Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the Supremacy Clause?
The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land.[1] It provides that state courts are bound by the supreme law; in case of conflict between federal and state law, the federal law must be applied. Even state constitutions are subordinate to federal law.[2] In essence, it is a conflict-of-laws rule specifying that certain federal acts take priority over any state acts that conflict with federal law. In this respect, the Supremacy Clause follows the lead of Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation, which provided that "Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress Assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them."[3] A constitutional provision announcing the supremacy of federal law, the Supremacy Clause assumes the underlying priority of federal authority, at least when that authority is expressed in the Constitution itself.[4] No matter what the federal government or the states might wish to do, they have to stay within the boundaries of the Constitution. This makes the Supremacy Clause the cornerstone of the whole American political structure.[5][6]
This decision overruled precedent in "Keeler v. Department of Public Safety", 269 US 153 (1962) and "Reitz v. Mealey", 314 US 33 (1941), stating that those rulings "have no authoritative effect to the extent they are inconsistent with the controlling principle that state legislation that frustrates the full effectiveness of federal law is invalidated by the Supremacy Clause.", and was seen as reinforcing "the Hines test", the rule specified for identifying Supremacy Clause violations in "Hines v. Davidowitz" (1941).
These resolutions attempt to reassert state sovereignty over any area not listed among the "enumerated powers" (i.e., any law based on an "expansive reading" of the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Supremacy Clause would, according to this resolution, be invalid).
In Ableman v. Booth, 62 U.S. 506 (1859), the Supreme Court held that state courts cannot issue rulings that contradict the decisions of federal courts, citing the Supremacy Clause, and overturning a decision by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. Specifically, the court found it was illegal for state officials to interfere with the work of U.S. Marshals enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act or to order the release of federal prisoners held for violation of that Act. The Supreme Court reasoned that because the Supremacy Clause established federal law as the law of the land, the Wisconsin courts could not nullify the judgments of a federal court. The Supreme Court held that under Article III of the Constitution, the federal courts have the final jurisdiction in all cases involving the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that the states therefore cannot interfere with federal court judgments.
The constitutional principle derived from the Supremacy Clause is federal preemption. Preemption applies regardless of whether the conflicting laws come from legislatures, courts, administrative agencies, or constitutions. For example, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, an act of Congress, preempts state constitutions, and Food and Drug Administration regulations may preempt state court judgments in cases involving prescription drugs.
In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816), and Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821), the Supreme Court held that the Supremacy Clause and the judicial power granted in Article III give the Supreme Court the ultimate power to review state court decisions involving issues arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. Therefore, the Supreme Court has the final say in matters involving federal law, including constitutional interpretation, and can overrule decisions by state courts.
Section 2, ""Supremacy of Constitution"", is the supremacy clause; it declares that any other law or conduct that is inconsistent with the constitution is invalid. This section gives the Constitutional Court and the other courts the power to overturn acts of Parliament, elements of the common law and actions of the executive that are unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court has also held that only specific, "unmistakable" acts of Congress may be held to trigger the Supremacy Clause. Montana had imposed a 30 percent tax on most sub-bituminous coal mined there. The Commonwealth Edison Company and other utility companies argued, in part, that the Montana tax "frustrated" the broad goals of the federal energy policy. However, in the case of Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Montana, 453U.S.(1981), the Supreme Court disagreed. Any appeal to claims about "national policy", the Court said, were insufficient to overturn a state law under the Supremacy Clause unless "the nature of the regulated subject matter permits no other conclusion, or that the Congress has unmistakably so ordained".[13]
Before the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America was founded with a constitution that contained clauses restricting the government's ability to limit or interfere with the institution of "negro" slavery. In the Cornerstone Speech, Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens declared that one of the Confederacy's foundational tenets was white supremacy over black slaves. Following the war, a secret society, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in the South. Its purpose was to "restore" white supremacy after the Reconstruction period, even though there still was white, Protestant supremacy in the United States, at the time. The group preached supremacy over all other races, as well as supremacy over Jews, Catholics, and other minorities.
Congress may enact federal law that supersedes, or "preempts", state law, which makes it invalid. Under the Tenth Amendment, Congress may not make a law that forces a state government to take some action that it would not have otherwise taken. The distinction between "commandeering" and "preemption" was issue in "Murphy v. NCAA", a case in which New Jersey repealed laws criminalizing sports betting while a federal law prevented states providing that states may not "sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact" sports gambling. The court rejected the respondents' argument that the anti-authorization provision was a valid preemption of state law under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Supremacy Clause, the court pointed out, "is not an independent grant of legislative power to Congress" but "[i]nstead, it simply provides a rule of decision." For a federal provision to validly preempt state law, "it must represent the exercise of a power conferred on Congress by the Constitution[,] pointing to the Supremacy Clause will not do", and "since the Constitution confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States, [the] provision at issue must be best read as one that regulates private actors." 
According to the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the United States Constitution,
In McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819), the Supreme Court reviewed a tax levied by Maryland on the federally incorporated Bank of the United States. The Court found that if a state had the power to tax a federally incorporated institution, then the state effectively had the power to destroy the federal institution, thereby thwarting the intent and purpose of Congress. This would make the states superior to the federal government. The Court found that this would be inconsistent with the Supremacy Clause, which makes federal law superior to state law. The Court therefore held that Maryland's tax on the bank was unconstitutional because the tax violated the Supremacy Clause.
This term was used in 1787 to write the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme "Law of the land"..." The Supremacy Clause is the only place in the Constitution where this exact term was used.
In Federalist No. 33, Alexander Hamilton writes about the Supremacy Clause that federal laws by definition must be supreme. If the laws do not function from that position then they amount to nothing, noting that "A law, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed."
In Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), the Supreme Court held that Congress cannot pass laws that are contrary to the Constitution, and it is the role of the Judicial system to interpret what the Constitution permits. Citing the Supremacy Clause, the Court found Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 to be unconstitutional to the extent it purported to enlarge the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court beyond that permitted by the Constitution.
However, in the case of California v. ARC America Corp., 490U.S.(1989), the Supreme Court held that if Congress expressly intended to act in an area, this would trigger the enforcement of the Supremacy Clause, and hence nullify the state action. The Supreme Court further found in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530U.S.(2000), that even when a state law is not in direct conflict with a federal law, the state law could still be found unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause if the "state law is an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of Congress's full purposes and objectives".[14] Congress need not expressly assert any preemption over state laws either, because Congress may implicitly assume this preemption under the Constitution.[15]
In Edgar v. MITE Corp., 457U.S.(1982), the Supreme Court ruled: "A state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid Federal statute". In effect, this means that a State law will be found to violate the Supremacy Clause when either of the following two conditions (or both) exist:[12]
His response to a potential abuse of these powers is that the government must be responsible for the proper exercise of its powers, but ultimately the people themselves must hold the government to account. "If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify."
Hamilton similarly argues that the Supremacy Clause is simply an assurance that the government's powers can be properly executed, saying that a law itself implies supremacy, and without supremacy, it would amount to nothing. He returns to the example of taxation, stating that the supremacy of the constitution as the law of the land did not preclude states from independently raising their own taxes as necessary, except for duties on imports and exports. Hamilton's intentions were to assuage any uncertainty, hesitancy or fear amongst the people. He does so by explicitly going over the main purpose of the two controversial clauses. He makes sure that the audience understands that this will not take away their liberty, but instead will strengthen the ability of the government to effectively eliminate any issues presented in the future.
The Supreme Court under John Marshall was influential in construing the supremacy clause. It first ruled that it had the power to review the decisions of state courts allegedly in conflict with the supreme law, claims of "state sovereignty" notwithstanding. In "Martin v. Hunter's Lessee" (1816), the Supreme Court confronted the Chief Justice of Virginia, Spencer Roane, who had previously declared a Supreme Court decision unconstitutional and refused to permit the state courts to abide by it. The Court upheld the Judiciary Act, which permitted it to hear appeals from state courts, on the grounds that Congress had passed it under the supremacy clause.
As the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution and observes the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, the courts there could not render an ouster clause ineffective due to inconsistency with a constitutional provision, but instead excluded its application in some cases under the common law doctrine of the rule of law. However, in jurisdictions with a written constitution and hence constitutional supremacy, the courts can exclude the application of ouster clauses by pronouncing that the provision is unconstitutional and thus null and void.
In Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, the Supremacy Clause is introduced as part of the New Jersey Plan.[7][8] During the debate, it is first put up for a motion by Luther Martin[9] on July 17th where it passed unanimously.[10]
In 1920, the Supreme Court applied the Supremacy Clause to international treaties, holding in the case of Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, that the Federal government's ability to make treaties is supreme over any state concerns that such treaties might abrogate states' rights arising under the Tenth Amendment.
In Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796), the United States Supreme Court for the first time applied the Supremacy Clause to strike down a state statute. Virginia had passed a statute during the Revolutionary War allowing the state to confiscate debt payments by Virginia citizens to British creditors. The Supreme Court found that this Virginia statute was inconsistent with the Treaty of Paris with Britain, which protected the rights of British creditors. Relying on the Supremacy Clause, the Supreme Court held that the treaty superseded Virginia's statute, and that it was the duty of the courts to declare Virginia's statute "null and void".
In Federalist No. 44, James Madison defends the Supremacy Clause as vital to the functioning of the nation. He noted that state legislatures were invested with all powers not specifically defined in the Constitution, but also said that having the federal government subservient to various state constitutions would be an inversion of the principles of government, concluding that if supremacy were not established "it would have seen the authority of the whole society everywhere subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have seen a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members".
The Constitution of the United States establishes the U.S. Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. Treaties as "the supreme law of the land". This power, found in Article VI, Clause 2 is known as the Supremacy Clause. The text reads: