or unreasonable is not likely to endure. There may come a moment of strong reaction, and if no moderation be shewn in laying on duties, there may be little scruple in taking them off."

This passage is the dictate of wisdom. O! si sic omnia dixisset.

The abolition of the Bank charter, in 1836, will necessarily be productive of some evils; the sooner the resolution is taken, the less they will be in amount, and the fewer in number. But if the prodigious influence of the present monopoly, through its pecuniary means, exerted as it will be, unsparingly and with infinite industry, should prevail in Congress to recharter that institution, it will be entwined with the very vitals of our system; peaceably we shall never get rid of it; but rely on it, the people will not long submit to its omnipotent dictation. Let us escape from its toils while we may; the sooner our determination to do so, is taken, the better for all concerned.

Let us proceed with our items of accumulated influence. 5thly. It has the Government wholly in its power, in time of difficulty and of need. Much of the benefit attributed to this institution, has been supposed to exist in the facility with which Government can borrow money in case of national exigency. Two fallacies lurk in this general attribute. 1st. Can the Bank, at any time, lend to Government beyond the surplus it holds at its own disposal? For instance, the State of Pennsylvania applied for a loan of twelve millions; the Bank replied, that it had only eight millions to spare, having invested three millions in lands; and even these eight millions were to be lent, only as a bonus paid for the influence of Pennsylvania to procure a renewal of the charter; the condition being, that it should be a loan for twenty years, the charter expiring in four years. But, suppose the charter renewed, and ten years hence, a loan should be wanted by Government; the Bank surplus would be locked up in Pennsylvania canals. 2dly. Suppose a war impending as obnoxious to tories, stock-jobbers, and British agents, as the last war-would not the Bank of the United States say to the treasurer of the United States here, what the Bank of England said to Mr. Pitt in 1795? "It is the wish of the 'Court of Directors, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 'would settle his arrangements of finance for the present year, 'in such manner as not to depend on any further assistance 'from them beyond what has at present been agreed on?" From that time, Mr. Pitt was placed in the power of the Bank, and that power compelled him to allow them to issue notes in

1797, unredeemable in coin. The same effects will arise from the same causes, whether here or there. Whenever Government wants a loan, and has no institution to apply to, but one that has no competitor, that institution, from the moment, controls the Government and all its measures. The needy borrower is ever in the power of the wealthy lender.

If Government can apply to fifty or a hundred other Banks, competition will arise, and what is wanted will be reasonably obtained; but renew the charter, and, in ten years, no Bank will exist throughout the Union, uncontrolled by the mammoth institution.

6thly. The very facility of making loans, so much approved of, is a great objection; it tempts to projects, and expenses, needless and extravagant; just as the facility of borrowing from a Bank, tempts a tradesman to hazardous speculation, and expensive living, that he would otherwise avoid. All such dealing and bargaining between a Government and a Bank, gradually fixes power there where the purse is.

7thly. The immense power of extending or contracting at its own arbitrary discretion the Bank issues, amounting, as it may hereafter, to half the currency of the Union, and beyond it, puts in its power the whole of the property of the country; for the Bank thus becomes the arbitrary regulator of the currency, and of the money-price of every saleable article throughout the Union. The stability of the value of property, depends on the stability of the currency; the control of this elastic currency will depend on the interests of the Bank; a gainful operation will not be too closely scanned among men, who feel their divided responsibility. Accusations of this kind have been brought against the State and other Banks in the report of the Committee, and not without foundation; but the same temptations elsewhere will occasionally produce similar effects; and for this we appeal to the English restriction act of 1797.

This is not an accusation to which the present Bank has been liable, at least, since 1819; the severe measures adopted by Mr. Cheves, though they produced much complaint, appear to have been necessary to the salvation of the institution; and nothing of the kind has been suspected during the prudent administration of Mr. Biddle. But our argument rests on this; the power of over issuing, and the power of calling in the Bank issues, from interested and unjustifiable motives, whether of a public or a private nature, will belong to that institution if its present charter be renewed; and where power exists, who shall say it will never be abused?

Mr. McDuffie truly says, (Rep. p. 12.)

"When Banks have the power of suspending specie payments, and of arbitrarily contracting and expanding their issues without any general control, they exercise a more dangerous and despotic power over the property of the community, than was ever exercised by the most absolute Government. In such a state of things, every man in the community holds his property at the mercy of money-making corporations, which have a decided interest to abuse their power. By a course of liberal discounts and excessive issues for a few years, followed by a sudden calling in of their debts, and contraction of their issues, they would have the power of transferring the property of their debtors to themselves almost without limit. Debts contracted when their discounts were liberal, and the currency of course depreciated, would be collected when their discounts were almost suspended, and the currency of course unnaturally appreciated; and, in this way, the property of the community might pass under the hammer, from its rightful owners to the banks, for less than one half its intrinsic value. If the Committee have not greatly mistaken the matter, there is more of history than of speculation, in what they have here presented to the House."

These remarks will apply not exclusively to Banks who do not pay specie for their notes, but to any Bank with a capital sufficiently large to obtain the command of currency over a large district of country; and, of course, to the United States' Bank far beyond any other. In-allusion to the remark of the Committee, we may say to that Bank, mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. We have no reason to suspect the Bank of the United States, of any fraudulent, or in the slightest degree unfair intention; we know of no institution more honestly or honourably conducted. But the means of mischief, and the power of mischief will be imparted to that Bank; our argument requires nothing more.

8thly. To this Bank is given, the exclusive privilege of carrying on the trade of banking on the credit as well as on the annual revenue of the United States; four-fifths of the stock belonging to individuals.

9thly. They pay the revenue of the United States in their

own notes.

10thly. They may hold real estate, receive rents, and possess a body of tenantry. By the reply of Mr. Biddle to Pennsylvania applying for a loan, it appears, that the Bank has invested three millions of dollars in real estate. The tenantry

of the Bank will be as much their own masters as the operatives at Lowel and at Waltham. This real estate is held in mortmain, free from forfeiture and escheat; and if the princiVOL. VII. NO. 15.

5

ples of decision in favour of the Bank by the Supreme Court are carried to their legitimate length-free also from taxation.

11thly. They may establish branches in any State of the Union, and interfere with the domestic currency of that State without, and against its consent. That is, if the decision of the Supreme Court be binding in this respect on the State authorities; a supposition which we are fully disposed to deny.

12thly. To be exempt from liability on failure of the Bank. This legalized protection given to swindling throughout the United States, is a disgrace to the nation. A definite and limited liability, with an indefinite unlimited power of receiving profits and running in debt, is so common among the privileges and monopolies universally claimed by Banks throughout the Union, that this most impudent and barefaced fraud on the people, is considered as strictly within the pale of commercial morality here; but we fancy no where else. In England and Scotland, the system is, to render each partner hable for the debts of the firm; this is the common law of all partnerships, and ought to be. The liability to loss ought to be coextensive with the permanency of profit. Where there is a limited liability, the public are cheated out of their reasonable security.

13thly. The legal difficulties thrown in the way of scire facias to contest the charter on alleged misconduct. Application must first be made to the President or to Congress, who may deem it necessary to the general welfare that the Bank should be supported. This gives the Bank a direct interest in the election of President and Members of Congress, and brings it at once as an interested combatant on the field of politics. (Benton, 17.)

14thly. Exemption from State taxation. Such is the decision of the Federal judiciary. We cannot make out how a bonus to the General Government, in consideration of a monopoly, can be any compensation to a State Government for extending the right of protection within the State, to stockholders of the United States' Bank; or on what fair grounds and reasons the Federal judiciary can encroach on the domestic arrangements and sovereign rights of the States. The prevailing idea among the Federal judges is, or seems to be, that the States are subordinate corporations, and under the control of the General Government; instead of taking for granted the real fact, that the General Government is a creature, an agent, a derivative authority, subordinate to the States, who are sovereignties independent of the Federal Government, excepting so far as the Constitution, by consent of the States, enables that Govern

ment to act.

The right of internal taxation for domestic purposes where it is not expressly conceded by plain and distinct enumeration in the Constitution, is one of the reserved rights of the States, which, if they are true to their own citizens, they will not per-. mit to be infringed. By and by some general-welfare Congress, in alliance with the federal judiciary, and aided by the all commanding influence of the United States' Bank, will proceed to annihilate or to transfer one by one, every right that we fondly deemed the permanent property of the several States in their sovereign capacity. All this is not vague and hazarded conjecture; the plan was commenced under Mr. John Quincy Adams and his general welfare, and American System administration; it is now in manifest progress; and such is the public apathy, it may well succeed.

We submit this long catalogue of privileges and immunities to the deliberate reflection of the reader; and may now venture to inquire, whether they are all necessary, and proper, and constitutional, as incidental means of carrying into effect the enumerated powers no where mentioned or suggested in the charter itself? Powers that the reader may suspect and conjecture, but cannot know with certainty and precision from a perusal of that instrument.

As to the next object of inquiry, whether the United States' Bank interferes improperly or unfairly with the just rights and reasonable expectations of the State Banks-it is manifest that the intrusion of five and twenty or thirty branches, each of which absorb almost all the circulating cash in their vicinity, cannot but greatly interfere with the Banks of the State, which are generally brought in debt to the branch in their neighbourhood. That any State has a right to protect its domestic currency, and to expel the branch of the United States, we have no hesitation to affirm on constitutional grounds; any more than we doubt the right of Virginia to punish the Lottery office keepers from Columbia, who offend the laws of Virginia. The decision of the Supreme Court on that subject will never be considered as constitutional law, by those who hold to the doctrine of State rights.

At the same time, we are inclined to give full credit to the reply of Mr. Biddle to General Smith, that the Bank of the United States had never oppressed the State Banks. These latter have been rigidly kept to cash payments by the Branch Banks of the United States, but we can see nothing unfair in this, although the cash of the district is almost monopolized by the branches. Still, a promissory note to pay cash on demand, is a breach of faith, and fraudulently issued, if it be not intend