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ber 4, 1834. Therein are to be found similar expressions to this:

"In proportion as this system shall be well digested and executed, will be the soundness and equality of value throughout the Union of the circulating medium; and upon it will depend the degree of convenience or inconvenience which will be felt by the public in consequence of the recent change."

I refer, sir, also, to an anonymous letter in the correspondence of Whitney with the deposite banks, dated November 8, 1834. I refer to the circulars of Whitney to the deposite banks, franked by Levi Woodbury, dated May 30, 1836, September 7, 1836, and December 7, 1836. And, sir, I appeal to my colleague [Mr. GARLAND] if it does not appear throughout the whole investigation that one of the principal purposes of Whitney's agency was to confederate and knit the banks together in one grand system of exchange? As a specimen, sir, of the whole business of the agency of Whitney and of the deposite banks, I will read a letter from him to John Bass, president of the Union Bank, Tennessec, Nashville, dated Washington, March 16, 1835:

"Sir: I am in receipt of your favor of the 23d ultimo. In reply to your request, I have to say, that the letter written by a person here high in the confidence of the Government, a copy of which I sent you with the other papers, gave you, in part, what it was expected the agent appointed by the deposite banks would attend to. I will, however, state, as fully as I can, the duties the agent feels as devolving upon him. He expects to perform precisely the same duty that he would if appointed by the Treasury to superintend the deposite banks generally. He will carefully watch the operations of each; endeavor to produce concert of action; make suggestions in relation to the operations of any which are calculated to lead to an improvement of the currency, or any which are necessary to preserve it from being affected by the operations or issues of any of the selected banks; aid and advise in establishing a system of domestic exchanges throughout the country, through the agency of the deposite banks, whereby the country shall reap all the advantages through such agencies that it ever did through the operations of the branches of the Bank of the United States,

"The agent will also feel bound to inform each deposite bank which employs him, at different periods, as nearly as he can from the estimates of the various Departments, of the probable amounts each one will be called upon to disburse within a given period; the amounts and times when they will be called upon to pay it over; and where transfers will be required to be made from one bank to another, for the purpose of meeting such calls; the hauks from which, and the times when, such transfers will be made.

"Such a table is now being prepared, to embrace the next six months ending the 30th of September next. This will embrace the estimated expenditures of the War and Navy Departments, as well as the civil list; the States in which the same is to be disbursed; the probable time wanted, and the banks which will have warrants passed upon them.

"In fine, the agent will communicate to each selected bank that wishes it, any information which he may at any time think will be serviceable individually; as well as give that general superintendence to the operations of the whole, which is so necessary for the security of each, as well as for the promotion of the interest of the public generally.

"I am, with great respect, your most obedient servant. "R. M. WHITNEY.

"JOHN M. BASS, Esq. "President Union Bank, Tennessee, Nashville." In addition to the documents on file here, I cite the circulars of the Treasury Department, published from time to

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time during the last four years, and directed to the receivers of public money and the deposite banks. As specimens, I quote, first, a circular dated the 7th of July, 1834.

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT, July 7, 1834.

"SIR: As the public confidence in the banks selected by this Department for the public deposites has, on trial, increased, and the notes of most of them might become a very convenient medium for circulation in travelling, and the transmission of funds at a distance, if mutual arrange. ments were made between some of them for the redemption of each other's bills, I take the liberty to submit the following suggestions for your consideration:

"Ist. Would it not be profitable to your corporation, as well as useful to the public, to make arrangements and issue bills to a limited amount, payable on their face either at your own bank or the bank with which you make the arrangement? This has already been done by some institutions, and, it is believed, with beneficial effects.

2d. But, if this is not considered expedient, would it not be prudent to establish with certain banks a credit, mutual if you choose, to redeem and reissue a certain amount of each other's bills as they may be needed for the purposes before mentioned ? This might be so arranged as to expose you to little expense or risk; and, the fact being known, would extend your circulation at a distance, and often furnish, it is trusted, a currency for travelling and transmission of funds, very safe, convenient, and advantageous.

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Any aid that this Department could lend to you in perfecting such arrangement, by transfer drafts or otherwise, consistently with its powers and the public interests, will at any time be cheerfully granted.

"I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Secretary of the Treasury.

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"The PRESIDENT of the On the 27th of January, 1835, the following circular was issued:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
"Washington, January 27, 1835.

"SIR: Finding that my circular of the 13th December last has not, in all instances, been fully understood, I beg leave to state, that it is the wish of the Department to be enabled to present a correct statement of all the domestic exchange operations of the selected banks. For this purpose, I have to request that your statements, semi-monthly, hereafter, give the whole of your operations, whether in drafts on other places purchased, notes payable in other places discounted, or either, collected. The latter to be brought into the statement after they are carried to the credit of the individuals for whom collected, together with the rates in all cases, &c. Some of the banks have supposed that the request of the 13th ultimo was not intended to embrace paper collected, payable out of the city. Where that has been the case, I have to request that all omissions of this description, since the 1st instant, may be added to the next return made to this Department.

"As before requested, I wish a statement of all drafts or checks drawn by the bank, payable any where out of the place in which the bank drawing is located, together with the rate, &c.

"As early as convenient, after the receipt of this, I will thank you to forward to this Department a statement of the places upon which your bank collects or purchases domestic exchanges, together with a tariff of the rates charged, exclusive of interest. I will also thank you to state the extent, geographically, to which it receives, on depos ite, the notes of State banks, and particularly those of the selected banks; also, such as have made arrangements with you to redeem their notes, where any such arrangement has been made, as well as where arrangements inay

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Sub-Treasury Bill.

have been made with other banks for the redemption of your notes.

"I am, very respectfully; your most obedient servant, "LEVI WOODBURY, Secretary of the Treasury. Bank."

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"The CASHIER of the On the 6th of April, 1835, the following was issued: "TREASURY DEPARTMENT, April 6, 1835. "It is understood that the instructions from this Department to receive for the public dues only such State bank notes as the deposite banks are willing to credit at par, have been construed to authorize the receipt of such notes of any denomination. The undersigned considers it highly beneficial to the currency of the country and the safety of the banking agents employed in keeping the public revenue, that the more general use of specie for the small and ordinary transactions of society should be encouraged; believed to be the surest method to effect that object, and as the acts of Congress do not expressly require the receipt of any such notes, if less in amount than five dollars, you are hereby directed, after the 30th day of September next, not to receive in payment of any public dues bank notes of any denomination less than five dollars.

and as the disuse of bank notes of a low denomination is

[OCT. 13, 1837.

"All the deposite banks are requested to supply themselves with such a quantity of American gold coin as to be able to pay, and, when a public officer or creditor prefers it, and his demand does not exceed five hundred dollars, to pay at least one-fifth of such demand in that coin. It is also requested that the deposite banks will not, after the 4th of July next, issue any notes of a less denomination than five dollars; and that after the 3d of March, 1837, they will not, unless the subject be otherwise regulated by Congress, issue any notes of a less denomination than ten dollars. It is believed that the amount of gold, which by that time shall be coined at the nint, will be sufficient to admit of the convenient substitution of it for small notes in a much greater extent than at present; and it is deemed reasonable, that while the deposite banks have the use, without interest, of unusually large sums of the public money, they should make some further temporary sacrifices to obtain and circulate gold, and in other respects to enlarge the specie basis of our circulating medium. From these considerations, and from the liberal spirit evinced by most of the public depositories, in a late correspondence with them on this subject, it is confidently expected that, in this state of things, they will cheerfully comply with the above requests, and with all others which have been made

by the Department, with a view of improving the currency;

any of them to comply with those requests as sufficient cause for discontinuing the employment of such banks as fiscal agents.

"At a proper time it will be decided, under what circumstances, and at what periods, these restrictions on the agents and officers of the Treasury shall be extended to notes of any denomination under twenty dollars.

"You are also apprized that it is in contemplation by this nor will it, I trust, be considered unjust or impolitic, Department, after the 3d of March, 1836, [should Conwhile the deposite banks shall continue to enjoy great privgress in the meantime make no new provision on the sub-ileges from the Treasury, to regard a neglect or refusal by ject,] to exercise the discretionary powers, which it is supposed will then belong to it, over the receipt of paper money of any denomination for the public revenue, and to extend the restriction on the receipt of bank notes for it, to all of a less denomination than ten dollars. For the greater security of the banking institutions employed by the Treasury, and for the improvement of the currency by the fuller restoration of that specie circulation for common purposes, which seems to have been contemplated by the constitution, it is intended then to make arrangements, if practicable, to discontinue the use of any bank as a fiscal agent which shall thereafter continue to issue notes of a less denomination than five dollars, and which shall, after some subsequent period, to be then designated, continue to issue notes of a less denomination than ten dollars.

"The course proposed to be pursued hereafter on this subject by the Treasury, is now indicated with a view to insure suitable notice of the changes contemplated."

On the 22d of February, 1836, the following was issued:

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"To receivers of public moneys, collectors, disbursing offi-
cers, and the deposite banks of the United States.
"TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
February 22, 1836.
"The established policy of the Treasury Department, so
far as may be practicable, under its present powers over the
collection, keeping, and disbursement of the public money,
is to diminish the circulation of small bank notes, and to
substitute specie, and especially gold, for such notes, with
the view of rendering the currency of the country, through
which its fiscal operations are performed, more safe, sound,
and uniform. In pursuance of that policy, a circular was
issued last April, which prohibited, after the 30th Septem-
ber, 1835, the receipt, on account of the Government, of
any bank notes of a less denomination than five dollars;
and which intimated that other steps to promote the desi-
rable objects before named, would, in due time, be taken.

Consequently, in further pursuance of the same policy, you are hereby required, after the 1st of May next, not to pay the demands of any public officer or creditor in any bank notes of a less denomination than five dollars, and, except when it may be otherwise prescribed by law, after the 4th of July next, not to receive or pay on account of the Government any bank notes of a less denomination than ten dollars.

"This communication is made with the sanction of the President of the United States, and it is hoped that, till otherwise prescribed by Congress, or by this Department, these requirements and requests will be faithfully complied with by all the fiscal agents of this Department, and all the collecting and disbursing officers of the Government.

"LEVI WOODBURY,

"Secretary of the Treasury." And, sir, on the 11th of July, 1836, the celebrated specie circular went forth, like a bull from the Vatican. "To receivers of public money, and the deposite banks.

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT, July 11, 1836. "In consequence of complaints which have been made of frauds, speculations, and monopolies, in the purchase of the public lands, and the aid which is said to be given to effect these objects by excessive bank credits, and dangerous, if not partial, facilities through bank drafts and bank deposites, and the general evil influence likely to result to the public interests, and especially the safety of the great amount of money in the Treasury, and the sound condition of the currency of the country from the further exchange of the national domain in this manner, and chiefly for bank credits and paper money, the President of the United States has given directions, and you are hereby instructed, after the 15th day of August next, to receive in payment of the publands nothing except what is directed by the existing laws, viz: gold and silver, and, in the proper cases, Virginia land scrip.

"The principal objects of the President in adopting this measure being to repress alleged frauds, and to withhold any countenance or facilities in the power of the Government from the monopoly of the public lands, in the hands of speculators and capitalists, to the injury of the actual settlers in the new States, and of emigrants in search of new homes, as well as to discourage the ruinous extension of bank issues and bank credits, by which those results are

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generally supposed to he promoted, your utmost vigilance is required, and relied on, to carry this order into complete execution."

Such are some of the footsteps of General Jackson in taking care of the currency! Here we see a series of Treasury circulars, which were issued during the period of the last three years, coming up to the present fiscal year almost, all issued by the present Secretary of the Treasury, with the objects avowed on their faces, to make the notes of deposite banks "a convenient medium for circulation in travelling"-to extend circulation at a distance-to constitute a safe and convenient and advantageous mode of transmitting funds-to take accounts of exchange operations to ascertain the geography even of notes received on deposite-to promote measures "highly beneficial to the currency of the country"- -to raise the denomination of small notes to be issued, in order to circulate specie—to render the currency safe, sound, and uniform, as contemplated by the constitution-to require the banks to make sacrifices to this policy-to discourage the overissues of banks-taking trade, commerce, circulation, currency, bank notes, specie, the country, and all that is in it, under the full and complete jurisdiction of the Executive alone. And now, sir, are we coolly told that these measures are not within the constitutional province of the entire Federal Government! This is new! this is false! this is flagrant insult added to outrage! this is a total departure, I affirm, from the principles and policy of General Jackson; and that, I suppose, is capping the climax of enormities with his blind followers! The Federal Government cannot regulate currency and exchange, but it may prevent the overproduction of cotton! It cannot regulate currency and exchange, but it may take into its keeping the consciences and morals of the people! It cannot regulate currency and exchange, but it may pass bankrupt laws to put in durance vile every State corporation of the Union! Such are President Van Buren's first steps in the policy of the administration.

Sir, this doctrine is so new that the President, throughout this very message, except in those parts where he is expressly asserting this strange doctrine that the Federal Government has nothing to do with the currency of the country, forgets himself, and contradicts the position from the mere habit of his own mind to conceive the contrary. He speaks of the embarrassments in the pecuniary affairs of the country diminishing the public revenue so much that the accruing receipts, with the reserved five millions, would not be sufficient to defray the unavoidable expenses of Government, until the usual session of Congress." And is it so, that the embarrassments of the country do thus embarrass the Government, stop its wheels, and yet the Government has not power to do the only thing on earth which can relieve itself from these embarrassments, and permanently prevent their recurrenceregulate the currency? Did the difficulties experienced by the mercantile interests force them to apply for indulgence on duty bonds before the suspension of specie payments?" And yet has the Government, the collection of whose revenue is thus suspended or stopped, no power to afford facilities for the payment of its dues, or no power to secure their payment at all by some system, to strengthen commercial confidence, and enlarge the capacities of trade? Sir, the President himself, I repeat, speaks constantly in this message, of the policy of Government in relation to the currency of the country, as if there was, and should be, some policy of the kind. No one can read his message, and not see that he contradicts himself, and does not in reality entertain any such novel and absurd opinion as that a Government possessing the powers and duties which this does cannot take care that there shall always be a safe and sound circulating medium, and a sound condition of commerce, and abundant means of

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trade, foreign and domestic, without which Government debtors cannot be sound or able, and without which the resources of revenue must always be meager, unstable, or exhausted. What, sir, are the duties of this Government and its powers? Congress shall lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; it shall pay debts; it shall make all duties, imposts, and excises uniform; it shall regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; it shall establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies; coin money and regulate the value thereof; provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; declare war! raise and support armies! provide and maintain a navy! make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. And yet, sir, the President says it shall not, it cannot, provide the only means of executing any or all of these powers-the sinews of war, the security of peace-a sound currency for the country! Ay, but he says it may demand the "constitutional currency" for the Government! How can the Government demand specie, whilst the people have not specie to pay? Specie is no more a constitutional currency than good convertible paper. The provision in the constitution which makes nothing else but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts, does not require the Government to exact specie. It is only another provision of that wise instrument which guards the mode by which Congress shall regulate the currency, make it sound by basing it on specie, and make it safe and efficient by being easily convertible. Sir, the fact is, that the Executive has tinkered and cobbled the currency, until it is past mending. The Ex and the InPresident have practised upon its health until the patient has died upon their hands, of their wretched quackery. Now they wish to give up its cure, or its resuscitation, as a bad job. Now their only refuge from political or profe-sional disgrace is in saying it was ever immedicable by Government. After exerting all their power and their skill to make the currency better, now that it has become worse than was ever predicted by the regular practitioners, they insist that they never exerted, and never can exert, any power or skill in the case; for they never had either! Sir, as to power, they had too much to destroy; as to skill, they never had any to reanimate or to restore! God help a patient in such hands! Their want of skill and want of honesty in this case would constitute murder, if the patient were a human being whom they had destroyed, instead of the country and its private and public interests. | Sir, it is impossible for Government not to interfere with the currency of the country. When it ceases to perform the functions of Government-when it ceases to raise, receive, keep, transfer, disburse revenue-when it ceases to use custom-houses and land offices, tax-gatherers and collectors-when it disbands its one hundred thousand styefed officeholders-when it dismantles its navy, and disbands its standing army-when Congress ceases to sit, and the President no longer draws his salary—then, and not till then, may he say to the people, Pay what you owe the Government in specie; take what you can get from the Government, and get the specie as best you may; Government has nothing to do with the pockets of the people! Sir, you are not willing to bargain with the people to hold hands off; to agree that you will go to them for nothing if they will come to you for nothing. No, sir, if you will not collect yearly from the people some twenty or thirty millions of dollars, and expend more than you collect, they will not ask you to regulate the currency. They ask nothing more; when, where have they claimed of Government to aid individuals in the transfer of their funds,' or in the transportation of their merchandise? When or where have they asked Government "to make men rich, or to repair, by direct grants of money, or legislation in

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H. OF R.]

Sub-Treasury Bill.

[Oct. 13, 1837.

"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin," &c.

"To dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property belonging to the United States."

Such are the powers quoad hoc. Among the duties most important to be enumerated is that of making "all duties, imposts, and excises uniform throughout the United

favor of particular pursuits, losses not incurred in the pub-
lic service?" Sir, though the Executive has reduced our
people to beggary, by interfering with "individual con-
cerns," most oppressively a cruelly and unconstitution-
ally, yet have they not come as "beggars" to their own
Government-their own servants! All they demand is,
in the language of this message, "a system of general
laws commensurate with, but not exceeding, the objects of
the establishment of good government; leaving every citi-States."
zen and every interest to reap, under its benign protection,
the rewards of virtue, industry, and prudence." But,
what virtue can now withstand the corruption of "the
Government?" What industry can now live under the
present system of Government pillage? What prudence

can now foresee or calculate the ruinous results of wild
experiments? Virtue is cast to the dogs! Industry is
rifled and picked! Prudence is baffled, and stands dis-
mayed!

In the next place, sir, the President again attacks the Bank of the United States. Again is the dead monster pierced, and without doubt in time. This is now the fifth Executive missile, in four years, hurled against it! The United States Bank will be like a man hung by the neck until he is dead-dead-dead! But, sir, I am beginning to hope that, like Lazirus, though it stinketh, it will yet "come forth," with the grave clothes on. I see signs of its coming, and therefore I wish to prepare the minds of the people to see no spectre-no hobgoblin-no monster. In respect to that institution, sir, I join issue with the President and all its enemies in advance. And I do this, though unnecessary now, because on this subject I have no fears and no concealinents. I am willing to trust the intelligence and the virtue of the people who send me here. I maintain, then: 1st. That a national bank is constitutional. 2d. It is expedient. 3d. It is the best friend, financial and commercial, especially of the South. 4th. And lastly, it is the best bulwark which can now, by law, be established in defence of the civil liberty of the country. All these propositions I am now ready to maintain to the

uttermost.

Now, sir, how are these powers and duties imperatively required of Congress to be exercised and performed, to be executed? Are not the means granted? Expressly. The constitution says: "The Congress shall have power

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

To

Here is a striking feature in this great instrument. Every power is specific, every duty is specific; but the means are not specified, and the Government is left unlimited and unrestricted as to means, save by the terms "necessary" and "proper;" that is, it is confined only to such means as are "necessary" to the ends of some one, or all, of the granted, specified powers or duties; and to such as are "proper," that is, consistent with, or fit, or congenial to the form of our Government and the nature of its powers and duties. And, sir, this distinction between the powers and duties of the Federal Government and the means of executing these powers and duties is a full and complete answer to the oft-repeated objection drawn from the imperfectly understood fact that the convention of 1787 rejected a proposition to grant the power of incorporation. have granted a general power of creating corporations would have granted too much; it would have included certain corporations, ecclesiastical or others it might have been, uncongenial and inconsistent with our institutions. And to grant the power of creating specific corporations would have been to enumerate one means of executing granted powers to the exclusion of all others, upon the A national bank is constitutional. Congress has the principle of "expressio unius est exclusio alterius." The power to charter a bank corporation. Sir, let me here obframers of the constitution preferred rather in their wis serve, that it is remarkable the President does not say in dom to confine the Government only in the selection of his message it is unconstitutional. His principal reason means to such as were necessary and proper. If a particufor not co-operating in the re-establishment of a national lar corporation should be found to be necessary and proper bank is, because "it would be to disregard the popular to execute some one or all of the granted and enumerated will," because he believes "a najority of the people to be powers or duties, they left it to the law to create such a irreconcilably opposed to that measure. Now, sir, this is corporation under the general and comprehensive grant ominous of what I have more than once predicted-if ato pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into majority of the people shall clearly and unequivocally express their will in favor of the establishment of such an institution, he will give it his sanction. Will he, who has lived and moved and had his political being in the breath of another man's popularity, and who is now vulgarly reiterating that man's disgusting demagoguism, ever dare to disregard the popular will when it shall come up, as it will, like the rushing of the mighty waters-"terrible as an army with banners?" No, sir, he will quail into his own utter helplessness! He is no hero to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm; and, sir, if Jackson himself were here again, the people would tell him-Sir, your experiment has failed, we have been gulled and ruined!"

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Sir, Congress has certain powers conferred upon it to be exercised, and certain duties imposed upon it to be discharged and performed:

Its powers, in connexion with this subject, are: "To lay and collect taxes, duties imposts, and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States."

"To borrow money on the credit of the United States. "To regulate commerce with fotegn nations and among the several States," &c.

execution such powers or duties." And they left it to the sound discretion of Congress to select, of cour e, the best means thereby; inasmuch as the particular corporations they might have chosen to grant might in time have proved to be the worst means of executing the granted powers. It would have been unwise and impossible for them or for us, were we now making the constitution anew, to attempt to enumerate the granted means. They should have been omniscient to provide such as would, throughout all time and under all circumstances, have been the best. Not knowing what would always be the best to be used, they left, wisely left, in Congress an option of means, according to the wants and condition of the country, requiring the exercise of powers and the discharge of duties.

Again, sir, not only is Congresss unrestricted and unlimited in the employment of means to execute its granted powers, except, as I have said, by the terms necessary and proper; but Congress is independent also as to these means. To Congress are these means given. The existence of State banks is urged, or has been-not now, I supposeas a reason against the necessity of creating a national bank. It was not necessary, because the means of other Governments--the State Governments--might be employed. As

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to its granted powers, and the means of executing them, this Federal Government is as independent of the State Governments as it is of France or Italy, and as the States are of it in respect to their reserved rights. To no foreign power under the sun is this Government bound to look, or obliged to depend on none, for means to execute its constitutional powers.

The question then, sir, is reduced simply to this: Is a national bank necessary and proper to collect the taxes, to pay the debts, to negotiate the loans, to regulate the foreign commerce and the internal trade, to dispose of the public lands of the United States, and to regulate the value of money in the country, and to enable Congress to fulfil the duty of making all duties, imposts, and excises uniform throughout the United States? Sir, I will leave it to forty years' experience to answer the question on all these points; the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err in recounting to you what the Bank of the United States did in collecting, and keeping, and transferring the public revenue, without costs or charges, and without loss; what it was bound to do in case the Government needed to borrow money; what it did in equalizing and facilitating exchanges of foreign and domestic commerce; what it did in paying pensioners, and in accommodating Government in selling, and the people in purchasing, public lands; what were its salutary and steady influences in regulating the money market and the value of money, and its uses in rendering duties, imposts, and excises uniform! Its notes were better than fine gold everywhere-at land offices, customhouses, to the Indian and the traveller, to the Government and the people, at home, in the North and South, East and West; and abroad, in the East Indies, they commanded a premium!

Twice has a national bank been chartered, and again and again has its constitutional validity been sanctioned by every department of the Government, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, and by all parties, democratic and federal, and admitted by every President of the United States, from Washington to Van Buren, Jackson not excepted, and acquiesced in by the people. The first bank charter was proposed within two years from the period of framing the constitution. It was formed in 1787, and a bank of the United States created in 1789! In the Congress of 1789, many members of the convention which framed the constitution sat, and more than two-thirds of them voted to charter a national bank. Mr. Madison, who then was one of those members of the convention who opposed the bank charter, afterwards, when President of the United States, gave it his sanction upon the principle of "stare decisis." The question of the constitutional power of Congress was submitted in 1789 to General Washington, who was president of the convention, and he referred it for solemn advice to the heads of the departments-two of whom were also members of the federal convention. Hamilton, the then Secretary of the Treasury, the author, in part, of the Federalist, who understood the history of the constitution as well as, if not better than, any man, maintained that the power was constitutional, and Ran dolph, Attorney General, dissented. The latter and Mr. Jefferson, who was not a member of the federal convention, and who alone, by-the by, made the point that the proposition to grant incorporations was rejected, gave in their written opinions on one side, and Hamilton submitted his on the other. General Washington, who knew all the facts of the history of the constitution, necessarily, from his presiding in the convention, sided with Hamilton, and, after months of anxious and careful deliberation and inquiry, sanctioned the bill to incorporate a national bank! History, authority of decisions in every form, and the practice of the Government from its foundation, all concur in establishing the validity of a national bank charter. Shall these be overruled by one man VOL. XIV.-104

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[H. OF R.

in the nation? Shall nothing be decided under our system ?

The word "necessary" was given in an absolute senso by Mr. Jefferson. It is plain the term is not so meant in the constitution, because, if so, it would exclude the use of all means whatever, and totally destroy all option or selection of means. One could not be employed, because another might. One is not absolutely necessary because the other exists. The employment of State banks is not absolutely necessary, because sub-treasuries may be used, and sub treasuries are not absolutely necessary, because State banks may be employed. Their unconstitutionality may be demonstrated precisely in the same manner as that of a national bank. There are no means absolutely necessary in all life; there is no one tool or agent in mechanics, or power in natural philosophy, absolutely necessary; bread itself is not absolutely necessary to sustain human life, because some other article as a substitute may be used as food. The very existence of more means than one, destroys the absoluteness of the necessity of any; and to say that one shall not be used because the others exist, is to destroy the power of choosing the best means altogether. The constitution could never have intended that Congress might employ the worst, and should not have the power of selecting the best means to execute its delegated powers and duties! Such a conclusion is the absurd one to which those who oppose the constitutionality of a bank charter are reduced.

The next question, then, is-is a United States Bank expedient-is it the best means? Sir, it is vain to argue this. I will not appeal to the chaos and confusion out of which the last national bank brought order and credit and confidence. I will not appeal to a comparison of the rates of exchange. I will not appeal to the premiums on silver and gold. I will not appeal to the traveller, to the laborer. I will not appeal to the restraint upon an increase of local bank capital, issues, loans, and discounts. I will not appeal to Siam for the uniformnity of the circulation of its notes and their value. I will not appeal to the manner in which it conducted all its business relations with the Government-to the uniformity of taxes, or to the exact equality, under its influence, of Government officers and the people, and of Government creditors and debtors; but, sir, I remind my friend from South Carolina, [Mr. PICKENS,] of the report, able, clear, and unanswerable, of George McDuffie, his illustrious predecessor, in 1828, to the House of Representatives; and I appeal to the fact that it was the height of the last administration's wishes but to attain to the perfection of a national bank in organizing its system of local deposite banks! Sir, it is too late in the day now for any man to presume to say, against all experience, delightful and rueful, of all times, in peace and in war, with and without a bank of the United States, that such an institution is not expedient. Sir, I have said that Mr. Van Buren reiterates the miserable demagoguism of his predecessor-he exceeds it in the passage which says:

The Bank of the United States, with the vast powers conferred on it by Congress, did not, or could not, prevent former and similar embarrassments; nor has the still greater strength it has been said to possess under its present charter enabled it, in the existing emergency, to check other institutions, or even to save itself."

Here we see a President of the United States, the bighest officer on earth, resorting to falsehood itself to catch vulgarity and ignorance! In the first place, it is not true that the Bank of the United States did not or could not prevent former and similar embarrassments: there never was embarrassment similar to the present-embarrassment so extensive, deeply pervading, and universally following, a long-continued prosperity in trade, and a rich harvest of profound peace. It is true that in 1819 the last national

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