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As the fourth Supreme Court Chief Justice of the United States of America, John Marshall created a legacy that has endured nearly two hundred years. While writing the majority opinion for the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803, he single-handedly changed the course of our judicial system. He did this by granting the judicial branch the power to determine a law unconstitutional, otherwise known as judicial review. The question at hand, then, is to explore how this one ruling on a seemingly insignificant case became a worthy landmark on the timeline of United States history. Just as any decision, at any specific point in time, Marshall did not intentionally choose to eradicate the norm and clear a new path for the future. He was neither attempting to establish judicial supremacy nor rewrite the law. Nevertheless, this seemingly ingenious decision was clearly groundbreaking in that it was the first instance on which the Supreme Court officially established its power over legislation, and has since been viewed as the basis for judicial authority (Gunnarson 2). However, John Marshall?s ruling in the case of Marbury v. Madison was undoubtedly the only logical choice, and was based on three important factors: previou