"The argument on the part of the State of Maryland is, not that the States may directly resist a law of congress, but that they may exercise their acknowledged power upon it, and that the Constitution leaves them this right, in the confidence they will not abuse it.

"Before we proceed to examine this argument, and subject it to the test of the Constitution, we must be permitted to bestow a few considerations on the nature and extent of this original right of taxation, which is acknowledged to remain with the States. It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential to the very existence of government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the government may choose to carry it. The only security against the abuse of this power is found in the structure of the government itself. In imposing a tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general, a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation.

"The people of a State therefore give to their government a right of taxing themselves and their property; and, as the exigencies of government cannot be limited, they prescribe no limits to the exercise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislature, and on the influence of the constituents over their representatives, to guard them against its abuse. But the means employed by the government have no such security; nor is the right to tax them sustained by the same theory. Those means are not given by the people of a particular State, nor given by the constituents of the legislature which claims the right to tax them, but the people of all the States. They are given by all for the benefit of all, and upon theory should be subjected to that government only which belongs to all."

1 Marshall on the Constitution, p. 180.

We

"The sovereignty of a State extends to every thing which exists by its own authority, or is introduced by its permission; but does it extend to those means employed by congress to carry into execution powers conferred on that body by the people of the United States ? think it demonstrable it does not. These powers are not given by the people of a single State; they are given by the people of the United States to a government whose laws, made in pursuance of the Constitution, are declared to be supreme. Consequently, the people of a single State cannot confer a sovereignty which will extend over them.

"If we measure the power of taxation residing in a State by the extent of sovereignty which the people of a single State possess and can confer on its government, we have an intelligible standard, applicable to every case to which the power may be applied. We have a principle which leaves the power of taxing the people and property of à State unimpaired, which leaves to a State the command of all its resources, and which places beyond its reach all those powers which are conferred by the people of the United States on the government of the Union, and all those means which are given for the purpose of carrying those powers into execution. We have a principle which is safe for the States and safe for the Union, &c."

66

But, waiving this theory for the present, let us resume the inquiry, whether this power can be exercised by the respective States, consistently with a fair construction of the Constitution.

"That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance in conferring on our government the power to control the constitutional measures of another, which other, with

respect to those very measures, is declared to be supreme over that which exerts the control, — are propositions not to be denied. But all inconsistencies are to be reconciled by the magic word coNFidence. Taxation, it is said, does not necessarily and unavoidably destroy. To carry it to the excess of destruction would be an abuse, to assume which would banish that confidence which is essential to all government.

"But is this a case of confidence? Would the people of one State trust those of another with the power to control the most insignificant operations of their State governments? We know they would not. Why, then, should we suppose that the pepole of any one State should be willing to trust those of another with the power to control the operations of a government to which they have confided their most important and most valuable interest? In the legislature of the Union alone are all represented. The legislature of the Union alone therefore, can be trusted by the people with the power of controlling measures which concern all, in the confidence it will not be abused. This, then, is not a case of confidence, and we must consider it as it really is.”1

After some more arguments elucidating this point, he comes to this conclusion:

"We are unanimously of the opinion that the law passed by the legislature of Maryland, imposing a tax on the Bank of the United States, is unconstitutional and void.

"This opinion does 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 common with the other real property within the State, nor to a tax imposed on the interest which the citizens of Maryland

1 Marshall on the Constitution, p. 181.

may hold in this institution, in common with other property of the same description throughout the State. But this is a tax on the operation of the bank, and is consequently a tax on the operation of an instrument employed by the government of the Union to carry powers into execution. Such a tax must be unconstitutional."'

its

Here is a case where the power of the people comes in play, independent of the State authority, and the court justifies the power; and, in the course of their observations, they say the "sovereignty of a State extends to every thing which exists by its own authority, or is introduced by its permission." If man was a thing, we might ask, does he exist by the authority of a State, or is he introduced into a State by its permission? We answer, no. Also it is not in the power of the States to prevent any person from coming within their borders this power now lays alone in congress, and it is by permission of congress alone any one can take up their residence in this country; (though we trust this power of prevention will not be exercised ;) and, consequently, the sovereignty over him for certain purposes remains alone in congress, according to the reasoning here adopted by the court.

The court comments justly, we think, on the word confidence. Since the late developements of the feeling of the South on the subject of slavery, what confidence, we may now ask, can be put in communities who have shown such a disposition to depart from all the established principles of our

'Marshall on the Constitution, p. 187.

government, and declarations of our fathers, as is now manifested in the desire to continue slavery in our land. It is well, we trust, there is a power some where to put a check to this departure from our principles, and we trust, ere long, we shall be able to exercise it. Instead of preparing the slave for freedom, as it was understood they would do, they have constantly been drawing the chains closer, and, by legislative acts, endeavoring to render his case perfectly hopeless, thereby preventing the country from receiving that service from him which it might otherwise have done. The taking our capitol at Washington by the British soldiers might, it is said, have been prevented, had the colored population had their freedom; for, instead of being a body of men on whom they could rely, they were, on the contrary, to be dreaded; in fact, if our impression is right, many chose the British camp rather than the homes their masters had provided for them; consequently we see not but the holding men in slavery is as much a tax on the operations of the government, as a tax would be on the operation of a bank, established by them. Is not the Florida war, also, a tax on the operation of our government, as also the removing the Cherokees; and yet both of them took their rise from the system of slavery; the former, from the unwarrantable claiming children of Indian parentage, and the latter, because the slave had rather reside among savages than to receive what has been called the Christian treatment of the white man. And have we any assurances our