notes of specie-paying banks, in payment of debts to Government; because, he says, that would make them money; and if we make them money, then we are bound to control and regulate that money. Most certainly, sir, I agree with the honorable member, that when bank notes become money, we are bound to control and regulate them. I thank him for this admission; since it goes a great way to support that proposition, for which I have been contending. That bank notes have become money in fact, that they answer the uses of money, that, in many respects, the law treats them as money, is certain. Why, then, are we not already bound to control and regulate them? The gentleman will say, Because we have not, ourselves, made them money. But is that any answer? If they have become money in fact, they require the same regulation, and we have the same authority to bestow it, as if they had acquired that character by any acts of our own; because our power is general: it is to take care of the money of the country, and to regulate all the great concerns of commerce.

But let us see how this opinion of the honorable member stands upon the authorities in our own history.

When the first bank was established, the right of Congress to create such a corporation was, as we all know, very much disputed. Large majorities, however, in both Houses, were of opinion that the right existed, and they therefore granted the charter; and in this charter there was an express provision that the bills of the bank should be receivable in all payments to Government. Those who opposed the bank did not object to this clause: on the contrary, they went even much further; and Mr. Madison expressly insisted that Congress might grant or refuse, to State banks, the privilege of having their notes received in revenue. In 1791, therefore, men of all parties supposed that Congress, in its discretion, might authorize the receipt of bank notes. The same principle was incorporated into the bank charter of 1816: indeed it was in the bill which the gentleman himself reported; and it passed without objection from any quarter. But this is not all. Mr. President, let us look into the proceedings of the session of 1815-'16 a little more closely. At the commencement of that session, Mr. Madison drew our attention to the state of the currency; by which he meant the paper currency of the country, which was then very much disordered, as the banks had suspended specie payment during the war, and had not resumed. Early in the progress of the session, the honorable member from South Carolina moved that this part of the message should be referred to a select committee. It was so ordered. The committee was raised, and the honorable gentleman placed at its head. As chairman of the committee, he introduced the bank bill, explained it, defended it, and carried it triumphantly through the House, having in it the provision which I have before mentioned.

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But there is something more. At the same session the gentleman introduced the bill for the further collection of the revenue, to which I have already referred, and in which bill he carried the receivability of bank notes much further, and provided that notes of any bank or bankers which were payable and paid, on demand, in specie, might be allowed and accepted in all payments to the United States. So that the honorable gentleman himself drew, with his own pen, the very first legal enactment in the history of this Government, by which it was provided that the notes of State banks should be considered and treated as money at the Treasury. Still further, sir: The bill containing this provision did not pass the House; and as I deemed some provision necessary, indispensably necessary, for the state of things then existing, I introduced, I think the very next day after the failure of the honorable gentleman's bill, three resolutions. The two first were merely declaratory, asserting that all duties, taxes, and imposts, ought to be uniform, and that the revenues of the United States ought to be collected and received in the legal currency, or in Treasury notes, or the notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided. These two resolutions I agreed to waive, as it was thought they were not essential, and that they might imply some degree of censure upon past transactions. The third resolution was in these words:

"And resolved, further, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, required and directed to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as aforesaid; and that from and after the 1st day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States, as aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as aforesaid."

The Senate will perceive that, in this resolution of mine, there was no provision whatever for receiving bank notes, except of the Bank of the United States, according to its charter. Well, what happened thereon? Why, sir, if you look into the National Intelligencer of a succeeding day, you will find it stated, that Mr. Calhoun moved to amend Mr. Webster's resolution by "extending its provisions to the notes of all banks which should, at the time speci fied therein, pay their notes in specie on demand."

This amendment was opposed by me, as being unnecessary, inasmuch as all such bills would be received of course, as they always had been received. The honorable member said, that, for his own part, he did not himself think it necessary; he thought such bills

would continue to be received, as they had been, without any new provision; he had offered the amendment, however, to satisfy the doubts of others; but since it was opposed, he would withdraw it, and he did withdraw it. The resolution passed the House, therefore, exactly as I had prepared it. But in the Senate it was amended, in the manner which the honorable member had proposed in the House; and in this amendment the House ultimately concurred.

The provision was thus incorporated into the resolution, became part of the law of the land, and so remains at this very moment. Sir, may I not now say to the honorable member, that, if the constitution of the country has been violated by treating bank notes as money "Thou art the man!"

How is it possible, sir, the gentleman could so far forget his own agency in these most important transactions, as to stand up here, the other day, and with an air not only of confidence, but of defiance, say, "But I take a still higher ground; I strike at the root of the mischief. I deny the right of this Government to treat bank notes as money in its fiscal transactions. On this great question I never have before committed myself, though not generally disposed to abstain from forming or expressing opinions.'

I will only add, sir, that this reception and payment of bank notes was expressly recognized by the act of the 14th April, 1836; by the deposit act of June of that year; and by the bill which passed both Houses in 1837, but which the President did neither approve nor return. In all these acts, so far as I know, the honorable member from South Carolina himself concurred.

So much for authority.

But now, sir, what is the principle of construction upon which the gentleman relies to sustain his doctrine? "The genius of our constitution," he says, "is opposed to the assumption of power." This is undoubtedly true; no one can deny it. But he adds, "Whatever power it gives, is expressly granted."

But I think, sir, this by no means follows from the first proposition, and cannot be maintained. It is doubtless true that no power is to be assumed; but then powers may be inferred, or necessarily implied. It is not a question of assumption; it is a question of fair, just, and reasonable inference. To hold that no power is granted, and no means authorized, but such as are granted or authorized by express words, would be to establish a doctrine that would put an end to the Government. It could not last through a single session of Congress. If such opinions had prevailed in the beginning, it never could have been put in motion, and would not have drawn its first breath. My friend, near me, from Delaware, has gone so fully and so ably into this part of the subject, that it has become quite unnecessary for me to pursue it. Where the

constitution confers on Congress a general power, or imposes a general duty, all other powers necessary for the exercise of that general power, and for fulfilling that duty, are implied, so far as there is no prohibition. We act every day upon this principle, and could not carry on the Government without its aid. Under the power to coin money, we build expensive mints-fill them with officerspunish such officers for embezzlement - buy bullion—and exercise various other acts of power.

The constitution says that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in certain courts. Under this general authority, we not only establish such courts, but protect their records by penalties against forgery, and the purity of their administration by punishing perjuries.

The Department of the Post-Office is another, and signal instance, of the extent and necessity of implied powers. The whole authority of Congress over this subject is expressed in very few words; they are merely "to establish post-offices and post-roads." Under this short and general grant, laws of Congress have been extended to a great variety of very important enactments, without the specific grant of any power whatever, as any one may see who will look over the post-office laws. In these laws, among other provisions, penalties are enacted against a great number of offences; thus deducing the highest exercise of criminal jurisdiction, by reasonable and necessary inference, from the general authority. But 1 forbear from traversing a field already so fully explored.

There are one or two other remarks, sir, in the gentleman's speech, which I must not entirely omit to notice.

In speaking of the beneficial effects of this measure, one, he says, would be, that "the weight of the banks would be taken from the side of the tax-consumers, where it has been from the commencement of the Government, and placed on the side of the tax-payers. This great division of the community necessarily grows out of the fiscal action of the Government."

Sir, I utterly deny that there is the least foundation, in fact, for this distinction. It is an odious distinction, calculated, to inspire envy and hatred; and being, as I think, wholly groundless, its suggestion, and the endeavor to maintain it, ought to be resisted and repelled. We are all tax-payers, in the United States, who use articles on which imposts are laid; and who is there that is excused from this tax, or does not pay his proper part of it, according to his consumption? Certainly no one.

On the other hand, who are the tax-consumers? Clearly, the army, the navy, the laborers on public works, and other persons in Government employment. But even these are not idle consumers; they are agents of the Government and of the people. Pensioners may be considered as persons who enjoy benefit from the public

taxes of the country, without rendering present service in return; but the legal provision for them stands on the ground of previous merits, which none deny. If we had a vast national debt, the annual interest of which was a charge upon the country, the holders of this debt might be considered as tax-consumers. But we have no such debt. If the distinction, therefore, which the gentleman states exists any where, most certainly it does not exist here. And

I cannot but exceedingly regret that sentiments and opinions should be expressed here, having so little foundation, and yet so well calculated to spread prejudice and dislike, far and wide, against the Government and institutions of the country.

But, sir, I have extended these remarks already to a length for which I find no justification but in my profound conviction of the importance of this crisis in our national affairs. We are, as it seems to me, about to rush madly from our proper spheres. We are to relinquish the performance of our own incumbent duties; to abandon the exercise of essential powers, confided by the constitution to our hands, for the good of the country. This was my opinion in September it is my opinion now. What we propose to do, and what we omit to do, are, in my judgment, likely to make a fearful, perhaps a fatal, inroad upon the unity of commerce between these States, as well as to embarrass and harass the employments of the people, and to prolong existing evils.

Sir, whatever we may think of it now, the constitution had its immediate origin in the conviction of the necessity for this uniformity, or identity, in commercial regulations.

The whole history of the country, of every year and every month, from the close of the war of the Revolution to 1789, proves this. Over whatever other interests it was made to extend, and whatever other blessings it now does, or hereafter may, confer on the millions of free citizens who do or shall live under its protection; even though, in time to come, it should raise a pyramid of power and grandeur, whose apex should look down on the loftiest political structures of other nations and other ages, it will yet be true, that it was itself the child of pressing commercial necessity. Unity and identity of commerce among all the States was its seminal principle. It had been found absolutely impossible to excite or foster enterprise in trade, under the influence of discordant and jarring State regulations. The country was losing all the advantages of its position. The Revolution itself was beginning to be regarded as a doubtful blessing. The ocean before us was a barren waste. No American canvass whitened its bosom no keels of ours ploughed its The journals of the Congress of the Confederation show the most constant, unceasing, unwearied, but always unsuccessful appeals to the States and the people, to renovate the system, to infuse into that Confederation at once a spirit of union and a spirit

waters.