Capitol Tour X: Marbury v Madison, Dred Scott, and A Stunning Corridor
Our tour ends where it begins - at the Capitol's Senate-side north entrance. But not without a stop at the Old Supreme Court Chamber.
If you wander into the US Capitol’s Visitor Center, you can sign up for a Capitol tour by one of their well-trained guides in their legendary red jackets.
While there, you can rent audio equipment, see a quick video, peruse statues of historical figures, gaze at the catafalque quickly built for Abraham Lincoln to lie in state following his assassination, and even grab lunch from the cafeteria before joining your tour guide on a quick 20-minute tour of the Capitol Building. Your tour will include the Crypt on the first floor, the Rotunda, Statuary Hall, and the Old Senate Chamber.
You may be able to wander on your own to a couple of other places, including a stop that I frankly sometimes forget or forgo on my tours - the Old Supreme Court Chamber on the first floor. It’s off the beaten path and not hard to miss.
It’s a poorly lit room in a small hallway not easily found by most visitors. And it has a history.
It first briefly served as the US Senate’s chamber while the “Old Senate Chamber” was finished upstairs. But the room was initially shoddily built. Architect Benjamin Latrobe redesigned and oversaw the reconstruction of the Supreme Court's room in 1810. Like many others in the Capitol, the room is an architectural masterpiece.
The Supreme Court occupied that room from around 1810 until 1860 (with a five-year break after the British burned the Capitol when they met in a private residence), when they replaced the Senate in their “Old Chamber.” The Supreme Court didn’t stop chasing the Senate until occupying its current building in 1935.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of Supreme Court history to visit. The first chief justice, John Jay, presided over a court of six justices, which would later grow briefly to ten before settling in at nine during the mid-19th Century, where it stands today. The number of justices is established by law, thus the debate over “packing the court” that Democrats are currently threatening to do again.
On my first visit to the Old Supreme Court Chamber, the official tour guide told me that the first “landmark” case was decided, Marbury v. Madison, on February 24, 1803, in that chamber. Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion brilliantly established the principle of “judicial review,” or the power to declare Acts of Congress unconstitutional. It established the “checks and balances” role of the Article III branch of government.
But since the Court didn’t meet in the “Old Supreme Court” Chamber until at least 1810, it likely was decided elsewhere in the Capitol.
In this case, departing President John Adams, a Federalist, appointed a slew of “midnight judges” days and hours before he gave up the presidency to his victorious opponent and rival, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson. Adams wanted to pack the judiciary with loyal Federalists to frustrate the agenda of the new President.
While the Senate confirmed Adams’ judicial nomination at the last minute, a few were lost on their way to the Secretary of State to issue commissions. Jefferson ordered his Virginia neighbor and new Secretary of State (and future President), James Madison, to withhold the commissions. Marbury sued Madison.
Marshall and the court eventually ruled in Marbury’s favor, arguing that he had been appropriately nominated and confirmed and that his commission was ceremonial. The new President had no authority to withhold it. Jefferson and his allies were furious, but the decision stood.
But perhaps the largest decision made in the room was one the Court would eventually overturn. The infamous Scott vs. Sandford or Dred Scott.
Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice after John Jay, John Rutledge (briefly), and Oliver Ellsworth, was succeeded by Roger Taney of Maryland. In 1857, Taney presided over a 7-2 decision and wrote the majority opinion, ruling that African Americans could not become citizens, and declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise - that outlawed slavery in nearly all territories west and north of Missouri - was unconstitutional. Dred Scott had been a slave who contended that his and his former owner’s residence in Illinois had deemed him “free.” The court saw it otherwise.
It was long considered a stain on the court, imposing a legal solution onto a political problem (sound familiar?), which the court continues to struggle with today.
The decision so tarnished Taney’s reputation that his statue has been removed from the grounds of Maryland’s State Capitol, even as his bust remains on display in the Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Chamber. Its presence gives visitors a chance to learn the lesson of that historical interlude. The Civil War and, subsequently, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and effectively repealed Taney’s decision. The Dred Scott decision is considered among the worst in Supreme Court history.
One other thing about the Old Supreme Court Chamber. It features a plaque where Samuel Morse, the telegraph inventor, first dispatched to Baltimore from that room.
As we meander around the corner towards the Capitol’s north entrance, where we originally entered, we stop at what I consider Constantino Brumidi’s signature work, the Brumidi Corridors.
Oh sure, the Apotheosis of George Washington, the capstone of the Rotunda’s interior, is his most famous work. It’s too bad most tours of the Capitol don’t include this magnificent hallway along the first floor underneath the US Senate Chamber.
It was classic Brumidi. The Greek-Italian-Renaissance painter gave most of his illustrious career to the Capitol after stops at the Vatican and churches in Baltimore and Mexico City. This corridor holds special meaning for me.
At some point over history - probably a century ago, after years of sooty fireplaces and gaslight and candle-soiled hallways - someone decided to trace over Brumidi’s fresco (paint over wet plaster) artistry in oil. During my time as Secretary, we began a decade-long, painstaking process to peel away the oil paint with small Exacto knives carefully and laboriously and tediously restore the luster of Brumidi’s masterpieces.
This is no small corridor, and this was no small project. But it looks so much more vibrant today and restores essential history. Kudos to the office of the Senate’s Curator of Art for an outstanding project.
But Brumidi, as he did in the Senate’s reception room, left open spaces as the nation’s story continued to be told. Since then, muralists such as Allyn Cox have added depictions of America’s landing on the moon - complete with an embedded moonrock - and the Space Shuttle Challenger crew tragically exploded over Florida in 1986.
There is one more room that I will try to stop by at the end of the Brumidi Corridor - the meeting room of the Appropriations Committee. The glass door allows visitors to see the magnificently painted room. It used to be the Military Affairs Committee room, thus the Brumidi painting of Bellona - the Roman Goddess of War - above the entrance.
With that, we’re done. We head back outside and, weather permitting, for a few photos on the Senate’s east front steps with our nine-million-pound cast iron dome as a fitting backdrop.
Final Thoughts
I usually finish my tour with a final story involving my first days as a lowly staff assistant for an Arkansas Congressman in early 1979.
US Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt (R-AR) had a custom of entertaining new staff at a high-end restaurant, the Market Inn, which was located on Third Street, SW, just a few blocks from our Rayburn House Office Building (it closed in 2008). Upon returning via car from the restaurant, the Congressman’s press secretary and senior assistant was driving. As we came to a stop at a traffic light, she pointed up toward the Capitol Dome. I’ve never forgotten her words.
“If you ever get tired of seeing that, it’s time to leave town.”
I would eventually leave Washington - only to return two years ago - but never because I was tired of seeing the world’s greatest symbol of democracy. Even as I relocated to work in New Jersey, my work with those in Congress and the Capitol continued unabated and now includes my two sons, who served as Senate pages and one as a doorkeeper and House aide. Either of them could give you a tour almost as good as mine and add a few stories of their own.
My now 40-plus-year career has encompassed every part, every building of this great institution we call Congress - staff, officer, and lobbyist.
And, yes, tour guide.
The Capitol inspires me more today than ever as I learn and share what I know of its history and significance. Having visited and toured capital buildings worldwide, from Bucharest to London, Ottawa to Beijing, there is nothing like ours. I hope these ten missives have helped enlighten and inspire you.
It is, after all, your building.
Links to the entire series:
Chapter 1: A Capitol Tour
Chapter 2: The Senate’s Reception Room
Chapter 3: The Senate Chambers
Chapter 4: Bombs Detonate
Chapter 5: Our Symbolic Rotunda
Chapter 6: Statuary Hall
Chapter 7: Will Rogers, the House Bank, and “Fartgate:
Chapter 8: Blood Stains Marble
Chapter 9: Tragedy Strikes the Capitol Again
Chapter 10: Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott, and a Stunning Corridor