Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/311

Rh violated, by a bank so located, as to enrich one state, and tax another. Considered as a non-descript species of revenue, no power to insist it on the publick, or to bestow it on private people, is given to Congrress.

In the appropiation, as in the apportionment or uniformity of revenue, will be found alimitation of the power of Congress. An unconstitutional mode of taxing; may in- flict partial injuries upon particular states, but an uncon- stitutional application of revenue, may be ruinous to all. It is inconceivable that (be constitution, whilst so cautiously providing against the first evil, should have overlooked the second. The loosest security against it, is deposited in a limitation of the revenue collected, to the " common de- fence and general welfare of the United States:" and the right of Congress to appropriate a revenue collected by bank paper, for the defence or welfare of a corporation, is visibly beyond this wide definition.

Under the idea "of carrying the powers given into execution," could Congress have invested the parliament of England, with the privileges granted to the bank of the United States? Such a charter would have bestowed on England the object of her war upon us, revenue. In what part of the constitution is to be found a prohibition upon Congress to bestow a revenue upon the British parliament, or a power to bestow one on chartered companies? A construction necessary to invest Congress with one power must include the other.

Testimony applicable to the question exists without and within the Constitution. A rejection of a proposal for empowering Congress to establish a bank by the convention, is the evidence without the constitution; and a special power to grant charters " to authors and inventors," is the evidence within it, uniting in a condemnation of the construction, which claims for Congress an unlimited power of bestowing revenue upon corporations, and literally forbidding that mode of doing it called banking. A special and limited power excludes the idea of a general and unlimited power, which includes the special one.