In 1801, after Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent Federalist John Adams for the presidency, the outgoing Federalists pushed through the nation's first court-packing plan. In what became known as the "Midnight Judges Act," they created a host of new judicial offices and appointed loyal Federalists to fill them.
The whole mess landed in the lap of the Supreme Court after William Marbury, one of the would-be midnight judges who hadn't been installed prior to the change of government, sued for his promised seat on the bench.
The court's decision in Marbury vs. Madison, written by Federalist Chief Justice John Marshall, upheld Marbury's entitlement to the judicial commission. To avoid a political crisis with the Jefferson administration, though, the court struck down as unconstitutional the statute by which Congress had given the Supreme Court power to hear the case. The ruling is best remembered for having established the principle of judicial review, which holds that the judiciary can declare acts of Congress or the president unconstitutional. But the court's actions in the case were pure politics.
People today act shocked that the courts seem influenced by politics. When the Supreme Court overturned a lower court in Bush vs. Gore following the 2000 election, Democrats cried foul. Similarly, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that California's recall election should be postponed, Republicans were outraged. But in fact, the line between law and politics has never been all that sharp, and the early history of the U.S. judiciary is one of judges even more deeply embroiled in electoral politics than judges today.
The issue is embedded in how the system is set up. Judges are political animals, largely appointed by politicians for political reasons. On top of that, the courts have had to rule on many of the nation's most highly charged political issues.
In 1819 the Marshall court put its imprimatur on the nationalization of the fledgling American economy by approving the chartering of a national bank. It also provided legal guideposts for the dispossession of Native Americans as the nation started to fulfill its "manifest destiny."
In the decades that followed, slave owners and abolitionists importuned the courts to take their respective positions in the sectional crisis. That process led to the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, which, in upholding slavery as an institution, gave the nation a hefty push toward civil war.
