Hencely v. Fluor Corp. · ¶58

Our decisions in this vein began at least as early as Mc- Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), where the Court held that Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United States. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Marshall noted that some powers, including control over federal instrumentalities like the Bank, belong exclusively to the Federal Government. Id., at 429. Thus, Maryland could not control the Bank, and because the power to tax could be used to control—and indeed destroy—the Bank, the State could not tax it. Id., at 431. Chief Justice Marshall stated the holding of the Court in unequivocal terms: “[T]he States have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government.” Id., at 436. That principle doomed…

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