Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/540

524

, April 13, 1830.

Mr. M'DUFFIE. It remains for the committee to show that the Bank of the United States is a "necessary and proper," or, in other words, a natural and appropriate, means of executing the powers vested in the federal government. In the discussion of 1791, and also in that before the Supreme Court, the powers of raising, collecting, and disbursing, the public revenue, of borrowing money on the credit of the United States, and paying the public debt, were those which were supposed most clearly to carry with them the incidental right of incorporating a bank, to facilitate these operations. There can be no doubt that these fiscal operations are greatly facilitated by a bank, and it is confidently believed that no person has presided twelve months over the treasury, from its first organization to the present time, without coming to the conclusion that such an institution is exceedingly useful to the public finances in time of peace, but indispensable in time of war. But as this view of the question has been fully unfolded in former discussions familiar to the house, the committee will proceed to examine the relation which the Bank of the United States bears to another of the powers of the federal government, but slightly adverted to in former discussions of the subject.

The power to "coin money and fix the value thereof" is expressly and exclusively vested in Congress. This grant was evidently intended to invest Congress with the power of regulating the circulating medium. "Coin" was regarded, at the period of framing the Constitution, as synonymous with "currency," as it was then generally believed that bank notes could only be maintained in circulation by being the true representative of the precious metals. The word "coin," therefore, must be regarded as a particular term, standing as the representative of a general idea. No principle of sound construction will justify a rigid adherence to the letter, in opposition to the plain intention of the clause. If, for example, the gold bars of Ricardo should be substituted for our present coins, by the general consent of the commercial world, could it be maintained that Congress would not have the power to make such money, and fix its value, because it is not "coined"? This would be sacrificing sense to sound, and substance to mere form. This clause of the Constitution is analogous to that which gives Congress the power "to establish post-roads." Giving to the word "establish" its restricted interpretation, as being equivalent to "fix" or "prescribe," can it be doubted that Congress has the power to establish a canal, or a river, as a post-route, as well as a road? Roads were the ordinary channels of conveyance, and the term was, therefore, used as synonymous with "routes," whatever might be the channel of transportation; and, in like manner, "coin" being the ordinary and most known form of a circulating medium, that term was used as synonymous with currency.

An argument in favor of the view just taken may be fairly deduced from the fact, that the states are expressly prohibited from "coining money, or emitting bills of credit," and from "making any thing but gold and silver a lawful tender in payment of debts." This strongly confirms the idea, that the subject of regulating the circulating medium, whether consisting of coin or paper, was, at the same time that it was taken from the control of the states, vested in the only depository in which it could be placed, consistently with the obvious design of having a common measure of value throughout the Union.