Comment Re:Big deal. (Score 1) 295
I can point you to how it came about. Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison gave us the basis for strong judicial review-- that the Supreme Court was really supreme. A bit later, along came McCulloch v. Maryland. This was an argument over whether Maryland could tax a federal bank and turned a lot on whether the feds even had a basis for establishing a federal bank. John Marshall, in a tortured decision, said that Congress may act under explicit or implied powers and that all that stuff that otherwise appears in the constitution about taxes, borrowing and regulating commerce implied that Congress could establish a bank.
Marshall wrote perhaps the single most important sentence in Constitutional literature: "In considering this question we must never forget that this is a Constitution we are expounding." This was a document that gave us the guidelines for a nation and it was meant to live, breath and guide for future generations. It was not specific!
One can only wonder where Marshall got this stuff. It's not in the text of the founding documents. Marshall concluded that Congress has the right to choose any means not prohibited by the Constitution to carry out its broad powers.
It doesn't stop here but this is the beginning of it all.
Marshall wrote perhaps the single most important sentence in Constitutional literature: "In considering this question we must never forget that this is a Constitution we are expounding." This was a document that gave us the guidelines for a nation and it was meant to live, breath and guide for future generations. It was not specific!
One can only wonder where Marshall got this stuff. It's not in the text of the founding documents. Marshall concluded that Congress has the right to choose any means not prohibited by the Constitution to carry out its broad powers.
It doesn't stop here but this is the beginning of it all.
