Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 137 (1803) (W|L)
- Outgoing President John Adams had issued William Marbury a commission
as justice of the peace, but the new Secretary of State, James Madison,
refused to deliver it. Marbury then sued to obtain it. With his
decision in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall established
the principle of judicial review, an important addition to the system of
checks and balances created to prevent any one branch of the Federal
Government from becoming too powerful. The document shown here bears the
marks of the Capitol fire of 1898. A Law repugnant to the is void. With
these words written by Chief Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court for
the first time declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and
signed by the President. Nothing in the Constitution gave the Court this
specific power. Marshall, however, believed that the Supreme Court
should have a role equal to those of the other two branches of
government.
Hammer v. Dagenhart 247 U.S. 251 (1917) (W|L)
- The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act prohibited the interstate shipment
of goods produced by child labor. Reuben Dagenhart's father had sued on
behalf of his freedom to allow his fourteen year old son to work in a
textile mill. Day spoke for the Court majority and found two grounds to
invalidate the law. Production was not commerce, and thus outside the
power of Congress to regulate. And the regulation of production was
reserved by the Tenth Amendment to the states. Day wrote that "the
powers not expressly delegated to the national government are reserved"
to the states and to the people. In his wording, Day revised the
Constitution slightly and changed the intent of the framers: The Tenth
Amendment does not say "expressly." The framers purposely left the word
expressly out of the amendment because they believed they could not
possibly specify every power that might be needed in the future to run
the government.
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. 301 U.S. 1 (1937) (W|L)
- With the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, Congress determined
that labor-management disputes were directly related to the flow of
interstate commerce and, thus, could be regulated by the national
government. In this case, the National Labor Relations Board charged the
Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. with discriminating against employees
who were union members. The Court held that the Act was narrowly
constructed so as to regulate industrial activities which had the
potential to restrict interstate commerce. The justices abandoned their
claim that labor relations had only an indirect effect on commerce.
Since the ability of employees to engage in collective bargaining (one
activity protected by the Act) is "an essential condition of industrial
peace," the national government was justified in penalizing corporations
engaging in interstate commerce which "refuse to confer and negotiate"
with their workers.
McCullough v. Maryland 17 U.S. 316 (1819) (W|L)
- In the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief
Justice John Marshall handed down one of his most important decisions
regarding the expansion of Federal power. This case involved the power
of Congress to charter a bank, which sparked the even broader issue of
the division of powers between state and the Federal Government. In 1816
Congress established the Second National Bank to help control the
amount of unregulated currency issued by state banks. Many states
questioned the constitutionality of the national bank, and Maryland set a
precedent by requiring taxes on all banks not chartered by the state.
In 1818 the State of Maryland approved legislation to impose taxes on
the Second National Bank chartered by Congress.
Martin v. Hunter's Lessee 14 U.S. 304 (1816) (W|L)
- Lord Fairfax held land in Virginia. He was a Loyalist and fled to
England during the Revolution. He died in 1781 and left the land to his
nephew, Denny Martin, who was a British subject. The following year, the
Virginia legislature voided the original land grant and transferred the
land back to Virginia. Virginia granted a portion of this land to David
Hunter. The Jay Treaty seemed to make clear that Lord Fairfax was
entitled to the property. The Supreme Court declared that Fairfax was so
entitled, but the Virginia courts, where the suit arose, refused to
follow the Supreme Court's decision. The Court rejected the claim that
Virginia and the national government were equal sovereigns. Reasoning
from the Constitution, Justice Story affirmed the Court's power to
override state courts to secure a uniform system of law and to fulfill
the mandate of the Supremacy Clause.
United States v. Nixon 418 U.S. 683 (1974) (W|L)
- Prosecution of former government officials and presidential campaign
officials for conspiracy to defraud United States and to obstruct
justice, and for other offenses, wherein special prosecutor caused
third-party subpoena duces tecum to be issued directing the President to
produce tape recordings and documents relating to conversations with
aides and advisors. The United States District Court for the District of
Columbia, denied the President's motion to quash subpoena, 377 F.Supp.
1326, and an appeal was taken. Certiorari before judgment was granted to
bring matter before Supreme Court before disposition by Court of
Appeals. The Supreme Court, Mr. Chief Justice Burger, held that dispute
was justiciable; that District Court was not shown to have erred in
determining that special prosecutor's showing of relevancy,
admissibility, and specificity was sufficient to warrant issuance of
order; and that President's generalized interest in confidentiality,
unsupported by claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or
sensitive national security secrets, could not prevail against special
prosecutor's demonstrated, specific need for the tape recordings and
documents.
Baker v. Carr 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (W|L)
- Appellants are persons allegedly qualified to vote for members of the
General Assembly of Tennessee representing the counties in which they
reside. They brought suit in a Federal District Court in Tennessee under
42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988, on behalf of themselves and others
similarly situated, to redress the alleged deprivation of their federal
constitutional rights by legislation classifying voters with respect to
representation in the General Assembly. They alleged that, by means of a
1901 statute of Tennessee arbitrarily and capriciously apportioning the
seats in the General Assembly among the State's 95 counties, and a
failure to reapportion them subsequently notwithstanding substantial
growth and redistribution of the State's population, they suffer a
"debasement of their votes," and were thereby denied the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment. They
sought, inter alia, a declaratory judgment that the 1901 statute is
unconstitutional and an injunction restraining certain state officers
from conducting any further elections under it. The District Court
dismissed the complaint on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction of
the subject matter and that no claim was stated upon which relief could
be granted. Held: 1. The District Court had jurisdiction of the subject
matter of the federal constitutional claim asserted in the complaint.
Pp. 198-204. 2. Appellants had standing to maintain this suit. Pp.
204-208. 3. The complaint's allegations of a denial of equal protection
presented a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which
appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. Pp. 208-37.