Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/473

1811.] is said, "No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver com a legal tender in payment of debts." The interpretation which I give to it is, that the United States possess power to make any thing, besides gold and silver, a legal tender. If what I conceive to be a fair interpretation be admitted, it must follow that they have a right to make bank paper a legal tender. Much more, then, sir, have they the power of causing it to be received by themselves, in payment of taxes.

January 16, 1811.

Mr. BURWELL. It is my most deliberate conviction, that the Constitution of the country gives no authority to Congress to incorporate a bank, and endow the stockholders with chartered immunities.

The power to establish a bank cannot be deduced from the general phrases, "to provide for the common defence and general welfare," because they merely announce the object for which the general government was instituted. The only means by which this object is to be attained are specifically enumerated in the Constitution; and if they are not ample, it is a defect which Congress are incompetent to supply.

P. B. PORTER. The Constitution is a specification of the powers, or means, themselves, by which certain objects are to be accomplished. The powers of the Constitution, carried into execution according to the strict terms and import of them, are the appropriate means, and the only means, within the reach of this government, for the attainment of its ends. It is true, as the Constitution declares,—and it would be equally true if the Constitution did not declare it,—that Congress have a right to pass all laws necessary and proper for executing the delegated powers; but this gives no latitude of discretion in the selection of means or powers.

Mr. KEY. The end, or power given, is to lay and collect taxes, and pay the public debt. The power to make laws necessary and proper to effect that end is also given, and consists in devising and establishing the means of accomplishing it. The means to accomplish the end are nowhere restricted.

If a bank is useful and necessary in the collection of taxes and imposts, and payment of the public debt, and is the best mode of effecting it, the creation of a bank for such purposes is definitely within the power of Congress; and more, it is the bounden duty of Congress to establish it, because they are bound to adopt the best practicable, or, in other words, necessary and proper means to collect the tax and imposts.

Mr. EPPES. The Constitution of the United States has universally been considered as a grant of particular, and not of general, powers. Those powers are the primary or expressly delegated, and the derivative or implied. The character of the instrument precluded the necessity of a "bill of rights," because the question never could arise, what was reserved, but what was granted. The framers of the Constitution were well aware of this, and so were the people who adopted it. It is, therefore, fairly to be inferred that, whenever there appears a limitation or restriction, in the shape of a negative clause. Congress might have exercised the power interdicted had such clause not been made part of the instrument.

Mr. CRAWFORD. If the state governments are restrained from exercising this right to incorporate a bank, it would appear, ex necessitate rei, that this right is vested in the government of the United States. The entire 5839