Case Studies: Federalism

United States v. Lopez (1995) and the Commerce Clause 

In 1992, Alfonso Lopez, a twelfth-grade student in San Antonio, Texas, was arrested for bringing a handgun to school. He was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act (1990), a federal law that banned individuals from bringing a gun onto school grounds. Lopez was found guilty, but he appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He argued that Congress did not have the authority to pass the law. Lopez contended that the Commerce Clause in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution only gave Congress authority over activity that occurred across state lines, not within a state. Congress had the power to “regulate Commerce…among the several States.”  He argued that his possession of a firearm had no impact on interstate commerce. 

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Lopez. The majority determined that Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause was not unlimited. A person bringing a gun onto school grounds was not related enough to interstate commerce to justify federal legislation on the issue. 

The Nullification Crisis 

Tariffs have been a contentious issue throughout the history of the country from the Founding to recent trade wars with China. A tariff is a tax imposed on foreign goods, designed to generate revenue for a government, which is part of the congressional authority to tax under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Sometimes, a country uses tariffs to drive up the price of foreign products and encourage consumers to buy from domestic industries. In 1832, Congress passed a new tariff that increased tariffs by up to 50 percent on some foreign goods. Northern manufacturers had pressed for the law to protect their industries from foreign competitors.  

However, some Southerners were enraged at the rate increase because it would drive up prices for the goods they bought from Northern factories. South Carolina opposed the tariff and argued that the Constitution only allowed tariffs to be used to generate revenue and not to protect domestic industries. Vice President John C. Calhoun, then serving with President Andrew Jackson, wrote an anonymous pamphlet in which he argued that states had the authority to declare federal laws unconstitutional and void. In the pamphlet, Calhoun wrote, “If it be conceded…that the sovereign powers delegated are divided between the General and State Governments…it would seem impossible to deny to the States the right of deciding on the infractions of their powers.” South Carolina voted to nullify, or declare unconstitutional and void, the Tariff of 1832. 

President Jackson believed nullification was unconstitutional and would lead to anarchy. He wrote a proclamation to South Carolina in which he stated that Calhoun’s theory of states’ rights:  

is founded…on the strange position that any one state may not only declare an act of Congress void but prohibit its execution… It is true, they add, that to justify this abrogation of a law it must be palpably contrary to the Constitution; but it is evident that to give the right of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that character, is to give the power of resisting all laws.”  

Although South Carolina ultimately backed down, the debate over state and federal powers continued and helped push the United States into the Civil War. It remained a contested issue between the state and federal governments and continues to be debated.  

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and the Necessary and Proper Clause  

The constitutionality of a national bank was a polarizing issue in the early republic. In 1791, a majority in Congress passed a charter for the First Bank of the United States. After much deliberation, President Washington signed the bill into law. The bank’s charter ran for 20 years, and after a brief interlude, the charter for the Second Bank of the United States was passed in 1816. Opponents argued that the Constitution did not give Congress the authority to create a national bank, and it therefore was a power reserved to the state governments. The Maryland state legislature attempted to impede the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on its Baltimore branch.  

James McCulloch, a cashier at that branch, refused to pay the tax. The dispute between him and the state of Maryland went to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision for McCulloch, the Court determined that the Constitution gave Congress the authority to create a national bank. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion, rejecting the theory that state governments are entities that have the power to tax the national government. He wrote, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” He determined that the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution allowed Congress to create the bank. The Constitution authorized Congress “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for the carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.