holders, and bound by the doings of the bank directors, who are, in fact, the standing legislators of the corporation. No declaration of the express powers contemplated, is made in that charter; no mode is prescribed of executing them specifically by these incidental agents; provided they are somehow executed, no further questions arise. The Bank officers are the officers of the private corporation, not of Government; they are amenable to the stockholders, not to Government. Congress erects a private speculating corporation for the benefit of the shareholders, and then makes a contract with them to transact certain public business, on condition of their permitting Government to become shareholders also; a contract irrevocable for twenty years! If this be, what may not be, constitutional?

Again. The stockholders of the Bank of the United States are a variable and fluctuating body. Seven millions or seventy thousand shares are held, it is said, by aliens and foreigners; many of them from among the English nobility. We have no objection to foreigners vesting their surplus money in our institutions unless under particular circumstances. That seven millions may become fourteen. The directors are chosen by the stockholders. Let us suppose that Government here wants money, to provide against an expected quarrel with Great-Britain. The directors are to determine whether the Bank shall advance it or not. The directors are the agents of foreign as well as domestic stockholders; who does not see the possible danger of this case? Is this necessary and proper?

Again. To make use of an argument very strongly put by Judge Clayton, let us grant the necessity and propriety of this incidental corporation :

"Is it not readily perceived that for the time the power is in the corporation, it is out of the Government? But what would be the consequence, if all its powers (for if one may, all may) were coupled with some private immunity or interest, and bartered away to corporations? There is no difference in the powers conferred on the Government; if one is subject to traffic, all are; and every function of the Constitution may be farmed out; even the heads of departments, the collectors, nay every office may be linked to a charter; and under the broad, nay boundless discretion of Congress to judge what is necessary and proper, the whole fabric of the Federal Government may be quietly lodged in the kind and tender arms of corporations, to be nursed as they may think proper, and Congress may retire to rest and doze away the holiday season for which its powers may be let! Such principles are odious, nay shocking! It is no argument to say this will not be done; the power remains, and there has been at least one fatal case; that is sufficient VOL. VIII.-No. 15.

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not only for our argument, but for all the purposes of an awful warning."-p. 16.

It is merely because we do not deem it fair to copy a page, that we do not continue this extract with the very strong, and, to us, unanswerable illustration of Judge Clayton, by substituting the banker, Rothchild, for the Bank of the United States; but we hope the reader of this summary will not be content without referring to the pamphlet of Judge Clayton, enumerated in the list at the head of this article. Those who are really interested on behalf of the public in this momentary question will not pass it over.

Again. One of the great objects of the Bank, it seems, was to substitute a sound for an unsound currency. We verily believe it has done so; thanks to the much-opposed energy of Mr. Cheves. But in the report of the Committee of the House of Representatives, from the power given to Congress "to coin money and fix the value thereof" is strangely deduced, (p. 6) the power of regulating the whole currency of the United States, paper as well as coin! This is inferring quidlibet ex quolibet, with a vengeance.

Is there one man of common-sense, from Maine to Louisiana, (the Committee excepted) who really believes that a coined dollar, or an eagle of actual silver and gold, are one and the same thing with a piece of stamped paper? Or that the Convention, with the Bank of England within their purview, and with the experience of the Bank of North-America in actual operation since May, 1781, did not know the difference between coin and bank paper? If this utter perversion of the use of language, is one of the chapters in the science of implication and construction, we know not to what paradox it will not extend! About the year 1814 or 1816 (we quote from memory) a debate arose in the British House of Commons, as to the exorbitant charges of the Bank of England, and the unfair and selfish advantages taken by that institution in its dealings with Government. On that occasion Mr. Grenfell threw out a threat, that if some more decided evidences of fair dealing than had yet been exhibited, were not afforded by the directors of that institution toward the Government, it might induce an inquiry whether, under the sovereign power of regulating the coinage of money, the issues of paper money might not also be subjected to governmental regulation. But he did not venture upon any thing more explicit than this dubious suggestion.

What are we to think of a cause that requires us to accede to this perversion of language? Or, if this notable specimen

of latitudinarian construction, and adopted implication, be deemed fair and sober argument, how can Mr. McDuffie and his Committee object to the system of protecting duties? If the power over paper be legitimately inferred from the power over gold and silver coin, then there is nothing strained or forced in deducing home monopoly from the power of regulating commerce. And if the influence of great names be a sufficient basis whereon to build up Bank corporations, let Mr. McDuffie shew us, why the same reasoning from authority will not apply to the protecting system. We fear this will be a task not easy to be accomplished even by that gentleman's acknowledged ingenuity.

Coin is currency; paper is currency; therefore paper is coin. A water-melon is food; a roasted fowl is food; therefore a roasted fowl is a water-melon.

There would be nothing ludicrous in this mode of putting the argument, if there were nothing ludicrous in the argument itself.

It is in this way that the public are to be persuaded that Congress possesses the constitutional power of making the notes of a private banking company, the current money of the nation. If they can do this for one private company, they may do it for another; for Stephen Girard's notes for instance. The doctrine of implication and construction is boundless; it may make any thing mean any thing, even though contradictory; thus, the power of regulating commerce has been held by the manufacturing Committees of 1824 and 1828 to mean the power of annihilating commerce, which essentially depends on introducing cheap articles of foreign production in return for the export of cheap articles of our own production; a barter which the tariff of protection is avowedly instituted to annihilate.

The Committee seem to have forgotten that the Congress had already exhausted its authority, done its duty, and legislated on this express power of regulating the weight and value of coin, by establishing the mint. The regulation of the paper currency, therefore, is a new and perfectly distinct original power claimed, as it should seem, without any reasonable pretence; and proves nothing, except that under the modern doctrines of implication and construction, the Constitution is a farce, a semblance of security, a door closed against usurpation which a child's force can open.

Under this incorporation of stockholders, called the Bank of the United States, the directors emit their bank bills and circulate them on the credit of the United States' Government. Now observe:

"When the question to grant the power to borrow money was under discussion before the Convention, there was connected with it, in the reported draught made by the Committee of detail (Yates' Sec. Pro. and Deb. p. 57) a power to emit bills of credit on the credit of the United States; but a majority of the Convention, says Luther Martin, being willing to risk any political evil, rather than admit the idea of a paper emission in any possible case, refused to trust this authority to the Government. It was therefore moved, to strike out the words, and emit bills, which was carried, nine States to two. If a paper currency was thought to be necessary and proper, where was there a better opportunity for the grant than at this juncture? Will they incidentally confer on a private corporation what they expressly denied to the General Government?"-Clayton, p. 27.

When, therefore, the Committee, in their report of April 13, 1830, state the question to be, not between a metallic and a paper currency, but between a paper currency of an uniform, and one of a fluctuating value, they raise a question with which Congress has nothing to do; for Congress cannot authorize a paper currency; Congress cannot emit bills of credit; Congress cannot make any thing currency but gold and silver coin; and if they could, there are other means of accomplishing this object besides the Bank of the United States, which is not a necessary means for this end.

The Bank of the United States appears, then, liable to the following brief summary of constitutional objections :

It is not included in any of the express or enumerated powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. It might have been, had the Convention seen fit.

A Bank was proposed, discussed, and rejected in the Convention; and so obnoxious was it considered among the States, that it was urged in the debate, that the reception of the Constitution among the people would be endangered by adopting such a measure.

The power of emitting bills of credit, such as the promissory notes of the Bank of the United States now are, was proposed to be given to Congress, and was rejected in the Convention, nine States to two.

No currency is noticed in the Constitution but a metallic currency of coined money; and as that is established and no other, every other, however useful or convenient, was of course excluded. But the Convention must have been aware of, and considered a Bank paper currency, as the Bank of England was known to them, and the Bank of North-America had been in operation since 1781.

The Bank of the United States is a corporation with exclusive privileges; it is not a public, but a private corporation; consisting of such persons as may become subscribers, their assignees and successors. (Bank charter, sec. 7.) The Federal Government is a subscriber to the amount of seven millions out of thirty-five millions of dollars, and elects directors in proportion to its stock. It may be said that this is, in part, a public, and in part a private corporation. Let it be so. In the Convention, the power of incorporating was proposed to be given to Congress generally, and negatived.

It was proposed to be given in cases where the particular States had not the power, which might, nevertheless, be exercised for the public good; negatived.

It was proposed to grant the power of incorporating, specially, for roads and canals; negatived.

It was proposed three times to incorporate an University; negatived.

To establish post and military roads; negatived.

To establish seminaries for the promotion of literature, arts, and sciences; negatived.

The same for the promotion of agriculture, trade, commerce and manufactures; negatived.

So that in whatever possible form the power of incorporating could be proposed, it was steadily rejected by the Convention. The power of direct incorporation having been thus repeatedly refused to the General Government, can they assume it by indirect means-by unforeseen, unsuspected construction? It is assumed as an indirect means, necessary and proper to carry into effect the following enumerated powers, viz: To collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises; to borrow money on the credit of the United States; to coin money.

Every written act made in pursuance of a power, should recite in substance the power that authorizes it. In the Bank charter, there is no statement of the express or enumerated power which it is established to execute; no mode and manner of executing it specifically pointed out and prescribed; no power of removal, dismissal, change, or alteration is reserved to Government, if any such should be needed; no directing control, excepting in the proportion of one-fifth; four-fifths belonging to the stockholders. Moreover, several minor incidental privileges are attached to that Bank, which the Constitution will by no means justify; such as to hold lands in mortmain; to enable aliens to hold lands; to change the course of descent into succession both as to lands and chattels; to exempt lands