What happened in the case "McCulloch versus Estado de Maryland"?

Answer 1

In the 1790s, Maryland attempted to place a tax on all banks that were open in Maryland but were not chartered there. This included the Bank of the US, the national bank at the time. The clerk of the US Bank in Maryland (McCullough) refused to pay the tax. He was sued by the state of Maryland. The Supreme Court case that followed established that the federal (national) government had more power than state governments, and the the Constitution was more powerful than any state government.

Answer 2

I assume you mean McCulloch v. Maryland?

"In many ways, the opinion in this case represents a final step in the creation of the federal government. The issue involved, the power of Congress to charter a bank, seems insignificant, but the larger questions go to the very heart of constitutional interpretation, and are still debated today.

In 1791, as part of his financial plan, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed that Congress charter a Bank of the United States, to serve as a central bank for the country. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed the notion, on the grounds that the Constitution did not specifically give Congress such a power, and that under a limited government, Congress had no powers other than those explicitly given to it. Hamilton responded by arguing that Congress had all powers except those specifically denied to it in the Constitution, and that moreover, the "necessary and proper" clause of Article I required a broad reading of the designated powers. President Washington backed Hamilton, and the bank was given a twenty-year charter. The charter expired in 1811, and the Jeffersonians had not renewed it.

Then came the War of 1812, and President Madison realized that the government needed the services of a central bank. In 1816, at his recommendation, Congress chartered a second Bank of the United States (BUS), which quickly established branches throughout the Union. Many local, state-chartered banks, eager to follow speculative policies, resented the cautious fiscal policy of the BUS, and looked to state legislatures to restrict the BUS operations. Maryland imposed a tax on the bank's operations, and when James McCulloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the BUS, refused to pay the tax, the issue went to Court.

Few people expected the Court to hold the charter establishing the bank unconstitutional; what was at issue was the extent of state power vis-à-vis federal authority. In what has justly been termed a state paper, Chief Justice Marshall not only endorsed the constitutionality of the bank, but went on to uphold a broad interpretation of the federal government's powers under the Constitution, and thus pave the way for the modern national state that would emerge after the Civil War. Although there have been some people who have disagreed and continue to disagree with the Marshall opinion, it has for the most part won the approval not only of subsequent courts but of the American people as well."

For further reading: Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America -- From the Revolution to the Civil War (1957); G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815-1835 (1988); Gerald Gunther, ed., John Marshall's Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland (1969); Samuel J. Konefsky, John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton: Architects of the Constitution (1964).