Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/634

618 endeavors to except them from other personal property, and from the operation of the clause in question. The moneys being in the coffers of government, what is to hinder such a disposition to be made of them as is contemplated in the bill; or what an incorporation of the parties concerned, under the clause which has been cited?

It is admitted that, with regard to the western territory, they give a power to erect a corporation; that is, to constitute a government. And by what rule of construction can it be maintained that the same words, in a constitution of government, will not have the same effect when applied to one species of property as to another, as far as the subject is capable of it? or that a legislative power to make all needful rules and regulations, or to pass all laws necessary and proper concerning the public property, which is admitted to authorize an incorporation, in one case, will not authorize it in another; will justify the institution of a government over the western territory, and will not justify the incorporation of a bank for the more useful management of the money of the nation? If it will do the last as well as the first, then, under this provision alone, the bill is constitutional, because it contemplates that the United States shall be joint proprietors of the stock of the bank. There is an observation of the secretary of state to this effect, which may require notice in this place.—Congress, says he, are not to lay taxes ad libitum, for any purpose they please, but only to pay the debts, or provide for the welfare, of the Union. Certainly no inference can be drawn from this against the power of applying their money for the institution of a bank. It is true that they cannot, without breach of trust, lay taxes for any other purpose than the general welfare; but so neither can any other government. The welfare of the community is the only legitimate end for which money can be raised on the community. Congress can be considered as only under one restriction, which does not apply to other governments. They cannot rightfully apply the money they raise to any purpose merely or purely local. But, with this exception, they have as large a discretion, in relation to the application of money, as any legislature whatever.

The constitutional test of a right application must always be, whether it be for a purpose of general or local nature. If the former, there can be no want of constitutional power. The quality of the object, as how far it will really promote, or not, the welfare of the Union, must be matter of conscientious discretion; and the arguments for or against a measure, in this light, must be arguments concerning expediency or inexpediency, not constitutional right; whatever relates to the general order of the finances, to the general interests of trade, &c., being general objects, are constitutional ones, for the application of money. A bank, then, whose bills are to circulate in all the revenues of the country, is evidently a general object; and, for that very reason, a constitutional one, as far as regards the appropriation of money to it. Whether it will really be a beneficial one, or not, is worthy of careful examination, but is no more a constitutional point, in the particular referred to, than the question, whether the western lands shall be sold for twenty or thirty cents per acre. A hope is entertained that, by this time, it has been made to appear to the satisfaction of the President, that the bank has a natural relation to the power of collecting taxes; to that of regulating trade; to that of providing for the common defence; and that, as the bill under consideration contemplates the government in the light of a joint proprietor of the stock of the bank, it brings the case within the provision of the clause of the Constitution which immediately respects the property of the United States. Under a conviction that such a relation subsists, the secretary of the treasury, with all deference, conceives that it will result as a necessary consequence from the position, that all the specified powers of government are sovereign, as to the proper objects; that the incorporation of a bank is a constitutional measure; and that the objections, taken to the bill in this respect, are ill founded.

But, from an earnest desire to give the utmost possible satisfaction to the mind of the President, on so delicate and important a subject, the secretary of the treasury will ask his indulgence, while he gives some additional illustrations of cases in which a power of erecting corporations may be exercised, under some of those heads of the specified powers of the government which are