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                                    192 CHAPTER 6 %u2022 The Federal Judiciary6.2 John Marshall and the Power of the Supreme CourtIn 1803, John Marshall faced a difficult test. He was chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the federal judiciary. Marshall%u2019s Court was hearing a case that on its surface might have seemed to be a small one. It was brought by four men who felt that they had been cheated out of their jobs.Like so many other seemingly %u201csmall%u201d cases in the history of the Supreme Court, this one turned out to be much, much bigger. Marshall%u2019s handling of it had profound%u00a0effects on the power and prestige of the federal judiciary. The case was about politics. It was also about the role of the Supreme Court in our system of checks and balances.The Election of 1800It started with a national election, one of the nastiest in American history. In 1800, incumbent president John Adams and his Federalist Party squared off against Thomas Jefferson and the Republican Party. (Jefferson%u2019s party is often referred to as the DemocraticRepublican Party, though it was then more commonly called the Republican Party. The party is not connected to either party today.)By 1800, with two well-formed and organized political parties, many Americans were fed up with President Adams and the Federalist Party.43 The Republicans accused Adams and the Federalists of trying to bring a British-style monarchy to America. The Federalists accused Jefferson and his fellow Republicans (including Aaron Burr, Jefferson%u2019s running mate in the election) of being too close to France and pointed to the chaos that had unfolded in that country in the wake of the French Revolution.Under the rules of the Constitution at the time, each elector would cast two votes for president. Assuming a majority of electors voted for a single candidate, that person was elected president, and the person with the second largest number of votes (assuming no tie) became the vice president. In the case of a tie, or if no candidate received a majority vote by the electors, the election of the president went to the House of Representatives, with each state delegation receiving one vote. A majority vote was required to secure the presidency.44Jefferson and Aaron Burr each got the same number of electoral votes, and thus tied in the electoral college because every Democratic-Republican elector cast his two votes for Jefferson and Burr as provided in Article II of the original Constitution, even though Burr was intended to be, and ran as, Jefferson%u2019s vice president. Thomas Jefferson was finally elected president by the House of Representatives on the thirty-sixth ballot. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution (ratified in 1804) changed the presidential election rules by separating the votes for president and vice president.45 The House would continue to settle presidential elections if there was not a majority vote for one candidate%u00a0 by the%u00a0 electors, and the Senate would choose the vice president. The last election decided by the%u00a0House of Representatives was in 1824.The early republic was known for its rambunctious politics. Here, a cartoon satirizes John Marshall, who has had a mishap with some heavy volumes in the Library of Congress. Today the Library of Congress is still technically the library for the use of the Congress, although it also serves as the national library. It was officially founded in 1800.Sarin Images/GRANGER-All Rights Reserved%u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
                                
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