The Logic of American Politics by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781483323909
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2013-06-18T07:00:00+00:00

MCCULLOCH V. MARYLAND AND NATIONAL SUPREMACY. One of Marshall’s historic decisions on national supremacy came in 1819 in McCulloch v. Maryland, a case that was, like Marbury, rooted in party conflict.5 When in power, the Federalist Party created a nationally chartered bank and appointed party members to administer it. Showing their displeasure, several Democratic-Republican–controlled state governments, including Maryland’s, sought to tax the national bank out of existence. In the McCulloch decision, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, issued the famous declaration that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Thus, state taxation of federal property or its activities was unconstitutional. But first Marshall dealt with an even more fundamental issue. The state argued that in the absence of any provision in the Constitution explicitly authorizing Congress to charter a national bank, the national government had exceeded its authority. Marshall responded that the necessary and proper clause (Article I, Section 8) gave Congress a broad mandate to use “all means which are appropriate” to carry out any of its explicitly enumerated powers, as long as the means are plainly adapted to achieve such enumerated power(s) and not otherwise constitutionally prohibited. In McCulloch, the enumerated powers at issue included the power to levy and collect taxes, borrow money, and regulate commerce. Because the establishment of a national bank was an appropriate means plainly adapted to such enumerated powers, the Court rejected Maryland’s argument that Congress had overstepped its constitutional bounds. The practical result in the case was that federal authority trumped state authority. In Dred Scott, decided thirty-eight years later, that result was reversed.

DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD AND STATES’ RIGHTS. Despite its Federalist leanings, the Marshall Court could not permanently establish the explicit powers of the state and national governments. Marshall died in July 1835, and at the end of that year President Andrew Jackson selected Roger B. Taney to serve as the next chief justice. Jackson favored Taney largely because of his advocacy of states’ rights, and, true to his reputation, Chief Justice Taney led the Court away from the national supremacy doctrine Marshall had crafted. Taney’s effort culminated in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which, as we found in Chapter 4, brought the nation to the brink of a civil war by claiming that African Americans were not citizens under the Constitution.6 In addition to ruling that escaped slaves in the North had to be returned to their owners, Taney’s majority opinion held that federal laws outlawing slavery north of the Mason–Dixon line (for example, as set in the Missouri Compromise) unconstitutionally infringed on settlers’ territorial rights to self-government and private property.*

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