BANK OF THE UNITED STATES--BILL FOR THE RECHARTER REPORTED IN THE
SENATE--AND PASSED THAT BODY.
The first bank of the United States, chartered in 1791,
was a federal measure, conducted under the lead of General
Hamilton--opposed by Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison and the republican
party; and became a great landmark of party, not merely for the
bank itself, but for the latitudinarian construction of the
constitution in which it was founded, and the great door which it
opened to the discretion of Congress to do what it pleased, under
the plea of being "_necessary_" to carry into effect some granted
power. The non-renewal of the charter in 1811, was the act of
the republican party, then in possession of the government, and
taking the opportunity to terminate, upon its own limitation, the
existence of an institution, whose creation they had not been able
to prevent. The charter of the second bank, in 1816, was the act
of the republican party, and to aid them in the administration of
the government, and, as such, was opposed by the federal party--not
seeming then to understand that, by its instincts, a great moneyed
corporation was in sympathy with their own party, and would soon
be with it in action--which this bank soon was--and now struggled
for a continuation of its existence under the lead of those who
had opposed its birth, and against the party which created it. Mr.
Webster was a federal leader on both occasions--against the charter,
in 1816; for the recharter, in 1832--and in his opening speech in
favor of the renewal, according to the bill reported by the Senate's
select committee, and in allusion to these reversals of positions,
and in justification of his own, he spoke thus, addressing him self
to the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun:
"A considerable portion of the active part of life has elapsed,
said Mr. W., since you and I, Mr. President, and three or
four other gentlemen, now in the Senate, acted our respective
parts in the passage of the bill creating the present Bank of
the United States. We have lived to little purpose, as public
men, if the experience of this period has not enlightened our
judgments, and enabled us to revise our opinions; and to correct
any errors into which we may have fallen, if such errors there
were, either in regard to the general utility of a national
bank, or the details of its constitution. I trust it will not
be unbecoming the occasion, if I allude to your own important
agency in that transaction. The bill incorporating the bank,
and giving it a constitution, proceeded from a committee of the
House of Representatives, of which you were chairman, and was
conducted through that House under your distinguished lead.
Having recently looked back to the proceedings of that day, I
must be permitted to say that I have perused the speech by which
the subject was introduced to the consideration of the House,
with a revival of the feeling of approbation and pleasure with
which I heard it; and I will add, that it would not, perhaps,
now, be easy to find a better brief synopsis of those principles
of currency and of banking, which, since they spring from the
nature of money and of commerce, must be essentially the same,
at all times, in all commercial communities, than that speech
contains. The other gentlemen now with us in the Senate, all of
them, I believe, concurred with the chairman of the committee,
and voted for the bill. My own vote was against it. This is a
matter of little importance; but it is connected with other
circumstances, to which I will, for a moment, advert. The
gentlemen with whom I acted on that occasion, had no doubts of
the constitutional power of Congress to establish a national
bank; nor had we any doubts of the general utility of an
institution of that kind. We had, indeed, most of us, voted for
a bank, at a preceding session. But the object of our regard was
not whatever might be called a bank. We required that it should
be established on certain principles, which alone we deemed safe
and useful, made subject to curtain fixed liabilities, and so
guarded that it could neither move voluntarily, nor be moved by
others out of its proper sphere of action. The bill, when first
introduced, contained features, to which we should never have
assented, and we set ourselves accordingly to work with a good
deal of zeal, in order to effect sundry amendments. In some of
those proposed amendments, the chairman, and those who acted
with him, finally concurred. Others they opposed. The result
was, that several most important amendments, as I thought,
prevailed. But there still remained, in my opinion, objections
to the bill, which justified a persevering opposition till they
should be removed."
He spoke forcibly and justly against the evils of paper money,
and a depreciated currency, meaning the debased issues of the
local banks, for the cure of which the national bank was to be the
instrument--not foreseeing that this great bank was itself to be the
most striking exemplification of all the evils which he depicted. He
said:
"A disordered currency is one of the greatest of political
evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support
of the social system, and encourages propensities destructive
of its happiness. It wars against industry, frugality, and
economy; and it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and
speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring
classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which
deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of
inventions to fertilize the rich man's field, by the sweat of
the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive
taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the mass of
the community, compared with fraudulent currencies, and the
robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has
recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of
the demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable
oppression on the virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded
paper currency, authorized by law, or any way countenanced by
government."
He also spoke truly on the subject of the small quantity of silver
currency in the United States--only some twenty-two millions--and
not a particle of gold; and deprecated the small bank note currency
as the cause of that evil. He said:
"The paper circulation of the country is, at this time, probably
seventy-five or eighty millions of dollars. Of specie we may
have twenty or twenty-two millions: and this, principally, in
masses in the vaults of the banks. Now, sir, this is a state of
things which, in my judgment, leads constantly to overtrading,
and to the consequent excesses and revulsions which so often
disturb the regular course of commercial affairs.
"Why have we so small an amount of specie in circulation?
Certainly the only reason is, because we do not require more.
We have but to ask its presence, and it would return. But
we voluntarily banish it by the great amount of small bank
notes. In most of the States the banks issue notes of all low
denominations, down even to a single dollar. How is it possible,
under such circumstances, to retain specie in circulation? All
experience shows it to be impossible. The paper will take the
place of the gold and silver. When Mr. Pitt, in the year 1797,
proposed in Parliament to authorize the Bank of England to issue
one pound notes, Mr. Burke lay sick at Bath of an illness from
which he never recovered; and he is said to have written to the
late Mr. Canning, 'Tell Mr. Pitt that if he consents to the
issuing of one pound notes, he must never expect to see guinea
again.'"
The bill provided that a bonus of $500,000 in three equal annual
instalments should be paid by the bank to the United States for its
exclusive privileges: Mr. Webster moved to modify the section, so as
to spread the payment over the entire term of the bank's proposed
existence--$150,000 a year for fifteen years. I was opposed both to
the bonus, and the exclusive privilege, and said:
"The proper compensation for the bank to make, provided this
exclusive privilege was sold to it, would be to reduce the rate
of interest on loans and discounts. A reduction of interest
would be felt by the people; the payment of a bonus would not be
felt by them. It would come into the treasury, and probably be
lavished immediately on some scheme, possibly unconstitutional
in its nature, and sectional in its application. He was not
in favor of any scheme for getting money into the treasury at
present. The difficulty lay the other way. The struggle now was
to keep money out of the treasury,--to prevent the accumulation
of a surplus; and the reception of this bonus would go to
aggravate that difficulty, by increasing that surplus. Kings
might receive bonuses for selling exclusive privileges to
monopolizing companies. In that case his subjects would bear the
loss, and he would receive the profit; but, in a republic, it
was incomprehensible that the people should sell to a company
the privilege of making money out of themselves. He was opposed
to the grant of an exclusive privilege; he was opposed to the
sale of privileges; but if granted, or sold, he was in favor of
receiving the price in the way that would be most beneficial to
the whole body of the people; and, in this case, a reduction of
interest would best accomplish that object. A bank, which had
the benefit of the credit and revenue of the United States to
bank upon, could well afford to make loans and discounts for
less than six per centum. Five per centum would be high interest
for such a bank; and he had no doubt, if time was allowed for
the application, that applications enough would be made to take
the charter upon these terms."
I opposed action on the subject at this session. The bank charter
had yet four years to run, and two years after that to remain in
force for winding up its affairs; in all, six years before the
dissolution of the corporation: and this would remit the final
decision to the Congress which would sit between 1836 and 1838, and
there was not only to be a new Congress elected before that time,
but a new Congress under a new apportionment of the representation,
in which there would be a great augmentation of members, and
especially in the West, where the operation of the present bank was
most injurious. The stockholders had not applied for the recharter
at this session: that was the act of the directors and politicians,
or rather of the politicians and directors; for the former governed
the decision. The stockholders in their meeting last September only
authorized the president and directors to apply at any time before
the next triennial meeting--at any time within three years; and
that would carry the application to the right time. I, therefore,
inveighed against the present application, and insisted that:
"Many reasons oppose the final action of Congress upon this
subject at the present time. We are exhausted with the tedium,
if not with the labors of a six months' session. Our hearts and
minds must be at home, though our bodies are here. Mentally and
bodily we are unable to give the attention and consideration to
this question, which the magnitude of its principles, the extent
and variety of its details, demand from us. Other subjects of
more immediate and pressing interest must be thrown aside, to
make way for it. The reduction of the price of the public lands,
for which the new States have been petitioning for so many
years, and the modification of the tariff, the continuance of
which seems to be weakening the cement which binds this Union
together, must be postponed, and possibly lost for the session,
if we go on with the bank question. Why has the tariff been
dropped in the Senate? Every one recollects the haste with which
that subject was taken up in this chamber; how it was pushed to
a certain point; and how suddenly and gently it has given way to
the bank bill! Is there any union of interest--any conjunction
of forces--any combined plan of action--any alliance, offensive
or defensive, between the United States Bank and the American
system? Certainly they enter the field together, one here, the
other yonder (pointing to the House of Representatives), and
leaving a clear stage to each other, they press at once upon
both wings, and announce a perfect non-interference, if not
mutual aid, in the double victory which is to be achieved. Why
have the two bills reported by the Committee on Manufactures,
and for taking up which notices have been given: why are they
so suddenly, so easily, so gently, abandoned? Why is the land
bill, reported by the same committee, and a pledge given to
call it up when the Committee on Public Lands had made their
counter report, also suffered to sleep on the table? The counter
report is made; it is printed; it lies on every table; why not
go on with the lands, when the settlement of the question of the
amount of revenue to be derived from that source precedes the
tariff question, and must be settled before we can know how much
revenue should be raised from imports.
"An unfinished investigation presented another reason for
delaying the final action of Congress on this subject. The House
of Representatives had appointed a committee to investigate
the affairs of the bank; they had proceeded to the limit of the
time allotted them--had reported adversely to the bank--and
especially against the renewal of the charter at this session;
and had argued the necessity of further examinations. Would the
Senate proceed while this unfinished investigation was depending
in the other end of the building? Would they act so as to limit
the investigation to the few weeks which were allowed to the
committee, when we have from four to six years on hand within
which to make it? The reports of this committee, to the amount
of some 15,000 copies had been ordered to be printed by the two
Houses, to be distributed among the people. For what purpose?
Certainly that the people might read them--make up their minds
upon their contents--and communicate their sentiments to their
representatives. But these reports are not yet distributed; they
are not yet read by the people; and why order this distribution
without waiting for its effect, when there is so much time on
hand? Why treat the people with this mockery of a pretended
consultation--this illusive reference to their judgment--while
proceeding to act before they can read what we have sent to
them? Nay, more; the very documents upon which the reports are
founded are yet unprinted! The Senate is actually pushed into
this discussion without having seen the evidence which has been
collected by the investigating committee, and which the Senate
itself has ordered to be printed for the information of its
members.
"The decision of this question does not belong to this Congress,
but to the Congress to be elected under the new census of 1830.
It looked to him like usurpation for this Congress to seize upon
a question of this magnitude, which required no decision until
the new and full representation of the people shall come in; and
which, if decided now, though prematurely and by usurpation, is
irrevocable, although it cannot take effect until 1836;--that is
to say, until three years after the new and full representation
would be in power. What Congress is this? It is the
apportionment of 1820, formed on a population of ten millions.
It is just going out of existence. A new Congress, apportioned
upon a representation of thirteen millions, is already provided
for by law; and after the 4th of March next--within nine months
from this day--will be in power, and entitled to the seats in
which we sit. That Congress will contain thirty members more
than the present one. Three millions of people--a number equal
to that which made the revolution--are now unrepresented,
who will be then represented. The West alone--that section
of the Union which suffers most from the depredations of the
bank--loses twenty votes! In that section alone a million of
people lose their voice in the decision of this great question.
And why? What excuse? What necessity? What plea for this sudden
haste which interrupts an unfinished investigation--sets aside
the immediate business of the people--and usurps the rights of
our successors? No plea in the world, except that a gigantic
moneyed institution refuses to wait, and must have her imperial
wishes immediately gratified. If a charter was to be granted,
it should be done with as little invasion of the rights of
posterity--with as little encroachment upon the privileges of
our successors--as possible. Once in ten years, and that at the
commencement of each full representation under a new census,
would be the most appropriate time; and then charters should be
for ten, and not twenty years.
"Mr. B. had nothing to do with motives. He neither preferred
accusations, nor pronounced absolutions: but it was impossible
to shut his eyes upon facts, and to close up his reason against
the induction of inevitable inferences. The presidental
election was at hand;--it would come in four months;--and here
was a question which, in the opinion of all, must affect that
election--in the opinion of some, may decide it--which is
pressed on for decision four years before it is necessary to
decide it, and six years before it ought to be decided. Why this
sudden pressure? Is it to throw the bank bill into the hands of
the President, to solve, by a practical reference, the disputed
problem of the executive veto, and to place the President under
a cross fire from the opposite banks of the Potomac River? He
[Mr. B.] knew nothing about that veto, but he knew something
of human nature, and something of the rights of the people
under our representative form of government; and he would be
free to say that a veto which would stop the encroachment of a
minority of Congress upon the rights of its successors--which
would arrest a frightful act of legislative usurpation--which
would retrieve for the people the right of deliberation,
and of action--which would arrest the overwhelming progress
of a gigantic moneyed institution--which would prevent Ohio
from being deprived of five votes, Indiana from losing four,
Tennessee four, Illinois two, Alabama two, Kentucky, Mississippi
and Missouri one each--which would lose six votes to New-York
and two to Pennsylvania; a veto, in short, which would protect
the rights of three millions of people, now unrepresented in
Congress, would be an act of constitutional justice to the
people, which ought to raise the President, and certainly would
raise him, to a higher degree of favor in the estimation of
every republican citizen of the community than he now enjoyed.
By passing on the charter now, Congress would lose all check and
control over the institution for the four years it had yet to
run. The pendency of the question was a rod over its head for
these four years; to decide the question now, is to free it from
all restraint, and turn it loose to play what part it pleased in
all our affairs--elections, State, federal, presidential.
"Mr. B. turned to the example of England, and begged the
republican Senate of the United States to take a lesson from the
monarchial parliament of Great Britain. We copied their evil
ways; why not their good ones? We copied our bank charter from
theirs; why not imitate them in their improvements upon their
own work? At first the bank had a monopoly resulting from an
exclusive privilege: that is now denied. Formerly the charter
was renewed several years before it was out: it now has less
than a year to run, and is not yet rechartered."
A motion was made by Mr. Moore of Alabama, declaratory of the
right of the States to admit, or deny the establishment of
branches of the mother bank within their limits, and to tax
their loans and issues, if she chose to admit them: and in
support of that motion Mr. Benton made this speech:
"The amendment offered by the senator from Alabama [Mr. Moore]
was declaratory of the rights of the States, both to refuse
admission of these branch banks into their limits, and to tax
them, like other property, if admitted: if this amendment was
struck out, it was tantamount to a legislative declaration that
no such rights existed, and would operate as a confirmation of
the decision of the Supreme Court to that effect. It is to no
purpose to say that the rejection of the amendment will leave
the charter silent upon the subject; and the rights of the
States, whatsoever they may be, will remain in full force. That
is the state of the existing charter. It is silent upon the
subject of State taxation; and in that silence the Supreme Court
has spoken, and nullified the rights of the States. That court
has decided that the Bank of the United States is independent
of State legislation! consequently, that she may send branches
into the States in defiance of their laws, and keep them
there without the payment of tax. This is the decision; and
the decision of the court is the law of the land; so that, if
no declaratory clause is put into the charter, it cannot be
said that the new charter will be silent, as the old one was.
The voice of the Supreme Court is now heard in that silence,
proclaiming the supremacy of the bank, and the degradation of
the States; and, unless we interpose now to countervail that
voice by a legislative declaration, it will be impossible for
the States to resit it, except by measures which no one wishes
to contemplate.
"Mr. B. regretted that he had not seen in the papers any report
of the argument of the senator from Virginia [Mr. Tazewell] in
vindication of the right of the States to tax these branches.
It was an argument brief, powerful, and conclusive--lucid as a
sunbeam, direct as an arrow, and mortal as the stroke of fate
to the adversary speakers. Since the delivery of that argument,
they had sat in dumb show, silent as the grave, mute as the
dead, and presenting to our imaginations the realization of
the Abbé Sieyes's famous conception of a dumb legislature.
Before the States surrendered a portion of their sovereignity
to create this federal government, they possessed the unlimited
power of taxation; in the act of the surrender, which is the
constitution, they abridged this unlimited right but in two
particulars--exports and imports--which they agreed no longer
to tax, and therefore retained the taxing power entire over
all other subjects. This was the substance of the argument
which dumbfounded the adversary; and the distinction which was
attempted to be set up between tangible and intangible, visible
and invisible, objects of taxation; between franchises and
privileges on one side, and material substances on the other,
was so completely blasted and annihilated by one additional
stroke of lightning, that the fathers of the distinction really
believed that they had never made it! and sung their palinodes
in the face of the House.
"The argument that these branches are necessary to enable the
federal government to carry on its fiscal operations, and,
therefore, ought to be independent of State legislation, is
answered and expunged by a matter of fact, namely, that Congress
itself has determined otherwise, and that in the very charter of
the bank. The charter limits the right of the federal government
to the establishment of a single branch, and that one in the
District of Columbia! The branch at this place, and the parent
bank at Philadelphia, are all that the federal government has
stipulated for. All beyond that, is left to the bank itself;
to establish branches in the States or not, as it suited its
own interest; or to employ State banks, with the approbation
of the Secretary of the Treasury, to do the business of the
branches for the United States. Congress is contented with State
banks to do the business of the branches in the States; and,
therefore, authorizes the very case which gentlemen apprehend
and so loudly deprecate, that New-York may refuse her assent to
the continuance of the branches within her limits, and send the
public deposits to the State banks. This is what the charter
contemplates. Look at the charter; see the fourteenth article
of the constitution of the bank; it makes it optionary with the
directors of the bank to establish branches in such States as
they shall think fit, with the alternative of using State banks
as their substitutes in States in which they do not choose to
establish branches. This brings the establishment of branches
to a private affair, a mere question of profit and loss to the
bank itself; and cuts up by the roots the whole argument of the
necessity of these branches to the fiscal operations of the
federal government. The establishment of branches in the States
is, then, a private concern, and presents this question: Shall
non-residents and aliens--even alien enemies, for such they may
be--have a right to carry on the trade of banking within the
limits of the States, without their consent, without liability
to taxation, and without amenability to State legislation? The
suggestion that the United States owns an interest in this bank,
is of no avail. If she owned it all, it would still be subject
to taxation, like all other property is which she holds in the
States. The lands which she had obtained from individuals in
satisfaction of debts, were all subject to taxation; the public
lands which she held by grants from the States, or purchases
from foreign powers, were only exempted from taxation by virtue
of compacts, and the payment of five per centum on the proceeds
of the sales for that exemption."
The motion of Mr. Moore was rejected, and by the usual majority.
Mr. Benton then moved to strike out so much of the bill as gave to
the bank exclusive privileges, and to insert a provision making the
stockholders liable for the debts of the institution; and in support
of his motion quoted the case of the three Scottish banks which had
no exclusive privilege, and in which the stockholders were liable,
and the superior excellence of which over the Bank of England was
admitted and declared by English statesmen. He said:
"The three Scottish banks had held each other in check, had
proceeded moderately in all their operations, conducted their
business regularly and prudently, and always kept themselves in
a condition to face their creditors; while the single English
bank, having no check from rival institutions, ran riot in the
wantonness of its own unbridled power, deluging the country,
when it pleased, with paper, and filling it with speculation and
extravagance; drawing in again when it pleased, and filling it
with bankruptcy and pauperism; often transcending its limits,
and twice stopping payment, and once for a period of twenty
years. There can be no question of the incomparable superiority
of the Scottish banking system over the English banking system,
even in a monarchy; and this has been officially announced to
the Bank of England by the British ministry, as far back as
the year 1826, with the authentic declaration that the English
system of banking must be assimilated to the Scottish system,
and that her exclusive privilege could never be renewed. This
was done in a correspondence between the Earl of Liverpool,
first Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Robinson, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, on one side, and the Governor and Deputy Governor of
the Bank of England on the other. In their letter of the 18th
January, 1826, the two ministers, adverting to the fact of the
stoppage of payment, and repeated convulsions of the Bank of
England, while the Scottish banks had been wholly free from
such calamities, declared their conviction that there existed
an unsound and delusive system of banking in England, and a
sound and solid system in Scotland! And they gave the official
assurance of the British government, that neither His Majesty's
ministers, nor parliament, would ever agree to renew the
charter of the Bank of England with their exclusive privileges!
Exclusive privileges, they said, were out of fashion! Nor is it
renewed to this day, though the charter is within nine months of
its expiration!
"In the peculiar excellence of the Scottish plan, lies a few
plain and obvious principles, closely related to republican
ideas. First. No exclusive privileges. Secondly. Three
independent banks to check and control each other, and diffuse
their benefits, instead of one to do as it pleased, and
monopolize the moneyed power. Thirdly. The liability of each
stockholder for the amount of his stock, on the failure of
the bank to redeem its notes in specie. Fourthly. The payment
of a moderate interest to depositors. Upon these few plain
principles, all of them founded in republican notions, equal
rights, and equal justice, the Scottish banks have advanced
themselves to the first rank in Europe, have eclipsed the Bank
of England, and caused it to be condemned in its own country,
and have made themselves the model of all future banking
institutions in Great Britain. And now, it would be a curious
political phenomenon, and might give rise to some interesting
speculations on the advance of free principles in England, and
their decline in America, if the Scottish republican plan of
banking should be rejected here, while preferred there; and
the British monarchial plan, which is condemned there, should
be perpetuated here! and this double incongruity committed
without necessity, without excuse, without giving the people
time to consider, and to communicate their sentiments to their
constituents, when there is four, if not six years, for them to
consider the subject before final decision is required!"
The clause for continuing the exclusive privilege of the bank, was
warmly contested in the Senate, and arguments against it drawn from
the nature of our government, as well as from the example of the
British parliament, which had granted the monopoly to the Bank of
England in her previous charters, and denied it on the last renewal.
It owed its origin in England to the high tory times of Queen Anne,
and its extinction to the liberal spirit of the present century. Mr.
Benton was the chief speaker on this point; and--
"Pointed out the clauses in the charter which granted the
exclusive privilege, and imposed the restriction, which it
was the object of his motion to abolish; and read a part of
the 21st section, which enacted that no other bank should be
established by any future law of the United States, during the
continuance of that charter, and which pledged the faith of
the United States to the observance of the monopoly thereby
created. He said the privilege of banking, here granted, was
an exclusive privilege, a monopoly, and an invasion of the
rights of all future Congresses, as well as of the rights of
all citizens of the Union, for the term the charter had to
run, and which might be considered perpetual; as this was the
last time that the people could ever make head against the new
political power which raised itself in the form of the bank to
overbalance every other power in the government. This exclusive
privilege is contrary to the genius of our government, which is
a government of equal rights, and not of exclusive privileges;
and it is clearly unauthorized by the constitution, which only
admits of exclusive privileges in two solitary, specified cases,
and each of these founded upon a natural right, the case of
authors and inventors; to whom Congress is authorized to grant,
for a limited time, the exclusive privilege of selling their
own writings and discoveries. But in the case of this charter
there is no natural right, and it may be well said there is
no limited time; and the monopoly is far more glaring and
indefensible now than when first granted; for then the charter
was not granted to any particular set of individuals, but lay
open to all to subscribe to it; but now it is to be continued to
a particular set, and many of them foreigners, and all of whom,
or their assignees, had already enjoyed the privilege for twenty
years. If this company succeeds now in getting their monopoly
continued for fifteen years, they will so intrench themselves
in wealth and power, that they will be enabled to perpetuate
their charter, and transmit it as a private inheritance to their
posterity. Our government delights in rotation of office; all
officers, from the highest to the lowest, are amenable to that
principle; no one is suffered to remain in power thirty-five
years; and why should one company have the command of the
moneyed power of America for that long period? Can it be the
wish of any person to establish an oligarchy with unbounded
wealth and perpetual existence, to lay the foundation for a
nobility and monarchy in this America!
"The restriction upon future Congresses is at war with every
principle of constitutional right and legislative equality. If
the constitution has given to one Congress the right to charter
banks, it has given it to every one. If this Congress has a
right to establish a bank, every other Congress has. The power
to tie the hands of our successors is nowhere given to us; what
we can do our successors can; a legislative body is always
equal to itself. To make, and to amend; to do, and to undo; is
the prerogative of each. But here the attempt is to do what we
ourselves cannot amend--what our successors cannot amend--and
what our successors are forbidden to imitate, or to do in any
form. This shows the danger of assuming implied powers. If the
power to establish a national bank had been expressly granted,
then the exercise of that power, being once exerted, would
be exhausted, and no further legislation would remain to be
done; but this power is now assumed upon construction, after
having been twice rejected, in the convention which framed
the constitution, and is, therefore, without limitation as to
number or character. Mr. Madison was express in his opinions
in the year 1791, that, if there was one bank chartered, there
ought to be several! The genius of the British monarchy, he
said, favored the concentration of wealth and power. In America
the genius of the government required the diffusion of wealth
and power. The establishment of branches did not satisfy the
principle of diffusion. Several independent banks alone could
do it. The branches, instead of lessening the wealth and power
of the single institution, greatly increased both, by giving to
the great central parent bank an organization and ramification
which pervaded the whole Union, drawing wealth from every part,
and subjecting every part to the operations, political and
pecuniary, of the central institution. But this restriction ties
up the hands of Congress from granting other charters. Behave
as it may--plunge into all elections--convulse the country with
expansions and contractions of paper currency--fail in its
ability to help the merchants to pay their bonds--stop payment,
and leave the government no option but to receive its dishonored
notes in revenue payments--and still it would be secure of its
monopoly; the hands of all future Congresses would be tied up;
and no rival or additional banks could be established, to hold
it in check, or to supply its place.
"Is this the Congress to do these things? Is this the Congress
to impose restrictions upon the power of their successors? Is
this the Congress to tie the hands of all Congresses till the
year 1851? In nine months this Congress is defunct! A new and
full representation of the people will come into power. Thirty
additional members will be in the House of Representatives;
three millions of additional people will be represented. The
renewed charter is not to take effect till three years after
this full representation is in power! And are we to forestall
and anticipate them? Take their proper business out of their
hands--snatch the sceptre of legislation from them--do an
act which we cannot amend--which they cannot amend--which
is irrevocable and intangible; and, to crown this act of
usurpation, deliberately set about tying the hands, and imposing
a restriction upon a Congress equal to us in constitutional
power, superior to us in representative numbers, and better
entitled to act upon the subject, because the present charter is
not to expire, nor the new one to take effect, until three years
after the new Congress shall be in power! It is in vain to say
that this reasoning would apply to other legislative measures,
and require the postponement of the land bill and the tariff
bill. Both these bills require immediate decision, and therein
differ from the bank bill, which requires no decision for
three years to come. But the difference is greater still; for
the land bill and tariff bill are ordinary acts of legislation,
open to amendment, or repeal, by ourselves and successors; but
the charter is to be irrevocable, unamendable, binding upon all
Congresses till the year 1851. This is rank usurpation; and if
perpetrated by Congress, and afterwards arrested by an Executive
veto, the President will become the true representative of the
people, the faithful defender of their rights, and the defender
of the rights of the new Congress which will assemble under the
new census.
"Mr. B. concluded his remarks by showing the origin, and also
the extinction, of the doctrine in England. A tory parliament in
the reign of Queen Anne had first granted an exclusive privilege
to the Bank of England, and imposed a restriction upon the
right of future parliaments to establish another bank; and the
ministry of 1826 had condemned this doctrine, and proscribed
its continuance in England. The charter granted to the old Bank
of the United States and to the existing bank had copied those
obnoxious clauses; but now that they were condemned in England
as too unjust and odious for that monarchial country, they
ought certainly to be discarded in this republic, where equal
rights was the vital principle and ruling feature of all our
institutions."
All the amendments proposed by the opponents of the bank being
inexorably voted down, after a debate which, with some cessations,
continued from January to June, the final vote was taken, several
senators first taking occasion to show they had no interest in the
institution. Mr. Benton had seen the names of some members in the
list of stockholders; and early in the debate had required that
the rule of parliamentary law should be read; which excludes the
interested member from voting, and expunges his vote if he does,
and his interest is afterwards discovered. Mr. Dallas said that he
had sold his stock in the institution as soon as it was known that
the question of the recharter would come before him: Mr. Silsbee
said that he had disposed of his interest before the question came
before Congress: Mr. Webster said that the insertion of his name in
the list of stockholders was a mistake in a clerk of the bank. The
vote was then taken on the passage of the bill, and Stood: YEAS:
Messrs. Bell, of New Hampshire; Buckner, of Missouri; Chambers,
of Maryland; Clay, of Kentucky; Clayton, of Delaware; Dallas of
Pennsylvania; Ewing, of Ohio; Foot, of Connecticut; Frelinghuysen,
of New Jersey; Hendricks, of Indiana; Holmes, of Maine; Josiah
S. Johnston, of Louisiana; Knight, of Rhode Island; Naudain, of
Delaware; Poindexter, of Mississippi; Prentiss, of Vermont; Robbins,
of Rhode Island; Robinson, of Illinois; Ruggles, of Ohio; Seymour,
of Vermont; Silsbee, of Massachusetts; Smith (Gen. Samuel), of
Maryland; Sprague, of Maine; Tipton, of Indiana; Tomlinson, of
Connecticut; Waggaman, of Louisiana; Webster, of Massachusetts; and
Wilkins, of Pennsylvania: 28. Nays: Messrs. Benton, of Missouri;
Bibb, of Kentucky; Brown, of North Carolina; Dickerson, of New
Jersey; Dudley, of New-York; Ellis, of Mississippi; Forsyth, of
Georgia; Grundy, of Tennessee; Hayne, of South Carolina; Hill, of
New Hampshire; Kane, of Illinois; King, of Alabama; Mangum, of North
Carolina; Marcy, of New-York; Miller, of South Carolina; Moore,
of Alabama; Tazewell, of Virginia; Troup, of Georgia; Tyler, of
Virginia; Hugh L. White, of Tennessee: 20.