existed in the United States, with a capital of two million one hundred thousand dollars. The creation of a bank, with a capital of ten millions of dollars, almost five times the capital of all the existing banks of the Union, under the patronage of the General Government, was calculated to produce and did produce a subserviency on the part of the stockholders to the views of their party. The influence of this powerful moneyed capital was long felt. Nothing but the multiplication of State banks, and the increase of capital from the peculiar and fortunate circumstances under which the United States were placed, could have emancipated us from the shackles imposed on us by a moneyed institution wielded by foreigners. I rejoice that the period has arrived, when this privileged class must surrender its charter-when the moneyed capital of our country shall no longer be wielded as an engine of party -when the Republican party shall have an opportunity of testing the truth of the principles for which they contended in the year 1790, and of giving on the present, as on the former occasion, their support to the principle, "That power not delegated is reserved to the States or to the people." Mr. STANLEY.-Mr. Speaker: After the able discussion which this subject has already undergone, I should not have asked your attention, but for the observations of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. EPPES,) who has last addressed you. That gentleman, with a view to justify such a decision of the question as he desires, has advanced propositions which are in themselves so incorrect, and supported them by arguments so palpably unreasonable, that I shall trouble the House a short time in reply. H. OF R. can be employed by that Government, unless such means be found expressly pointed out in the Constitution. And, sir, to show how truth may be obscured, and error supported, by ingenuity, my respect for the gentleman from New York forbids my saying by sophistry, I will append, as a commentary, the speech of that gentleman on this question. With respect to the Constitutional right of Congress to incorporate a bank for the prosperous administration of its finances, the very able arguments already made, and in my apprehension very imperfectly met, require little to be said in its support. My view of this part of the subject shall, therefore, be brief, and I may be pardoned for offering it. To incorporate a company, in other words to grant to certain persons a legal or artificial capacity, distinct from their natural, is an act of sovereignty, a delegation of which it is true can only emanate from the sovereign power. If the Federal Government be not sovereign as to any of its objects, they cannot incorporate a company for the attainment of any of its objects. But, if, on the other hand, the Government is sovereign as to any object, the power to incorporate companies, as the fit and necessary means for the attainment of that object, must regularly result from and be appurtenant to this sovereignty. This power is not left to inference; the Constitution expressly declares that Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry into effect the powers delegated, and that such laws shall be the supreme law of the land. The Constitution, it is true, does not, in terms, give the power to incorporate a bank-that instrument details only the objects of the GovernThe gentleman tells us it is as true as any ment, and delegates certain general authorities to mathematical axiom, that a power not expressly effectuate the ends for which it was formed. Ia granted by the Constitution to the Federal Gov- every case it is silent as to the particular means ernment cannot be exercised by that Government; to be employed or the mode to be observed in the that whenever a political Euclid shall be compos- attainment of the object or end. Instead of ated, this principle should be placed as first in clear- tempting to specify in any case the means of ness and importance; and the speech of the executing a power, it is silent in that particular gentleman from New York, (Mr. PORTER,) on in every case, granting to Congress the general the bill before us, should be added as an appendix power, I have just stated, to make all laws neor commentary proving its truth. In terms, sir, cessary and proper to carry into effect the delethe gentleman's proposition is true, but the gen-gated powers. Among the general powers extleman has not avoided the error of those who have preceded him on that side of the question; he confounds the powers of the Federal Government with the means of executing such powers; he does not distinguish between the objects of the Federal compact and the means of effecting these objects. And upon this hinge of error did the argument of the gentleman from New York turn. This confusion of terms, this indistinctness of perception, as I shall endeavor to show, has led gentlemen astray on this question. If, sir, the political errors of the statesmen of this day shall ever be collected into a volume, as the first, the most glaringly wrong, and flagrantly unjust, should be placed the axiom of the gentleman from Virginia, which cannot, in substance, be other than this: "That no means of executing a power granted to the Federal Government, pressly granted, is this-"To lay and collect means that can be devised to obtain its ends; and being both "necessary and proper" to carry into effect the power expressly granted to Congress, "to collect taxes, to borrow money and pay the debts"-it must be Constitutional. JANUARY, 1811. in the Constitution; the authority results from the powers granted, and are necessarily implied as the fit and necessary means of executing the powers which are expressly granted. Yes, sir, whether I am answered or not, the fact is manifest, that the implied powers of the Government are not only fairly deducible from the spirit and letter of the Constitution, but are essential to the most familiar operations of Congress. And, sir, it is in proof that gentlemen are in the daily habit of exercising, without scruple or reserve, those implied powers, which, when urged in support of the bank, they turn from with affected abhorrence, as if a single glance, like a look at Medusa's head, would turn them into stone! They have repeatedly acted under them, still grasp them with the love of power and the ardor of ambition, and will only suit their hold to that force which shall deprive them of the reins of empire. But, sir, the gentleman from New York says, the United States are not sovereign, and cannot exercise a right of sovereignty, because they depend on the will of the States for existence; for, said he, should the States neglect or refuse to elect Senators or to make the laws necessary for electing representatives, the Federal Government would die of its own imbecility. This may be true: the Government may cease to exist, yet, while it does exist, there are powers which it alone can exercise without the control or interference of any other authority. To these purposes, assuredly, then it must be supreme, or sovereign. For example, the Federal Government has power to lay and collect taxes and to The gentleman from Virginia deprecates a regulate commerce. Is there any power in this bank which shall be connected with the Governcountry-I speak of moral, not physical power-ment; he calls this a dangerous union of the which can prevent them laying such taxes and making such regulations of commerce as they think fit? The Constitution of the United States is the act, of "We, the people of the United States." So are the State constitutions-both are derived from the same source-each is independent of the other, and only dependent on the sovereign will of the people, constitutionally ex-commodate the Government with loans to a pressed. The States have certain powers exclusively confided to them; they may prescribe the descents of estates, and regulate distribution of property and other objects of internal police; they are sovereign as to these objects; the Federal Government is as much so as to the objects within the sphere of its jurisdiction. Yet, Mr. Speaker, obvious, indeed indispensable as is the inference and deduction of the right to incorporate a bank for the management of the financial concerns of the United States, from these premises, gentlemen say it is only an implied power, that no power can be used unless expressly granted in the Constitution, and the exercise of implied powers is deprecated as unknown to the Constitution, and abhorrent to Republicanism, and dangerous to our liberties. Let me ask gentlemen, and I pray they will inform me, whether they do not daily act upon implied powers? If not, let them speak, in what part of the Constitution do they find power to build light-houses? Where is the power which their President, doubtless with the feelings of a man and the firmness of a magistrate, so freely exercises of removing at pleasure from office men who were appointed with the consent of the Senate? You have committees now sitting, who, under your authority, but without law, compel citizens to attend at their summons, without consulting their will or convenience; you have conferred on certain individuals the sole privilege of trading with the Indian tribes-by what authority are all these, and many other acts which have been mentioned in this debate, exercised? If I am answered at all, truth will dictate this reply: the power to do these acts is no where expressly granted sword and the purse, reminds us of the abuse by the British Government of the Bank of England in obtaining loans, and of the public debt of that Kingdom. None of those objections apply to the Bank of the United States. The charter of the present bank places the institution beyond the control of the Government. It is bound to aclimited amount when required; but this obligation on the bank, although its performance may at times chance to be unfavorable to the institu tion, is yet connected with no danger to the country, since the one cannot lend, until we, the representatives of the people have authorized the other to borrow. The Executive of the United States is said to bear the sword, but, sir, Congress holds the purse, and it has not been explained to us how the existence of a bank is to render one subservient to the other, or to convey the sword and purse into the same hand. I can, however, conceive a plan of a bank which would sharpen the sword of the Executive and give a power to his arm that might be used to the ruin or degradation of our citizens. Adopt the plan which has been recommended, and which is to rise upon the ruins of the present institution; erect one great bank whose branches shall embrace all the States and whose capital shall swallow all the State banks, give to the Administration the enormous patronage of the appointment of directors to this institution, and place the credit and business of every man connected of necessity with banks at the mercy or pleasure of an Executive or his minions, the commercial and the enterprising must decide either to become flatterers and be favored, or to retain their independence and be ruined. It is this system which would give a dangerous, a detestable power. Your Adminis tration, styling themselves Republican, have professed to desire no patronage: I will take them at their word; my vote shall never increase their patronage, to multiply their dependants. The Crown, which they profess to put away, I will not force upon their brow. JANUARY, 1811. Bank of the United States. H. OF R. As to the Bank of England and the British result of fair banking-such has been the operadebt, I perceive not the bearing their connexion tions of the Bank of the United States, of whose can have on the subject before us. That the capital, debts, and issues, the Government has British Government have made too free use of been weekly informed. It is from the State banks the ability of the bank to lend, cannot expose us that danger is to be apprehended. Of their capi to like mischiefs, because our bank cannot lend, tal, (I mean not their nominal, but their specie nor our Administration borrow, but by the express capital,) of their debts, and their resources, we authority of Congress. Of the British debt, I are, and must remain entirely ignorant; and we know its amount is enormous. Yet, sir, how, and have seen that some of these institutions, dishonfor what purpose, has that debt been thus swollen? estly emitting paper beyond the sum authorized Perhaps the people of Great Britain owe to that by their capital, and beyond the necessities of the debt the preservation and enjoyment of rights country, their notes have returned upon them, dearer to freemen than their purse. It is, sir, at they have been unprepared to pay, their paper the cost of that debt that Great Britain maintains has depreciated, and individuals have been deher existence and independence as a nation. She frauded to a vast amount. And such, again, may might have submitted without an effort, without be the case if we remove the check, the restrainexpense, and, free from debt. have sunk under the ing influence, which the large and solid capital of chains which the tyrant of France, the enemy of the Bank of the United States, and its prudent the human race, has fastened upon all the king- direction, has enabled it to exercise over the State doms of continental Europe. Rather than see banks-these "mushroons," as the gentleman has my country bow in subjection to that direst of called them, which, like Jonah's gourd, have despotisms against which Great Britain has strug-sprung up in one night and withered in the next. gled, I would, in the spirit of an American, cheerfully bear my share of a debt as large as that which has been the subject of remark. The gentleman informs us that our exports of domestic products amount only to forty-five millions of dollars; that the capital of the different banks in the United States, at the rate of issues by the United States' Bank, may emit ninety millions of dollars, and he infers that a paper medium beyond the amount of domestic exports cannot be necessary. This opinion, sir, needs an elucidation, which the gentleman did not give it. Why the amount of produce purchased for ex The gentlemen tell us we have sufficient bank capital without that of the Bank of the United States; that the capital of the State banks is equal to the wants of the United States, and that, if this institution is continued, there will be an excess of paper, and the consequent mischiefs to the country. Sir, gentlemen need not feel alarm on this point. There is no more danger of a sur-portation should form the measure of circulating plus of capital being employed in banks, than of medium is, to say the least, not self-evident. such surplus being employed in any other busi- Nor can I conceive why, in calculating the meness. The thing regulates itself. Bank notes dium necessary or useful for the concerns of the may be emitted beyond the use of the country, country, we should exclude from view the purbut you can no more force them into circulation chases for internal use as well as for external beyond this necessity, than you can force pur-sale, or lose sight of the repeated use made of the chases and sales of tobacco and flour beyond the same note or piece of metal in its continued circonsumption of a country. The commerce of culation. The circulating medium of a country, every country requires a certain sum of circu- whether paper or specie, represents, because it lating medium. The amount must be ascertained commands, the articles we need and get in exby experience, which alone can show how much change for it. What the sum should be, my poit will absorb and employ. If you emit paper litical arithmetic does not teach me, nor does the beyond this amount it will, of necessity, return rule of the gentleman from Virginia. In my upon the banks. This discovery is not modern. opinion, experience alone can show it, as I have It is as old as the science of banking. And of before said, viz: that amount which the commerthe errors of a bank, no one is more unfavorable cial, agricultural, and manufacturing concerns of to them than the issues of paper beyond the neces- the country will require and can employ; to be sity of the country; for, so long as they keep ascertained from the amount of silver and gold within proper limits, it is found that they may in circulation, bank credit, and bank notes issued emit one dollar and two-thirds, or two dollars of and not returning upon the banks. It is, I admit, paper, for each dollar of specie in their vaults; a fact, a proud fact, that the exports of our counbut when their issues of paper exceed these lim-try have increased from eighteen to forty-five its, the excess continually returns, and instead of one dollar in specie meeting two of paper, a dollar in specie is required to redeem each dollar of the surplus emission of notes. With this restraint upon their issues, banks are kept in due check; and, sir, when the prudent and safe issues-viz: to the amount required by the country-do not yield employment for the capital, the business ceases to be profitable, the capital is directed to other objects, and the banking fund is kept at its just level. This, sir, is the necessary and just 11th CoN. 3d SESS.-26 millions. New fields have been opened, produce increased, means of conveyance multiplied, and new markets sought and resorted to. Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, have advanced, as they necessarily must, hand in hand; and to the beneficial influence of banks, increasing the capital, encouraging enterprise, stimulating and rewarding the interest of the country, we are indebted for much of this increase. The testimony which the gentleman has borne to the correct management of the Bank of the United States, was to have been expected from his information and liberality. The fact previously stated, and repeated by him as a defect in arrangement, that the notes of the bank and its branches are not paid but at the office from which they issue, and at which they are made payable, is not a ground of complaint. The bank and its branches have each but a small portion of the capital. Of the branches, the largest portion, (only $1,800,000,) is in New York, and it is ab surd to suppose that either the branch with this capital, or the others with less, should redeem, at all times, the notes emitted upon a capital of ten millions. The thing is impossible. From the opinion advanced by the gentleman, that the state of the bank should rather excite the fears of the institution for its own safety or solvency, than awaken the apprehensions of the community for the effects of dissolution upon them, I beg leave to dissent. We have had, in debate, various statements of the affairs of the bank, drawn either from former reports or conjecture. The report of the Secretary of the Treas ury, this day laid on our tables, shows the present state of the bank. To this I shall refer for facts. There is due to the bank from individuals upon notes $14,578,294 25 discounted Other banks owe them for notes and in account The Government owe, including the late loan, funded debt and Treasury drafts 1,287,485 92 JANUARY, 1811. Whence is this sum to come? Not from the vaults of the other banks; they do not possess it, It is stated in the able speech of the representative of the city of Philadelphia, in the Legislature of Pennsylvania, upon the resolution respecting the bank, that the report of the state of all the banks of that State, recently made to the Legislature, shows that all the banks in Philadelphia (excepting that of the United States) have together but a little more than one million of dollars in specie: those who have the best means of information, declare the specie in the banks of New York is not greater, and in those of other cities unquestionably less. The State banks then have not the money, and cannot produce it. Will the notes of these banks pay the debt? No, sir, because their notes will be returned upon them for payment, which they cannot make. These banks know their own strength or weakness, and that they dread this crisis, is manifest from the course they have already adopted; they have curtailed discounts and commenced calling in their debts. The consequences 18,672,826 66 you learn from the moans of your correspondents, 5,009,567 10 and from the petitions which daily press your 500,652 77 table. The want of money has produced a want of punctuality; confidence is destroyed; the life, the animating spark of business is, as it were, suspended, and deep distress is fast spreading over the commercial world. Sir, my deductions are supported by facts. They prove the solvency, indeed the strength of the Bank of the United States, is such as to merit the confidence of the people, which it enjoys; while the situation of the State banks, and the deficiency of the precious metals, gives a fatal assurance of the inability of the country to submit, without great it the large debt due the bank. distress, to the operation of having extracted from 2,807,046 49 24,183,046 53 On the other hand what do they owe? To the holders of their notes in circulation $5,037,125 22 13,673,368 83 The gentleman from Virginia says it is no arThus, sir, with a property of twenty-four mil-gument in favor of a continuance of the bank, lions of dollars, leaving the stockholders the original stock of ten millions, and a surplus of more than half a million to meet bad debts. But were it otherwise were it possible that, of the debts due them, ten millions should never be collected, the loss would affect the stockholders, whose original advance would be lost, but the interest of the community would not even then be affected, at least not as creditors of the institution; because even if ten millions, the capital stock, were by any means sunk, the bank would still be solvent, it would even then pay its debts, and, consequently, must be perfectly safe as regards the community. that it is necessary for the management of the financial concerns of the United States, for that the word "finance" is not to be found in the Constitution. Sir, were I called upon by one of the yeomanry of this country-one whose days had been spent at the plough, remote from Courts, and without concern in affairs of State, to define to him what were the financial concerns of the United States, I should, as an explanation adapted to the simplest understanding, inform him that the laying and collecting taxes, borrowing money, and paying the debts of the Union, were its financial concerns. And as these powers are expressly granted to Congress, although the word "finances" may not be found in the Constitution, Congress are thus required of necessity, to provide for the management of the "financial concerns of the United States." H. OF R. tled in that country, and has resided there and at New Orleans ever since; he is declared to be a man of high character for integrity and honor. Mr. Clarke has had a seat as a delegate on this floor; though not a native of the United States, he is as much a citizen as any of the inhabitants of Louisiana, made so by treaty, and as much so as will be the Representatives of the State of OrAgainst his character nothing has been alleged other than that imputation which the people of the United States have fixed upon the character of every man who has been the friend or associate of Wilkinson and Burr. Let me not be understood as committing myself to the opinion of the guilt of these gentlemen. I was not of Burr's jury-he may be guilty; nor am I of Wilkinson's committee-he may be innocent; yet suspicion deeply stains his character; it will take, much of the labor of the file to rub it off. Permit me now, sir, to notice objections urged against the bank from other quarters, and of a different nature-objections not calculated, probably not intended, to influence this House, but which may have an influence abroad. Gentle-leans, "that is to be," in the next Congress. men have objected to what they term the foreign influence in our affairs from a portion of the stock of this bank being held by foreigners; and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. WRIGHT) has alleged that aliens, traitors, and old tories, are intrusted with its direction; others with him have said that the bank and the funding system are twins of the same progenitor, (Alexander Hamilton,) and that the question of creating this bank was the ground on which the parties of the United States first divided. But, sir, let it be supposed that an individual who was unfriendly to our Revolution should have been chosen by those who are proprietors of the bank to a seat in its direction. Would the choice be either new or criminal? Sir, a person whose name is recorded in the proscription statute of a State as an "old tory," was appointed by Mr. Jefferson a district judge of the United States. In other States, but particularly in New York and Pennsylvania, persons who bore arms against us and adhered to our enemy in the Revolution The charter of the bank did not exclude foreigners from purchasing shares, because, at the period of its establishment, our country was without capital, and it was an object rather to invite foreign capital to the United States than to repel it; their large funds and low rates of interest have enabled them to give more in the market than our citizens could afford to pay, and they have consequently purchased. But, if it be a sin to have sold stock to foreigners, lay it at the right door; and when you revile the measure, do not forget it was one of Mr. Jefferson's Administra-ary war have also been appointed by Republican tion, who sold to English merchants, in the year 1801, all the stock in the bank which the United States owned. The charter denies to any stockholder, not a resident of the United States, the right either of a vote in the choice of directors, or a seat at the board of directors. And thus divested of any power to interfere in the concerns of the bank, it requires more than human penetration to discover, or more than ordinary jealousy to suspect, how foreigners can influence even the affairs of the bank, much less, through its agency, the concerns of the country. This cry of foreign influence from the use of foreign capital is a modern bugbear. During our Revolutionary struggle, our soldiers were clothed and armed with funds borrowed in Europe; our nerves were hardened, our sinews stiffened, and our independence achieved with the assistance of foreign capital. Yet the heroes and sages of that day suspected not any improper foreign influence; they were brave and wise, but not as cunning as our present statesmen who have made the dis covery. As to the aliens, traitors, and old tories, who are concerned in the direction of the bank, the gentleman is too general in his charge. So far as he will be particular he can be met. He named but two persons as meriting his denunciation: Evan Jones and Daniel Clarke, of New Orleans. 1, sir, know not personally either of these gentlemen. Mr. Jones I understand to be a native of Pennsylvania, who, at the peace of 1763, when Great Britain acquired Florida, set Presidents to offices of high trust. Why were these "old tories" thus honored and trusted? Because they possessed integrity and ability to qualify them for their stations. And, why might not a tory be chosen a director of a bank, if his virtues and talents had gained him the confidence of the stockholders? The choice seems to me to be as pardonable in a stockholder as in a President or is it, sir, that the Republican President has been converted into a political Pope, and has alone the power to pardon and absolve from political sins? Of the origin of the Bank of the United States, the honor is certainly due to the first Secretary of the Treasury. In justice to his memory, the fact ought frequently to be mentioned and never to be forgotten. But, sir, the merit of obtaining the adoption of the plan is not entirely his. The original bill in every stage received the support of gentlemen of the Republican party; among those, who were its earliest supporters, one most distinguished for ability, the present Secretary of the Treasury, continues it advocate to the present hour. In support of the claim of the bank for a renewal of its charter, and to the credit of Mr. Gallatin, I will here read extracts from his report to the Senate, of March, 1809: -“The advantages derived by Government from the bank are nearly of the same nature with those obtained by individuals who transact business with similar institutions, and may be reduced to the following heads: "1. Safe keeping of public moneys.-This applies not only to money in the Treasury, but that in the |