He refused to return to the bench,
and Marshall was appointed, with whom the second era of the court
begins. Marshall was a Virginian, a school-fellow of Monroe, and
co-worker with Madison in the Virginia Constitutional Convention. But
the war acquaintance which he formed with Washington and Hamilton,
added to his personal views, turned him toward Federalism. As a
Virginian, he was cultivated by members of that party, office after
office being placed at his option. Accepting the Chief-Justiceship
under a life tenure, he was "saddled" on the Republicans, as they said.
The decision in the case of Marbury _vs._ Madison was one of many which
emanated from Marshall, silently shoring up the fabric of the Union
as it was erected by the hand of necessity. "The theory that an act
of legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void," said the Chief
Justice, in granting Marbury and others the withheld commissions,
through the district court, "is essential to a written constitution,
and is consequently to be considered by this court as one of the
fundamental principles of our society." We speak so easily now of
declaring a law unconstitutional, thereby rendering it null and void,
and we acquiesce so readily in these decisions that it is difficult
to imagine the small beginnings of this great power exercised by one
branch of the Federal Government over another.
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