In construing the Constitution of the United States, when legislating on the enumerated powers of Congress, I lay down this rule of construction: that the only limitation to the power of Congress is either some positive or implied prohibition in the constitution itself, or the exercise of an honest and sober discretion. If, therefore, there is any reason to believe, at the present period and existing state of things, that by putting down the bank your revenue will be greatly impaired, your commerce will be injured, the public credit lessened, all of which Congress is to protect; does not such a state of things make it proper that the bank, which ought not to have been created, because not necessary, now ought to be continued because indispensable? It may here be said, that I am varying the constitution if I say that a thing is proper to-day which was not proper five and twenty years ago; that this vibration will always keep the constitution in an uncertain state. I say, no. My doctrine is subject to no such accusation; the principles of the constitution are uniform and unalterable. It is an uniform and unalterable principle, that Congress have the power to lay and collect taxes; they have the same positive, unchangeable right to exercise all the enumerated powers, the only rule of construction relating to them being that the means you use have a necessary relation to the power on which you legislate. If the means be not enumerated, you exercise discretion as to the means, having a regard to the existing state of things when you legislate concerning them. The same means may be necessary and proper now, which would not have been twenty years ago. You change the means to attain the end, but the end itself, the enumerated power in the constitution, remains unchanged. As long as the constitution exists, you must select the means most proper for executing the enumerated rights at the precise moment at which you legislate respecting them. If this be the true construction of the constitution respecting the recharter of the bank, the question merely resolves itself into an inquiry how far such a measure is at present expedient. To determine at this moment whether or not it be constitutional, or in other words expedient, to incorporate the Bank of the United States, I am to say whether, under existing circumstances, in the present state of society, situation of trade and revenue, the preservation and continuance of this institution is essentially necessary. If it be essentially necessary, we have a right to recharter the bank. I have been precise in stating this view of the subject, because it has not before been taken by any other gentleman.
Tuesday, February 19.
The credentials of John Condit, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, for the term of six years, commencing on the fourth day of March next; and of William B. Giles, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Virginia, for the term of six years, commencing on the fourth day of March next, were severally read, and ordered to lie on file.
Bank of the United States.
The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the bill to amend and continue in force an act, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States," passed on the 25th day of February, 1791.
Mr. Taylor.—Mr. President: Although much time has been consumed in the discussion of the subject before us, and the ground completely occupied by those who have gone before me, yet the importance of the subject, the immense magnitude of the unhappy consequences likely to result to the nation from the rejection of the bill on your table, compel me to offer to it all the support in my power. Indeed, sir, to this sense of duty to the nation is superadded a very sacred, and to me indispensable duty—my duty to the State which I have the honor in part to represent, as well as another duty, which from the course the debate has taken, is not to be disregarded; I mean, sir, the duty which I owe to myself.
I cannot, as other gentlemen have boasted they can, put my hand into my drawer and pull out the instructions by which I am to be directed on this important subject.
The State of South Carolina is a very large stockholder in some of her State banks, and if a selfish policy, contracted to the narrow sphere of the unique advantage in dollars and cents of the Government of that State—in contradiction and disregard of the great body of her own citizens, and the citizens of the rest of the States in the Union—could have weighed a moment with her Legislature, I too might have been instructed. Let me not be understood, Mr. President, as drawing any comparison between the conduct of the State of South Carolina and the conduct of the great and leading States who have acted otherwise; but I must and will tell of the things that I do know. I rejoice, sir, that the State which I come from has, in this instance, been actuated by that magnanimity and patriotism which on all former occasions has distinguished her conduct; that neither selfishness, nor party rage, nor a spirit of intolerance, has induced her to counteract or embarrass the National Legislature in its pursuit of the great object of its institution, the good of the whole.
I hope it will not be considered as savoring of egotism when I say that my appointment to the very honorable station I now hold was unsolicited by me. That my sentiments on the subject now under consideration had been by me unequivocally expressed at the last session of Congress, and were well known to those who appointed me. Nay, further, after my venerable and respected predecessor had resigned his seat here, and had declined, also, his appointment for the ensuing six years, pending the election of a successor to him, and when my name was held in nomination, a resolution was offered, similar to those which we have heard so much talk about, proposing to instruct the Senators of that State to oppose the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States. This resolution, as I am informed, lay on the Speaker's table when the election was gone into. I was elected, and the proposers of the resolution had not power nor influence enough to raise it from the table on which it lay, and it died stillborn at the end of the session; and if I were to make an inference at all on these transactions, I should suppose I was tacitly instructed to vote for the renewal of the bank charter. But I seek not the avoidance of responsibility. It is here, sir, in my own bosom, I have instructions paramount to all others. My beloved country has rested the matter here, and my gratitude is superadded to all other moral obligations operating on me to perform this trust, and to execute this duty with faithfulness. I find the authority of Congress to grant this charter in the same sections of the constitution which the gentlemen who have gone before me have pointed out to you. In section seven, clause first, power is given to Congress "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties shall be uniform throughout the United States."
Clause second gives power "to borrow money on the credit of the United States." And, in the last clause of said section, power is also given to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers vested by this constitution in the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof.