Short summaries on select important Supreme Court Cases

Court Decisions 1)Marbury v. Madison (1803) - On the last day of his presidency, President Adams appointed William Marbury as the justice of peace for the District of Columbia. However, the new secretary of state, James Madison, chose to shelf Marbury's commission. Marbury sued Madison for its delivery. In this case, Chief Justice Marshall knew that it would not be delivered and chose to dismiss Marbury's suit. Marshall claimed that the part of the Judiciary Act …

…Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude in certain parts of the Louisiana Territory, violated the Fifth Amendment because it deprived slaveowners of their property without the due process of law. The Court went further stating that the Kansas-Nebraska Act had replaced Missouri Compromise and that it was unconstitutional. It ruled that the Compromise of 1820 had been unconstitutional all along, henceforth Congress had no power to ban slavery despite the wants of territorial legislatures.