after Marbury v. Madison until the Dred Scott decision nullified the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, which had distinguished the status of slaves in slave and free states. Dred Scott held that property rights, including rights of slave ownership, were absolute and could not be ignored in free or slave states.2 Meanwhile, however, in Fletcher v. Peck in 1810, McCullough v. Maryland and Dartmouth v. Woodward in 1819, and Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, and the Court had upheld the constitutionality of an act of Congress or the supremacy of federal over state courts, in such issues as bank chartering, university education, and interstate commerce regulation. A subsidiary effect of decisions that held the Constitution as the supreme law of the land was to anchor the supremacy of national over state government in a whole range of ways.
A sense of the availability of information on judicial review is virtually as close as the nearest history book index or library card catalogue file. A score or more books on some aspect of the Supreme Court as the principal interpreter of the Constitution are listed under the subject title Judicial Review. Such subject areas as Judicial Process and Judicial Separation of Powers also yield books or videotapes of subject relevant interest. Many of the same books are listed under the subject headings U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court. Whether specific titles are truly in print may be determined from a check of the current issue of Books in Print, but most will doubtless be available at university and larger public libraries.
One pivotal reference entry in the card catalogue cites the Supreme Court as an author. A check of the title on the shelves of the reference section reveals that Leading Decisions of the United States Supreme Court is a primary resource that demonstrates the very principle of judicial review in action. Leading Decisions is a loose leaf pamphlet filled volume that is conti...