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In the early 1800鈥檚, two founding fathers ended up in a hiring dispute with a political appointee demanding his role as a judge in a lower court. But what started as a petty paperwork problem became a landmark case that established the Supreme Court鈥檚 greatest power: judicial review.

On the surface, Marbury v. Madison was a conflict about a presidential transition that upended the appointment of William Marbury, and by default, his political career. At its core, however, this case ensured the balance of political power and how courts should establish its authority to create checks and balances among the three branches of government.

In the second episode of 鈥淟et the Record Show,鈥� ACLU鈥檚 newest history podcast, hosts, Matt Beat and Shereen Marisol Meraji uncover the messy origins that led to the system of checks and balances as we know it today. Below, we continue the conversation to show how this crucial 200-year-old case gave us crucial rights as we know them today, such as, desegregation in schools, same-sex marriage, and birthright citizenship. You can catch up on our latest episode here.

On March 3, 1801, in the final hours of his presidency, President John Adams appointed Marbury as Justice of Peace in the District of Columbia. It was a way for the Federalist Party, a party that believed in a strong central government, to make a lasting impact as it lost government control to Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic Republican. His party believed in giving more power to the states.

The next day, Jefferson was sworn in as the president. He then appointed fellow founding father James Madison as secretary of state. Madison refused to honor Marbury鈥檚 appointment on the grounds that his appointment paperwork wasn鈥檛 delivered in time to beat the clock. And of course, Marbury protested.

Marbury took the case straight to the Supreme Court, which looked a bit different than it does today. At the time, the Supreme Court justices met in random rooms in the Capitol building. Not only did they handle mundane trials, its cases were usually settled within a few days, unlike today where cases can spend years making their way up to the Supreme Court. The framers of the Constitution also kept the Supreme Court鈥檚 role short and vague. It didn鈥檛 have as much power to, for example, determine if something was constitutional or not.

Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the Supreme Court at the time. Marbury demanded that the court provide an order that would force Madison to confirm the appointment. The ruling established that the Judiciary Act of 1789, a law that would have granted the court the ability to force the hand over, was unconstitutional. So, Marbury didn鈥檛 get the appointment in the end.

The court was eloquent is asserting its power of judicial review:

鈥淐ertainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation,鈥� , 鈥渁nd consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.鈥�

鈥淚f an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the Courts and oblige them to give it effect?鈥� Marshall continued. 鈥淚t is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is...This is of the very essence of judicial duty.鈥�

The ruling sets the precedent for judicial review at all levels of court, allowing courts to determine if policies like laws or executive orders are constitutional or not.

Judicial review, as we know it today, enables federal courts to examine government actions and determine whether they comply with the federal Constitution. It ensures there is a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government. The concept of judicial review underlies most of the ACLU鈥檚 work 鈥� the ACLU goes to court to demand that the actions of government comport with the Constitution.

"I've been in the legal department for decades now," said ACLU Deputy Legal Director Louise Melling on our podcast's latest episode. "Most everything we do is really about asking the court to exercise its power of judicial review."

Below, we've outlined some ways the courts have asserted its judicial review power to protect our civil liberties.

More than 70 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"In the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," said Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Brown v. Board of Education combined cases from five states, including in Kansas, where the plaintiff Oliver Brown's daughter Linda Brown was denied entry to a nearby white elementary school. In each case, the students were denied access under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. Exercising its power of judicial review, the Supreme Court struck down those laws.

The authority of the Supreme Court in this case opened the doors for desegregation, and it was one of the catalysts of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

More than a decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning marriage for same sex couples are unconstitutional. The decision addressed cases coming from four states, challenging laws that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The ACLU was among the counsel in two of the cases before the Court, as well as in many of the cases brought around the country challenging state bans.

In holding unconstitutional state laws banning marriage for same sex couples, the Supreme Court said: 鈥淯nder the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.鈥�

"I was in a room with ACLU people when that decision came down," Melling said. "You can imagine the cheers and the tears in terms of knowing what this meant for people in the room, for our friends, for our loved ones, for people all across the country."

Just last week, the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in their lawsuit against the Trump administration over the revocation of their reporters' White House press credentials. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The brief supports the media companies' claim that the White House violated the First Amendment when it restricted their access to official events because Donald Trump has been unhappy with their coverage. Thanks to a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge, the journalists have regained press access to the White House.