Defining National Power The Federal Government makes its case in court.

Gibbons v. Ogdon Ogdon had been granted “exclusive right” to run his steamship between New York and New Jersey. This meant he was the only one allowed to do this, or so he though. Then along comes Gibbons, and HE runs HIS steamship from NY to NJ. DRAMA!!!!!

See you in court! Ogdon takes Gibbons to court and the case goes all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gibbons (the second guy to run his steamboat). In doing so they basically nullified the New York decision to grant “exclusive right” to Ogdon

So what? What this decision did was make it clear that the federal government had final say in what happened between “interstate commerce.” Today this manifests itself in the federal government having final say in air traffic and television, among many other things.

McCulloch v. Maryland Maryland was very unhappy with the Bank of the United States, and they heavily taxed the branch of the bank that was in Maryland. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bank, and said that if states were taxing the Bank of the United States in order to make it fail, then they were effectively going against laws that were passed by Congress.

John Marshall Marshall was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and he was the one who guided the court to all of these decisions. He was responsible for the Marbury v. Madison ruling. Under his leadership the Supreme Court made many rulings that enhanced the powers of the federal government over the state governments.

The Adams-Onis Treaty John Quincey Adams was secretary of state under President James Monroe. He worked on many treaties with Great Britain that de-escalated the military tension between our border with Canada. He also worked on a treaty with Spain that gave us Florida.

The Monroe Doctrine President James Monroe was under some pressure in 1823. Russia was moving in on Alaska. Spain and Portugal wanted back in to their colonial territories in South America.

Monroe issues his doctrine In an address to Congress in 1823, James Monroe warned all European nations to stay out of our hemisphere, and we would stay out of theirs!

The Missouri Compromise Problem- 11 free states, 11 slave states (in 1819) Missouri had 60,000 people and was applying to be a slave state. This caused a huge debate and people were actually talking about a Civil War!

Henry Clay Known as the “Great Compromiser,” Clay struck a deal that would allow Missouri to be a slave state, and Maine would come in as a free state (it had previously been part of Massachusetts). It also set the line of 36 degrees North latitude as the line that would decide if new territories would apply as slave states or free states. America kicked the issue of slavery down the road to deal with on a later day. The end.