Which judicial review cases ruled against acts of congress?

1. Marbury v. Madison: the founding precedent that struck down Congress

Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Marbury held that the Supreme Court lacked authority under a section of the Judiciary Act to issue the writ of mandamus Marbury sought, reasoning that Congress could not expand the Court’s constitutional original jurisdiction, and thereby declared that conflicting statutory provisions are “without force” when they contradict the Constitution — a formulation that established judicial review over acts of Congress ^{[1] [2] [5]}.

2. Early, messy practice: circuit courts, Hayburn’s Case, and contested firsts

Before Marbury, federal circuit courts had already confronted statutes and in Hayburn’s Case circuit judges found a congressional pension statute problematic and declared it inconsistent with judicial function — a decision that raised separation‑of‑functions concerns and was ultimately mooted when Congress repealed the law while appeals were pending, underscoring that judicial checking of Congress began as a contested, piecemeal practice ^[3].

3. Dred Scott and the fraught politics of striking federal laws

Later in the 19th century the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision is widely noted for striking down federal limitations on slavery and for provoking fierce political reaction; contemporaneous sources recount that President Lincoln and Congress responded by passing Act CXI of 1862 to overturn the Court’s effect on the subject matter — an illustration that congressional or legislative remedies can blunt, reverse, or respond to judicial rulings that invalidate statutes ^[3].

4. Judicial review’s daily work: many cases, varied outcomes

The doctrine announced in Marbury did not mean every challenge to a federal statute ends in invalidation; courts have routinely reviewed congressional laws and sometimes upheld them — indeed Hylton v. United States involved a carriage tax challenge that the Supreme Court upheld — and a long list of landmark decisions demonstrates both the Court’s power to strike and its frequent restraint depending on constitutional text and precedent ^{[3] [6]}.

5. Politics, motive and the court’s self‑fashioning

Historical accounts emphasize that Marbury did more than resolve a private grievance: Marshall used the case to assert the judiciary’s constitutional role at a politically charged moment after the Adams administration’s judicial measures and the Jeffersonian response, and some historians infer that Marshall’s eagerness to hear the case reflected institution‑building aims as much as neutral legal reasoning ^{[7] [2]}. That context warns against treating judicial invalidation as a purely legal act divorced from political stakes.

6. Practical limits and congressional counters

The record also shows practical limits on judicial power: appellate practices, mootness, separation‑of‑powers doctrines, and explicit congressional responses mean that a court’s declaration against an act of Congress can be temporary, narrow, or overtaken by new legislation — a point illustrated by Hayburn’s Case (appeals mooted when Congress repealed the statute) and the post‑Dred Scott legislative reaction ^[3].

7. What the sources do and do not provide

Available documents in this collection identify Marbury as the seminal Supreme Court decision to invalidate an act of Congress and note other early instances of statutory challenge by lower courts and later the Supreme Court, but they do not provide a comprehensive catalog of every judicial review decision that struck down congressional laws; a full enumeration would require a systematic case‑by‑case survey beyond these summaries ^{[1] [3] [4]}.