Congressional Implied Powers to Create a Bank!?: McCullogh v. Maryland

In this video, we discuss the landmark case of McCullogh v. Maryland, which addressed whether Congress has the implied power to create a bank, even though its not explicitly in the written constitution. It also addresses the supremacy clause, and what happens when a federal and state rule conflict. A must watch for all supreme court history fans, congress-people, civil libertarians, and all who enjoy learning about real constitutional cases!

Case Name: McCullogh v. Maryland
Citation: 17 US 316 (1819) (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/fede...)
Publication Date: 03/06/1819
Issue: Does Congress have implied powers to create a bank? And can a state tax a federal bank?

Key Parts of the Decision:

Overall Issue: “The first question made in the cause is -- has Congress power to incorporate a bank?”
Second question - “Whether the State of Maryland may, without violating the Constitution, tax that branch?”

Overall Holding: “Among the enumerated powers, we do not find that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation. But there is no phrase in the instrument which, like the Articles of Confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described. Even the 10th Amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had been excited, omits the word "expressly," and declares only that the powers "not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people," thus leaving the question whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one Government, or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument.”

“Although, among the enumerated powers of Government, we do not find the word "bank" or "incorporation," we find the great powers, to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies. The sword and the purse, all the external relations, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation are intrusted to its Government. It can never be pretended that these vast powers draw after them others of inferior importance merely because they are inferior.”

“But the Constitution of the United States has not left the right of Congress to employ the necessary means for the execution of the powers conferred on the Government to general reasoning. To its enumeration of powers is added that of making
"all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department thereof."

“The great duties of the bank are prescribed; those duties require branches; and the bank itself may, we think, be safely trusted with the selection of places where those branches shall be fixed, reserving always to the Government the right to require that a branch shall be located where it may be deemed necessary.”

“That the power of taxing it by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it is too obvious to be denied. But taxation is said to be an absolute power which acknowledges no other limits than those expressly prescribed in the Constitution, and, like sovereign power of every other description, is intrusted to the discretion of those who use it.”

“We find, then, on just theory, a total failure of this original right to tax the means employed by the Government of the Union, for the execution of its powers. The right never existed, and the question whether it has been surrendered cannot arise.”

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