Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/648

632 in writing, made the bonds, bills, or notes, by them drawn or endorsed negotiable at the bank, is not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or of Maryland. Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 316.

72. Congress has power to incorporate a bank. M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.

73. The government of the Union is a government of the people; it emanates from them; its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit. Ibid.

74. The government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme laws of the land. Ibid.

75. The government, which has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means. Ibid.

76. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States, similar to the Articles of Confederation, which excludes incidental or implied powers. Ibid.

77. If the end be legitimate, and within the scope of the Constitution, all the means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, and which are not prohibited, may constitutionally be employed to carry it into effect. Ibid.

78. The power of establishing a corporation is not a distinct sovereign power or end of government, but only the means of carrying into effect other powers which are sovereign. Whenever it becomes an appropriate means of exercising any of the powers given by the Constitution to the government of the Union, it may be exercised by that government. Ibid.

79. If certain means to carry into effect any of the powers expressly given by the Constitution to the government of the Union, be an appropriate measure, not prohibited by the Constitution, the degree of its necessity is a question of legislative discretion, not of judicial cognizance. Ibid.

80. The act of April 10, 1816, ch. 44. (3 Stor. 1547,) to "incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States," is a law made in pursuance of the Constitution. Ibid.

81. The Bank of the United States has, constitutionally, a right to establish its branches, or offices of discount and deposit, within any state. Ibid.

82. The state within which such branch may be established cannot constitutionally tax that branch. Ibid.

83. The state governments have no right to tax any of the constitutional means employed by the government of the Union to execute its constitutional powers. Ibid.

84. The states have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operation of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into effect the powers vested in the national government. Ibid.

85. This principle does not extend to a tax paid by the real property of the Bank of the United States, in common with the other real property in a particular state; nor to a tax imposed on the proprietary interest which the citizens of that state may hold in this institution, in common with other property of the same description throughout the state. Ibid.

86. The charter granted by the British crown to the trustees of Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, in the year 1769, is a contract within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution of the United States, (art. 1, sect. 10,) which declares that no state shall make any law impairing contracts; and this charter was not dissolved by the revolution. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518.

87. An act of the legislature of New Hampshire, altering the charter in a material respect, without the consent of the corporation, is an act impairing the obligation of a contract, and is unconstitutional and void. Ibid.

88. The act of Congress of March 3, 1819, ch. 76, § 35, referring to the law of nations for a definition of the crime of piracy, is a constitutional exercise of the power of Congress to define that crime. United States v. Smith, 5 Wheat. 153.

89. Congress has authority to impose a direct tax on the District of Columbia,