Founding & Early

William Marbury petitioned for a writ of mandamus after his midnight judicial commission went undelivered by the incoming Jefferso...

Georgia's legislature, corrupted by bribery in the Yazoo land sales, rescinded millions of acres of grants, punishing innocent pur...

Lord Fairfax, a British loyalist, left Virginia lands to his nephew Denny Martin. Virginia confiscated and sold part of the land, ...

Maryland taxed the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States, and bank cashier James McCulloch refused to pay. Chie...

New Hampshire's legislature sought to convert private Dartmouth College into a public university after a trusteeship dispute. The ...

Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston held a New York steamboat monopoly that Aaron Ogden licensed, while Thomas Gibbons operated un...

Thomas Johnson bought land from Piankeshaw tribes in 1773, and William M'Intosh later obtained a patent for the same land from the...

Samuel Worcester, a missionary living in Cherokee territory with federal permission, was convicted under a Georgia statute requiri...

John Barron sued Baltimore for ruining his wharf when the city diverted streams during road work, claiming a Fifth Amendment takin...