Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 6 P28 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 258 LEE V. WEISMAN with his advisers and delivered Robbins to the British authorities. Adams s decision was extremely unpopular with the public and his actions may have contributed to the defeat of his party in the subsequent presidential election. In 1803 Lee represented William Marbury against President Thomas Jefferson s secretary of state JAMES MADISON MARBURY V. MADISON 5 . 1 Cranch 137 2 L. Ed. 60 1803 . Marbury was appointed by Adams Jefferson s predecessor as a justice of the peace but owing to the rush and confusion surrounding the eleventh-hour appointment Marbury s commission had not been delivered. When Jefferson ordered Madison to withhold delivery of the commission Marbury filed suit. Lee lost the case when the Supreme Court ruled that the act of Congress under which Marbury had been issued his commission was unconstitutional. Significantly Marbury established the federal judiciary as the supreme authority in determining the constitutionality of law. Four years later Lee was more successful in his defense of statesman and former vice president AARON BURR who was tried and acquitted on charges of treason a violation of the allegiance one owes to one s sovereign or to the state United States v. Burr 25 F. Cas. 2 1807 . In 1806 Burr had traveled west to promote settlement of land in the Louisiana Territory. His intentions were suspect and he soon found himself accused of treason for planning to initiate a separation of the western territories from the United States. Lee had been a longtime Burr supporter and he took the case winning an acquittal. Lee died June 24 1815 in Fauquier County near Warrenton Virginia. FURTHER READINGS Baker Nancy V. 1992. Conflicting Loyalties Law and Politics in the Attorney General s Office 1789-1990. Lawrence Univ. Press of Kansas. Elkins Stanley and Eric McKitrick. 1995. The Age of Federalism The Early American Republic 1788-1800. New York Oxford Univ. Press. Nagel Paul C. 1992. The Lees of Virginia Seven Generations of
