Part 98

Mr. President, it is contended by those who are opposed to the passage of this bill, that Congress can exercise no power by application, and yet it is admitted, nay, even asserted, that Congress would have power to pass all laws necessary to carry the constitution into effect, whether it had given or withheld the power which is contained in the following paragraph of the 8th section of the 1st article: "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." If this part of the constitution really confers no power, it at least, according to this opinion, strips it of that attribute of perfection which has by these gentlemen been ascribed to it. But, sir, this is not the fact. It does confer power of the most substantial and salutary nature. Let us, sir, take a view of the constitution upon the supposition that no power is vested in the Government by this clause, and see how the exclusion of power by implication can be reconciled to the most important acts of the Government. The constitution has expressly given Congress power "to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court," but it has nowhere expressly given the power to constitute a supreme court. In the 3d article it is said, "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The discretion, which is here given to Congress, is confined to the inferior courts, which it may from time to time ordain and establish, and not to the Supreme Court. In the discussion which took place upon the bill to repeal the judicial system of the United States in the year 1802, this distinction is strongly insisted upon by the advocates for the repeal. The Supreme Court was said to be the creature of the constitution, and, therefore, intangible, but that Congress, possessing a discretionary power to create or not to create inferior tribunals, had the same discretionary power to abolish them whenever it was expedient. But if even the discretionary power here vested does extend to the Supreme Court, yet the power of Congress to establish that court must rest upon implication, and upon implication alone. Under the authority to establish tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, the power to establish a Supreme Court would, according to my ideas, be vested in Congress by implication. And, sir, it is only vested by implication, even if the declaration, that Congress shall have power to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry into effect the power vested in any department or officer of the Government should be held to be an operative grant. Under this grant, Congress can pass laws to carry into effect the powers vested in the judicial department? What are the powers vested in this department. That it shall exercise jurisdiction in all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution, &c., in all cases affecting ambassadors, &c., but the power to create the department and to carry into effect the powers given to or vested in that department, are very different things.

The power to create the Supreme Court cannot be expressly granted in the power to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry into effect the powers vested in that court, but must, as I have endeavored to prove, be derived from implication. Let me explain my understanding of a power which exists by implication, by an example which will be comprehended by all who hear me. In a devise, an estate is granted to A, after the death of B, and no express disposition is made of the estate during the life of A; in that case A is said to have an estate for life, by implication, in the property so devised. So when the constitution gives the right to create tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, the right to create the Supreme is vested in Congress by implication. Shall we after this be told that Congress cannot constitutionally exercise any right by implication? By the exercise of a right derived only from implication, Congress has organized a Supreme Court, and then, as incidental to power, existing only by implication, it has passed laws to punish offences against the law by which the court has been created and organized. Sir, the right of the Government to accept of the District of Columbia, exists only by implication. The right of the Government to purchase or accept of places for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards, exists only by implication, and yet no man in the nation, so far as my knowledge extends, has complained of the exercise of those implied powers, as an unconstitutional usurpation of power. The right to purchase or except of places for the erection of light-houses, as well as the right to erect and support light-houses, must be derived by implication alone, if any such right exists. The clause in the constitution which gives Congress the power "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings," certainly gives no express power to accept or purchase any of the places, destined for the uses therein specified. The only power expressly given in this clause is that of exercising exclusive legislation in such places; the right to accept or purchase must be derived by implication from this clause, or it must be shown to be comprehended in or incidental to some other power expressly delegated by the constitution. I shall now attempt to show, that according to the construction which has been given to other parts of this constitution, Congress has the right to incorporate a bank to enable it to manage the fiscal concerns of the nation. If this can be done, and if it can also be shown that the correctness of such construction has never excited murmur or complaint--that it has not even been questioned, I shall have accomplished every thing which it will be incumbent on me to prove, to justify the passage of the bill upon your table. The power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, together with the power to pass all laws which may be necessary and proper for carrying into effect the foregoing powers, when tested by the same rule of construction which has been applied to other parts of the constitution, fairly invests Congress with the power to create a bank. Under the power to regulate commerce, Congress exercises the right of building and supporting light-houses. What do we understand by regulating commerce? Where do you expect to find regulations of commerce? Will any man look for them any where else than in your treaties with foreign nations, and in your statutes regulating your custom-houses and custom-house officers? What are the reasons for vesting Congress with the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States? The commerce of a nation is a matter of the greatest importance in all civilized countries. It depends upon compacts with other nations, and whether they are beneficial or prejudicial depends not so much on the reciprocal interest of nations as upon their capacity to defend their rights and redress their wrongs. It was therefore highly important that the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations should be vested in the National Government. If the regulation of commerce among the several States had been left with the States, a multiplicity of conflicting regulations would have been the consequence. Endless collisions would have been created, and that harmony and good neighborhood, so essential between the members of a Federal Republic, would have been wholly unattainable. The best interest of the community, therefore, imperiously required, that this power should be delegated to Congress. Not so of light-houses. The interest of the States would have induced them to erect light-houses, where they were necessary, and when erected they would have been equally beneficial to their own vessels, the vessels of their sister States, and of foreign nations. The performance of this duty could have been most safely confided to the States. They were better informed of the situations in which they ought to be erected than Congress could possibly be, and could enforce the execution of such regulations as might be necessary to make them useful. How then has it happened that Congress has taken upon itself the right to erect light-houses, under their general power to regulate commerce? I have heard and seen in the public prints a great deal of unintelligible jargon about the incidentality of a law to the power delegated and intended to be executed by it, and of its relation to the end which is to be accomplished by its exercise, which I acknowledge I do not clearly and distinctly comprehend, and must therefore be excused from answering. I speak now of the public newspapers, to which I am compelled to resort to ascertain the objections which are made to this measure, as gentlemen have persevered in refusing to assign the reasons which have induced them to oppose the passage of the bill. But, sir, I can clearly comprehend that the right to erect light-houses is not incidental to the power of regulating commerce, unless every thing is incidental to that power which tends to facilitate and promote the prosperity of commerce. It is contended that under the power to lay and collect taxes, imposts, and duties, you can pass all laws necessary for that purpose, but they must be laws to lay and collect taxes, imposts, and duties, and not laws which tend to promote the collection of taxes. A law to erect light-houses is no more a law to regulate commerce, than a law creating a bank is a law to collect taxes, imposts and duties. But the erection of light-houses tends to facilitate and promote the security and prosperity of commerce, and in an equal degree the erection of a bank tends to facilitate and insure the collection, safe-keeping, and transmission of your revenue. If, by this rule of construction, which is applied to light-houses, but denied to the bank, Congress can, as incidental to the power to regulate commerce, erect light-houses, it will be easy to show that the same right may be exercised, as incidental to the power of laying and collecting duties and imposts. Duties cannot be collected, unless vessels importing dutiable merchandise arrive in port; whatever, therefore, tends to secure their safe arrival may be exercised under the general power; the erection of light-houses does facilitate the safe arrival of vessels in port, and Congress therefore can exercise this right as incidental to the power to lay imposts and duties.

But it is said the advocates of the bank differ among themselves in fixing upon the general power to which the right to create a bank is incidental, and that this difference proves that there is no incidentality, to use a favorite expression, between that and any one of the enumerated general powers. The same reason can be urged, with equal force, against the constitutionality of every law for the erection of light-houses. Let the advocates for this doctrine lay their finger upon the power to which the right of erecting light-houses is incidental. It can be derived with as much apparent plausibility and reason from the right to lay duties, as from the right to regulate commerce. Who is there, now, in this body who has not voted for the erection of a light-house? And no man who reads one of these will believe it to be a regulation of commerce. And no man in the nation, so far as my knowledge extends, has ever complained of the exercise of this power. The right to erect light-houses is exercised, because the commerce of the nation, or the collection of duties, is greatly facilitated by that means; and, sir, the right to create a bank is exercised because the collection of your revenue, and the safe-keeping and easy and speedy transmission of your public money is not simply facilitated, but because these important objects are more perfectly secured by the erection of a bank than they can be by any other means in the power of human imagination to devise. We say, therefore, in the words of the constitution, that a bank is necessary and proper, to enable the Government to carry into complete effect the right to lay and collect taxes, imposts, duties, and excises. We do not say that the existence of the Government absolutely depends upon the operations of a bank, but that a national bank enables the Government to manage its fiscal concerns more advantageously than it could do by any other means. The terms necessary and proper, according to the construction given to every part of the constitution, imposes no limitation upon the powers previously delegated. If these words had been omitted in the clause giving authority to pass laws to carry into execution the powers vested by the constitution in the National Government, still Congress would have been bound to pass laws which were necessary and proper, and not such as were unnecessary and improper. Every legislative body, every person invested with power of any kind, is morally bound to use only those means which are necessary and proper for the correct execution of the powers delegated to them. But it is contended, that if a bank is necessary and proper for the management of the fiscal concerns of the nation, yet Congress has no power to incorporate one, because there are State banks which may be resorted to. No person who has undertaken to discuss this question has, as far as my knowledge extends, ventured to declare that a bank is not necessary. Every man admits, directly or indirectly, the necessity of resorting to banks of some kind. This admission is at least an apparent abandonment of the constitutional objection; for, if a bank is necessary and proper, then have Congress the constitutional right to erect a bank. But this is denied. It is contended that this idea rests alone upon the presumption that the Government of the United States is wholly independent of the State governments, which is not the fact; that this very law is dependent upon the State courts for its execution. This is certainly not the fact. The courts of the United States have decided, in the most solemn manner, that they have cognizance of all cases affecting the Bank of the United States. Sir, it is true that the Government of the United States is dependent upon the State governments for its organization. Members of both Houses of Congress, and the President of the United States, are chosen by the State governments, or under the authority of their laws. But it is equally true, that wherever the constitution confides to the State governments the right to perform any act in relation to the Federal Government, it imposes the most solemn obligation upon them to perform the act. The Constitution of the United States, as to these particular acts, is the constitution of the several States, and their functionaries are accordingly sworn to support it. Can it, then, be seriously contended, that because the constitution has in some cases made the Government of the United States dependent upon the State governments, in all which cases it has imposed the most solemn obligations upon them to act, that it will be necessary and proper for Congress to make itself dependent upon them in cases where no such obligation is imposed? The constitution has defined all the cases where this Government ought to be dependent upon that of the States; and it would be unwise and improvident for us to multiply these cases by legislative acts, especially where we have no power to compel them to perform the act, for which we have made ourselves their dependents. In forming a permanent system of revenue, it would be unwise in Congress to rely, for its collection and transmission from one extreme of this extensive empire to the other, upon any accidental circumstance, wholly beyond their power or control. There are State banks in almost every State in the Union, but their existence is wholly independent of this Government, and their dissolution is equally so. The Secretary of the Treasury has informed you that he conceives a bank is necessary to the legitimate exercise of the powers vested by the constitution in the Government. I know, sir, that the testimony of this officer will not be very highly estimated by several honorable members of this body. I am aware that this opinion has subjected him, and the committee also, to the most invidious aspersions; but, sir, the situation of that officer, independent of his immense talents, enables him to form a more correct opinion than any other man in the nation of the degree of necessity which exists at the present time for a national bank, to enable the Government to manage its fiscal operations. He has been ten years at the head of your Treasury; he is thoroughly acquainted with the influence of the bank upon your revenue system; and he has, when called upon, declared that a bank is necessary to the proper exercise of the legitimate powers of the Government. His testimony is entitled to great weight in the decision of this question, at least with those gentlemen who have no knowledge of the practical effects of the operations of the bank in the collection, safe-keeping, and transmission of your revenue. In the selection of means to carry any of your constitutional powers into effect, you must exercise a sound discretion; acting under its influence, you will discover that what is proper at one time may be extremely unfit and improper at another. The original powers granted to the Government by the constitution can never change with the varying circumstances of the country, but the means by which those powers are to be carried into effect must necessarily vary with the varying state and circumstances of the nation. We are, when acting to-day, not to inquire what means were necessary and proper twenty years ago, not what were necessary and proper at the organization of the Government, but our inquiry must be, what means are necessary and proper this day. The constitution, in relation to the means by which its powers are to be executed, is one eternal now. The state of things now, the precise point of time when we are called upon to act, must determine our choice in the selection of means to execute the delegated powers.

Mr. LLOYD.--Mr. President: This is indeed, sir, an up-hill, wind-mill sort of warfare--a novel mode of legislative proceeding. That a bill should be brought in on a very important subject which has been long under consideration, and that a gentleman should move to strike out the first section of the bill, which comprises all its vitality, (for it is the first section which provides for the continuance of the bank,) and should be supported in it, without deigning to assign any other reasons than may be derived from newspaper publications, which are so crude and voluminous that not one man out of ten will so far misspend his time as to take the trouble to read them, is indeed extraordinary. Still, if gentlemen choose to adopt this dumb sort of legislation, and are determined to take the question without offering any arguments in support of their opinions, I certainly should not have interfered with their wishes, had I not been a member of the committee who had reported the bill, who had heard the testimony offered by two very respectable delegations from Philadelphia; one from the master manufacturers and mechanics of the city, and the other from the merchants; and had I not taken minutes of this testimony, which I find it is expected from me that I should relate to the Senate.

Sir, I consider the motion to strike out, now under consideration, as going to the entire destruction of the bill, without any reference to its details or modifications; it therefore appears to me in order, to take into consideration only the material principle of the bill; that is, whether it be proper that the charter of the bank should be renewed on any terms whatever, let those terms be what they may.

Sir, it is admitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his communications to Congress, that the concerns of this bank have been "skilfully and wisely managed," that the bank has made a very limited and moderate use of the public moneys deposited with it; and that it has greatly facilitated the operations of Government by the safe-keeping and transmission of the public moneys. It has at all times met the wishes of the Government in making loans. It has done this even at six per cent., while the Government have been obliged, in one instance, for a considerable amount to pay eight per cent. to other persons for the loans obtained from them. It is admitted, sir, that the bank, at the request of the Treasury Department, has established branches for the purpose of facilitating the operations of the Government at places where such establishments could not but be inconvenient to them in point of management, and disadvantageous in point of profit. I allude more particularly, sir, to the branches of the bank which has been established at New Orleans and at Washington. We have been told this session, sir, by a gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. SMITH,) that the Territory of Orleans is a very wealthy one, that it probably contains a greater number of rich inhabitants, for its population, than any other district in the Union. Sir, if this be the fact, of whom does this wealthy population consist? Not of the inhabitants, but of the planters; men who are not borrowers of the bank, who, when they realize the sales of their produce, invest the surplus proceeds of it beyond their expenditure in the funds, or in the acquisition of new lands, or in the purchase of an additional number of negroes. Sir, it is notorious, that from the recent possession by the United States of Louisiana, and the certainty that New Orleans must soon be the emporium of an immense western commerce, that city has become more the resort of the young, the adventurous, the enterprising and the rash among the mercantile men of our country, than any other city in the Union; and it is obvious, sir, in proportion as the borrowers from a bank consist of persons of this description, in the same proportion must the circumstances of such bank be unsound; and without possessing any particular knowledge whatever on the state of this bank, if the collections of its debts are speedily made, I would not make the purchase at a discount of twenty-five per cent. from the nominal amount of them.

Sir, we can judge with more accuracy when we come nearer home. What is the state of the bank in this city? What the ability of its debtors to meet their engagements? It is stated the branch has a loan out here of four hundred thousand dollars. Where is the navigation?--where the wealthy merchants?--where are the opulent tradesmen?--the extensive manufacturers, to refund this money, when they are called on to do it? Sir, they are not to be found; they do not exist here; there are but very few opulent men in the city, and those are either not borrowers of the bank, or not borrowers to an amount of any importance. Where, then, is the money to be found, or what has been done with it? It has probably been taken out of the Bank of the United States to build up the five or six District banks which you have chartered the present session; to furnish the means of erecting the fifty or sixty brick houses which we are told have made their appearance during the last Summer; to encourage speculations in city lots, and to enable the proprietors to progress with the half-finished canal which nearly adjoins us. Well, sir, if the bank promptly calls in its loan of four hundred thousand dollars, will the debtors be enabled to meet their payments? Can they sell these lots, these brick houses, these canal shares? No, sir, in such a state of things they could find no purchasers, they could nearly as well create a world as to furnish the money; and if the bank is to stop, and the payment of this debt be speedily coerced, I would not give two hundred thousand dollars for the whole of it.

In addition to this, I shall show presently, from testimony which cannot be controverted, that the conduct of the Bank of the United States, or its directors, or rather the stockholders, whose agents they are, in addition to being wise and skilful, and moderate, as the Secretary of the Treasury states them to have been, that they have also been honorable, and liberal, and impartial; and if, in addition to this, it be proved that the bank has, in every instance where it had the ability to do it, met the wishes of the Government, and to facilitate its views in the security and collection of the revenue, it has also established branches where it must have been obviously and palpably to the disadvantage of the bank to do it--if it has furnished capitals for the extension of our commerce, if it has provided means for the establishment of important manufactories, if it has had a tendency to raise the price of our domestic produce, and has thus encouraged industry, and improved and embellished the interior of the country--it would seem pretty strongly to follow, that if it be expedient to preserve the existence of an institution similar to this, then these gentlemen, on the score of merit, added to the experience of twenty years' successful operation, have a fair claim on the Government for a preference in favor of that which is already in operation.

I am aware, sir, that it may be stated in opposition to this claim, that these stockholders have enjoyed a boon for twenty years from which others of their fellow-citizens have been deprived, except on such terms as the sellers of shares chose to prescribe; that the charter expires by its own limitation, and that beyond this period they have no right to expect any thing which may not arise from the interest and convenience of the Government. I admit, sir, there is considerable strength in these objections. The exclusive right contained in the charter ever appeared to me as furnishing the most solid constitutional objection against the bank. The creation of monopolies; the granting of exclusive privileges, except so far as to secure to the authors of useful inventions the benefit of their discoveries; the tying up of the hands of the Legislature, and depriving itself of the power of according to a set of citizens, who may come into legal existence to-morrow, or ten years hence, what it had given to another; ever appeared to me hostile to the genius and spirit of the people of the United States, and of all their institutions. Highly then, sir, as I am induced to think of the conduct of this bank, from the best evidence I can obtain, still, from the considerations I have just mentioned, did the question now before us simply affect the stockholders, I should certainly not trouble the Senate with any remarks in reference to it, and should sit down in entire acquiescence, whether the prayer of their petition for the renewal of the charter of the bank were granted or rejected.

Sir, before quitting this idea of constitutional objection, permit me to make one or two brief remarks in regard to it. It is impossible for the ingenuity of man to devise any written system of government, which, after a lapse of time, extension of empire, or change of circumstances, shall be able to carry its own provisions into operation--hence, sir, the indispensable necessity of implied or resulting powers, and hence the provision in the constitution that the Government should exercise such additional powers as were necessary to carry those that had been delegated into effect. Sir, if this country goes on increasing and extending, in the ratio it has done, it is not impossible that hereafter, to provide for all the new cases that may rise under this new state of things, the defined powers may prove only a text, and the implied or resulting powers may furnish the sermon to it.

Permit me, sir, to put one question on this head, in addition to those so ably, and to my view, unanswerably put yesterday by the honorable gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. CRAWFORD.) Whence, sir, do you get the right, whence do you derive the powers to erect custom-houses in the maritime districts of the United States? To attach to them ten, fifteen, or twenty custom-house officers; and clothe these men with authority to invade the domicile, to break into the dwelling-house of perhaps an innocent citizen? Whence do you get it, sir, except as an implied power resulting from the authority given in the constitution "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises?" If, under this authority, you can erect these custom-houses and create this municipal, fiscal, inquisitorial gens d'armerie, with liberty to violate the rights of the citizen, to break into his castle at midnight, without even a form of warrant, on a plausible appearance of probability, or probable cause of suspicion of his secreting smuggled goods, which the event may prove to be unfounded--and it will be recollected that a majority of Congress voted for the grant of this power in its most offensive form, when two years since they voted for the act enforcing the embargo--I say, sir, if under this general power to collect duties, you can erect the establishment and give the offensive power just mentioned, can you not, with the concurrence even of the citizens, adopt another more mild and useful mode, and create an establishment for the collection and safe-keeping of the revenue, and place it under the direction of ten or twelve directors, and christen it an office of discount and deposit, or of collection and payment, as you like best? And can you not, when you have thus created it, give to the directors a power, which perhaps they would have without your grant, to receive and keep the cash of those who choose to place it with them and to loan them money at the legal rate of interest, and in some places, as at New York, at nearly fifteen per cent. above the legal rate of interest? If you can do this, then you have your bank established, sir--and, most assuredly, if you can do one of these things you can do the other.

Sir, the constitutional objection to this bank, on the ground that Congress had not the power to grant an act of incorporation, has ever appeared to me the most unsound and untenable. Still gentlemen of intelligence and integrity, who have thought long and deeply on the subject, think differently from me: and I feel bound to respect their opinions, however opposed they may be to my own. Yet, sir, I will venture to predict, without feeling any anxiety for the fate of the prophecy, that should this bank be suffered to run down, such will be the state of things before this time twelve months, that there are other gentlemen, who at present have constitutional objections, but who have not thought so long and deeply upon them, who will, before that time, receive such a flood of intelligence, as on this head perfectly to dispel their doubts, and quiet their consciences.

Sir, I shall now proceed as briefly as may be in my power to state the situation of this bank on the expiration of its charter, and the effects on the community consequent on it. There is now due to the bank from individuals fifteen millions of dollars. These fifteen millions of dollars must be collected--the power of the bank to grant discounts will have ceased, and the duty of the directors must require them to make the collection. Sir, how is this to be done? Whence can the money be obtained? I shall demonstrate to you presently, that already, from an apprehension of a non-renewal of the charter of the bank, business is nearly at a stand--that navigation, real estate, and merchandise are unsalable; and that a man worth one hundred thousand dollars, at the recently rated value of property, and owing ten thousand dollars, must still be utterly unable to meet his engagements. Suppose, sir, this property consists in houses or shipping; suppose his warehouse is full of goods, and he has a large sum placed at his credit in England? If, sir, he can neither sell his ships nor his goods--if he cannot sell his real estate nor scarcely give away his exchange, which hitherto, to men who had money in England, has been a never-failing source of supply in case of need; I say under these circumstances, sir, whatever may be his property, he cannot meet his engagements. Sir, can men thus situated, solvent as they ought to be ten times over, find relief from the State banks? Certainly not, sir. These banks have already gone to the extreme length of their ability; they have always discounted to an amount in proportion to their capital exceeding that of the Bank of the United States, which is incontrovertibly proved by the dividends they have declared, which have at most universally equalled and frequently exceeded those of the Bank of the United States, notwithstanding the advantage enjoyed by the latter from the deposit of public moneys. Sir, so far from having it in their power, in the case of the dissolution of the Bank of the United States, to assist the debtors to that bank in meeting their engagements to it--I affirm the fact, on which I have myself a perfect reliance, that, take the State banks from Boston to Washington, and after paying their debts to the Bank of the United States, they have not, nor do I believe they have had, for six months back, specie enough to pay the debts due to their depositors, and the amount of their bills in circulation. And here I beg it to be observed, that bank bills and bank deposits, or credits, are precisely the same thing--with this difference, that the latter, from the residence in the neighborhood of the banks, and the vigilance of the proprietors, would be the first called for. How idle is it then to expect to obtain relief from banks which have already extended themselves beyond the bounds of prudence, and have not even at present the ability to meet their existing engagements? It might nearly as well be expected, that a man who was already a bankrupt should prop and support his failing neighbor.

Sir, much has been recently said of the amount of specie in the United States. Theoretical men have made many and vague conjectures about it, for after all it must rest upon conjecture; some have estimated it at ten millions of dollars--some twelve, some twenty, and some newspaper scribblers at forty millions of dollars. Sir, I do not believe that for the last ten years the United States have at any time been more bare of specie than at the present moment. A few years since, specie flowed in upon us in abundance. This resulted principally from an operation of a very singular and peculiar nature. The Spanish Government, as it was then understood, agreed to pay to France a very large sum of money--many millions of dollars, the precise number I am unable to state, from her possessions in South America. France contracted with a celebrated English banking house, as was said at the time, with either the concurrence or connivance of the English Government, that this money should be obtained through the United States. These bankers, by their agent, contracted with certain American houses, principally I believe in Baltimore, for the importation of this specie from La Vera Cruz into the United States, from whence it was not transmitted in coin to Europe, but invested in adventures in the shipments of produce, the proceeds of which ultimately go into the hands of these bankers in London, or of their friends on the continent, from whom it was finally realized by the French Government, either by drafts from Paris, or remittances to that city. This operation had a trebly favorable effect on the United States--it made fortunes for some of the merchants, it furnished the means of shipments to Europe, and it also provided the funds for adventures to the East Indies and to China. But this contract has now been finished some years; and since that time there has been a constant drain of specie from the country. Where it is in future to be procured from, I know not. Not from South America. Specie is, I believe, protected from exportation there, except to Spain. From Spain we cannot get it--to a great part of what was Spain we have now scarcely any trade. From France it cannot be obtained, for if we can get it there even by license, we are obliged to bring back her produce or manufactures. From England it cannot be imported--it is now made highly penal to attempt to send it out of the kingdom. With South America we have but little trade--hitherto we furnished them with smuggled or licensed European and India goods; but now the markets are flooded with these goods by importations direct from England, and which have been attended with great loss to the shippers. For these reasons, it is difficult to find a vessel sailing from the United States to the Spanish ports in South America. These are among the reasons why the amount of specie now in the country is small, and has for some time past been gradually lessening. Sir, without indulging in vague conjectures, what are the best data we have to form an estimate of the amount of specie in the country? The Bank of the United States has five millions of dollars in its vaults. In Boston there are three State banks--in New York I believe four, Philadelphia four, and Baltimore eight--call these nineteen twenty, and allow on an average one hundred and fifty thousand dollars specie, which probably is as much as they generally possess, and this will make three millions of dollars; this amount, united to the sum in the vaults of the Bank of the United States, gives eight millions of dollars--to which, if you allow two millions of dollars for a loose circulation of specie, you get an aggregate of ten millions of dollars. We are sometimes told of the large sums of money hoarded in our country by individuals--probably there may be some among the German farmers in Pennsylvania--perhaps more in that State than in any other, or all the others in the Union; but still of no great amount--the reputation of a little money possessed in this way easily swells into a large sum. At any rate, let the amount be what it may, in time of distress and mistrust, it would afford no addition to your circulating medium; for it is precisely in times like these, that men who hoard money will lock it up most securely.

Sir, the circulation of our country is at present emphatically a paper circulation--very little specie passes in exchange between individuals--it is a circulation bottomed on bank paper and bank credits, amounting perhaps to fifty millions of dollars. And on what, sir, does this circulation rest? It rests upon the ten millions of dollars, if that be the amount of specie in the country, and upon public confidence.

The Bank of the United States has fifteen millions of dollars to collect--call it ten, sir--nobody will dispute this--no one will pretend that this bank is not solvent--the remnant of its surplus dividends, and the interest it will have earned, will be sufficient to cover its losses at New Orleans, at Washington, and perhaps elsewhere. In what are these ten millions of dollars to be collected? In bank bills, the credit of which is at least doubtful? No, sir, in specie; and when this is entirely withdrawn from the State banks, and the banks are unable to pay the money for their bills, who does not see that this confidence is instantly destroyed--that the bubble bursts--that floods of paper bills will be poured in upon them, which they will be unable to meet, and which will for a time be as worthless as oak leaves--that the banks themselves must, at least temporarily, become bankrupts, and that a prostration of credit, and all those habits of punctuality which for twenty years, we have been striving so successfully to establish, will inevitably ensue, and, with them, also, there must be suspended the commerce, the industry and manufactures of the country; and a scene of embarrassment and derangement be produced, which has been unexampled in our history.

I will now make a very few remarks on the effects which the dissolution of the bank will have on the revenue and fiscal concerns of the country. Can it be supposed, sir, that the source to which will be imputed the distress that will have flowed from this event, will be the first to be thought of to be guarded against a participation of the evils that will result from it, in preference to the claims of the most intimate friends and connections? No, sir, the bonds due to the United States will be collected only at the tail of an execution. But I mean not to press this consideration. Admit, for a moment, that they will all be equally well collected--that they will be paid as usual, although it is palpable that for a considerable time the merchants will be unable to find the means to pay them: yet, admit, sir, that the money is collected in the State banks, how is it to be transmitted? It must come to the centre of the seat of Government; very little of the public money is expended in the Northern section of the Union. Will it come from the Eastward, in bills of the State banks? Penobscot bank bills sometimes will not pass in Boston; Boston bills pass with difficulty in New York or Philadelphia; and the bills of New York State banks probably would not be readily current in Washington. You must, then, sir, if Boston gives you a revenue of two millions of dollars, transmit the greater part of it to the seat of Government, or wherever it may be wanted in specie. Can this be done? We have not two millions of dollars of specie in our town, and, I may almost venture to say, never had. Suppose you make this transmission once, can you do it a second time? No, sir, the thing is utterly impracticable. You must adopt some other mode. Exchange between the different cities will not reach the case; frequently it cannot be purchased even for an insignificant amount.

Sir, will your money, when collected, be safe in the State banks? Of this I am extremely doubtful. Solicitations will undoubtedly be made for it from all quarters. They have already been made. In one instance, I am told, sir, the agent of a bank, even during the few past weeks, has been here for the purpose--that suddenly the agent was gone, and in a few days it was discovered that, owing to the failure of one of the debtors to the bank which he represented, (a great broker,) the stock had fallen in one day near 20 per cent. What was this the evidence of, but that those who were most interested in this bank, the stockholders who were on the spot, and best acquainted with its solidity, were willing to wash their hands of their concern in it, at almost any rate of sacrifice? Sir, I only state this, as it was here reported. I have no personal knowledge on the subject. But will you trust your funds with an institution thus precarious, and whose solidity is distrusted even by its best friends?

WEDNESDAY, February 13.

The credentials of NICHOLAS GILMAN, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of New Hampshire, for the term of six years, commencing on the 4th day of March next, were read, and ordered to lie on file.

THURSDAY, February 14.

Bank of the United States.

The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the bill to amend and continue in force an act, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States," passed on the 25th of February, 1791.

The question being to strike out the first section--

Mr. GILES.--Mr. President: It is with great reluctance that I find myself compelled to enter into the discussion of the subject now under the consideration of the Senate, but the observations which fell from the honorable gentleman from Georgia (Mr. CRAWFORD) were of such a character as to impose on me an irresistible obligation to present that view of the subject which has resulted from the best reflections I have been enabled to bestow on it. This obligation arises from the very high respect I entertain for the Legislature of the State I have the honor to represent, the great respect I feel for the gentleman who made the observations, as well as from the respect which is manifestly due to myself. In executing this unpleasant task, I labor under circumstances of peculiar embarrassment. This embarrassment arises from a conviction that the views of the subject now proposed to be exhibited will disappoint the expectations both of the opposers and the favorers of the bill, and that they will not be acceptable to either. I shall not, however, in this instance, depart from my invariable habit, when urged by duty to participate in debate before this honorable body, of disclosing in the most undisguised manner my real opinions upon the whole subject, free of any consideration of political difficulties or inconveniences which may consequently affect myself.

In the first place, I find myself called upon to oppose a law, on constitutional grounds, which has been in existence for nearly twenty years, and during that period, I am compelled to admit, has been acquiesced in by the several State governments, as well as by the General Government, and its republican administrations. It is peculiarly irksome to me to question the constitutionality of a law which has been thus and so long acquiesced in, because it tends to give the character of instability to the laws generally, and in my judgment, tends also to impair the sacred character of the laws, and of course, to lessen their efficacy. In a Government like ours, where the laudable boast of every citizen is that he lives under a government of laws, and not of men, no subject should be touched with more caution and delicacy than one which questions the validity of the laws, lessens the confidence of the citizens in them, or impairs the obligation of obedience to them. Yet, sir, the course of observations I propose to make may have some of these tendencies, which I should extremely regret, and this apprehension, of course, produces embarrassment. Connected with this idea is another circumstance of embarrassment. I cannot help observing the inordinate zeal manifested by the opposers of this bill, evidently resulting from a belief that its rejection will lessen the powers of the Federal Government. Although it may be properly directed in the present instance, yet I think I have seen, and fear I may hereafter see the same spirit directed against some of the powers and proceedings of the Government which I have deemed indispensable to its own preservation, and its beneficial efficacy towards the people. It may, perhaps, be thought by some not becoming in me to say that I have not been an inattentive observer of the progress of this Government for twenty years, and more particularly, since the Republican party came into power. Some of the scenes through which I have passed, have produced an impressive influence on my mind. Such is the nature of the Government that its administration will vibrate from one principle to another, and it will always require great wisdom to keep its oscillations from wandering too far. Whilst those who preceded us in power endeavored to legislate into the constitution an unnecessary constructive energy, leading to what has been called consolidation, it appears to me that we have taken too much the opposite course, leading to disunion and dissolution, by depriving it constructively of its legitimate, necessary, and proper powers. If this course should be unfortunately persevered in, it requires no spirit of prophecy to foresee that the Government will fall to pieces from the want of due energy in the administration of its legitimate powers, or that some extraordinary means must be resorted to for its resuscitation.

The honorable gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. CRAWFORD,) who reported this bill, as the chairman of the committee, to whom the subject was generally referred, excited not a little surprise in my mind by the prefatory remarks which fell from him in support of it. The gentleman prefaced his arguments by observing, "that it had latterly become the fashion to eulogize the Constitution of the United States; and that whenever he heard lavish encomiums applied to it, he could not help apprehending mischief." I acknowledge I could not comprehend the bearing of this remark upon the question under discussion. I, sir, have long been in the habit of venerating the constitution, and have often expressed my admiration at the wisdom of its provisions; and I really had hoped that I might have been indulged in these sentiments and prepossessions, and even the expression of them upon proper occasions, without exciting in the mind of any gentleman apprehensions of mischief; nor can I divine what species of mischief the gentleman apprehends from that cause. Mr. President, when we look over the whole world known to us; when we particularly cast our eyes over that part of it with which we have the most intimate relations; when we see the rapid strides which despotism is making over the whole human race; when we observe the various and powerful means now in use to rivet its immovable dominion upon mankind; when we reflect that the Constitution of the United States now affords the only practical experiment upon the republican principle, and the only and last hope for the preservation and extension of the liberties of man; is it wonderful or alarming, that we should feel and express some partiality and even veneration for an instrument of so peculiar a character? or should even endeavor to teach others to venerate, to cherish, to support it? An instrument, whose provisions at least exempt us from the general scene of despotism, and may eventually extend their blessings to the whole human race? Or if, in dwelling upon the wisdom and importance of its provisions, we might pass over some possible defects from scrutinizing them with an hypercritical eye, might not the omission be indulged without producing animadversion or censure? Sir, we all venerate the republican principle. I know the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. CRAWFORD) does; nor do I pretend that my devotion to it is greater than his; but, sir, I have given the greatest attention to the observations of the gentleman upon the constitution; and I can now say that my veneration for the instrument, and admiration at the wisdom of its provisions, are not at all impaired nor diminished, notwithstanding the gentleman's criticisms, &c. I will now, Mr. President, endeavor to exhibit the general character of the constitution; to point out the mode for its correct interpretation, and apply it to the subject now under consideration. In doing so, I propose to follow the course of observations made by the honorable chairman of the committee who reported the bill.

The gentleman proceeded to remark, that in taking a review of the constitution he found general as well as incidental powers enumerated therein. I did not see the precise application the gentleman intended to make of this remark, but I have been induced to review the constitution in reference to this subject, and it does appear to me, that the classification and definition of powers is as well arranged as human wisdom could devise. I know that nothing is perfect which is the work of man; that no language is capable of perfect definition. But, as far as definition can be drawn from language, I conceive the constitution exhibits as perfect an example as is in existence. In the next place, the gentleman remarked that there was a number of cases in which Congress had departed from the particular enumerated powers in the constitution and had resorted to implication or construction for the derivation of its powers. The remark is perfectly correct, and I am very ready to admit that there is no such thing as carrying into effect enumerated powers in any instrument whatever, without the intervention of certain derivative and implied powers. But if the gentleman had succeeded in showing that there had been aberrations by the Congress of the United States from the enumerated powers of the constitution, would he think it correct to use those aberrations as precedents for still further aberrations? Ought they not rather to be considered as mementoes on the part of Congress to induce them to tread with more care, and, if they find that their former errors could not be supported by a fair and candid construction of the constitution, to restrain the laws within its wholesome provisions? Certainly that is the use to which the history of errors presented by the honorable gentleman from Georgia ought to be applied. But, before I proceed to examine the subject with more accuracy, I cannot avoid to express my surprise at another observation which fell from the gentleman. The gentleman observed, that the argument drawn from the distinction between ends and means was "incomprehensible;" and he went so far as to call it "nonsensical jargon." It is not only comprehensible to me, sir, as I conceive, but, in my opinion, is the only way in which a just construction of the constitution is to be attained. This results from the peculiar nature and organization of the instrument. Permit me here to endeavor to illustrate my idea by a reference to the constitution itself? The constitution is an instrument which grew out of the situation of the United States at the time of, and preceding its adoption; and to show that the constitution recited the great objects of its formation, and then prescribed the means for carrying them into effect, I beg leave to refer to a part of the instrument itself. The preamble, like all other preambles, was designed to express the objects of the instrument or the ends to be effected by its provisions. "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity; do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." What is the plain language of this preamble? The answer is obvious. That certain great ends or objects are here proposed to be effected. In what mode, or by what means are they to be effected? The preamble tells you, sir, "by establishing this Constitution for the United States of America." That is the mode in which these great ends are proposed to be effected, and the body of the instrument prescribes the means which were deemed necessary and proper to the effectuation of these ends. The subject will be better understood by throwing the mind back to the period of time when this constitution originated, and reviewing the peculiar political situation of the United States then, and for some time antecedently thereto.