McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Questions
• 1. State the issue before the Supreme
Court in this case.
• 2. What facts are presented to the court?
• 3. What was the decision by the court?
What was the rationale for the decision?
McCulloch V. Maryland, 1819
1. State the issue before the Supreme Court in
this case.
Does any state possess the constitutional right to
tax an agency of the United States
government? Another issue in this case was
the right of Congress under the terms of the
Constitution to establish a national bank (
Could Congress create a bank?).
2. What facts of the case were
presented to the Court?
The state of MD felt that the Constitution allowed states to
tax agencies of the federal government because the only
specific restrictions (Article 1, Section 10) on the states’
power to tax was related to imports and exports. The
state also questioned the right of Congress to create a
bank and to place branches in the various states without
approval. McCulloch and the U.S. attorney felt no state
could tax the national government or any agency of it.
To do so would allow the state legislatures to become
sovereign over the national government. They
contended that Congress had the right to create the
bank under the “implied powers” clause of the
Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 18)
3. What was the decision of the
Court? What was the rational
behind it?
The court ruled unanimously in favor of
McCulloch, saying that state legislatures
had no right to tax the national
government and that national laws passed
by Congress are superior when in conflict
with state statutes (Article VK). The Court
also found that Congress had the
constitutional right to create the National
Bank as part of its “implied powers.”
What was the effect of the
decision?
The ruling on the case established the
principle that national law is superior to
state law whenever the two come into
conflict. Equally important, the ruling
recognized a broad definition of the
“implied powers,” strengthening the
powers of Congress and the national
government.
“The Power to tax is the power to
destroy”
If Maryland or any other state could tax the
national government then it could tax it out
of existence.
Is this true of the national government (can it
tax the states)?
“A tax on the states by the U.S. government is a tax levied on its
constituency by their elected officials in the Congress, whereas a tax on
the U.S. by a state legislature is a tax levied on people who are not all
the constituents of the legislators of that state.”
Opposing views:
Congress includes representatives from all
states, who are elected to represent the
country as a whole; state legislators
represent the people of a single state.
Are members of Congress not also elected
from the individual states and thus
represent those constituents?
Was the decision in this case an
example of the Court’s use of
“loose intrepretation” of he
Constitution or an example of “strict
interpretation” Explain.
This case was an important step in
establishing a “loose interpretation” of the
elastic clause which has allowed Congress
to justify powers previously believed to
belong to the states.