Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/487

Rh of any compact of union. But how to divide this power—the badge and symbol of sovereignty—between two distinct sovereignties of the same nation, namely, the Federal Congress and the Legislatures of the several States, and impose limitations in both cases on the exercise of a function so vast in its sweep and so imperative in its action, was one of the most difficult problems that confronted the framers of the Federal Constitution, and one without precedent in the world's history. The problem occasioned much discussion, and was really left unsettled—a general power being given to the national legislature, or Congress, "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," with the limitation that "all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"; that "no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census"; that "no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports," and that no tax or duty shall under any circumstances be laid on articles exported from any State. Under such a loose and indefinite condition of things, a conflict of laws and of jurisdictions was inevitable, giving rise to controversies whose determination was really vital to the integrity and efficiency of the Federal Constitution. But happily, owing to the firmness and wisdom of the national tribunal (United States Supreme Court) before which these questions have been brought for adjudication, most of the difficulties which once seemed so formidable have been overcome, and are now mainly interesting as matters of history.

One of the earliest and most celebrated of these controversies culminated, as it were, in a case or suit known as McCulloch vs. Maryland, which came before the Supreme Court of the United States and was decided in 1819, under the following circumstances: Congress in 1815 chartered a national (United States) bank, which as a legitimate and authorized feature of its organization established branches in the States, with power to issue circulating notes. This measure proved unpopular in many of the States, and attempts were made by them to resist the various operations of this banking institution within their territory. Foremost among these was the State of Maryland, which, through an enactment of its Legislature, required every bank doing business in the State, and not chartered by the State, either to pay a stamp duty on every note issued, or pay a tax of $1,500 in gross per annum, and in addition imposed certain penalties on all the officers of a bank violating the law, and upon every person who had any agency in circulating such notes. Contemporaneously, also, the State of Ohio imposed an annual tax of $50,000 upon the branch bank of the United States established in that State.

The validity of the Maryland statute having been affirmed