welcome back to landmark cases in a nutshell today we'll be covering mcculloch versus maryland this is the case where the supreme court determined that congress has implied powers because of the necessary and proper clause in article 1 section 8. so let's dive into the context back in 1790 alexander hamilton who was serving as the first ever secretary of the treasury advised congress to create a national bank he felt that a centralized government-controlled bank would help stabilize the still young nation by paying government debts collecting tax revenues supplying paper money and managing private sector commercial transactions hamilton's argument was convincing and in 1791 congress passed a bill to create the national bank and george washington signed the bill into law the bank of the united states opened in philadelphia and additional branches were opened in cities across the country however the charter for the national bank expired in 1811 and congress decided not to renew it due to it being a pretty controversial establishment the u.s then proceeded to fight in the war of 1812 against great britain and ran up a lot of debt in order to fix the debt issue congress decided to open a new national bank and in 1816 the second bank of the united states was established in philadelphia with subsequent branches opening in other cities one of those branches was in baltimore maryland but many marylanders did not approve of the national bank because they viewed themselves as part of a sovereign state and did not want this federal instrument competing with their state banks or taxing businesses in maryland so in 1818 to show their distaste for the bank maryland legislators imposed an annual tax of fifteen thousand dollars on all banks not issued chartered by the state which was only the national bank james mcculloch the cashier for the baltimore branch of the national bank refused to pay the tax and was sued by the state both the trial court and the court of appeals sided with maryland however the case made its way to the supreme court representing maryland was the state's attorney general luther martin he argued that congress lacked the authorities to create a bank because the power wasn't listed in the constitution representing the bank was daniel webster an attorney and advocate of a strong federal government webster argued that the clause known as the necessary and proper clause in article 1 section 8 of the constitution gave congress the power to establish a national bank he claimed that creating a bank was a necessary and proper way of completing many of congress's responsibilities such as borrowing money collecting taxes and regulating commerce the court had to consider whether congress had the authority to establish the bank and whether maryland could tax it which was interfering with congressional powers in a unanimous decision the court declared that congress did have the power to incorporate the bank and that maryland could not tax instruments of the federal government chief justice john marshall agreed with webster that the necessary and proper clause gave congress the ability to create the national bank marshall stated that necessary and proper essentially just meant appropriate and legitimate and included all methods of congress furthering their objectives enumerated in the constitution this meant that congress had implied powers in addition to its explicitly mentioned powers marshall agreed that the bank was a legitimate way for congress to execute on several of its enumerated powers the court also held that maryland could not tax the bank because if states could tax this instrument of the federal government they could tax every other instrument this would allow the states to have power over the federal government and potentially destroy it thus this was unconstitutional well that's all for this case feel free to leave any questions in the comments and thanks for watching [Music]