Question

Explain the case of McCulloch v Maryland and the decision of the Supreme Court.

Answer 1

Answer:

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) was a landmark Supreme Court case that contributed to defining the political relationship between the central government and the states by establishing implied powers and federal supremacy over the states.

The case of McCulloch v. Maryland emerged as the United States Congress sought to reestablish a national bank in 1816; consequently, the Second Bank of the United States was chartered. In 1818, the State of Maryland’s legislature required taxes on all banks not chartered by the state, which included the Second Bank of the United States. James McCulloch, a cashier at the Baltimore branch of the bank in Maryland, would refuse to pay this tax, leading Maryland to file a lawsuit against McCulloch to collect the tax. The case would make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the questions of a national bank’s constitutionality and whether the states had the power to tax a national bank (and thereby the central government) arose. In unanimity, Chief Justice John Marshall’s Supreme Court answered the aforementioned questions by ruling that under the United States Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Necessary and Proper Clause, the federal government was vested with the implied powers to create a national bank, affirming both the constitutionality of the Second Bank of the United States and the idea that states did not have the power to tax a national bank because the central government reigns supreme over the states.

Chief Justice Marshall’s decision in this case effectively established the superiority of the central government to the states.