Introduction

Abstract Chief Justice John Marshall’s 1819 decision in McCulloch v. Maryland is widely regarded as the greatest constitutional decision ever issued by the Supreme Court. The ruling upheld Congress’s constitutional power to create the Second Bank of the United States, recognizing the “implied powers” of Congress and the supremacy of federal over state laws. Modern constitutional scholars believe that McCulloch established the constitutional foundation for the historic expansion of federal authority in the wake of the New Deal. But the nationalizing potential of McCulloch has not been fully realized. Only briefly in the mid-twentieth century did the Court embrace the full extent of McCulloch’s vision of implied powers, as it upheld broad federal laws regulating the economy and promoting racial equality. McCulloch’s 200-year odyssey, from 1819 to the present day, helps us understand how the “spirit” of the Constitution and its structure of federalism have been reinterpreted throughout U.S. constitutional history.