Marshall found his first opportunity to elaborate the tenets of his nationalistic creed in the case of M'Culloch vs. Maryland, which was decided at the same term with the Dartmouth College case and that of Sturges vs. Crowinshield--the greatest six weeks in the history of the Court. The question immediately involved was whether the State of Maryland had the right to tax the notes issued by the branch which the Bank of the United States had recently established at Baltimore. But this question raised the further one whether the United States had in the first place the right to charter the Bank and to authorize it to establish branches within the States. The outcome turned on the interpretation to be given the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution. The last two questions were in 1819 by no means novel. In the Federalist itself Hamilton had boldly asked, "Who is to judge of the necessity and propriety of the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the Union?" and had announced that "the National Government, like every other, must judge in the first instance, of the proper exercise of its powers, and its constituents in the last," a view which seems hardly to leave room even for judicial control. Three years later as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had brought forward the proposal which soon led to the chartering of the Bank of 1791. The measure precipitated the first great discussion over the interpretation of the new Constitution. Hamilton owned that Congress had no specifically granted power to charter a bank but contended that such an institution was a "necessary and proper" means for carrying out certain of the enumerated powers of the National Government such, for instance, as borrowing money and issuing a currency. For, said he in effect, "necessary and proper" signify "convenient," and the clause was intended to indicate that the National Government should enjoy a wide range of choice in the selection of means for carrying out its enumerated powers. Jefferson, on the other hand, maintained that the "necessary and proper" clause was a restrictive clause, meant to safeguard the rights of the States, that a law in order to be "necessary and proper" must be both "necessary" and "proper," and that both terms ought to be construed narrowly. Jefferson's opposition, however, proved unavailing, and the banking institution which was created continued till 1811 without its validity being once tested in the courts.