Supreme Court, the Republican
reformation of the courts might be brought to naught by an adverse
decision. A supplementary act was therefore passed which prevented the
Supreme Court from holding its usual session. It was hoped that when the
court met in the following year, Federalist partisanship would have lost
its violence.

Two obnoxious acts of the late Administration--the Alien and the
Sedition Acts--had expired by limitation. Congress suffered the Alien
Enemies Act to remain upon the statute book, but insisted upon the
repeal of the Naturalization Act of the year 1798. The time of residence
required of aliens before they could acquire citizenship was again fixed
at five years. With these rather meager performances, the reforms of the
Republicans came to an end.

Perhaps none of the last appointments of John Adams had so exasperated
his successor as that of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court. Jefferson had an invincible repugnance for Marshall; and the
feeling was cordially reciprocated. Between these men there were
temperamental differences as wide as the ocean. Moreover, Jefferson
entertained the belief that all appointments made by Adams after the
results of the election were known were nullities, on the theory that a
retiring President might not bind his successor. Two years later, in
1803, in the famous case of _Marbury_ v. _Madison_, the Supreme Court,
speaking through the Chief Justice, took sharp issue with the President.
William Marbury had applied to the court for a _mandamus_ to compel
Madison, Secretary of State, to deliver his commission as justice of the
peace, which, it was alleged, had been duly signed and sealed, but never
delivered. The Supreme Court held that Marbury was entitled to his
commission. "To withhold his commission, therefore," said Marshall, "is
an act deemed by the Court not warranted by law, but violative of a
legal vested right." Let President Thomas Jefferson take notice of his
constitutional obligations.

The case of _Marbury_ v. _Madison_, however, has a much deeper
significance for constitutional history. Having asserted the right of
Marbury to his commission, the court disappointed expectations by
refusing to issue the writ of _mandamus_, on the ground that the power
to issue such writs was not conferred by the Constitution upon the
Supreme Court as part of its original jurisdiction. And as the Judiciary
Act of 1789 had conferred this authority, the court w