rs 730
Status of doctrine today 731
Ad valorem taxes under doctrine 732
Public property and functions 732
Fiscal institutions; legislative exemptions 733
Atomic Energy Commission 734
Royalties; a judicial anticlimax 734
Immunity of lessees of Indian lands 735
Summation and evaluation 735
Clause 3. Oath of office 736
Power of Congress in respect to oaths 736
National duties of State officers 736

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS

Article VI

Clause 1. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the
Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United
States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

Clause 2. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which
shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which
shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the
supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound
thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the
Contrary notwithstanding.

National Supremacy

MARSHALL'S INTERPRETATION OF THE CLAUSE

Although the Supreme Court had held prior to Marshall's appointment to
the Bench, that the supremacy clause rendered null and void a State
constitutional or statutory provision which was inconsistent with a
treaty executed by the Federal Government,[1] it was left for him to
develop the full significance of the clause as applied to acts of
Congress. By his vigorous opinions in McCulloch _v._ Maryland[2] and
Gibbons _v._ Ogden[3] he gave the principle a vitality which survived a
century of vacillation under the doctrine of dual federalism. In the
former case, he asserted broadly that "the States have no power, by
taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner
control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress
to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government.
This is, we think, the unavoidable consequence of that supremacy which
the Constitution has declared."[4] From this he concluded that a State
tax upon notes