Congress

Having concluded that the creation of the Bank of the United States was within the Constitutional authority of the Congress, Marshall then turned to the question of whether Maryland had the authority to tax the bank, declaring that the “great principle” of the Constitution is that “laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme; that they control the Constitution and laws of the respective States, and cannot be controlled by them.” If a state were allowed to ignore the laws passed by the national government consistent with the Constitution, it would be, in effect, controlling the national government. Moreover, if a state could tax an activity of the national government, in this case the national bank, it had the power to destroy the national government. Such would clearly be a violation of the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Maryland’s tax on the bank, therefore, was unconstitutional.