ision. The arguments in the Bank case * which
began on February 22,1819, and lasted nine days, brought together a
"constellation of lawyers" such as had never appeared before in a single
case. The Bank was represented by Pinkney, Webster, and Wirt; the
State, by Luther Martin, Hopkinson, and Walter Jones of the District of
Columbia bar. In arguing for the State, Hopkinson urged the restrictive
view of the "necessary and proper" clause and sought to reduce to
an absurdity the doctrine of "implied rights." The Bank, continued
Hopkinson, "this creature of construction," claims by further
implication "the right to enter the territory of a State without
its consent" and to establish there a branch; then, by yet another
implication, the branch claims exemption from taxation. "It is thus with
the famous figtree of India, whose branches shoot from the trunk to a
considerable distance, then drop to the earth, where they take root and
become trees from which also other branches shoot..., until gradually
a vast surface is covered, and everything perishes in the spreading
shade." But even granting that Congress did have the right to charter
the Bank, still that fact would not exempt the institution from taxation
by any State within which it held property. "The exercise of the one
sovereign power cannot be controlled by the exercise of the other."

* M'Culloch vs. Maryland (1819), 4 Wheaton, 316.

On the other side, Pinkney made the chief argument in behalf of the
Bank. "Mr. Pinkney," says Justice Story, "rose on Monday to conclude the
argument; he spoke all that day and yesterday and will probably conclude
to-day. I never in my whole life heard a greater speech; it was worth a
journey from Salem to hear it; his elocution was excessively vehement;
but his eloquence was overwhelming. His language, his style, his
figures, his argument, were most brilliant and sparkling. He spoke like
a great statesman and patriot and a sound constitutional lawyer. All the
cobwebs of sophistryship and metaphysics about State Rights and State
Sovereignty he brushed away with a mighty besom."

Pinkney closed on the 3d of March, and on the 6th Marshall handed down
his most famous opinion. He condensed Pinkney's three-day argument into
a pamphlet which may be easily read by the instructed layman in half
an hour, for, as is invariably the case with Marshall, his condensation
made for greater clarity. In this opinion he also gives evidence,
in their h