Problem: Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 - December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family. Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress.

After graduating in 1840, Morgan returned to Aurora to read the law with an established firm. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester, where he went into partnership with a Union classmate, George F. Danforth, a future judge. They could find no clients, as the nation was in an economic depression, which had started with the Panic of 1837. Morgan wrote essays, which he had begun to do while studying law, and published some in The Knickerbocker under the pen name Aquarius.  On January 1, 1841, Morgan and some friends from Cayuga Academy formed a secret fraternal society which they called the Gordian Knot. As Morgan's earliest essays from that time had classical themes, the club may have been a kind of literary society, as was common then. In 1841 or 1842 the young men redefined the society, renaming it the Order of the Iroquois. Morgan referred to this event as cutting the knot. In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois. They made the group a research organization to collect information on the Iroquois, whose historical territory for centuries had included central and upstate New York west of the Hudson and the Finger Lakes region.  The men intended to resurrect the spirit of the Iroquois. They tried to learn the languages, assumed Iroquois names, and organized the group by the historic pattern of Iroquois tribes. In 1844 they received permission from the former Freemasons of Aurora to use the upper floor of the Masonic temple as a meeting hall. New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois. They met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume. Morgan seemed infused with the spirit of the Iroquois. He said, "We are now upon the very soil over which they exercised dominion ... Poetry still lingers around the scenery...." These new Iroquois retained a literary frame of mind, but they intended to focus on "the writing of a native American epic that would define national identity".

What is the New Confederacy of the Iroquois?

Answer with quotes: In 1843 they named it the Grand Order of the Iroquois, followed by the New Confederacy of the Iroquois.


Problem: John Marshall (September 24, 1755 - July 6, 1835) was an American politician and the fourth Chief Justice of the United States (1801-1835). His court opinions helped lay the basis for United States constitutional law and many say he made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches. Previously, Marshall had been a leader of the Federalist Party in Virginia and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1799 to 1800. He was Secretary of State under President John Adams from 1800 to 1801 and, at the age of 45, became the last of the chief justices to be born in Colonial America.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) was one of several decisions during the 1810s and 1820s involving the balance of power between the federal government and the states where Marshall affirmed federal supremacy. He established in McCulloch that states could not tax federal institutions, and upheld congressional authority to create the Second Bank of the United States, even though the authority to do this was not expressly stated in the Constitution.  While Marshall's opinion in McCulloch was consistent with Marbury v. Madison, it cut the other way by affirming the constitutionality of a federal statute while preventing states from passing laws that violate federal law. The opinion includes the famous statement, "We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding." Marshall laid down the basic theory of implied powers under a written Constitution; intended, as he said "to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs ...." Marshall envisaged a federal government which, although governed by timeless principles, possessed the powers "on which the welfare of a nation essentially depends." It would be free in its choice of means, and open to change and growth.  The Court held that the bank was authorized by the clause of the Constitution that states that Congress can implement its powers by making laws that are "necessary and proper", which Marshall said does not refer to one single way that Congress is allowed to act, but rather refers to various possible acts that implement all constitutionally established powers. Marshall famously provided the following time-honored interpretation of this clause in the Constitution:  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.  According to The New York Times, "Marshall did not intend his words as license for Congress to do whatever it wishes." Instead, Marshall and the Court deemed the bank necessary and proper because it furthered various legitimate ends that are listed in the Constitution, such as regulating interstate commerce.

What was Marshall's view on this?

Answer with quotes:
He established in McCulloch that states could not tax federal institutions,