The decisions of the Supreme Court also reflected the nationalism of the postwar period. With John Marshall as chief justice, the Supreme Court greatly expanded its powers, prestige, and independence. When Marshall took office, in the last days of John Adams's administration in 1801, the Court met in the basement of the Capitol and was rarely in session for more than six weeks a year. Since its creation in 1789, the Court had only decided 100 cases.
In a series of critical decisions, the Supreme Court greatly expanded its authority. Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the Constitution and its power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. Fletcher v. Peck (1810) declared the Court's power to void state laws. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) gave the Court the power to review decisions by state courts.
After the War of 1812, Marshall wrote a series of decisions that further strengthened the powers of the national government. McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) established the constitutionality of the second Bank of the United States and denied to states the right to exert independent checks on federal authority. The case involved a direct attack on the second Bank of the United States by the state of Maryland, which had placed a tax on the bank notes of all banks not chartered by the state.
In his decision, Marshall dealt with two fundamental questions. The first was whether the federal government had the power to incorporate a bank. The answer to this question, the Court ruled, was yes because the Constitution granted Congress implied powers to do whatever was "necessary and proper" to carry out its constitutional powers--in this case, the power to manage a currency. In a classic statement of "broad" or "loose" construction of the Constitution, Marshall said, "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional."
The second question raised in McCullouch v. Maryland was whether a state had the power to tax a branch of the Bank of the United States. In answer to this question, the Court said no. The Constitution, the Court asserted, created a new government with sovereign power over the states. "The power to tax involves the power to destroy," the Court declared, and the states do not have the right to exert an independent check on the authority of the federal government.
During this period, the Supreme Court also encouraged economic competition and development. In Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819) the Court promoted business growth by denying states the right to alter or impair contracts unilaterally. The case involved the efforts of the New Hampshire legislature to alter the charter of Dartmouth College, which had been granted by George III in 1769. The Court held that a charter was a valid contract protected by the Constitution and that states do not have the power to alter contracts unilaterally.
In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Court broadened federal power over interstate commerce. The Court overturned a New York law that had awarded a monopoly over steamboat traffic on the Hudson River, ruling that the Constitution had specifically given Congress the power to regulate commerce.
Under John Marshall, the Supreme Court established a distribution of constitutional powers that the country still follows. The Court became the final arbiter of the constitutionality of federal and state laws, and the federal government exercised sovereign power over the states. As a result of these decisions, it would become increasingly difficult in the future to argue that the union was a creation of the states, that states could exert an independent check on federal government authority, or that Congress's powers were limited to those specifically conferred by the Constitution.
