The importance of the doctrine that was emphatically declared in these two cases it is impossible to exaggerate. This the upholders of States' Rights clearly saw. Thus Calhoun later wrote:12 "The effect of this is to make the government of the United States the sole judge, in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers, and to place the States and their separate governments and institutions at its mercy. It would be a waste of time to undertake to show that an assumption that would destroy the relation of co-ordinates between the government of the United States and those of the several States, - which would enable the former, at pleasure, to absorb the reserved powers and to destroy the institutions, social and political, which the Constitution was ordained to establish and protect, is wholly inconsistent with the federal theory of government, though in perfect accordance with the national theory. Indeed, I might go further and assert, that it is, of itself, all sufficient to convert it into a national, consolidated government."

12 Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. Works, I, 338.

During the same year that the case of McCulloch v. Maryland was decided, two other state laws were held void by the Supreme Court, one of New York, in Sturges v. Crowinshield,13 and one of New Hampshire in Dartmouth College v. Woodward.14

In 1824, in Osborn v. Bank of the United States15 the attempt of Ohio to tax the federal bank was declared unconstitutional. In 1829, in Weston v. Charleston,16 a municipal tax on stock of the United States held by citizens of the city of Charleston was held invalid. In 1824, in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden,17 was begun that long line of decisions which has established the power of the United States to regulate interstate commerce free from state interference - an authority the exercise of which has done so much to increase the actual power and influence of the National Government. In this case a law of the State of New York was held void.

In 1823, a law of Kentucky was held of no force by the federal court,18 and in 1830 a law of Missouri received similar treatment.19 In 1832 in Worcester v. Georgia,20 an act of the State of Georgia was held void, but the Supreme Court failed to secure the release of the plaintiff who had been imprisoned under it. This failure was due, however, not to the weakness on part of the Federal Government but to the refusal of the President to lend his executive aid.

From 1835 to the outbreak of the Civil War there can be no question but that the Supreme Court of the United States exerted a much less potent influence in solidifying and expanding the federal power than it had exercised during the thirty-five years preceding. During the two terms of office of Jackson, five vacancies occurred in the Supreme Court, among them that of the Chief-Justiceship to which Taney was appointed in 1835. The effect of the new appointments upon the views of the court was shown almost immediately. In the case of Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky,21 which had been argued just before the death of Marshall, the issue by the bank of bills of credit had been held unconstitutional. A rehearing being granted and the case coming on for argument under Taney, the action of the bank was sustained and the previous decision reversed. The decision marked the beginning of a new era in the history of constitutional interpretation. Up to this time the court had, upon all possible occasions, upheld the General Government in the exercise of its powers, and had held the States strictly to the obligations imposed upon them by the Constitution. Now, however, it began if anything to lean the other way. In Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, departing from its former practice, by an extremely loose interpretation of a constitutional limitation that had been laid upon the States, it rendered practically nugatory one of the provisions of the Constitution. Other decisions similarly favorable to States' Rights followed. In the case of City of New York v. Miln,22 a state law was sustained which might easily have been held an interference with the federal control of interstate commerce. In the Charles River Bridge Co. v. Warren Bridge Co.23 a doubtful state law was again upheld. In the License Cases24 interpretations of the Commerce Clause favorable to the States were given. In Kentucky v. Denni-son25 it was held that though the federal Constitution made it a duty of a State to surrender to another State a fugitive from justice from that State, there was no constitutional means by which the Federal Government could compel the performance of that duty. In all these cases the States were favored at the expense of the authority of the General Government.

13 4W h. 122; 4 L. ed. 529.

14 4 Wh. 518; 4 L. ed. 629.

15 9 Wh. 738; 6 L. ed. 204.

16 2 Pet. 449; 7 L. ed. 481.

17 9 Wh. 1; 6 L. ed. 23.

18 Green v. Biddle (8 Wh. 1; 5 L. ed. 547).

19 Craig v. Missouri (4 Pet. 410; 7 L. ed. 903).

20 6 Pet. 515; 8 L. ed. 483.

In 1841, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania,26 a state law attempting the regulation of the return of fugitive slaves was held unconstitutional and void on the ground that this subject was wholly withdrawn from the control of the States. Taney, however, though concurring with the majority in holding unconstitutional the particular law in question, took pains to assert that there was no constitutional incompetence on the part of the State to pass laws the intention and actual effect of which were to "assist the Federal Government in the capturing and returning of fleeing negroes.

2111 Pet. 257; 9 L, ed. 709. 23 11 Pet. 102; 9 L. ed. 648.

23 11 Pet. 420; 9 L. ed. 773.

24 5 How. 501; 12 L. ed. 256.

25 24 How. 66; 16 L. ed. 717.

26 16 Pet. 539; 10 L. ed. 1060.