McCulloch v. Maryland

An 1819 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld Congress’s authority to charter a national bank and barred Maryland from taxing it.

Necessary and Proper Clause: A constitutional clause empowering Congress to enact laws needed to carry out its enumerated powers. Marshall used it to justify a bank as a means of exercising Congress’s fiscal powers.
Second Bank of the United States: A federally chartered bank established in 1816 to manage government finances and stabilize the national currency. The Baltimore branch was the institution Maryland sought to tax.
Gibbons v. Ogden: An 1824 Supreme Court decision holding that federal authority over interstate commerce displaced a conflicting state steamboat monopoly. It extended Marshall Court reasoning about national power into Congress’s commerce authority.
Strict constructionism: An approach to constitutional interpretation that limits governmental authority to powers expressly stated or narrowly implied. It contrasts with Marshall’s flexible reading of Congress’s power to choose appropriate means.
Implied powers: Governmental powers not expressly stated but inferred as necessary to execute granted powers. The Court held that Congress could choose useful means beyond powers explicitly listed in the Constitution.
First Bank of the United States: A federally chartered bank that operated from 1791 to 1811. Its creation had prompted an earlier dispute over whether Congress could charter a bank.
United States v. Comstock: A 2010 Supreme Court decision upholding federal authority to civilly commit certain sexually dangerous federal prisoners. It applied McCulloch’s means-and-ends reasoning to a modern claim of implied congressional power.
Enumerated powers: Powers specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution. The Court treated the bank as a means of carrying out powers such as taxation and borrowing.
Supremacy Clause: A constitutional provision making federal law supreme over conflicting state law. It made Maryland’s tax invalid when applied to a federally authorized institution.
Bank of the United States: The name commonly used for the federal banking institutions chartered by Congress in the early United States. The case addressed congressional authority to create this kind of national institution.

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