Mcculloch Vs. Maryland 1819: Enumerated Powers Of The National Government

After the failure of the articles of confederation, due to various problems of having a limited national government, the national government sought to write up a new basis for government. The writers of the constitution expanded the strength of the national government, giving them various enumerated powers, to make the national government have more authority over the states to impose order. In addition to the enumerated powers of congress, to avoid limiting the national government to what is in the constitution, Article 1 of the constitution also includes the “necessary and proper” clause which gives congress the ability “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing [enumerated] powers” (Article

When Congress established the Second National Bank several States levied taxes against it leaving it unprofitable. The man who is in charge of the Maryland branch of the national bank, James McCulloch, refused to pay Maryland’s tax and brought the case to the Supreme Court. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the chief justice, John Marshall, ruled in favor of the national government, citing the necessary and proper clause as the basis of the ruling. This was one of the first execution of the national government's implied powers and expanded the government's power to establish and protect a national bank. This ruling served as a precedent for later rulings that supported giving powers to the national government. Another landmark case, Gibbons v. Ogden, gave more power to the national government in regulating commernance. Gibbons sued Ogden due to Ogden having a monopoly on ferries that operate between New York and New Jersey. Marshall again gave a ruling that gave more power to the national government asserting that “Congress’s commerce power was not limited to trade between the states, but to all aspects of that trade, including the transportation of goods” (73). This ruling establishes that the constitution is flexible in its wording and that the words in the constitution can have their meaning change over

When congress was siding more with free states, Southern Leader, John C. Calhoun, created the “doctrine of nullification” which states that “a state has the constitutional right to nullify a national law” (73). This action almost lead to war when South Carolina invoked this doctrine and Andrew Jackson took military action to keep the union in tact. Although both sides were able to reach a compromise, a civil war will take place 30 years from then. Another spike in tensions was the Dred Scott decision (1857). A slave named Dred Scott argued that since his master died in a free state, and the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a federal law, made slavery in a free state illegal, he was a free man. The Supreme Justice at the time, Roger Taney, stated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional as slaves were property and the constitution forbids congress from interfering with people’s property rights. This lead to the Lincoln presidency and the southern states saw him as a threat to their institution of slavery and seceded from the union. Lincoln then sent the union army to maintain the union, proving what the national government will do to assert its