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gabriel79
gabriel79
Student
High School - 11th Grade

How did Chief Justice John Marshall enhance the strength of the federal government.....

How did Chief Justice John Marshall enhance the strength of the federal government and its role in developing business through the court’s decisions in Dartmouth College v. Woodward and McCulloch v. Maryland?

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Posted by gabriel79 on Wednesday November 4, 2009 at 7:26 AM and tagged with history, us history.

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  1. pohnpei397 Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    McCulloch vs. Maryland gave the federal government the power to do more or less whatever it wanted through the "elastic clause" of the Constitution.  This allowed the Congress to do whatever was "necessary and proper" to provide for things specified in the Constitution (like the general welfare of the people).  If the Court had ruled differently, the Congress might only have been allowed to do what the Constitution clearly said it could do.  In this case, the Court allowed the Congress to create a Bank of the US.

     

    The Dartmouth College case said that the states could not break contracts that they had previously made with private coporations.  By doing this, Marshall didn't exactly help the federal government but he did do two things

    • Weakened the state governments by not allowing them to break contracts
    • Made a better business environment by allowing them to know that once a contract was made it couldn't just be broken because the government wanted to.

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    Posted by pohnpei397 on Wednesday November 4, 2009 at 7:31 AM