It was the case that built a foundation and understanding for the way we see our contemporary justice system today. Marbury v. Madison pointed out for the American people, the Constitution although is a written document, it is not written in stone. The constitution is a flexible document, a document that is up for interpretation. It defines who has what power, how much power, and when the power needs to be enforced. This case pointed out although all branches of government: legislative, judicial, and executive share separate, equal powers the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and has the final interpretation on what is constitutional and what is unconstitutional. Marbury v. Madison was a court case in 1803. The court case began after the third election when Thomas Jefferson …show more content…
The Judiciary Act of 1789 represented a compromise between those who wanted the federal courts to exercise the full jurisdiction allowed under the Constitution and those who opposed any lower federal courts or proposed restricting them to admiralty jurisdiction. The act acknowledged the legitimacy of the state courts and protected individual rights at the same time that it assured the supremacy of the federal judiciary. Extending the jurisdiction of the circuit courts to cases in which the parties were residents of different states greatly enhanced the importance of the federal courts. One of the most controversial provisions of the act, Section 25, granted the Supreme Court jurisdiction to hear appeals of decisions from the high courts of the states when those decisions involved questions of the constitutionality of state or federal laws or authorities. That and other provisions, such as the requirement for circuit riding, provoked frequent demands for revision of the act, but the basic outline of a multi-tiered federal court structure operating alongside state courts survives