Court cases covered in class that made me laugh (pt. 2 of 3)

case 2: from "Federal Courts" class. Osborne v. Bank of the United States, 22 US 778 (1824).

Just after the (in)famous McCulloch v. Maryland where the Supreme Court held that States could not tax the Bank of the United States, this facts of this case went down...

Ohio issues a tax on the Bank of the United States to the tune of $100,000 (think of how much $100K would have been in the early 1800's...). They tell the bank to pay up, and the bank tells them to go away, citing McCulloch.

Ohio says, "Screw you. We're OHIO. You can't tell us what to do because we are so awesome." To demonstrate how supremely badass Ohio is, they send in a special team of government agents who go to the bank, pull out their guns, and steal the 'owed' tax from the federal bank. When the money is deposited with the State's banks, the Federal government figures that turnaround is fair play, and send in armed thugs to steal the money back, Jesse James style.

If the idea of Ohio committing armed bank robbery because it thinks it's a good idea isn't awesome, then I don't know what is.