PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 471 



the remark, preliminary to announcing the decision of the court, 

 that " no tribunal could approach such a question as was involved 

 without a deep sense of its importance and of the awful responsi- 

 bility involved in the decision/' * 



The decision of the court was unanimous that "the States 

 have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, bur- 

 den, or in any manner control the operation of the constitutional 

 laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers 

 vested in the General Government ; and that the law passed by 

 the Legislature of Maryland imposing a tax on the Bank of the 

 United States is unconstitutional and void." 



" If we apply,'' said the Chief Justice, " the principle for which 

 the State of Maryland contends to the Constitution generally, we 

 shall find it capable of changing totally the character of that 

 instrument. We shall find it capable of arresting all the measures 

 of the Government, and of prostrating it at the foot of the States. 

 The American people have declared their Constitution and the 

 laws made in pursuance thereof to be supreme ; but this principle 

 would transfer the supremacy, in fact, to the States. If the States 

 may tax one instrument employed by the Government in the exe- 

 cution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instru- 

 ment. They may tax the mail ; 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 Govern- 

 ment, 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 court, however, held that its decision did not deprive " the 

 States of any resources which they originally possessed. It does 

 not extend to a tax paid by the real property of the bank, in com- 

 mon with the other real property within the State, nor to a tax 

 imposed on the interest which the citizens of Maryland may hold 

 in this institution, in common with other property of the same 

 description throughout the State. But this is a tax on the opera- 

 tion of the bank, and is consequently a tax on the operation of an 

 instrument employed by the Government of the Union to carry its 

 powers into execution. Such a tax must be unconstitutional." f 



* " No more impressive words are to be found in any English or American adjudication 

 than those uttered by Chief-Justice Marshall as a preamble to the judgment in this most 

 interesting and important case." Francis Hillard, The Law of Taxation. 



\ The following additional extracts from the decision of the court in this celebrated 

 case will help to a further elucidation of its involved subject-matters : 



" In the case now to be determined," said the Chief Justice, " the defendant, a sovereign 

 State, denies the obligation of a law enacted by the Legislature of the Union ; and the 

 plaintiff, on his part, contests the validity of an act which has been passed by the Legis- 

 lature of that State. The Constitution of our country, in its most interesting and vital 



