The presidential election of 1800 was fiercely contested along partisan lines. In what historians have called the "Revolution of 1800," Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeated incumbent John Adams, and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans displaced Adams' Federalists as the majority party in both houses of Congress. William Marbury, appointed a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia by Adams shortly before the government transition, did not receive his commission before Adams left office. James Madison, the Secretary of State in the new administration, refused to deliver the commission, and Marbury sued for a writ of mandamus to force Madison to show cause why the commission should not be delivered. In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall (who had been Secretary of State under Adams), the Supreme Court held that it could not issue the writ, because the law authorizing it to do so was in conflict with the Constitution and therefore void. The decision in Marbury v. Madison established the principle of judicial review, or the Supreme Court’s authority to review acts of Congress and declare them void if inconsistent with the Constitution. The concept of judicial review, which gave the judiciary the ability to prevent Congress from exceeding its constitutional authority, helped to establish the judiciary as a co-equal branch of government on par with the executive and legislative branches. Judicial review also served to make the Supreme Court the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions.

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