Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)
13
Opinion of the Court
455, 478 (2005). His arguments were published as a pamphlet, which “may well have been the most prominent discussion of judicial review at the time of the Philadelphia
Constitutional Convention.” Id., at 477.
The North Carolina Supreme Court played its own part
in establishing judicial review. In Bayard v. Singleton, the
court considered the constitutionality of a 1785 Act by the
State’s General Assembly that prevented British loyalists
from challenging property seizures before a jury. 1 Mort.
48 (1787). The court held the Act “abrogated and without
any effect,” for “it was clear” that the legislature could not
pass an Act that “could by any means repeal or alter the
constitution.” Id., at 50. Otherwise, the legislature “would
at the same instant of time, destroy their own existence as
a Legislature, and dissolve the government thereby established.” Ibid. James Iredell, who would later serve as an
inaugural Justice of this Court, penned at the time an open
letter “To the Public” expounding a robust concept of judicial review. 2 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell 145
(1846). “[T]he power of the Assembly,” he wrote, “is limited
and defined by the constitution.” Id., at 146. The legislature, after all, “is a creature of the constitution.” Ibid.
North Carolina and Rhode Island did not stand alone.
See, e.g., Holmes v. Walton (N. J. 1780), described in A.
Scott, Holmes vs. Walton: The New Jersey Precedent, 4 Am.
Hist. Rev. 456 (1899); State v. Parkhurst, 9 N. J. L. 427, 444
(1802) (citing Holmes as holding that a statute providing for
a six-person jury was “unconstitutional”). All told, “[s]tate
courts in at least seven states invalidated state or local laws
under their State constitutions before 1787,” which “laid
the foundation for judicial review.” J. Sutton, 51 Imperfect
Solutions 13 (2018).
The Framers recognized state decisions exercising judicial review at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. On
July 17, James Madison spoke in favor of a federal council
of revision that could negate laws passed by the States. He