Hylton v. US

US Supreme Court decision of 1796 in which the Court, for the first time, reviewed the constitutionality of an act of Congress. The suit was a protest of a carriage tax imposed by Congress in 1794. The plaintiff argued that this tax was unconstitutional because, although it was a direct tax, it was not applied to states proportionally, according to population. The Court upheld the tax, voting 3 to 0 that a carriage tax was not a direct tax, like a head or land tax, but an impost on a consumer good.