems as they arise. In delivering this opinion Marshall used language almost identical with that employed by Lincoln when, standing on the battle field of a war waged to preserve the nation, he said that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Summary of the Union and National Politics

During the strenuous period between the establishment of American independence and the advent of Jacksonian democracy the great American experiment was under the direction of the men who had launched it. All the Presidents in that period, except John Quincy Adams, had taken part in the Revolution. James Madison, the chief author of the Const.i.tution, lived until 1836. This age, therefore, was the "age of the fathers." It saw the threatened ruin of the country under the Articles of Confederation, the formation of the Const.i.tution, the rise of political parties, the growth of the West, the second war with England, and the apparent triumph of the national spirit over sectionalism.

The new republic had hardly been started in 1783 before its troubles began. The government could not raise money to pay its debts or running expenses; it could not protect American commerce and manufactures against European compet.i.tion; it could not stop the continual issues of paper money by the states; it could not intervene to put down domestic uprisings that threatened the existence of the state governments. Without money, without an army, without courts of law, the union under the Articles of Confederation was drifting into dissolution. Patriots, who had risked their lives for independence, began to talk of monarchy again. Was.h.i.+ngton, Hamilton, and Madison insisted that a new const.i.tution alone could save America from disaster.

By dint of much labor the friends of a new form of government induced the Congress to call a national convention to take into account the state of America. In May, 1787, it a.s.sembled at Philadelphia and for months it debated and wrangled over plans for a const.i.tution. The small states clamored for equal rights in the union. The large states vowed that they would never grant it. A spirit of conciliation, fair play, and compromise saved the convention from breaking up. In addition, there were jealousies between the planting states and the commercial states. Here, too, compromises had to be worked out. Some of the delegates feared the growth of democracy and others cherished it. These factions also had to be placated. At last a plan of government was drafted-the Const.i.tution of the United States-and submitted to the states for approval. Only after a long and acrimonious debate did enough states ratify the instrument to put it into effect. On April 30, 1789, George Was.h.i.+ngton was inaugurated first President.

The new government proceeded to fund the old debt of the nation, a.s.sume the debts of the states, found a national bank, lay heavy taxes to pay the bills, and enact laws protecting American industry and commerce. Hamilton led the way, but he had not gone far before he encountered opposition. He found a formidable antagonist in Jefferson. In time two political parties appeared full armed upon the scene: the Federalists and the Republicans. For ten years they filled the country with political debate. In 1800 the Federalists were utterly vanquished by the Republicans with Jefferson in the lead.

By their proclamations of faith the Republicans favored the states rather than the new national government, but in practice they added immensely to the prestige and power of the nation. They purchased Louisiana from France, they waged a war for commercial independence against England, they created a second United States Bank, they enacted the protective tariff of 1816, they declared that Congress had power to abolish slavery north of the Missouri Compromise line, and they spread the s.h.i.+eld of the Monroe Doctrine between the Western Hemisphere and Europe.

Still America was a part of European civilization. Currents of opinion flowed to and fro across the Atlantic. Friends of popular government in Europe looked to America as the great exemplar of their ideals. Events in Europe reacted upon thought in the United States. The French Revolution exerted a profound influence on the course of political debate. While it was in the stage of mere reform all Americans favored it. When the king was executed and a radical democracy set up, American opinion was divided. When France fell under the military dominion of Napoleon and preyed upon American commerce, the United States made ready for war.

The conduct of England likewise affected American affairs. In 1793 war broke out between England and France and raged with only a slight intermission until 1815. England and France both ravaged American commerce, but England was the more serious offender because she had command of the seas. Though Jefferson and Madison strove for peace, the country was swept into war by the vehemence of the "Young Republicans," headed by Clay and Calhoun.

When the armed conflict was closed, one in diplomacy opened. The autocratic powers of Europe threatened to intervene on behalf of Spain in her attempt to recover possession of her Latin-American colonies. Their challenge to America brought forth the Monroe Doctrine. The powers of Europe were warned not to interfere with the independence or the republican policies of this hemisphere or to attempt any new colonization in it. It seemed that nationalism was to have a peaceful triumph over sectionalism.

References

H. Adams, History of the United States, 1800-1817 (9 vols.).

K.C. Babc.o.c.k, Rise of American Nationality (American Nation Series).

E. Channing, The Jeffersonian System (Same Series).

D.C. Gilman, James Monroe.

W. Reddaway, The Monroe Doctrine.

T. Roosevelt, Naval War of 1812.

Questions

1. What was the leading feature of Jefferson's political theory?

2. Enumerate the chief measures of his administration.

3. Were the Jeffersonians able to apply their theories? Give the reasons.

4. Explain the importance of the Mississippi River to Western farmers.

5. Show how events in Europe forced the Louisiana Purchase.

6. State the const.i.tutional question involved in the Louisiana Purchase.

7. Show how American trade was affected by the European war.

8. Compare the policies of Jefferson and Madison.

9. Why did the United States become involved with England rather than with France?

10. Contrast the causes of the War of 1812 with the results.

11. Give the economic reasons for the att.i.tude of New England.

12. Give five "nationalist" measures of the Republicans. Discuss each in detail.

13. Sketch the career of John Marshall.

14. Discuss the case of Marbury vs. Madison.

15. Summarize Marshall's views on: (a) states' rights; and (b) a liberal interpretation of the Const.i.tution.

Research Topics

The Louisiana Purchase.-Text of Treaty in Macdonald, Doc.u.mentary Source Book, pp. 279-282. Source materials in Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. III, pp. 363-384. Narrative, Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 25-115; Elson, History of the United States, pp. 383-388.

The Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts.-Macdonald, pp. 282-288; Adams, Vol. IV, pp. 152-177; Elson, pp. 394-405.

Congress and the War of 1812.-Adams, Vol. VI, pp. 113-198; Elson, pp. 408-450.

Proposals of the Hartford Convention.-Macdonald, pp. 293-302.

Manufactures and the Tariff of 1816.-Coman, Industrial History of the United States, pp. 184-194.

The Second United States Bank.-Macdonald, pp. 302-306.

Effect of European War on American Trade.-Callender, Economic History of the United States, pp. 240-250.

The Monroe Message.-Macdonald, pp. 318-320.

Lewis and Clark Expedition.-R.G. Thwaites, Rocky Mountain Explorations, pp. 92-187. Schafer, A History of the Pacific Northwest (rev. ed.), pp. 29-61.

PART IV. THE WEST AND JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER X

THE FARMERS BEYOND THE APPALACHIANS