Posted on 02/22/2005 2:55:14 PM PST by DirtyHarryY2K
Marbury did not decide Marbury v. Madison!!! He was a party in that case and had been appointed by Adams to a lower-level federal position (a magistrate is a far cry from the Supreme Court.) The decision in Marbury was authored by Marshall--he set the precedent of which you complain. In fact, Marbury lost the case--on the way to saying that the Court could interpret the constitutionality of an Act, the Court ruled that the Act under which Adams appointed Marbury was invalid. If you're going to accuse Adams of malfeasance, at least get it right!
He was indeed a consumate gentleman, but the far reaching damage he did is far worse than anything bealzabubba did....unless of course china ends up sending missiles over. See #17 for the meat of my complaint.
It appears that I need to re-educate myself on that point...thanks for the correction in advance...doesn't change my view of Adams, though.
In addition to my first reply in number 21, I must also disagree quite strongly with your characterization of Adams having hated Jefferson. They were quite close, had a falling out with many root causes, including the Marbury issue, and made up years later. Read their letters--they had high regard for each other and were happy to become friends again. They died on the same day (the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, no less), and Adams' last words were to inquire after Jefferson.
Although I understand your point about judicial power, you need to keep in mind that under Adams' view of federalism, the court was never supposed to become what it is now. In fact, he lost Marbury and could hardly be said to be crazy about the court-power-expanding outcome. Even with that outcome, until the 1930s when FDR was prez the court almost never stepped on the other branches of government or a state legislature. The John Marshall vision of judicial review was quite different than what we have now. If you read the things Adams actually wrote, you can see that although he was a federalist he was not in favor of total federal power in all areas. On most issues I should think that he would align with the more conservative Republicans of today.
-PJ
Their letters of the time are often tinged with regret, pain, and sorrow over the state of the relationship. Both said some angry things about the other, it's true, but hate is the wrong word. Even at their angriest, they never said they hated each other. They both got prideful and hurt and didn't speak for years, but they continued to mention each other with a sort of sad fondness in letters to others during that time.
He was the President, not the king. He may have enacted the law by signing into law, but it did not originate with him, or even suggested by him. It was born were all law are born in this country -- in the Congress.
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On his defeat, and before the end of his term, he packed the court with federalist judges, one of which was Marbury, who, in the infamous Marbury v Madison,....
Ah, William Marbury was given an appointment to be justice of the peace in the D.C. area. He was never on the SCOTUS. He wasn't even an attorney. His was a "mid-night appointment" by Adams -- one of a hundred or so -- and became the test-case chosen by Federalists attorneys. By the time Marbury's case got the the SCOTUS, something like three years had already passed, the man already found himself another, highly agreeable job and its highly doubtful if he would have even taken the initial offer.
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"...case was , one of forever interpretted the Constitution to mean exactly what the Supreme Court Justices says it means."
This is the work of the 3rd CJ of SCOTUS John Marshall, distant cousin of Thomas Jefferson, one of Adams "midnight appointees", who serve on SCOTUS only after Jefferson became president.
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" ....his (Adam's) federalist views are the reason he hated Jefferson so.
While there was certainly no love lost between the two men, I think the word "hated" is a bit extreme, esp. when re: to John Adams.
It is a different story, however, when it comes to Mr. Jefferson. He had "loathing", shall we say, for a good many men: John Marshall, Patrick Henry, George Washington in his second term (oh, yes he did), John Adams, Aaron Burr, to name a few. Mr. Jefferson had what we would call today "a thin skin"
I heard that his last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still lives", even though Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.
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