The Activist

Among the many momentous decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, none has had a greater impact than that passed down in 1803 by Chief Justice John Marshall in the case of Marbury v. Madison. While the ruling itself was innocuous, its implications were enormous, for Marshall had, in essence, claimed for the Supreme Court the right to determine what the Constitution really means, known formally as the principle of "judicial review." Yet, as author Goldstone shows, that right is nowhere expressed in the Constitution. Goldstone brings to life the debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 over the structure of our judicial system, and introduces in brief the life and ambition of John Marshall, and the early, fragile years of the Supreme Court. Marshall made the Court supreme, and ironically, while judicial review has been used sparingly, without it the Court would likely never have intervened in the 2000 presidential election.--From publisher description.