Maryland tried to tax the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States out of existence. Chief Justice Marshall's opinion resolved two enormous questions in favor of federal power. First, though the Constitution nowhere mentions a bank, Congress could charter one under the Necessary and Proper Clause. 'Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution,' Marshall wrote, 'and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end,' are constitutional. Second, because 'the power to tax involves the power to destroy,' a state cannot tax an instrumentality of the federal government. McCulloch is the intellectual charter of a strong national government. Its expansive reading of implied powers underwrites everything from the modern administrative state to Medicare, and its supremacy holding blocks states from using taxation or regulation to undermine federal programs.