Explain the decision in Marbury v.Madison.

Students' answers may vary.
In the case of Marbury v.Madison (1803), William Marbury had been appointed by President Adams to a position as justice of the peace for the District of Columbia, but the papers for his commission had not been delivered by the time Jefferson supplanted Adams in the White House.Jefferson's secretary of state, James Madison, refused to hand over the papers.Marbury asked the Supreme Court to order Madison, through a writ of mandamus (a court order directing an official to do something), to give him his commission.Marshall's opinion in Marbury v.Madison held that the secretary of state had wrongfully withheld the commission.But the Supreme Court, he went on, could do nothing to rectify this injustice because the authority to issue writs of mandamus, mandated by the Judiciary Act of 1789, was unconstitutional-it expanded the original jurisdiction of the Court beyond what was specified in Article III.Marshall crafted the doctrine of judicial review.He bolstered the power of the Supreme Court and avoided a confrontation with the Jefferson administration by ruling that the Supreme Court was powerless to reverse the action toward Marbury.But he advanced the Supreme Court's power in the long term by making it, and not the other branches, the final arbiter of constitutionality.