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Manuscript document containing William Marbury's petition to the United States Senate asking for release of the results of its vote confirming his appointment as justice of the peace for the District of Columbia by President John Adams, three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 10, no date but circa 1801. Apparently one of a number of manuscript copies of Marbury's petition made for circulation among members of Congress, signed by the copyist: "Signed, Wm. Marbury, R. T. Hooe, Dennis Ramsay."
The petition begins, in part: "To the honorable the Senate of the United States of America, the petition of Wm. Marbury, Rob. Townsend Hooe & Dennis Ramsay most respectfully sheweth, That your Petitioners have been informed & verily believe that John Adams, while President of the United States, nominated to the Senate of the United States, for their advice & consent your petitioner, William Marbury, to be a Justice of the Peace in the County of Washington, in the district of Columbia, & your Petitioners Robert Townsend Hooe & Dennis Ramsay to be Justices of the Peace in the County of Alexandria, in the same district; that the said nominations were duly taken into consideration by the Senate, who on or about the first day of March…were pleased to give their advice & consent that your petitioners should be severally appointed to the offices aforesaid; that commissioners were accordingly in due form signed by the said President, & directed to be sent to your Petitioners by the Secretary of States; but that your Petitioners from some cause have been deprived of their Commissions & are reduced to the necessity of asserting their rights to the same in a judicial court of proceedings, in which as they are advised it will be requisite to produce satisfactory evidence of the advice & consent of the Senate to the appointment…Application has been made to the Secretary of the Senate for his certificate that the advice & consent of the Senate was given in consequence of the nominations aforesaid, that your petitioners should be appointed to be Justices of the Peace in the District of Columbia, which your secretary has declined giving without the leave of the Senate." In fine condition.
The Dictionary of American History notes: 'The importance of the decision in American constitutional history lies chiefly in the position taken that the Court would declare unconstitutional and void acts of Congress in conflict with the Constitution. By this decision the doctrine of judicial review was firmly entrenched in the governmental system, and the position of the judiciary was strengthened in the balance of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Government.'
William Marbury was among a number of last minute appointments to federal office given by the Adams administration as its term of office came to an end. As Secretary of State under Jefferson, James Madison refused to turn over the commissions for Marbury and others, forcing them to seek other means of redress; a petition to Madison failed, as did a petition to the Senate (represented by the circulating copy offered here), and this petition notes that the legal case they are about to file would be aided by proof of the vote of the awarding of the judgeships.
The Senate's vote had been taken in secret, and, as such, could not be divulged without the Senate's consent; now controlled by Jefferson's adherents, it declined Marbury's petition. Filing suit in the Federal courts, Marbury sought a mandamus to force the Secretary of State to act. Eventually the court upheld Marbury's right to his commission, but, moving the case away from his particular plea, ruled that the act of Congress establishing the granting of mandamuses, included in the Judiciary Act of 1789, was unconstitutional, since it had the effect of expanding the original jurisdiction of the court beyond the powers enumerated in the Constitution, leaving no recourse for Marbury to obtain what had been ruled was legally his.
Provenance: From the papers of Federalist Congressman Nathan Read who represented the Salem, Massachusetts, area in the United States House of Representatives, 1800-1803. Read (1759-1849) graduated from Harvard in 1781 and taught school in Beverly and Salem for two years before being elected a tutor at Harvard. He resigned that position in 1787 to study medicine, but soon decided to begin a business career, leading to the establishment of his Salem Iron Factory. His success in business led to his being appointed to Congress in 1800 to fill an unexpired term and he was returned in the following election. In 1807 Read moved to Belfast, Maine, where he spent several decades as a judge in addition to running a successful farm and other businesses.
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