power, and that conciliatory adjustment is inapplicable and inadmissible. Do not say that we who believe that the general government may establish a bank with branches in the States possessing the local discount function without their assent, do, by voting for this amendment, surrender our opinions, or strike out a particle of power from the Constitution. No, sir, we do neither. What we say and do, and all we say and do, is exactly this. We assert that the full power is in the Constitution. There we leave it, unabridged, unimpaired. We declared that, when, in our judgment, it is expedient to exert it, we will concur in exerting it in its whole measure, ourselves uncommitted, unembarrassed by the forbearance which we now advise and practice. But we say that all power is to be exercised with sound discretion in view of the time and circumstances; that contested constitutional power is pre-eminently so to be exercised; that it does not follow, because we possess a giant's strength, that we are therefore to put it all forth, with the blind and undistinguishing impulse of a giant; that, in this instance, deferring to temporary and yet embarrassing circumstances, to opinions, for the sake of harmonious and permanent administration, for the sake of conciliating and saving friends, for the sake of immediate relief to the vast, various, and sensitive business interests of a great people, we do not think it needful or discreet to exercise the whole power over this subject which we find, assert, and cherish in the Constitution. We content ourselves with declaring that it is there, and that there we mean it shall remain. But perceiving that we can secure to the country all the practical good which it was introduced to secure without resorting to it; perceiving that, in the actual condition of things, we cannot

now exert it if we would; perceiving that we can reconcile opinions, spare feelings, and insure a general harmony of useful administrative action, by abstaining from the use of it, we abstain from the use of it. Thus the Senator from Virginia understands this act, and thus do we. No broader, no other effect can be ascribed to it. If you inspect the bill itself, after it shall have received this amendment, you will find that it in truth assumes and asserts the constitutional power of the National Legislature to create a corporation which has authority to transact in every one of the States all the business of a bank except that of discounting. So much power it necessarily assumes and asserts. And then as to the business of making discounts, it neither asserts nor denies that you have the power to authorize it without the assent of the States; it just authorizes the corporation to do it with their assent, and there it leaves the matter. classes of expounders of the Constitution, certainly that to which I belong, may vote for such a bill without yielding any opinion, or changing in the least the sacred and awful text of the great Charter itself.

Both

Let me say, sir, that to administer the contested powers of the Constitution is, for those of you who believe that they exist, at all times a trust of difficulty and delicacy. I do not know that I should not venture to suggest this general direction for the performance of that grave duty. Steadily and strongly assert their existence; do not surrender them; retain them with a provident forecast; for the time may come when you will need to enforce them by the whole moral and physical strength of the Union; but do not exert them at all so long as you can by other less offensive expedients of wisdom effectually secure to the people all the practical benefits which you believe they

were inserted into the Constitution to secure. Thus will the Union last longest and do most good. To exercise a contested power without necessity on a notion of keeping up the tone of government is not much better than tyranny, and very improvident and impolitic tyranny, too. It is turning "extreme medicine into daily bread." It forgets that the final end of government is not to exert restraint, but to do good.

Within this general view of the true mode of administering contested powers, I think the measure we propose is as wise as it is conciliatory; wise because it is conciliatory; wise because it reconciles a sound and a strong theory of the Constitution with a discreet and kind administration of it. I desire to give the country a bank. Well, here is a mode in which I can do it. Shall I refuse to do it in that mode, because I cannot at the same time, and by the same operation, gain a victory over the settled constitutional opinions, and show my contempt for the ancient and unappeasable jealousy and prejudices of not far less than half of the American people? Shall I refuse to do it in that mode, because I cannot at the same time, and by the same operation, win a triumph of constitutional law over political associates, who agree with me on nine in ten of all the questions which divide the parties of the country; whose energies and eloquence, under many an October and many an August sun, have contributed so much to the transcendent reformation which has brought you into power? Shall I refuse to the people their rights, until and unless, by the mode of conferring those rights, I can also plant a wound in the side of one who has stood shoulder to shoulder with me in the great civil contest of the last ten years? Do you really desire that the same cloud of summer which

pauses to pour out its treasures, long withheld, on the parched and dreary land, should send down a thunderbolt on the head of a noble and conspicuous friend? Certainly nobody here can cherish such a thought for a moment. There is one consideration more which has had some influence in determining my vote. I confess that I think that a bank established in the manner contemplated by this amendment stands, in the actual circumstances of our time, a chance to lead a quieter and more secure life, so to speak, than a bank established by the bill. I think it worth our while to try to make, what never yet was seen, a popular National Bank. Judging from the past and the present, from the last years of the last bank, and the manner in which its existence was terminated; from the tone of the debate and of the press, and the general indications of public opinion, I acknowledge an apprehension that such an institution, created by a direct exertion of your power, throwing off its branches without regard to the wishes or wants of the States, as judged of by them. selves, and without any attempt to engage their auxiliary co-operation, diminishing the business and reducing the profits of the local banks, and exempted from their burdens-I confess that such an institution may not find so quiet and safe a field of operation as is desirable for usefulness and profit. I do not wish to see it standing like a fortified post on a foreign border-never wholly at peace, always assailed, always belligerent, not falling perhaps, but never safe, the nurse and the prize of implacable hostility. No, sir. Even such an institution, under conceivable circumstances, it might be our duty to establish and maintain in the face of all opposition and to the last gasp. But so much evil attends such a state of things, so much insecur

ity, so much excitement; it would be exposed to the pelting of such a pitiless storm of the press and of public speech; so many demagogues would get good livings by railing at it; so many honest men would really regard it as unconstitutional, and as dangerous to business and to liberty, that it is worth an exertion to avoid it. Why, sir, notice has been formally given us by the eloquent Senator from Ohio, that on the day you grant this charter he lays a resolution on your table to repeal it. Sir, I desire to see the Bank of the United States become a cherished domestic institution, reposing in the bosom of our law and of our attachments. Established by the concurrent action or on the application of the States, such might be its character. There will be a struggle on the question of admitting the discount power into the States; much good sense and much nonsense will be spoken and written; but such a struggle will be harmless and brief, and when that is over, all is over. The States which exclude it will hardly exasperate themselves further about it. Those which admit it will soothe themselves with the consideration that the act is their own, and that the existence of this power of the branch is a perpetual recognition of their sovereignty. Thus might it sooner cease to wear the alien, aggressive, and privileged aspect which has rendered it offensive, and become sooner blended with the mass of domestic interests, cherished by the same regards, protected by the same and by a higher law.