The Life of John Marshall, Volume 4: The building of the nation, 1815-1835

by Albert J. Beveridge

VITALIZING THE CONSTITUTION

The crisis is one which portends destruction to the liberties of the American people. (Spencer Roane.)

The constitutional government of this republican empire cannot be practically enforced but by a fair and liberal interpretation of its powers. (William Pinkney.)

The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. (Jefferson.)

The government of the Union is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them and for their benefit. (Marshall.)

Although it was the third of the great causes to be decided by the Supreme Court in the memorable year, 1819, M'Culloch vs. Maryland was the first in importance and in the place it holds in the development of the American Constitution. Furthermore, in his opinion in this case John Marshall rose to the loftiest heights of judicial statesmanship. If his fame rested solely on this one effort, it would be secure.

To comprehend the full import of Marshall's opinion in this case, the reader must consider the state of the country as described in the fourth chapter of this volume. While none of his expositions of our fundamental law, delivered in the critical epoch from 1819 to 1824, can be entirely understood without knowledge of the National conditions that produced them, this fact must be especially borne in mind when reviewing the case of M'Culloch vs. Maryland.

Associate Justices sitting with Marshall in the case of M'Culloch versus Maryland: STORY, JOHNSON, WASHINGTON, DUVAL, LIVINGSTON, TODD

Like most of the controversies in which Marshall's Constitutional opinions were pronounced, M'Culloch vs. Maryland came before the Supreme Court on an agreed case. The facts were that Congress had authorized the incorporation of the second Bank of the United States; that this institution had instituted a branch at Baltimore; that the Legislature of Maryland had passed an act requiring all banks, established "without authority from the state," to issue notes only on stamped paper and only of certain denominations, or, in lieu of these requirements, only upon the payment of an annual tax of fifteen thousand dollars; that, in violation of this law, the Baltimore branch of the National Bank continued to issue its notes on unstamped paper without paying the tax; and that on May 8, 1818, John James, "Treasurer of the Western Shore," had sued James William M'Culloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch, for the recovery of the penalties prescribed by the Maryland statute.[784]

The immediate question was whether the Maryland law was Constitutional; but the basic issue was the supremacy of the National Government as against the dominance of State Governments. Indeed, the decision of this case involved the very existence of the Constitution as an "ordinance of Nationality," as Marshall so accurately termed it.

At no time in this notable session of the Supreme Court was the basement room, where its sittings were now again held, so thronged with auditors as it was when the argument in M'Culloch vs. Maryland took place. "We have had a crowded audience of ladies and gentlemen," writes Story toward the close of the nine days of discussion. "The hall was full almost to suffocation, and many went away for want of room."[785]

Webster opened the case for the Bank. His masterful argument in the Dartmouth College case the year before had established his reputation as a great Constitutional lawyer as well as an orator of the first class. He was attired in the height of fashion, tight breeches, blue cloth coat, cut away squarely at the waist, and adorned with large brass buttons, waist-coat exposing a broad expanse of ruffled shirt with high soft collar surrounded by an elaborate black stock.[786]

The senior counsel for the Bank was William Pinkney. He was dressed with his accustomed foppish elegance, and, as usual, was nervous and impatient. Notwithstanding his eccentricities, he was Webster's equal, if not his superior, except in physical presence and the gift of political management. With Webster and Pinkney was William Wirt, then Attorney-General of the United States, who had arrived at the fullness of his powers.

Maryland was represented by Luther Martin, still Attorney-General for that State, then seventy-five years old, but a strong lawyer despite his half-century, at least, of excessive drinking. By his side was Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia, now fifty years of age, one of the most learned men at the American bar. With Martin and Hopkinson was Walter Jones of Washington, who appears to have been a legal genius, his fame obliterated by devotion to his profession and unaided by any public service, which so greatly helps to give permanency to the lawyer's reputation. All told, the counsel for both sides in M'Culloch vs. Maryland were the most eminent and distinguished in the Republic.

Webster said in opening that Hamilton had "exhausted" the arguments for the power of Congress to charter a bank and that Hamilton's principles had long been acted upon. After thirty years of acquiescence it was too late to deny that the National Legislature could establish a bank.[787] With meticulous care Webster went over Hamilton's reasoning to prove that Congress can "pass all laws 'necessary and proper' to carry into execution powers conferred on it."[788]

Assuming the law which established the Bank to be Constitutional, could Maryland tax a branch of that Bank? If the State could tax the Bank at all, she could put it out of existence, since a "power to tax involves ... a power to destroy"[789]—words that Marshall, in delivering his opinion, repeated as his own. The truth was, said Webster, that, in taxing the Baltimore branch of the National Bank, Maryland taxed the National Government itself.[790]

Joseph Hopkinson, as usual, made a superb argument—a performance all the more admirable as an intellectual feat in that, as an advocate for Maryland, his convictions were opposed to his reasoning.[791] Walter Jones was as thorough as he was lively, but he did little more than to reinforce the well-nigh perfect argument of Hopkinson.[792] On the same side the address of Luther Martin deserves notice as the last worthy of remark which that great lawyer ever made. Old as he was, and wasted as were his astonishing powers, his argument was not much inferior to those of Webster, Hopkinson, and Pinkney. Martin showed by historical evidence that the power now claimed for Congress was suspected by the opponents of the Constitution, but denied by its supporters and called "a dream of distempered jealousy." So came the Tenth Amendment; yet, said Martin, now, "we are asked to engraft upon it [the Constitution] powers ... which were disclaimed by them [the advocates of the Constitution], and which, if they had been fairly avowed at the time, would have prevented its adoption."[793]

Could powers of Congress be inferred as a necessary means to the desired end? Why, then, did the Constitution expressly confer powers which, of necessity, must be implied? For instance, the power to declare war surely implied the power to raise armies; and yet that very power was granted in specific terms. But the power to create corporations "is not expressly delegated, either as an end or a means of national government."[794]

When Martin finished, William Pinkney, whom Marshall declared to be "the greatest man he had ever seen in a Court of justice,"[795] rose to make what proved to be the last but one of the great arguments of that unrivaled leader of the American bar of his period. To reproduce his address is to set out in advance the opinion of John Marshall stripped of Pinkney's rhetoric which, in that day, was deemed to be the perfection of eloquence.[796]

For three days Pinkney spoke. Few arguments ever made in the Supreme Court affected so profoundly the members of that tribunal. Story describes the argument thus: "Mr. Pinkney rose on Monday to conclude the argument; he spoke all that day and yesterday, and will probably conclude to-day. I never, in my whole life, heard a greater speech; it was worth a journey from Salem to hear it; his elocution was excessively vehement, but his eloquence was overwhelming. His language, his style, his figures, his arguments, were most brilliant and sparkling. He spoke like a great statesman and patriot, and a sound constitutional lawyer. All the cobwebs of sophistry and metaphysics about State rights and State sovereignty he brushed away with a mighty besom."[797]

Indeed, all the lawyers in this memorable contest appear to have surpassed their previous efforts at the bar. Marshall, in his opinion, pays this tribute to all their addresses: "Both in maintaining the affirmative and the negative, a splendor of eloquence, and strength of argument seldom, if ever, surpassed, have been displayed."[798]

After he had spoken, Webster, who at that moment was intent on the decision of the Dartmouth College case,[799] became impatient. "Our Bank argument goes on—& threatens to be long," he writes Jeremiah Mason.[800] Four days later, while Martin was still talking, Webster informs Jeremiah Smith: "We are not yet thro. the Bank question. Martin has been talking 3 ds. Pinkney replies tomorrow & that finishes—I set out for home next day."[801] The arguments in M'Culloch vs. Maryland occupied nine days.[802]

Four days before the Bank argument opened in the Supreme Court, the House took up the resolution offered by James Johnson of Virginia to repeal the Bank's charter.[803] The debate over this proposal continued until February 25, the third day of the argument in M'Culloch vs. Maryland. How, asked Johnson, had the Bank fulfilled expectations and promises? "What ... is our condition? Surrounded by one universal gloom. We are met by the tears of the widow and the orphan."[804] Madison has "cast a shade" on his reputation by signing the Bank Bill—that "act of usurpation." Under the common law the charter "is forfeited."[805]

The Bank is a "mighty corporation," created "to overawe ... the local institutions, that had dealt themselves almost out of breath in supporting the Government in times of peril and adversity." The financial part of the Virginia Republican Party organization thus spoke through James Pindall of that State.[806]

William Lowndes of South Carolina brilliantly defended the Bank, but admitted that its "early operation" had been "injudicious."[807] John Tyler of Virginia assailed the Bank with notable force. "This charter has been violated," he said; "if subjected to investigation before a court of justice, it will be declared null and void."[808] David Walker of Kentucky declared that the Bank "is an engine of favoritism—of stock jobbing"—a machine for "binding in adamantine chains the blessed, innocent lambs of America to accursed, corrupt European tigers."[809] In spite of all this eloquence, Johnson's resolution was defeated, and the fate of the Bank left in the hands of the Supreme Court.

On March 6, 1819, before a few spectators, mostly lawyers with business before the court, Marshall read his opinion. It is the misfortune of the biographer that only an abstract can be given of this epochal state paper—among the very first of the greatest judicial utterances of all time.[810] It was delivered only three days after Pinkney concluded his superb address.

Since it is one of the longest of Marshall's opinions and, by general agreement, is considered to be his ablest and most carefully prepared exposition of the Constitution, it seems not unlikely that much of it had been written before the argument. The court was very busy every day of the session and there was little, if any, time for Marshall to write this elaborate document. The suit against M'Culloch had been brought nearly a year before the Supreme Court convened; Marshall undoubtedly learned of it through the newspapers; he was intimately familiar with the basic issue presented by the litigation; and he had ample time to formulate and even to write out his views before the ensuing session of the court. He had, in the opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson,[811] the reasoning on both sides of this fundamental controversy. It appears to be reasonably probable that at least the framework of the opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland was prepared by Marshall when in Richmond during the summer, autumn, and winter of 1818-19.

The opening words of Marshall are majestic: "A sovereign state denies the obligation of a law ... of the Union.... The constitution of our country, in its most ... vital parts, is to be considered; the conflicting powers of the government of the Union and of its members, ... are to be discussed; and an opinion given, which may essentially influence the great operations of the government."[812] He cannot "approach such a question without a deep sense of ... the awful responsibility involved in its decision. But it must be decided peacefully, or remain a source of hostile legislation, perhaps of hostility of a still more serious nature."[813] In these solemn words the Chief Justice reveals the fateful issue which M'Culloch vs. Maryland foreboded.

That Congress has power to charter a bank is not "an open question.... The principle ... was introduced at a very early period of our history, has been recognized by many successive legislatures, and has been acted upon by the judicial department ... as a law of undoubted obligation.... An exposition of the constitution, deliberately established by legislative acts, on the faith of which an immense property has been advanced, ought not to be lightly disregarded."

The first Congress passed the act to incorporate a National bank. The whole subject was at the time debated exhaustively. "The bill for incorporating the bank of the United States did not steal upon an unsuspecting legislature, & pass unobserved," says Marshall. Moreover, it had been carefully examined with "persevering talent" in Washington's Cabinet. When that act expired, "a short experience of the embarrassments" suffered by the country "induced the passage of the present law." He must be intrepid, indeed, who asserts that "a measure adopted under these circumstances was a bold and plain usurpation, to which the constitution gave no countenance."[814]

But Marshall examines the question as though it were "entirely new"; and gives an historical account of the Constitution which, for clearness and brevity, never has been surpassed.[815] Thus he proves that "the government proceeds directly from the people; ... their act was final. It required not the affirmance, and could not be negatived, by the state governments. The constitution when thus adopted ... bound the state sovereignties." The States could and did establish "a league, such as was the confederation.... But when, 'in order to form a more perfect union,' it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective government, ... acting directly on the people," it was the people themselves who acted and established a fundamental law for their government.[816]

The Government of the American Nation is, then, "emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit"[817]—a statement, the grandeur of which was to be enhanced forty-four years later, when, standing on the battle-field of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."[818]

To be sure, the States, as well as the Nation, have certain powers, and therefore "the supremacy of their respective laws, when they are in opposition, must be settled." Marshall proceeds to settle that basic question. The National Government, he begins, "is supreme within its sphere of action. This would seem to result necessarily from its nature." For "it is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all, and acts for all. Though any one state may be willing to control its operations, no state is willing to allow others to control them. The nation, on those subjects on which it can act, must necessarily bind its component parts." Plain as this truth is, the people have not left the demonstration of it to "mere reason"—for they have, "in express terms, decided it by saying" that the Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, "shall be the supreme law of the land," and by requiring all State officers and legislators to "take the oath of fidelity to it."[819]

The fact that the powers of the National Government enumerated in the Constitution do not include that of creating corporations does not prevent Congress from doing so. "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.... A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of a prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public."

The very "nature" of a constitution, "therefore requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." In deciding such questions "we must never forget," reiterates Marshall, "that it is a constitution we are expounding."[820]

This being true, the power of Congress to establish a bank is undeniable—it flows from "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." Consider, he continues, the scope of the duties of the National Government: "The sword and the purse, all the external relations, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation, are entrusted to its government.... A government, entrusted with such ample powers, on the due execution of which the happiness and prosperity of the nation so vitally depends, must also be entrusted with ample means for their execution. The power being given, it is the interest of the nation to facilitate its execution. It can never be their interest, and cannot be presumed to have been their intention, to clog and embarrass its execution by withholding the most appropriate means."[821]

At this point Marshall's language becomes as exalted as that of the prophets: "Throughout this vast republic, from the St. Croix to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, revenue is to be collected and expended, armies are to be marched and supported. The exigencies of the nation may require that the treasure raised in the north should be transported to the south, that raised in the east conveyed to the west, or that this order should be reversed." Here Marshall the soldier is speaking. There is in his words the blast of the bugle of Valley Forge. Indeed, the pen with which Marshall wrote M'Culloch vs. Maryland was fashioned in the army of the Revolution.[822]

The Chief Justice continues: "Is that construction of the constitution to be preferred which would render these operations difficult, hazardous, and expensive?" Did the framers of the Constitution "when granting these powers for the public good" intend to impede "their exercise by withholding a choice of means?" No! The Constitution "does not profess to enumerate the means by which the powers it confers may be executed; nor does it prohibit the creation of a corporation, if the existence of such a being be essential to the beneficial exercise of those powers."[823]

Resorting to his favorite method in argument, that of repetition, Marshall again asserts that the fact that "the power of creating a corporation is one appertaining to sovereignty and is not expressly conferred on Congress," does not take that power from Congress. If it does, Congress, by the same reasoning, would be denied the power to pass most laws; since "all legislative powers appertain to sovereignty." They who say that Congress may not select "any appropriate means" to carry out its admitted powers, "take upon themselves the burden of establishing that exception."[824]

The establishment of the National Bank was a means to an end; the power to incorporate it is "as incidental" to the great, substantive, and independent powers expressly conferred on Congress as that of making war, levying taxes, or regulating commerce.[825] This is not only the plain conclusion of reason, but the clear language of the Constitution itself as expressed in the "necessary and proper" clause[826] of that instrument. Marshall treats with something like contempt the argument that this clause does not mean what it says, but is "really restrictive of the general right, which might otherwise be implied, of selecting means for executing the enumerated powers"—a denial, in short, that, without this clause, Congress is authorized to make laws.[827] After conferring on Congress all legislative power, "after allowing each house to prescribe its own course of proceeding, after describing the manner in which a bill should become a law, would it have entered into the mind ... of the convention that an express power to make laws was necessary to enable the legislature to make them?"[828]

In answering the old Jeffersonian argument that,[829] under the "necessary and proper" clause, Congress can adopt only those means absolutely "necessary" to the execution of express powers, Marshall devotes an amount of space which now seems extravagant. But in 1819 the question was unsettled and acute; indeed, the Republicans had again made it a political issue. The Chief Justice repeats the arguments made by Hamilton in his opinion to Washington on the first Bank Bill.[830]

Some words have various shades of meaning, of which courts must select that justified by "common usage." "The word 'necessary' is of this description.... It admits of all degrees of comparison.... A thing may be necessary, very necessary, absolutely or indispensably necessary." For instance, the Constitution itself prohibits a State from "laying 'imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws'"; whereas it authorizes Congress to "'make all laws which shall be necessary and proper'" for the execution of powers expressly conferred.[831]

Did the framers of the Constitution intend to forbid Congress to employ "any" means "which might be appropriate, and which were conducive to the end"? Most assuredly not! "The subject is the execution of those great powers on which the welfare of a nation essentially depends." The "necessary and proper" clause is found "in a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.... To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone without which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances."[832]

The contrary conclusion is tinged with "insanity." Whence comes the power of Congress to prescribe punishment for violations of National laws? No such general power is expressly given by the Constitution. Yet nobody denies that Congress has this general power, although "it is expressly given in some cases," such as counterfeiting, piracy, and "offenses against the law of nations." Nevertheless, the specific authorization to provide for the punishment of these crimes does not prevent Congress from doing the same as to crimes not specified.[833]

Now comes an example of Marshall's reasoning when at his best—and briefest.

"Take, for example, the power 'to establish post-offices and post-roads.' This power is executed by the single act of making the establishment. But, from this has been inferred the power and duty of carrying the mail along the post-road, from one post-office to another. And, from this implied power, has again been inferred the right to punish those who steal letters from the post-office, or rob the mail. It may be said, with some plausibility, that the right to carry the mail, and to punish those who rob it, is not indispensably necessary to the establishment of a post-office and post-road. This right is indeed essential to the beneficial exercise of the power, but not indispensably necessary to its existence. So, of the punishment of the crimes of stealing or falsifying a record or process of a court of the United States, or of perjury in such court. To punish these offenses is certainly conducive to the due administration of justice. But courts may exist, and may decide the causes brought before them, though such crimes escape punishment.

"The baneful influence of this narrow construction on all the operations of the government, and the absolute impracticability of maintaining it without rendering the government incompetent to its great objects, might be illustrated by numerous examples drawn from the constitution, and from our laws. The good sense of the public has pronounced, without hesitation, that the power of punishment appertains to sovereignty, and may be exercised whenever the sovereign has a right to act, as incidental to his constitutional powers. It is a means for carrying into execution all sovereign powers, and may be used, although not indispensably necessary. It is a right incidental to the power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise."[834]

To attempt to prove that Congress might execute its powers without the use of other means than those absolutely necessary would be "to waste time and argument," and "not much less idle than to hold a lighted taper to the sun." It is futile to speculate upon imaginary reasons for the "necessary and proper" clause, since its purpose is obvious. It "is placed among the powers of Congress, not among the limitations on those powers. Its terms purport to enlarge, not to diminish the powers vested in the government.... If no other motive for its insertion can be suggested, a sufficient one is found in the desire to remove all doubts respecting the right to legislate on the vast mass of incidental powers which must be involved in the constitution, if that instrument be not a splendid bauble."[835]

Marshall thus reaches the conclusion that Congress may "perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." Then comes that celebrated passage—one of the most famous ever delivered by a jurist: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional."[836]

Further on the Chief Justice restates this fundamental principle, without which the Constitution would be a lifeless thing: "Where the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects entrusted to the government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground. The court disclaims all pretensions to such a power."[837]

The fact that there were State banks with whose business the National Bank might interfere, had nothing to do with the question of the power of Congress to establish the latter. The National Government does not depend on State Governments "for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends." It can choose a National bank rather than State banks as an agency for the transaction of its business; "and Congress alone can make the election."

It is, then, "the unanimous and decided opinion" of the court that the Bank Act is Constitutional. So is the establishment of the branches of the parent bank. Can States tax these branches, as Maryland has tried to do? Of course the power of taxation "is retained by the states," and "is not abridged by the grant of a similar power to the government of the Union." These are "truths which have never been denied."

With sublime audacity Marshall then declares that "such is the paramount character of the constitution that its capacity to withdraw any subject from the action of even this power, is admitted."[838] This assertion fairly overwhelms the student, since the States then attempting to tax out of existence the branches of the National Bank did not admit, but emphatically denied, that the National Government could withdraw from State taxation any taxable subject whatever, except that which the Constitution itself specifically withdraws.

"The States," argues Marshall, "are expressly forbidden" to tax imports and exports. This being so, "the same paramount character would seem to restrain, as it certainly may restrain, a state from such other exercise of this [taxing] power, as is in its nature incompatible with, and repugnant to, the constitutional laws of the Union. A law, absolutely repugnant to another, as entirely repeals that other as if express terms of repeal were used."

In this fashion Marshall holds, in effect, that Congress can restrain the States from taxing certain subjects not mentioned in the Constitution as fully as though those subjects were expressly named.

It is on this ground that the National Bank claims exemption "from the power of a state to tax its operations." Marshall concedes that "there is no express provision [in the Constitution] for the case, but the claim has been sustained on a principle which so entirely pervades the constitution, is so intermixed with the materials which compose it, so interwoven with its web, so blended with its texture, as to be incapable of being separated from it without rendering it into shreds."[839]

This was, indeed, going far—the powers of Congress placed on "a principle" rather than on the language of the Constitution. When we consider the period in which this opinion was given to the country, we can understand—though only vaguely at this distance of time—the daring of John Marshall. Yet he realizes the extreme radicalism of the theory of Constitutional interpretation he is thus advancing, and explains it with scrupulous care.

"This great principle is that the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme; that they control the constitution and laws of the respective states, and cannot be controlled by them. From this, which may be almost termed an axiom, other propositions are deduced as corollaries, on the truth or error of which ... the cause is supposed to depend."[840]

That "cause" was not so much the one on the docket of the Supreme Court, entitled M'Culloch vs. Maryland, as it was that standing on the docket of fate entitled Nationalism vs. Localism. And, although Marshall did not actually address them, everybody knew that he was speaking to the disunionists who were increasing in numbers and boldness. Everybody knew, also, that the Chief Justice was, in particular, replying to the challenge of the Virginia Republican organization as given through the Court of Appeals of that State.[841]

The corollaries which Marshall deduced from the principle of National supremacy were: "1st. That a power to create implies a power to preserve. 2d. That a power to destroy, if wielded by a different hand, is hostile to, and incompatible with these powers to create and to preserve. 3d. That where this repugnancy exists, that authority which is supreme must control, not yield to that over which it is supreme."[842]

It is "too obvious to be denied," continues Marshall that, if permitted to exercise the power, the States can tax the Bank "so as to destroy it." The power of taxation is admittedly "sovereign"; but the taxing power of the States "is subordinate to, and may be controlled by the constitution of the United States. How far it has been controlled by that instrument must be a question of construction. In making this construction, no principle not declared can be admissible, which would defeat the legitimate operations of a supreme government. It is of the very essence of supremacy to remove all obstacles to its action within its own sphere, and so to modify every power vested in subordinate governments as to exempt its own operations from their own influence. This effect need not be stated in terms. It is so involved in the declaration of supremacy, so necessarily implied in it, that the expression of it could not make it more certain. We must, therefore, keep it [the principle of National supremacy] in view while construing the constitution."[843]

Unlimited as is the power of a State to tax objects within its jurisdiction, that State power does not "extend to those means which are employed by Congress to carry into execution powers conferred on that body by the people of the United States ... powers ... given ... to a government whose laws ... are declared to be supreme.... The right never existed [in the States] ... to tax the means employed by the government of the Union, for the execution of its powers."[844]

Regardless of this fact, however, can States tax instrumentalities of the National Government? It cannot be denied, says Marshall, that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat ... the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance, in conferring on one government a power to control the constitutional measures of another, which other, with respect to those very measures, is declared to be supreme over that which exerts the control."[845]

Here Marshall permits himself the use of sarcasm, which he dearly loved but seldom employed. The State Rights advocates insisted that the States can be trusted not to abuse their powers—confidence must be reposed in State Legislatures and officials; they would not destroy needlessly, recklessly. "All inconsistencies are to be reconciled by the magic of the word confidence," says Marshall. "But," he continues, "is this a case of 'confidence'? Would the people of any one state trust those of another with a power to control the most insignificant operations of their state government? We know they would not."

By the same token the people of one State would never consent that the Government of another State should control the National Government "to which they have confided the most important and most valuable interests. In the legislature of the Union alone, are all represented. The legislature of the Union alone, therefore, can be trusted by the people with the power of controlling measures which concern all, in the confidence that it will not be abused. This, then, is not a case of confidence."[846]

The State Rights theory is "capable of arresting all the measures of the government, and of prostrating it at the foot of the states." Instead of the National Government being "supreme," as the Constitution declares it to be, "supremacy" would be transferred "in fact, to the states"; for, "if the states may tax one instrument, employed by the government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent-rights; they may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the government, to an excess which would defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the states."

The whole question is, avows Marshall, "in truth, a question of supremacy." If the anti-National principle that the States can tax the instrumentalities of the National Government is to be sustained, then the declaration in the Constitution that it and laws made under it "shall be the supreme law of the land, is empty and unmeaning declamation."[847]

Maryland had argued that, since the taxing power is, at least, "concurrent" in the State and National Governments, the States can tax a National bank as fully as the Nation can tax State banks. But, remarks Marshall, "the two cases are not on the same reason." The whole American people and all the States are represented in Congress; when they tax State banks, "they tax their constituents; and these taxes must be uniform. But, when a state taxes the operations of the government of the United States, it acts upon institutions created, not by their own constituents, but by people over whom they claim no control. It acts upon the measures of a government created by others as well as themselves, for the benefit of others in common with themselves.

"The difference is that which always exists, and always must exist, between the action of the whole on a part, and the action of a part on the whole—between the laws of a government declared to be supreme, and those of a government which, when in opposition to those laws, is not supreme.... The states have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government."[848]

For these reasons, therefore, the judgment of the Supreme Court was that the Maryland law taxing the Baltimore branch of the National Bank was "contrary to the constitution ... and void"; that the judgment of the Baltimore County Court against the branch bank "be reversed and annulled," and that the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals affirming the judgment of the County Court also "be reversed and annulled."[849]

In effect John Marshall thus rewrote the fundamental law of the Nation; or, perhaps it may be more accurate to say that he made a written instrument a living thing, capable of growth, capable of keeping pace with the advancement of the American people and ministering to their changing necessities. This greatest of Marshall's treatises on government may well be entitled the "Vitality of the Constitution." Story records that Marshall's opinion aroused great political excitement;[850] and no wonder, since the Chief Justice announced, in principle, that Congress had sufficient power to "emancipate every slave in the United States" as John Randolph declared five years later.[851]

Roane, Ritchie, Taylor, and the Republican organization of Virginia had anticipated that the Chief Justice would render a Nationalist opinion; but they were not prepared for the bold and crushing blows which he rained upon their fanatically cherished theory of Localism. As soon as they recovered from their surprise and dismay, they opened fire from their heaviest batteries upon Marshall and the National Judiciary. The way was prepared for them by a preliminary bombardment in the Weekly Register of Hezekiah Niles.

This periodical had now become the most widely read and influential publication in the country; it had subscribers from Portland to New Orleans, from Savannah to Fort Dearborn. Niles had won the confidence of his far-flung constituency by his honesty, courage, and ability. He was the prototype of Horace Greeley, and the Register had much the same hold on its readers that the Tribune came to have thirty years later.

In the first issue of the Register, after Marshall's opinion was delivered, Niles began an attack upon it that was to spread all over the land. "A deadly blow has been struck at the sovereignty of the states, and from a quarter so far removed from the people as to be hardly accessible to public opinion," he wrote. "The welfare of the union has received a more dangerous wound than fifty Hartford conventions ... could inflict." Parts of Marshall's opinion are "incomprehensible. But perhaps, as some people tell us of what they call the mysteries of religion, the common people are not to understand them, such things being reserved only for the priests!!"[852]

The opinion of the Chief Justice was published in full in Niles's Register two weeks after he delivered it,[853] and was thus given wider publicity than any judicial utterance previously rendered in America. Indeed, no pronouncement of any court, except, perhaps, that in Gibbons vs. Ogden,[854] was read so generally as Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, until the publication of the Dred Scott decision thirty-eight years later. Niles continues his attack in the number of the Register containing the Bank opinion:

It is "more important than any ever before pronounced by that exalted tribunal—a tribunal so far removed from the people, that some seem to regard it with a species of that awful reverence in which the inhabitants of Asia look up to their princes."[855] This exasperated sentence shows the change that Marshall, during his eighteen years on the bench, had wrought in the standing and repute of the Supreme Court.[856] The doctrines of the Chief Justice amount to this, said Niles—"congress may grant monopolies" at will, "if the price is paid for them, or without any pecuniary consideration at all." As for the Chief Justice personally, he "has not added ... to his stock of reputation by writing it—it is excessively labored."[857]

Papers throughout the country copied Niles's bitter criticisms,[858] and public opinion rapidly crystallized against Marshall's Nationalist doctrine. Every where the principle asserted by the Chief Justice became a political issue; or, rather, his declaration, that that principle was law, made sharper the controversy that had divided the people since the framing of the Constitution.

In number after number of his Register Niles, pours his wrath on Marshall's matchless interpretation. It is "far more dangerous to the union and happiness of the people of the United States than ... foreign invasion.[859] ... Certain nabobs in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, ... to secure the passage of an act of incorporation, ... fairly purchase the souls of some members of the national legislature with money, as happened in Georgia, or secure the votes of others by making them stockholders, as occurred in New York, and the act is passed.[860]... We call upon the people, the honest people, who hate monopolies and privileged orders, to arise in their strength and purge our political temple of the money-changers and those who sell doves—causing a reversion to the original purity of our system of government, that the faithful centinel may again say, 'All's Well!'"[861]

Extravagant and demagogical as this language of Niles's now seems, he was sincere and earnest in the use of it. Copious quotations from the Register have been here made because it had the strongest influence on American public opinion of any publication of its time. Niles's Register was, emphatically, the mentor of the country editor.[862]

At last the hour had come when the Virginia Republican triumvirate could strike with an effect impossible of achievement in 1816 when the Supreme Court rebuked and overpowered the State appellate tribunal in Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee.[863] Nobody outside of Virginia then paid any attention to that decision, so obsessed was the country by speculation and seeming prosperity. But in 1819 the collapse had come; poverty and discontent were universal; rebellion against Nationalism was under way; and the vast majority blamed the Bank of the United States for all their woes. Yet Marshall had upheld "the monster." The Virginia Junto's opportunity had arrived.

No sooner had Marshall returned to Richmond than he got wind of the coming assault upon him. On March 23, 1819, the Enquirer published his opinion in full. The next day the Chief Justice wrote Story: "Our opinion in the Bank case has aroused the sleeping spirit of Virginia, if indeed it ever sleeps. It will, I understand, be attacked in the papers with some asperity, and as those who favor it never write for the publick it will remain undefended & of course be considered as damnably heretical."[864] He had been correctly informed. The attack came quickly.

On March 30, Spencer Roane opened fire in the paper of his cousin Thomas Ritchie, the Enquirer,[865] under the nom de guerre of "Amphictyon." His first article is able, calm, and, considering his intense feelings, fair and moderate. Roane even extols his enemy:

"That this opinion is very able every one must admit. This was to have been expected, proceeding as it does from a man of the most profound legal attainments, and upon a subject which has employed his thoughts, his tongue, and his pen, as a politician, and an historian for more than thirty years. The subject, too, is one which has, perhaps more than any other, heretofore drawn a broad line of distinction between the two great parties in this country, on which line no one has taken a more distinguished and decided rank than the judge who has thus expounded the supreme law of the land. It is not in my power to carry on a contest upon such a subject with a man of his gigantic powers."[866]

Niles had spoken to "the plain people"; Roane is now addressing the lawyers and judges of the country. His essay is almost wholly a legal argument. It is based on the Virginia Resolutions of 1799 and gives the familiar State Rights arguments, applying them to Marshall's opinion.[867] In his second article Roane grows vehement, even fiery, and finally exclaims that Virginia "never will employ force to support her doctrines till other measures have entirely failed."[868]

His attacks had great and immediate response. No sooner had copies of the Enquirer containing the first letters of Amphictyon reached Kentucky than the Republicans of that State declared war on Marshall. On April 20, the Enquirer printed the first Western response to Roane's call to arms. Marshall's principles, said the Kentucky correspondent, "must raise an alarm throughout our widely extended empire.... The people must rouse from the lap of Delilah and prepare to meet the Philistines.... No mind can compass the extent of the encroachments upon State and individual rights which may take place under the principles of this decision."[869]

SPENCER ROANE

Even Marshall, a political and judicial veteran in his sixty-fifth year, was perturbed. "The opinion in the Bank case continues to be denounced by the democracy in Virginia," he writes Story, after the second of Roane's articles appeared. "An effort is certainly making to induce the legislature which will meet in December to take up the subject & to pass resolutions not very unlike those which were called forth by the alien & sedition laws in 1799. Whether the effort will be successful or not may perhaps depend in some measure on the sentiments of our sister states. To excite this ferment the opinion has been grossly misrepresented; and where its argument has been truly stated it has been met by principles one would think too palpably absurd for intelligent men.

"But," he gloomily continues, "prejudice will swallow anything. If the principles which have been advanced on this occasion were to prevail the constitution would be converted into the old confederation."[870]

As yet Roane had struck but lightly. He now renewed the Republican offensive with greater spirit. During June, 1819, the Enquirer published four articles signed "Hampden," from Roane's pen. Ritchie introduced the "Hampden" essays in an editorial in which he urged the careful reading of the exposure "of the alarming errors of the Supreme Court.... Whenever State rights are threatened or invaded, Virginia will not be the last to sound the tocsin."[871]

Are the people prepared "to give carte blanche to our federal rulers"? asked Hampden. Amendment of the Constitution by judicial interpretation is taking the place of amendment by the people. Infamous as the methods of National judges had been during the administration of Adams, "the most abandoned of our rulers," Marshall and his associates have done worse. They have given "a general letter of attorney to the future legislators of the Union.... That man must be a deplorable idiot who does not see that there is no ... difference" between an "unlimited grant of power and a grant limited in its terms, but accompanied with unlimited means of carrying it into execution.... The crisis is one which portends destruction to the liberties of the American people." Hampden scoldingly adds: "If Mason or Henry could lift their patriot heads from the grave, ... they would almost exclaim, with Jugurtha, 'Venal people! you will soon perish if you can find a purchaser.'"[872]

For three more numbers Hampden pressed the Republican assault on Marshall's opinion. The Constitution is a "compact, to which the States are the parties." Marshall's argument in the Virginia Convention of 1788 is quoted,[873] and his use of certain terms in his "Life of Washington" is cited.[874] If the powers of the National Government ought to be enlarged, "let this be the act of the people, and not that of subordinate agents."[875] The opinion of the Chief Justice repeatedly declares "that the general government, though limited in its powers, is supreme." Hampden avows that he does "not understand this jargon.... The people only are supreme.[876]... Our general government ... is as much a ... 'league' as was the former confederation." Therefore, the Virginia Court of Appeals, in Hunter vs. Fairfax, declared an act of Congress "unconstitutional, although it had been sanctioned by the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States." Pennsylvania, too, had maintained its "sovereignty."[877]

Hampden has only scorn for "some of the judges" who concurred in the opinion of the Chief Justice. They "had before been accounted republicans.... Few men come out from high places, as pure as they went in."[878] If Marshall's doctrine stands, "the triumph over our liberties will be ... easy and complete." What, then, could "arrest this calamity"? Nothing but an "appeal" to the people. Let this majestic and irresistible power be invoked.[879]

That he had no faith in his own theory is proved by the rather dismal fact that, more than two months before Marshall "violated the Constitution" and "endangered the liberties" of the people by his Bank decision, Roane actually arranged for the purchase, as an investment for his son, of $4900 worth of the shares of the Bank of the United States, and actually made the investment.[880] This transaction, consummated even before the argument in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, shows that Roane, the able lawyer, was sure that Marshall would and ought to sustain the Bank in its controversy with the States that were trying to destroy it. Moreover, Dr. John Brockenbrough, President of the Bank of Virginia, actually advised the investment.[881]

It is of moment, too, to note at this point the course taken by Marshall, who had long owned stock in the Bank of the United States. As soon as he learned that the suit had been brought which, of a certainty, must come before him, the Chief Justice disposed of his holdings.[882]

So disturbed was Marshall by Roane's attacks that he did a thoroughly uncharacteristic thing. By way of reply to Roane he wrote, under the nom de guerre of "A Friend of the Union," an elaborate defense of his opinion and, through Bushrod Washington, procured the publication of it in the Union of Philadelphia, the successor of the Gazette of the United States, and the strongest Federalist newspaper then surviving.

On June 28, 1819, the Chief Justice writes Washington: "I expected three numbers would have concluded my answer to Hampden but I must write two others which will follow in a few days. If the publication has not commenced I could rather wish the signature to be changed to 'A Constitutionalist.' A Friend of the Constitution is so much like a Friend of the Union that it may lead to some suspicion of identity.... I hope the publication has commenced unless the Editor should be unwilling to devote so much of his paper to this discussion. The letters of Amphyction & of Hampden have made no great impression in Richmond but they were designed for the country [Virginia] & have had considerable influence there. I wish the refutation to be in the hands of some respectable members of the legislature as it may prevent some act of the assembly [torn—probably "both">[ silly & wicked. If the publication be made I should [like] to have two or three sets of the papers to hand if necessary. I will settle with you for the printer."[883]

The reading of Marshall's newspaper effort is exhausting; a summary of the least uninteresting passages will give an idea of the whole paper. The articles published in the Enquirer were intended, so he wrote, to inflict "deep wounds on the constitution," are full of "mischievous errours," and are merely new expressions of the old Virginia spirit of hostility to the Nation. The case of M'Culloch vs. Maryland serves only as an excuse "for once more agitating the publick mind, and reviving those unfounded jealousies by whose blind aid ambition climbs the ladder of power."[884]

After a long introduction, Marshall enters upon his defense which is as wordy as his answer to the Virginia Resolutions. He is sensitive over the charge, by now popularly made, that he controls the Supreme Court, and cites the case of the Nereid to prove that the Justices give dissenting opinions whenever they choose. "The course of every tribunal must necessarily be, that the opinion which is to be delivered as the opinion of the court, is previously submitted to the consideration of all the judges; and, if any part of the reasoning be disapproved, it must be so modified as to receive the approbation of all, before it can be delivered as the opinion of all."

Roane's personal charges amount to this: "The chief justice ... is a federalist; who was a politician of some note before he was judge; and who with his tongue and his pen supported the opinions he avowed." With the politician's skill Marshall uses the fact that the majority of the court, which gave the Nationalist judgment in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, were Republicans—"four of whom [Story, Johnson, Duval, and Livingston] have no political sin upon their heads;—who in addition to being eminent lawyers, have the still greater advantage of being sound republicans; of having been selected certainly not for their federalism, by Mr Jefferson, and Mr Madison, for the high stations they so properly fill." For eight tedious columns of diffuse repetition Marshall goes on in defense of his opinion.[885]

When the biographer searches the daily life of a man so surpassingly great and good as Marshall, he hopes in no ungenerous spirit to find some human frailty that identifies his hero with mankind. The Greeks did not fail to connect their deities with humanity. The leading men of American history have been ill-treated in this respect—for a century they have been held up to our vision as superhuman creatures to admire whom was a duty, to criticize whom was a blasphemy, and to love or understand whom was an impossibility.

All but Marshall have been rescued from this frigid isolation. Any discovery of human frailty in the great Chief Justice is, therefore, most welcome. Some small and gracious defects in Marshall's character have appeared in the course of these volumes; and this additional evidence of his susceptibility to ordinary emotion is very pleasing. With all his stern repression of that element of his character, we find that he was sensitive in the extreme; in reality, thirsting for approval, hurt by criticism. In spite of this desire for applause and horror of rebuke, however, he did his duty, knowing beforehand that his finest services would surely bring upon him the denunciation and abuse he so disliked. By such peevishness as his anonymous reply in the Union to Roane's irritating attacks, we are able to get some measure of the true proportions of this august yet very human character.

When Marshall saw, in print, this controversial product of his pen, he was disappointed and depressed. The editor had, he avowed, so confused the manuscript that it was scarcely intelligible. At any rate, Marshall did not want his defense reproduced in New England. Story had heard of the article in the Union, and wrote Marshall that he wished to secure the publication of it. The Chief Justice replied:

"The piece to which you allude was not published in Virginia. Our patriotic papers admit no such political heresies. It contained, I think, a complete demonstration of the fallacies & errors contained in those attacks on the opinion of the Court which have most credit here & are supposed to proceed from a high source,[886] but was so mangled in the publication that those only who had bestowed close attention to the subject could understand it.

"There were two numbers[887] & the editor of the Union in Philadelphia, the paper in which it was published, had mixed the different numbers together so as in several instances to place the reasoning intended to demonstrate one proposition under another. The points & the arguments were so separated from each other, & so strangely mixed as to constitute a labyrinth to which those only who understood the whole subject perfectly could find a clue."[888]

It appears that Story insisted on having at least Marshall's rejoinder to Roane's first article reproduced in the Boston press. Again the Chief Justice evades the request of his associate and confidant: "I do not think a republication of the piece you mention in the Boston papers to be desired, as the antifederalism of Virginia will not, I trust, find its way to New England. I should also be sorry to see it in Mr. Wheaton's[889] appendix because that circumstance might lead to suspicions regarding the author & because I should regret to see it republished in its present deranged form with the two centres transposed."[890]

For a brief space, then, the combatants rested on their arms, but each was only gathering strength for the inevitable renewal of the engagement which was to be sterner than any previous phases of the contest.

Soon after the convening of the first session of the Virginia Legislature held subsequent to the decision of M'Culloch vs. Maryland, Roane addressed the lawmakers through the Enquirer, now signing himself "Publicola." He pointed out the "absolute disqualification of the supreme court of the U. S. to decide with impartiality upon controversies between the General and State Governments";[891] and, to "ensure unbiassed" decisions, insisted upon a Constitutional amendment to establish a tribunal "(as occasion may require)" appointed partly by the States and partly by the National Government, "with appellate jurisdiction from the present supreme court."[892]

Promptly a resolution against Marshall's opinion was offered in the House of Delegates.[893] This noteworthy paper was presented by Andrew Stevenson, a member of the "committee for Courts of Justice."[894] The resolutions declared that the doctrines of M'Culloch vs. Maryland would "undermine the pillars of the Constitution itself." The provision giving to the judicial power "all cases arising under the Constitution" did not "extend to questions which would amount to a subversion of the constitution itself, by the usurpation of one contracting party on another." But Marshall's opinion was calculated to "change the whole character of the government."[895]

Sentences from the opinion of the Chief Justice are quoted, including the famous one: "Let the end be legitimate, ... and all the means which are appropriate, ... which are not prohibited, ... are constitutional." Did not such expressions import that Congress could "conform the constitution to their own designs" by the exercise of "unlimited and uncontrouled" power? The ratifying resolution of the Constitution by the Virginia Convention of 1788 is quoted.[896] Virginia's voice had been heard to the same effect in the immortal Resolutions of 1799. Her views had been endorsed by the country in the Presidential election of 1800—that "great revolution of principle." Her Legislature, therefore, "enter their most solemn protest, against the decision of the supreme court, and of the principles contained in it."

In this fashion the General Assembly insisted on an amendment to the National Constitution "creating a tribunal" authorized to decide questions relative to the "powers of the general and state governments, under the compact." The Virginia Senators are, therefore, instructed to do their best to secure such an amendment and "to resist on every occasion" attempted legislation by Congress in conflict with the views set forth in this resolution or those of 1799 "which have been re-considered, and are fully and entirely approved of by this Assembly." The Governor is directed to transmit the resolutions to the other States.[897]

At this point Slavery and Secession enter upon the scene. Almost simultaneously with the introduction of the resolutions denouncing Marshall and the Supreme Court for the judgment and opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, other resolutions were offered by a member of the House named Baldwin denouncing the imposition of restrictions on Missouri (the prohibition of slavery) as a condition of admitting that Territory to the Union. Such action by Congress would "excite feelings eminently hostile to the fraternal affection and prudent forbearance which ought ever to pervade the confederated union."[898] Two days later, December 30, the same delegate introduced resolutions to the effect that only the maintenance of the State Rights principle could "preserve the confederated union," since "no government can long exist which lies at the mercy of another"; and, inferentially, that Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland had violated that principle.[899]

A yet sterner declaration on the Missouri question quickly followed, declaring that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in that State, and that "Virginia will support the good people of Missouri in their just rights ... and will co-operate with them in resisting with manly fortitude any attempt which Congress may make to impose restraints or restrictions as the price of their admission" to the Union.[900] The next day these resolutions, strengthened by amendment, were adopted.[901] On February 12, 1820, the resolutions condemning the Nationalist doctrine expounded by the Chief Justice in the Bank case also came to a vote and passed, 117 ayes to 38 nays.[902] They had been amended and reamended,[903] but, as adopted, they were in substance the same as those originally offered by Stevenson. Through both these sets of resolutions—that on the Missouri question and that on the Bank decision—ran the intimation of forcible resistance to National authority. Introduced at practically the same time, drawn and advocated by the same men, passed by votes of the same members, these important declarations of the Virginia Legislature were meant to be and must be considered as a single expression of the views of Virginia upon National policy.

In this wise did the Legislature of his own State repudiate and defy that opinion of John Marshall which has done more for the American Nation than any single utterance of any other one man, excepting only the Farewell Address of Washington. In such manner, too, was the slavery question brought face to face with Marshall's lasting exposition of the National Constitution. For, it should be repeated, in announcing the principles by virtue of which Congress could establish the Bank of the United States, the Chief Justice had also asserted, by necessary inference, the power of the National Legislature to exact the exclusion of slavery as a condition upon which a State could be admitted to the Union. At least this was the interpretation of Virginia and the South.

The slavery question did not, to be sure, closely touch Northern States, but their local interests did. Thus it was that Ohio aligned herself with Virginia in opposition to Marshall's Nationalist statesmanship, and in support of the Jeffersonian doctrine of Localism. In such fashion did the Ohio Bank question become so intermingled with the conflict over Slavery and Secession that, in the consideration of Marshall's opinions at this time, these controversies cannot be separated. The facts of the Ohio Bank case must, therefore, be given at this point.[904]

Since the establishment at Cincinnati, early in 1817, of a branch of the Bank of the United States, Ohio had threatened to drive it from the State by a prohibitive tax. Not long before the argument of M'Culloch vs. Maryland in the Supreme Court, the Ohio Legislature laid an annual tax of $50,000 on each of the two branches which, by that time, had been established in that State.[905] On February 8, 1819, only four days previous to the hearing of the Maryland case at Washington, and less than a month before Marshall delivered his opinion, the Ohio lawmakers passed an act directing the State Auditor, Ralph Osborn, to charge this tax of $50,000 against each of the branches, and to issue a warrant for the immediate collection of $100,000, the total amount of the first year's tax.

This law is almost without parallel in severity, peremptoriness, and defiant contempt for National authority. If the branches refused to pay the tax, the Ohio law enjoined the person serving the State Auditor's warrant to seize all money or property belonging to the Bank, found on its premises or elsewhere. The agent of the Auditor was directed to open the vaults, search the offices, and take everything of value.[906]

Immediately the branch at Chillicothe obtained from the United States District Court, then in session at that place, an injunction forbidding Osborn from collecting the tax;[907] but the bank's counsel forgot to have a writ issued to stay the proceedings. Therefore, no order of the court was served; instead a copy of the bill praying that the Auditor be restrained, together with a subpœna to answer, was sent to Osborn. These papers were not, of course, an injunction, but merely notice that one had been applied for. Thinking to collect the tax before the injunction could be issued, Osborn forthwith issued his Auditor's warrant to one John L. Harper to collect the tax immediately. Assisted by a man named Thomas Orr, Harper entered the Chillicothe branch of the Bank of the United States, opened the vaults, seized all the money to be found, and deposited it for the night in the local State bank. Next morning Harper and Orr loaded the specie, bank notes, and other securities in a wagon and started for Columbus.[908]

The branch bank tardily obtained an order from the United States Court restraining Osborn, the State Auditor, and Harper, the State agent, from delivering the money to the State Treasurer and from making any report to the Legislature of the collection of the tax. This writ was served on Harper as he and Orr were on the road to the State Capital with the money. Harper simply ignored the writ, drove on to Columbus, and handed over to the State Treasurer the funds which he had seized at Chillicothe.

Harper and Orr were promptly arrested and imprisoned in the jail at Chillicothe.[909] Because of technical defects in serving the warrant for their arrest and in the return of the marshal, the prisoners were set free.[910] An order was secured from the United States Court directing Osborn and Harper to show cause why an attachment should not be issued against them for having disobeyed the court's injunction not to deliver the bank's money to the State Treasurer. After extended argument, the court issued the attachment, which, however, was not made returnable until the January term, 1821.

Meanwhile the Virginia Legislature passed its resolutions denouncing Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, and throughout the country the warfare upon the Supreme Court began. The Legislature of Ohio acted with a celerity and boldness that made the procedure of the Virginia Legislature seem hesitant and timid. A joint committee was speedily appointed and as promptly made its report. This report and the resolutions recommended by it were adopted without delay and transmitted to the Senate of the United States.[911]

The Ohio declaration is drawn with notable ability. A State cannot be sued—the true meaning of the Constitution forbids, and the Eleventh Amendment specifically prohibits, such procedure.

Yet the action against Osborn, State Auditor, and Samuel Sullivan, State Treasurer, is, "to every substantial purpose, a process against the State." The decision of the National Supreme Court that the States have no power to tax branches of the Bank of the United States does not bind Ohio or render her tax law "a dead letter."[912]

The Ohio Legislature challenges the bona fides of M'Culloch vs. Maryland: "If, by the management of a party, and through the inadvertence or connivance of a State, a case be made, presenting to the Supreme Court of the United States for decision important ... questions of State power and State authority, upon no just principle ought the States to be concluded by any decision had upon such a case.... Such is the true character of the case passed upon the world by the title of McCulloch vs. Maryland," which, "when looked into, is found to be ... throughout, an agreed case, made expressly for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States.... This agreed case was manufactured in the summer of the year 1818" and rushed through two Maryland courts, "so as to be got upon the docket of the Supreme Court of the United States for adjudication at their February term, 1819.... It is truly an alarming circumstance if it be in the power of an aspiring corporation and an unknown and obscure individual thus to elicit opinions compromitting the vital interests of the States that compose the American Union."

Luckily for Ohio and all the States, this report goes on to say, some of Marshall's opinions have been "totally impotent and unavailing," as, for instance, in the case of Marbury vs. Madison. Marbury did not get his commission; "the person appointed in his place continued to act; his acts were admitted to be valid; and President Jefferson retained his standing in the estimation of the American people." It was the same in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck. Marshall held that "the Yazoo purchasers ... were entitled to their lands. But the decision availed them nothing, unless as a make-weight in effecting a compromise." Since, in neither of these cases, had the National Government paid the slightest attention to the decision of the Supreme Court, how could Ohio "be condemned because she did not abandon her solemn legislative acts as a dead letter upon the promulgation of an opinion of that tribunal"?[913]

The Ohio Legislature then proceeds to analyze Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland. All the arguments made against the principle of implied powers since Hamilton first announced that principle,[914] and all the reasons advanced against the doctrine that the National Government is supreme, in the sense employed by Marshall, are restated with clearness and power. However, since the object of the tax was to drive the branches of the Bank out of Ohio, the Legislature suggests a compromise. If the National institution will cease business within the State and "give assurance" that the branches be withdrawn, the State will refund the tax money it has seized.[915]

Instantly turning from conciliation to defiance, "because the reputation of the State has been assailed," the Legislature challenges the National Government to make good Marshall's assertion that the power which created the Bank "must have the power to preserve it." Ohio should pass laws "forbidding the keepers of our jails from receiving into their custody any person committed at the suit of the Bank of the United States," and prohibiting Ohio judges, recorders, notaries public, from recognizing that institution in any way.[916] Congress will then have to provide a criminal code, a system of conveyances, and other extensive measures. Ohio and the country will then learn whether the power that created the Bank can preserve it.

The Ohio memorial concludes with a denial that the "political rights" and "sovereign powers" of a State can be settled by the Supreme Court of the Nation "in cases contrived between individuals, and where they [the States] are, no one of them, parties direct." The resolutions further declare that the opinion of the other States should be secured.[917] This alarming manifesto was presented to the National Senate on February 1, 1821, just six weeks before Marshall delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court in Cohens vs. Virginia.[918]

Pennsylvania had already taken stronger measures; had anticipated even Virginia. Within seven weeks from the delivery of Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, the Legislature of Pennsylvania proposed an amendment to the National Constitution prohibiting Congress from authorizing "any bank or other monied institution" outside of the District of Columbia.[919] The action of Ohio was an endorsement of that of Virginia and Pennsylvania. Indiana had already swung into line.[920] So had Illinois and Tennessee.[921] For some reason, Kentucky, soon to become one of the most belligerent and persevering of all the States in her resistance to the "encroachments" of Nationalism as expounded by the Supreme Court, withheld her hand for the moment.

Most unaccountably, South Carolina actually upheld Marshall's opinion,[922] which that State, within a decade, was to repudiate, denounce, and defy in terms of armed resistance.[923] New York and Massachusetts,[924] consulting their immediate interests, were very stern against the Localism of Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.[925] Georgia expressed her sympathy with the Localist movement, but, for the time being, was complaisant[926]—a fact the more astonishing that she had already proved, and was soon to prove again, that Nationalism is a fantasy unless it is backed by force.[927]

Notwithstanding the eccentric attitude of various members of the Union, it was only too plain that a powerful group of States were acting in concert and that others ardently sympathized with them.

At this point, in different fashion, Virginia spoke again, this time by the voice of that great protagonist of Localism, John Taylor of Caroline, the originator of the Kentucky Resolutions,[928] and the most brilliant mind in the Republican organization of the Old Dominion. Immediately after Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, and while the Ohio conflict was in progress, he wrote a book in denunciation and refutation of Marshall's Nationalist principles. The editorial by Thomas Ritchie, commending Taylor's book, declares that "the crisis has come"; the Missouri question, the Tariff question, the Bank question, have brought the country to the point where a decision must be made as to whether the National Government shall be permitted to go on with its usurpations. "If there is any book capable of arousing the people, it is the one before us."

Taylor gave to his volume the title "Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated." The phrases "exclusive interests" and "exclusive privileges" abound throughout the volume. Sixteen chapters compose this classic of State Rights philosophy. Five of them are devoted to Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland; the others to theories of government, the state of the country, the protective tariff, and the Missouri question. The principles of the Revolution, avows Taylor, "are the keys of construction" and "the locks of liberty.[929]... No form of government can foster a fanaticism for wealth, without being corrupted." Yet Marshall's ideas establish "the despotick principle of a gratuitous distribution of wealth and poverty by law."[930]

If the theory that Congress can create corporations should prevail, "legislatures will become colleges for teaching the science of getting money by monopolies or favours."[931] To pretend faith in Christianity, and yet foster monopoly, is "like placing Christ on the car of Juggernaut."[932] The framers of the National Constitution tried to prevent the evils of monopoly and avarice by "restricting the powers given to Congress" and safeguarding those of the States; "in fact, by securing the freedom of property."[933]

Marshall is enamored of the word "sovereignty," an "equivocal and illimitable word," not found in "the declaration of independence, nor the federal constitution, nor the constitution of any single state"; all of them repudiated it "as a traitor of civil rights."[934] Well that they had so rejected this term of despotism! No wonder Jugurtha exclaimed, "Rome was for sale," when "the government exercised an absolute power over the national property." Of course it would "find purchasers."[935] To this condition Marshall's theories will bring America.

JOHN TAYLOR

Whence this effort to endow the National Government with powers comparable to those of a monarchy? Plainly it is a reaction—"many wise and good men, ... alarmed by the illusions of Rousseau and Godwin, and the atrocities of the French revolution, honestly believe that these [democratic] principles have teeth and claws, which it is expedient to draw and pare, however constitutional they may be; without considering that such an operation will subject the generous lion to the wily fox; ... subject liberty and property to tyranny and fraud."[936]

In chapter after chapter of clever arguments, illumined by the sparkle of such false gems as these quotations, Taylor prepares the public mind for his direct attack on John Marshall. He is at a sad disadvantage; he, "an unknown writer," can offer only "an artless course of reasoning" against the "acute argument" of Marshall's opinion, concurred in by the members of the Supreme Court whose "talents," "integrity," "uprightness," and "erudition" are universally admitted.[937] The essence of Marshall's doctrine is that, although the powers of the National Government are limited, the means by which they may be executed are unlimited. But, "as ends may be made to beget means, so means may be made to beget ends, until the co-habitation shall rear a progeny of unconstitutional bastards, which were not begotten by the people."[938]

Marshall had said that "'the creation of a corporation appertains to sovereignty.'" This is the language of tyranny. The corporate idea crept into British law "wherein it hides the heart of a prostitute under the habiliments of a virgin."[939] But since, in America, only the people are "sovereign," and, to use Marshall's own words, the power to create corporations "appertains to sovereignty," it follows that neither State nor National Governments can create corporations.[940]

The Chief Justice is a master of the "science of verbality" by which the Constitution may be rendered "as unintelligible, as a single word would be made by a syllabick dislocation, or a jumble of its letters; and turn it into a reservoir of every meaning for which its expounder may have occasion."

Where does Marshall's "artifice of verbalizing" lead?[941] To an "artificially reared, a monied interest ... which is gradually obtaining an influence over the federal government," and "craftily works upon the passions of the states it has been able to delude" [on the slavery question], "to coerce the defrauded and discontented states into submission." For this reason talk of civil war abounds. "For what are the states talking about disunion, and for what are they going to war among themselves? To create or establish a monied sect, composed of privileged combinations, as an aristocratical oppressor of them all."[942] Marshall's doctrine that Congress may bestow "exclusive privileges" is at the bottom of the Missouri controversy. "Had the motive ... never existed, the discussion itself would never have existed; but if the same cause continues, more fatal controversies may be expected."[943]

Finally Taylor hurls at the Nation the challenge of the South, which the representatives of that section, from the floor of Congress, quickly repeated in threatenings of civil war.[944] "There remains a right, anterior to every political power whatsoever, ... the natural right of self-defence.... It is allowed, on all hands, that danger to the slave-holding states lurks in their existing situation, ... and it must be admitted that the right of self-defence applies to that situation.... I leave to the reader the application of these observations."[945]

Immediately upon its publication, Ritchie sent a copy of Taylor's book to Jefferson, who answered that he knew "before reading it" that it would prove "orthodox." The attack upon the National courts could not be pressed too energetically: "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric.... An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy and timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning."[946]