Midnight Appointments Of John Adams

Imagine our president today making secret appointments that would affect how the country is run. This happened in 1801 when President John Adams made many appointments in the last few days of his presidency. The John Adams midnight appointments affected the development of the Judiciary branch because of the trials established by Judicial review, the trials made federal monopolies more powerful than state monopolies, and the trials made federal establishments immune to state taxes. Without the midnight appointments, the judicial review and other checks of Congress would not have been created.

The Midnight appointments start at the beginning of the Judicial review. William Marbury was the second midnight judge appointed by John Adams before Thomas Jefferson was in office. The midnight judges were judges appointed by John Adams and created sixteen new judgeships and federal courts. The judicial review was started by the Marbury v Madison case, with the question of whether the Supreme Court has the power to order the delivery of Marbury's commission. John Adams made William Marbury a commission, but James Madison, the secretary of state, refused to deliver the commission. This circumstance is what led William Marbury to sue. The outcome of the case was John Marshall's

Marbury Vs Madison establishing Judicial Review allowed the Federalists to maintain checks and balances on the Democratic Republican-controlled Legislative and Executive branches. McCulloch Vs Maryland, establishing that Federal institutions could not be taxed by state law allowed the government to increase its own wealth. Gibbons Vs Ogden established that federal licenses outlawed state-granted monopolies and allowed the government uninterrupted trading power for domestic economics. All these helped move the Federalist agenda of increasing power in the central