In Miners' Bank of Dubuque v. The United States ex rel. James Grant, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a state court had jurisdiction over an action brought by the United States against a bank for failing to pay taxes on certain bonds issued by it. The Supreme Court held that the state court did not have jurisdiction because such matters were within exclusive federal control and could only be litigated in federal courts. Furthermore, since Congress had not authorized suits against banks for failure to pay taxes on bonds issued by them, no suit could be maintained in any court whatsoever. This decision established that states do not have authority over cases involving taxation or other matters which are exclusively under federal control and must instead be heard in federal courts as prescribed by Congress.

In Miners' Bank of Dubuque v. The United States Ex Rel. James Grant, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a state court had jurisdiction over a case involving an action brought by the United States against a bank for failing to pay taxes on its profits from selling public lands in Iowa. The majority opinion held that the state court did not have jurisdiction because it lacked authority under federal law and therefore dismissed the suit without prejudice. Justice McLean dissented, arguing that while he agreed with much of what was said in the majority opinion, he believed that there were two other points which should be considered: firstly, if Congress intended to exclude all suits against banks from being heard in state courts then they would have done so explicitly; secondly, even if Congress did intend such exclusion then this could only apply prospectively and not retroactively as doing otherwise would violate due process rights guaranteed by both federal and state constitutions. He concluded his dissent by stating that although he disagreed with some parts of the majority's reasoning regarding jurisdictional issues, ultimately it should be up to Congress rather than judicial interpretation as to how these matters are handled going forward.