Nixon v. United States - Significance

Nixon v. United States was one of those rare cases in which the Court's decision was not to decide. In calling upon the Court to overrule the Senate in an area of authority granted to that body by the Constitution, the petitioner was asking the Court to do something forbidden to it. In this sense the ruling was in the spirit of Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court's first significant decision, in which it refused to order that an appointed judge be allowed to take his office because to do so would be to overstep its powers.