Studies in American History 
65 
foreign corporations, now augmented by hard times, were de- 
termined to drive the hated federal institutions from the 
commonwealth. Again, the branch banks were not without 
some friends in the state, especially among the more prom- 
inent business and professional men, but these were a small 
minority.®^ An echo of the legislature’s last hostile act reached 
Washington, and Representative Trimble from Kentucky in- 
troduced a resolution to annul the United States Bank’s char- 
ter. The federal court in Kentucky saved the branch banks 
by enjoining the state from collecting the confiscatory tax 
the legislature had voted, and the Supreme Court on March 
6, 1819, declared in its decision in the case of McCulloch vs. 
Maryland that the United States Bank was constitutional and 
that a state could not tax it. It took a long time, however, 
for the full effect of a court decision from the seat of the 
federal government to reach the West and convince state 
officials, even state supreme court judges. Hence, as late as 
December, 1819, the court of appeals of Kentucky unanimous- 
ly decided the United States Bank was unconstitutional and 
upheld the state’s right to tax its branches. Two of the 
judges, however, advocated yielding to the Supreme Court.®^ 
Slowly it dawned on some of the people of Kentucky that 
the United States had authority over them. The Supreme 
Court was then vigorously asserting the new doctrine that 
the powers of Congress were above those of the states, and 
between 1809 and 1824 it set aside fourteen acts of eleven 
different states.^^ These decisions were nowhere less popular 
than in Kentucky, but the state reluctantly yielded its sov- 
ereignty ideas in the bank-tax case. In doing so, however, 
in no measure did the hatred against the United States Bank 
abate among the masses as being one of the chief causes of 
their financial troubles.®^ Again, the Supreme Court’s deci- 
sion on the bank case was so unpopular in Kentucky that it 
caused almost as much feeling against the federal court as 
there was against the federal bank and laid the foundation 
for suspicion against all courts and their authority in the 
state. The United States Bank’s own conduct thru its 
52 Kentucky Gazette, February 5, 1819. 
52 Autobiography of Amos Kendall, 205 ; Sumner, Andreiv Jackson, 160. 
5* McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, V, 412, 413. 
55 Schouler, History of the United States of America under the Constitution, 1788-1865, 
III, 120. 
