Tag: Supremacy of the Constitution
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Supremacy of Laws
Although McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden were expressions of a single thesis, the supremacy of the national government, their development after Marshall's death has been sharply divergent. During the period when Gibbons v. Ogden was eclipsed by the theory of dual federalism, the doctr…
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Indian Lands
Another line of anomalous decisions conferring tax immunity upon lessees of restricted Indian lands was overruled in 1949. The first of these cases, Choctaw & Gulf R.R. v. Harrison,1 held that a gross production tax on oil, gas, and other minerals wa…
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Supremacy of the Constitution
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any Thing in the Constit…
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National Supremacy Clause Interpretation
Although the Supreme Court had held, prior to Chief Justice John Marshall's appointment to it, that the Supremacy Clause rendered null and void a state constitutional or statutory provision that was inconsistent with a treaty executed by the Federal Government, <a name=t1 href=#f1 target="_…
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Operation of the Supremacy Clause
When Congress legislates pursuant to its delegated powers, conflicting state law and policy must yield.1 Although the preemptive effect of federal legislation is best known in areas governed by the Commerce Clause, the same effect is present, of cour…
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Preemption
The General Issue: Preemption (Concurrent Federal and State Jurisdiction)In Gibbons v. Ogden,1 the Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, held that New York legislation that excluded from the navigable waters of that state steam vessels enrolled …
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Federal Immunity Laws
The operation of federal immunity acts 1 to preclude the use in state courts of incriminating statements and testimony given by a witness before a committee of Congress or a federal grand jury 2 illus…
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Priority of National Claims
Anticipating his argument in McCulloch v. Maryland,1 Chief Justice Marshall in 1805 upheld an act of 1792 asserting for the United States a priority of its claims over those of the states against a debtor in bankruptcy.<a name=t2 href=#f2 target=&quo…
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Supremacy Clause
The Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States are as much a part of the law of every state as its own local laws and constitution. Their obligation "is imperative upon the state judges, in their official and not merely in their private capacities. From the very nature of their judic…
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Amendment 10
The logic of the Supremacy Clause would seem to require that the powers of Congress be determined by the fair reading of the express and implied grants contained in the Constitution itself, without reference to the powers of the states. For a century after Marshall's death, however, the Court pr…
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Federal Instrumentalities
Federal instrumentalities and agencies have never enjoyed the same degree of immunity from state police regulation as from state taxation. The Court has looked to the nature of each regulation to determine whether it is compatible with the functions committed by Congress to the federal agency. This …
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McCulloch v. Maryland
Five years after the decision in Mc- Culloch v. Maryland that a state may not tax an instrumentality of the Federal Government, the Court was asked to and did reexamine the entire question in Osborn v. Bank of the United States.1 In that case counsel…
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Federal Securities
The first significant extension of the doctrine of the immunity of federal instrumentalities from state taxation came in Weston v. Charleston, 1 where Chief Justice Marshall also found in the Supremacy Clause a bar to state taxation of obligations of…
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Government Contractors
In the course of his opinion in Osborn v. Bank of the United States,1 Chief Justice Marshall posed the question: "Can a contractor for supplying a military post with provisions, be restrained from making purchases within any state, or from trans…