The Supreme Court and its effects on the balance of power between federal and state. (McCullogh v Maryland, Lochner v NY, Nebbia v NY) The role of Supreme Court in relation to federalism.

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The Supreme Court's most highly regarded responsibility is to decide cases that raise questions of constitutional interpretation. The Supreme Court has been mixed up with many legal and political scuffles concerning the proper balance of power between federal power and states rights. Federalism has been an ongoing debate and how it should be dealt with has also been questioned. Federalism is the uniting of separate states to allow for basic political honesty. Often times, it has been claimed that some interpretations of the Constitution by the Supreme Court Justices has caused states to be intruded by federal power. Other times, the interpretations of the Constitution have been used to benefit the state if and only if there has been a compelling interest to the state. Certain situations and certain time periods may bring about a more loose or strict interpretation of the Constitution causing a different decision by the justices.

The Constitution was written at a specific time and things have changed since the initial writing of it. Consistency is not a necessary condition to make judgments. In the following statements and legal reasoning through three cases, one will see how the balance of power between federal power and state rights is relevant with respect to social and political issues of that time frame, and if the Supreme Court had the right to play the role they did.

One significant case was McCulloch v. Maryland, which took place in 1819. In 1816, the Federal government put into effect a charter for the Second Bank of the United States. Maryland statute prohibited all banks not chartered by Maryland to issue bank notes, unless they paid an annual tax of $15,000 or a $500 fine for each note issued. McCulloch, chief officer of the bank in Maryland, issued notes ignoring Maryland...