McCulloch v. Maryland
This case, decided by the Supreme Court in 1819, asserted national supremacy over state action
in areas of constitutionally granted authority. Maryland had placed a prohibitive tax on the bills
of the Second Bank of the United States. When the Maryland courts passed this law, the Bank,
James W. McCulloch, called the Supreme Court. Daniel Webster, along with William Pinkney,
defended the case on behalf of the Bank.
Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the Court's opinion. First he declared that the Constitution
gave Congress the power of "all laws are necessary and proper" to carry out the specific powers
conferred on Congress in Article I. Incorporating Alexander Hamilton's doctrine of "broad
construction" of the Constitution, Marshall wrote:"Let the end be lawful, be within the scope of
the constitution, and let all appropriate means, not prohibited, be constitutional. Since the Bank
was a legal instrument of a specific federal authority, the law that created it was constitutional.
Marshall then pointed to Article VI of the Constitution, which says that the Constitution is the
"supreme law of the land. Asserting that "the power to tax implies the power to destroy," he
also said that states "have no power, through taxation or otherwise, to delay, prevent or
control" the laws of the federal government, and therefore the law "imposing a tax on the Bank
of the United States is unconstitutional and void.
Camille Bouthier