Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/151

 CH. XXV.] can any other government. The welfare of the community is the only legitimate end, for which money can he raised on the community. Congress can he 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 he, 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 of the matter, no inference whatever can he drawn from it. But, whatever may have been the private intentions of the framers of the constitution, which