Marbury v. Madison
521
apportion the judicial power between the supreme and inferior courts according to the will of that body, it would certainly have been useless to
have proceeded further than to have defined the judicial power, and the
tribunals in which it should be vested. The subsequent part of the section
is mere surplusage, is entirely without meaning, . . . the distribution of
jurisdiction, made in the Constitution, is form without substance. . . .
It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended
to be without effect; and, therefore, such a construction is inadmissible,
unless the words require it. . . .
To enable this court, then, to issue a mandamus, it must be shown to
be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, or to be necessary to enable them
to exercise appellate jurisdiction. . . .
It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction, that it revises and
corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create
that cause. Although, therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts,
yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper, is in effect
the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and, therefore,
seems not to belong to appellate, but to original jurisdiction. Neither is it
necessary in such a case as this, to enable the court to exercise its appellate jurisdiction.
The authority, therefore, given to the Supreme Court, by the Act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the Constitution;
and it becomes necessary to inquire whether a jurisdiction so conferred
can be exercised.
The question, whether an Act repugnant to the Constitution can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United
States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It
seems only necessary to recognize certain principles, supposed to have
been long and well established, to decide it.
That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their
own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been
erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can
it nor ought it to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so es-