The Great Decision, which is the subject of this historical account, was rendered in the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison. The court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, is considered one of the foundations of U.S. constitutional law. By any standard of judgment, the underlying dispute was trivial in the extreme — so trivial that no one even showed up to represent James Madison, the Secretary of State, who was the defendant in the case. Or, perhaps, the Jefferson Administration, by refusing to send a lawyer, was protesting the authority of the court to compel the President to do something he had decided not to do.