Bayard v. Singleton
New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Bayard V. Singleton. American precedent for judicial review of legislation set nearby, 1787, by Samuel Ashe, Samuel Spencer, John Williams.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
In 1787, in a case decided nearby, North Carolina judges Samuel Ashe, Samuel Spencer, and John Williams struck down a state law they found contrary to the state constitution. The ruling in Bayard v. Singleton is one of the earliest American precedents for judicial review—the power of courts to void unconstitutional legislation. It came just as the U.S. Constitution was being drafted in Philadelphia.
Why it matters
This early assertion of judicial review helped establish a cornerstone of American constitutional government later cemented nationally in Marbury v. Madison.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1787, the American experiment in self-government was still being invented. The Revolution had been won, but the question of how to actually govern free people under written law was wide open. That very year, delegates were gathered in Philadelphia hammering out the United States Constitution, while each state wrestled with the powers and limits of its own government.
New Bern, on North Carolina's coastal plain, was one of the young state's most important towns—a center of commerce and government with a courthouse where serious legal questions were argued. North Carolina, like the other states, already had its own written constitution, adopted during the Revolution, that claimed to stand above ordinary legislation.
The hard problem nobody had fully solved was this: what happens when a law passed by the legislature collides with the constitution the legislature is supposed to obey? In the 1780s, that was not a settled matter of doctrine. It was a live and contested question, and the answer would shape the very structure of American power.
People & events
Into that uncertainty stepped three North Carolina judges named on this marker: Samuel Ashe, Samuel Spencer, and John Williams. In the case of Bayard v. Singleton, decided in New Bern in 1787, they confronted a state law and concluded that it conflicted with the state constitution—and that where the two clashed, the constitution had to prevail.
That was a bold conclusion. The judges were, in effect, telling the legislature that passing a law did not automatically make it valid. If it violated the fundamental charter of the state, a court could refuse to enforce it. In an age when the proper reach of courts was still being defined, this took real independence of mind.
The case itself grew out of the turbulent aftermath of the Revolution, a period thick with disputes over property and the rights of former loyalists. But the reason the marker remembers it is not the underlying quarrel—it is the principle the judges announced in resolving it.
Its place in the American story
Bayard v. Singleton is remembered as one of the earliest American assertions of judicial review: the power of courts to measure ordinary laws against a constitution and strike down those that fail the test. It is a cornerstone of how American government actually works.
Most people learn this principle from the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, which established judicial review at the national level. But the idea did not spring up overnight in Washington. It was worked out in state courtrooms in the founding era, and this New Bern case stands among the notable early examples that pointed the way.
That lineage matters. It shows that one of the deepest features of the American system—the idea that no legislature is above the constitution—grew from the ground up, tested first in local courts before it became national doctrine. A quiet ruling in a coastal North Carolina town helped plant an idea that still restrains power today.
If you visit
You've come to see the birthplace of a legal idea, so let your imagination do the heavy lifting. The marker commemorates a courtroom moment, and New Bern's historic streets—laid out long before the Revolution—help set the scene for the world in which those judges worked.
Read the marker and sit for a moment with what it claims: that as far back as 1787, in this town, judges declared that a written constitution outranks an ordinary law. It is one of those small signs that carries an outsized idea.
Because New Bern is rich with colonial and Early Republic history, this makes a natural stop on a walking tour of the old town. Combine it with the area's other landmarks and you can spend a rewarding afternoon among the places where a young state was figuring out what the rule of law would actually mean.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Samuel Ashe
- · Samuel Spencer
- · John Williams
Related events
- · Bayard v. Singleton
Themes & tags
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