Marbury vs. Madison and Judicial Review

In 1800, President John Adams lost his bid for re-election. Thomas Jefferson was voted in for the president. Adams, being a Federalist, disagreed with the beliefs of Jefferson, a republican, and feared that he would shift the power in the government to the states. To prevent this, Adams created many new judicial posts and filled them with Federalists. He did this in quite a rush, being he was going to be out of office soon. All the appointments were given to his Secretary of State to be sealed and delivered. Secretary of State Marshall completed all the documents except for the ones for the appointments for the District of Columbia. He assumed the next Secretary of State would complete them. …