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Opinion of the Court
hurdled the counter at the Chilicothe Branch of the Bank of the United States and taken $100,000 from the vault). Still, 10 years later President Andrew Jackson effectively killed the bank. His Secretary of the Treasury Roger Taney (later Chief Justice), believing state banks fully able to serve the Nation, took steps to "ushe[r] in the era of expansive state banking." A. Pollard, J. Passaic, K. Ellis, & J. Daly, Banking Law in the United States 16 (1988). See also Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Pet. 257 (1837) (permitting state banks to issue paper money in certain circumstances).
During and after the Civil War a federal banking system reemerged. Moved in part by war-related financing needs, Treasury Secretary (later Chief Justice) Salmon P. Chase proposed, and Congress enacted, laws providing for federally chartered banks, Act of Feb. 20, 1863, ch. 43, 12 Stat. 655, and encouraging state banks to obtain federal charters. Act of June 3, 1864, ch. 106, 13 Stat. 99 (only federally chartered banks can issue national currency). See also Veazie v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533 (1869) (opinion of Chase, C. J.) (upholding constitutionality of federal taxation of state banks). Just before World War I, Congress created the federal reserve system. Act of Dec. 23, 1913, ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251. After that war, it created several federal banking agencies with regulatory authority over both federal and state banks. Act of June 16, 1933, ch. 89, 48 Stat. 162. And in 1933, it provided for the federal chartering of savings banks. Act of June 13, 1933, ch. 62, 48 Stat. 128.
This latter history is relevant because in 1870 and thereafter this Court held that federally chartered banks are subject to state law. See National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 Wall. 353, 361 (1870). In National Bank the Court distinguished McCulloch by recalling that Maryland's taxes were "used . . . to destroy," and it added that federal banks
"are subject to the laws of the State, and are governed in their daily course of business far more by the laws of the State than of the nation. All their contracts are
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