McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). Chief Justice John
Marshall's memorable phrases and magisterial reasoning make his opinion in this case the classic formulation of the implied powers of the national government and of the relation between the national government and the states. Congress had incorporated the Second Bank of the United States (BUS) in 1816 and given it the power to establish branches in the states without their consent. Maryland imposed a tax on banks issuing notes without state consent, and James McCulloch, treasurer of the Baltimore branch of the BUS, refused to pay. Maryland then sued McCulloch, who, after losing twice in state court, appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The case attracted intense public interest. Many held the BUS, the “Monster,” responsible for the Panic of 1819. Further, agricultural depression and debates over
slavery in Missouri were reviving interest in old
states'‐rights arguments. Beginning on 22 February 1819, some of the nations' best lawyers argued the case for nine days. On 17 March, Marshall spoke for a unanimous Court in upholding Congress's power to incorporate the bank and in ruling Maryland's tax unconstitutional.
Maryland's state's‐rights, strict‐construction argument, Marshall said, would retard national growth and turn the
Constitution into a “splendid bauble.” The people of the United States, not the states, had created the Constitution as their instrument of government and had given the government limited, enumerated powers. It was unimportant that the power to incorporate a bank or anything else was not among those enumerated powers, Marshall argued, because the “necessary and proper” clause of Article I, section 8 of the Constitution granted the government broad discretion in devising ways to execute its powers. If the end was legitimate and within the scope of the Constitution, he concluded, then “all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”
The supremacy clause (Article VI) established that the national government was supreme within its sphere. Lawful congressional acts took precedence over state law. States could not threaten or impede the national government in exercising its constitutional power. So, because the power to tax “involved” the power to destroy, Maryland's tax was unconstitutional. The Constitution, Marshall proclaimed, was intended for “ages to come” and must be adaptable to circumstances its framers could not have imagined.
See also
Antebellum Era;
Bank of the United States, First and Second;
Early Republic, Era of the;
Jurisprudence;
Nationalism.
Bibliography
Gerald Gunther, ed., John Marshall's Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland, 1969.
G. Edward White , The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815–1835, vols. III–IV, in The Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1988.
Francis N. Stites
