On federal supremacy, Chief Justice John Marshall in M’Culloch v. Maryland (1819) stated:
“This government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle that it can exercise only the powers granted to it would seem too apparent to have required to be enforced by all those arguments which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge. That principle is now universally admitted. But the question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted is perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise as long as our system shall exist.
“In discussing these questions, the conflicting powers of the general and state governments must be brought into view, and the supremacy of their respective laws, when they are in opposition, must be settled.
“If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect it would be this-that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action. This would seem to result necessarily from its nature. It is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all; and acts for all. Though any one state may be willing to control its operations, no state is willing to allow others to control them. The nation, on those subjects on which it can act, must necessarily bind its component parts.
“But this question is not left to mere reason: the people have, in express terms, decided it by saying, this Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and by requiring that the members of the state legislatures, and the officers of the Executive and Judicial departments of the states shall take the oath of fidelity to it.
“The government of the United States, then, though limited in its powers is supreme; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”
...”We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transecended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”
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In Jacobson v. Com. of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), it was declared:
“[Re: Implementation of the State’s “police powers”] “....The mode or manner in which those results are to be accomplished is within the discretion of the state, subject, of course, so far as Federal power is concerned, only to the condition that no rule prescribed by a state, nor any regulation adopted by a local governmental agency acting under the sanction of state legislation, shall contravene the Constitution of the United States, nor infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument. A local enactment or regulation, even if based on the acknowledged police powers of a state, must always yield in case of conflict with the exercise by the general government of any power it possesses under the Constitution, or with any right which that instrument gives or secures. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210, 6 L. ed. 23, 73; Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227, 243, 16 L. ed. 243, 247; Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Haber, 169 U.S. 613, 626, 42 S. L. ed. 878, 882, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 488.”
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As stated by Justice O’Connor in California Coastal Comm’n. v. Granite Rock Co., 480 U.S. 572 (1987):
“[S]tate law can be pre-empted in either of two general ways. If Congress evidences an intent to occupy a given field, any state law falling within that field is pre-empted. [Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Comm’n, 461 U.S. 190,] 203-204 [(1983)]; Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U.S. 141, 153 (1982); Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230 (1947). If Congress has not entirely displaced state regulation over the matter in question, state law is still pre-empted to the extent it actually conflicts with federal law, that is, when it is impossible to comply with both state and federal law, Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress, Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67 (1941).” Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., supra, at 248.”
...” As we explained in Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U.S. 707, 718 (1985), it is appropriate to expect an administrative regulation to declare any intention to pre-empt state law with some specificity:
“[B]ecause agencies normally address problems in a detailed manner and can speak through a variety of means, . . . we can expect that they will make their intentions clear if they intend for their regulations to be exclusive. Thus, if an agency does not speak to the question of pre-emption, we will pause before saying that the mere volume and complexity of its regulations indicate that the agency did in fact intend to pre-empt.”
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In the recently released Supreme Court decision in Printz v. United States and Mack v. United States, (June 27, 1997), Judge Scalia for the Court summarized:
....”These problems are avoided, of course, if the calculatedly vague consequences the passage recites— ‘incorporated into the operations of the national government’ and ‘rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws’—are taken to refer to nothing more (or less) than the duty owed to the National Government, on the part of all state officials, to enact, enforce, and interpret state law in such fashion as not to obstruct the operation of federal law, and the attendant reality that all state actions constituting such obstruction, even legislative acts, are ipso facto invalid. See Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 248 (1984) (federal pre-emption of conflicting state law). This meaning accords well with the context of the passage, which seeks to explain why the new system of federal law directed to individual citizens, unlike the old one of federal law directed to the States, will ‘bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using force’ against the States....”
If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect it would be this-that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action.
-- the people have, in express terms, decided it by saying, this Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and by requiring that the members of the state legislatures, and the officers of the Executive and Judicial departments of the states shall take the oath of fidelity to it.
The government of the United States, then, though limited in its powers is supreme; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding. --"
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Any State, or combinations of States, can challenge federal 'laws' ~not~ "made in pursuance of the Constitution".
- In fact it is their duty.
States have enormous powers of their own, -- to tell the fed gov't to go to hell, -- constitutionally speaking.
That they don't choose to ~use~ these powers is a political problem, not a constitutional one..