Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/165

146 of the Supreme Court, the Chief-Justice did not deliver his opinion until Feb. 24, 1803.

The strongest admirers of Marshall admitted that his manner of dealing with this case was unusual. Where a judgment was to turn on a question of jurisdiction, the Court commonly considered that point as first and final. In the case of Marbury the Court had no original jurisdiction, and so decided; but instead of beginning at that point and dismissing the motion, the Court began by discussing the merits of the case, and ruled that when a commission had been duly signed and sealed the act was complete, and delivery was not necessary to its validity. Marbury's appointment was complete; and as the law gave him the right to hold for five years, independent of the Executive, his appointment was not revocable: "To withhold his commission, therefore, is an act deemed by the Court not warranted by law, but violative of a legal vested right."

This part of the decision bore the stamp of Marshall's character. The first duty of law, as he understood it, was to maintain the sanctity of pledged word. In his youth society had suffered severely from want of will to enforce a contract. The national government, and especially the judiciary, had been created to supply this want by compelling men to perform their contracts. The essence of the opinion in Marbury's case was that the Executive should be held to the performance of a contract, all the more because