Learn About It (Teacher-led) Marbury vs Madison

Warm up activity

Using the Link provided watch the CNN 10 video, summarize 2 of the topics presented from current events (5-10 sentences for each event), break down of 5 strands of Social Studies. Submission will be in text box entry on the next page.

Activity 1

Watch the following video from History.com, and Answer the 3 questions in the same text box submission as the warm up.

Questions:

Explain how the Supreme Court Decision in the case of Marbury v Madison established a precedent? In your opinion should Marbury have been given the job? What does this mean for our young Nation (Who is gaining the Power)?

Notes:

In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Supreme Court announced for the first time the principle that a court may declare an act of Congress void if it is inconsistent with the Constitution. William Marbury had been appointed a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia in the final hours of the Adams administration. When James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of state, refused to deliver Marbury’s commission, Marbury, joined by three other similarly situated appointees, petitioned for a writ of mandamus compelling delivery of the commissions.

Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for a unanimous Court, denied the petition and refused to issue the writ. Although he found that the petitioners were entitled to their commissions, he held that the Constitution did not give the Supreme Court the power to issue writs of mandamus. Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 provided that such writs might be issued, but that section of the act was inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid.

Although the immediate effect of the decision was to deny power to the Court, its long-run effect has been to increase the Court’s power by establishing the rule that ‘it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ Since Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court has been the final arbiter of the constitutionality of congressional legislation.

The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Activity 2 Power Struggle

For this activity you will need to be in three groups, We will be playing a game of sorts. Directions will be read out loud for the class. But here is a link to the game if absent.

Branches of Power - I-civics