of his service, his dissenting opinions numbered eight, only one of which involved a constitutional question.  Nor was the supremacy which this record indicates confined to questions of constitutional law.  The reports of the court during Marshall’s tenure fill thirty volumes, containing 1,215 cases.  In ninety-four of these no opinions were filed, while fifteen were decided “by the court.”  In the remaining 1,106 cases the opinion of the court was delivered by Marshall in 519, or nearly one-half.

A full review of the questions of constitutional law decided by the Supreme Court during Marshall’s term of service would involve a comprehensive examination of the foundations on which our constitutional system has been reared; but we may briefly refer to certain leading cases by which fundamental principles were established.

In one of his early opinions he discussed and decided the question whether an Act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution is void.  This question was then by no means free from difficulty and doubt.  The framers of the Constitution took care to assure its enforcement by judicial means against inconsistent State action, by the explicit provision that the Constitution itself, as well as Federal statutes and treaties, should be the “supreme law” of the land, and as such binding upon the State judges, in spite of anything in the local laws and constitutions.  But as to the power of the courts to declare unconstitutional a Federal statute, the instrument was silent.  There is reason to believe that this silence was not unintentional; nor would it be difficult to cite highly respectable opinions to the effect that the courts, viewed as a co-ordinate branch of the government, have no power to declare invalid an Act of the Legislature, unless they possess express constitutional authority to that effect.  We have seen that Marshall expressed in the discussions of the Virginia convention a contrary view; but it is one thing to assert an opinion in debate and another thing to declare it from the bench, especially in a case involved in or related to political contests; and such a case was Marbury v.  Madison.

Marbury was a citizen of the District of Columbia, who had been appointed as a justice of the peace by John Adams, just before his vacation of the office of President.  It was one of the so-called “midnight” appointments of President Adams, which became a subject of heated political controversy.  It was alleged that Marbury’s commission had been made out, sealed, and signed, but that Mr. Madison, who immediately afterwards became Secretary of State, withheld it from him.  Marbury therefore applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to compel its delivery.  In the course of the judgment, which was delivered by Marshall, opinions were expressed on certain questions the decision of which was not essential to the determination of the case, and into these it is unnecessary now to enter, although one