Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/437

1791.], may be abused; but from hence the disabuse of either cannot be inferred. In the exercise of prerogative, the minister is responsible for his advice to his sovereign, and the members of either house are responsible to their constituents for their conduct in construing the Constitution. We act at our peril: if our conduct is directed to the attainment of the great objects of government, it will be approved, and not otherwise. But this cannot operate as a reason to prevent our discharging the trusts reposed in us.

Let us now compare the different modes of reasoning on this subject, and determine which is right—for both cannot be.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Madison) has urged the dangerous tendency of a liberal construction; but which is most dangerous, a liberal or a destructive interpretation? The liberty we have taken in interpreting the Constitution, we conceive to be necessary, and it cannot be denied to be useful in attaining the objects of it; but whilst he denies us this liberty, he grants to himself a right to annul part, and a very important part, of the Constitution. The same principle that will authorize a destruction of part, will authorize the destruction of the whole, of the Constitution; and if gentlemen have a right to make such rules, they have an equal right to make others for enlarging the powers of the Constitution, and indeed of forming a despotism. Thus, if we take the gentleman for our pilot, we shall be wrecked on the reef which he cautions us to avoid.

The gentleman has referred us to the last article of the amendment proposed to the Constitution by Congress, which provides that the powers not delegated to Congress, or prohibited to the states, shall rest in them or the people; and the question is, What powers are delegated? Does the gentleman conceive that such only are delegated as are expressed? If so, he must admit that our whole code of laws are unconstitutional. This he disavows, and yields to the necessity of interpretation, which, by a fair and candid application of established rules of construction to the Constitution, authorize, as has been shown, the measure under consideration.

The usage of Congress has also been referred to; and if we look at their acts under the existing Constitution, we shall find they are generally the result of a liberal construction. I will mention but two. The first relates to the establishment of the executive departments, and gives to the President the power of removing officers. As the Constitution is silent on this subject, the power mentioned, by the gentleman's own reasoning, is vested in the states or the people. He, however, contended for an assumption of the power, and, when assumed, urged that it should be vested in the President, although, like the power of appointment, it was, by a respectable minority in both houses, conceived that it should have been vested in the President and Senate. His rule of interpretation then was, therefore, more liberal than it is now. In the other case. Congress determined by law, with the sanction of the President, when and where they should hold their next session, although the Constitution provides that this power shall rest solely in the two houses. The gentleman also advocated this measure, and yet appears to be apprehensive of the consequences that may result from a construction of the Constitution which admits of a national bank. But from which of these measures is danger to be apprehended? The only danger from our interpretation would be the exercise by Congress of a general power to form corporations; but the dangers resulting from the gentleman's interpretation are very