After eight years as president, George Washington retired. His successor was his vice president, John Adams of Massachusetts; he was the man who had helped convince Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. When Adams was younger, and the country needed help breaking away from England, he was a strong leader and a fine thinker. Then he went off to Europe, where he served his country well as a diplomat. But some said that he grew to love European ceremony and European ways too much. He believed in representative government, but he didn't think much of democracy. Like Alexander Hamilton, he thought that only the educated should govern; he didn't trust the mass of people.

In 1798, with the country on the verge of war with France, Congress introduced bills called the Alien and Sedition Acts; President Adams signed them into law . The Alien Act made it difficult for foreigners to become United States citizens and allowed the president to throw any alien he wanted out of the country. Given the atmosphere of the times it may have been understandable, but the Sedition Act was something else. It made it a crime for Americans to criticize the government; some people got arrested for doing just that. One was Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Lyon was an independent guy—wild, with a real temper. He said that President Adams was trying to act like a king and should be sent "to a mad house." Well, because of the Sedition law, it was Lyon who got sent away—to jail. Thomas Jefferson was shocked. He said, "I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things."

Congress and the president had done something the Constitution said they couldn't do. They were abridging freedom of speech and of the press, which was contrary to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. What could be done?

If Congress were to pass Alien and Sedition Acts today, the Supreme Court would declare them unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court was just getting organized during Adams's presidency. It wasn't very strong. The government's three parts—the executive, legislative, and judicial branches—were supposed to be equal partners, to check and balance each other. But at first the Supreme Court was no check or balance at all. And then, in 1801, President Adams appointed a man named John Marshall as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall was a brilliant choice. He had a good brain and used it. As the historian Henry Adams (John Adams's great-grandson) wrote: "His habits were remarkable for modest plainness; and only the character of his mind, which seemed to have no flaw, made his influence irresistible upon all who were brought within its reach."

John Marshall believed that a strong Supreme Court would help protect the rights of all the people. So in 1803, in a Supreme Court case called Marbury v. Madison, Marshall said the Court could throw out any law passed by Congress if the Court thought that law was unconstitutional. He wrote, "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison began a process called judicial review. It gave the Supreme Court the power to decide if a law passed by Congress meets the requirements of the Constitution. Judicial review made the Court a real check and balance to the other two branches. It helped guarantee our freedoms. John Marshall made sure those rights would be protected—even from Congress and the president.

In his article on John Marshall, Henry Adams added this: "Nevertheless this great man nourished one weakness: ... he detested Thomas Jefferson."

It was true. These two remarkable Virginians—who were cousins—couldn't stand each other. Marshall believed the purpose of government was to protect "life, liberty and property." Jefferson believed in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." They didn't realize it, but their ideas complemented each other. John Marshall and his cousin Tom Jefferson did agree on one thing: the Alien and Sedition acts. Neither liked them. Most of the country didn't like them either.

When President Adams ran for a second term in 1800, he was defeated—by Thomas Jefferson, who campaigned with the slogan "Jefferson and Liberty." And when Jefferson became president , the Alien and Sedition Acts were allowed to die. An embittered John Adams wrote "A hurricane of clamor was raised up against [me], even more fierce and violent than I had anticipated."