What did Marbury do next?

[Sean Wilson]

That is fascinating, because I find it a vehicle for something else: the construction of the most important Supreme Court conclusion that has stood the test of time, but that currently suffers from an academic fad of excessive criticism that at times cannot separate motivation from epistemology. What is special about the decision is the Herculean syllogism establishing judicial review as a precedent in the classical (philosophic) style, and the historical evidence demonstrating the appropriateness of the conclusion. The political drama, of course, is the icing on the cake -- it makes for a wonderful story. But I see in the decision the same kind of epistemology that you see with Scalia in federal sentencing decisions or the flag burning opinion he joined. It does not matter one bit that Marshall's opinion is reflective of federalist political culture at the time. The claim is not that Marshall's opinion was original; it that the  decision is a legitimately profound one.
  
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. 
Penn State University
Website: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/home/
Email discussion group:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLudwigGroup 
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Conference papers: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/research-agenda/


 
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