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Why McCulloch v. Maryland—Now 200 Years Old—Is Not a ‘Big Government’ Manifesto

Why McCulloch v. Maryland—Now 200 Years Old—Is Not a ‘Big Government’ Manifesto
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Feb. 5, 2009. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Rob Natelson
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Commentary

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland. In that case, Chief Justice John Marshall upheld Congress’s power to charter a national bank—a distant forerunner of the modern Federal Reserve System.

Rob Natelson
Rob Natelson
Author
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor who is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, authored “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015). He is a contributor to The Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.”
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