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]