Marbury v. Madison in the context of "United States circuit court"

In the United States, judicial review is the legal power of a court to determine if a statute, treaty, or administrative regulation contradicts or violates the provisions of existing law, a state constitution, or ultimately the United States Constitution. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define the power of judicial review, the authority for judicial review in the United States has been inferred from the structure, provisions, and history of the Constitution.

Two landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court served to confirm the inferred constitutional authority for judicial review in the United States. In 1796, Hylton v. United States was the first case decided by the Supreme Court involving a direct challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress, the Carriage Act of 1794 which imposed a "carriage tax". The Court performed judicial review of the plaintiff's claim that the carriage tax was unconstitutional. After review, the Supreme Court decided the Carriage Act was constitutional. In 1803, Marbury v. Madison was the first Supreme Court case where the Court asserted its authority to strike down a law as unconstitutional. At the end of his opinion in this decision, Chief Justice John Marshall maintained that the Supreme Court's responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of their sworn oath of office to uphold the Constitution as instructed in Article Six of the Constitution.

Hylton v. United States, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 171 (1796), is an early United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a yearly tax on carriages did not violate the Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 requirements for the apportioning of direct taxes. The Court concluded that the carriage tax was not a direct tax, which would require apportionment among the states. The Court noted that a tax on land was an example of a direct tax that was contemplated by the Constitution.

The case is also significant for being the first case by the Supreme Court to rely on judicial review, later formally established by Marbury v. Madison (1803), to decide whether a statute of Congress was unconstitutional.