Let us understand the meaning of the words necessary and proper, to the last-quoted clause, for upon a correct knowledge of these depends, in my opinion, the correctness of our conclusions on this subject. The word necessary, in its technical and legal sense, in the meaning affixed to it in common parlance, established by usage, custom, reason, and the common law of the land, is different and distinct from the signification of the same adjective derived from the substantive necessity, as used by Hobbes, Hutchinson, Hume, and the other metaphysicians of the last century. It is well known that they used the substantive necessity as synonymous with the word fate, and which necessity, according to the opinions of one party, controlled omnipotence itself. This necessity was supposed by them co-existent with the Deity itself, not prospective nor discretionary, bending in one way, and in one way only, all substance, all matter, and all spirit. This meaning of the word is only to be found with these metaphysicians and philosophers; but in our law books, in the daily and hourly use of the word in common conversation, it has no such meaning. When the old Congress passed the conditional charter—which I admit they had not a delegated power to grant, but which is fully in point, both as to the signification of the word, and, also, of their opinion of the necessity, and even indispensableness of a bank for the administering the fiscal concerns of the nation—in the conclusion of the preamble they say that the exigencies of the United States render it indispensably necessary to pass the act, &c.; and in the laws passed during that period, when this Government was in the habit of following the English custom of beginning the laws by a preamble, you find the word necessary used as synonymous to expediency—practical expediency, (see Laws of the United States, vol. 1, page 247; idem, page [276],) in fact, among frail mortals with fallible judgments like ours. With any beings endued with less than omniscience, the word necessary must be only applicable to the honest judgment we can make up concerning the subject to which we apply it; in other words, it is resolvable into that sound discretion with which, as moral agents, we are in the first instance intrusted by our Maker, and in the instance now before us, we are intrusted with by the constitution and by the citizens who have sent us here to transact their business. But the rigid necessity which our opponents wish to enforce on us, this metaphysical necessity, must, from its very nature, be immutable; it must be unique, and could not exist in a greater or less degree; and, therefore, the word joined to it in the constitution (proper) could have no meaning at all. The laws, to be passed, must be necessary, is the only one way given under heaven by which you are to effect the end desired; in other words, the law must be imposed by Fate. It is perfect nonsense to say that there is a latitude left with us to judge whether such a law is proper or improper. I have, I think, brought the meaning of the word necessary to the level and within the comprehension of frail human intellect. The signification of the word proper I take to contain the description of the measure or law to which it is applied, in the following respects: whether the law is in conformity to the letter, the spirit, and the meaning of the constitution; whether it will produce the good end desired in the most ready, easy, and convenient mode, that we are acquainted with.
Great stress is laid on that amendment of the constitution which says, that all power not expressly granted shall be retained, &c. Either the general clause I have relied on gives power or it does not; if it did not give power, why was this amendment made? And if it did, and this power was offensive, why was it not stricken out when the amendment was made? But if it expressly gave power, which I contend, its being suffered to remain is proof that it was not the design of the amendment to take away the power given. Could not the Territory of Columbia have been governed without erecting a single corporation in it? I don't mean well governed. But was there that fatal necessity; that command from Jove,
"Ye fates fulfil it, and ye powers approve,"
to erect corporations? This legislation to erect corporations being, according to our opponents, sui generis, not of the ordinary kind, and only to be exercised where the express authority is given by the constitution, I ask gentlemen to show the clause in the constitution which expressly gives us the power to perform this sublimated act of legislation in this Territory any more than in any other part of the United States; and yet at this very session we have sent an armful of these high acts. The shelves of the office of the Secretary groan under the pile of charters we have granted.
I said it was easy to prove that the broad grant given to Congress to legislate for this Territory in all cases whatsoever, was restricted and paled in by the constitution. Congress cannot make the duties here on imports less or greater than elsewhere in the United States—imports and taxes must be equal, &c.—nor deprive the citizens thereof of the right to a trial by jury, nor grant them titles of nobility; and yet the incidents here alluded to would come under the description in the clause "of all cases whatsoever." In truth, sir, there is not a scintilla of the spirit, nor a single word or letter of the constitution, that loses its power and sanction upon our conduct in legislating in this particular. There is no more a power given us to legislate ad libitum on this Territory, nor to derive therefor powers by implication, than is given us in the laws we pass for the whole nation; and if this power, sui generis, of creating corporations, is properly defined by our opponents, they ought to go back to the works of yesterday, as well as to those of twenty years' standing, in order to introduce their new order of things. I might here draw a comparison of the tried scheme of using the United States' Bank, and the untried scheme of using State banks in aid of the operations of the National Treasury; but I should only be saying with less force what has been so fully and so conclusively said by the gentlemen who have preceded me. Suffice it to say, that for safe-keeping, for transmission and payment of the funds to any part of the nation, and for enforcing the punctual payment by the debtors to the customs, by addressing to those debtors the arguments to the sense of honor and shame, and also to their interest, to wit: by denying them credit in the bank on failure in punctuality—all these have been afforded to the Government without its incurring therefor one cent's expense. Are we sure the State banks can or will do this? I beg pardon of the Senate for detaining them on topics not new. As this is made a case of conscience, I deemed it necessary to be thus particular. I have no hesitation in saying, we have the right to act on this subject, inasmuch as I think the bank is both necessary and proper for the purposes above referred to.
To me it appears that this power is expressly granted; we derive it not by implication; but our opponents, in fact, are pressed to the necessity of using implication to come at the denial they set up against the exercise by Congress of this power.
I say, further, that this institution is necessary and proper for carrying into effect another general power, viz: The power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
It is acknowledged on all hands that there is not specie enough in the nation, if applied solely to that purpose, to pay our annual impost. The operations of the Bank of Columbia in transferring the revenue derived from a part of Virginia (and of the land funds from the westward,) and of the Manhattan Bank in performing the same office in respect to the collections in Connecticut, have been dwelt upon by the honorable Senator from Maryland, (Mr. Smith.) His arguments drawn from the facts would have been more conclusive if he could have instanced the same facilities afforded to the Government between banks disconnected by the effect of that neighborhood circulation and of that course of trade very apparent in the instances he has produced. But it is not conclusive at any rate. There is a neighborhood medium of circulation, (the State bank paper,) and there is a national medium, (the United States paper.) The latter, under the present state of things, corrects the operations of distant banks and renders their transfers easy; but, deprived of this, would any of them, situated at four and five hundred miles, or at one thousand miles' distance, agree to make these transfers for the Government free of expense? Could they, for instance, transfer the solid bullion belonging to the United States from Orleans to Boston or Philadelphia, without our affording compensation for freight, insurance, &c.? I have witnessed the advantages of this national medium in the State I live in; and in the months of autumn, when strangers are fearful of venturing to Charleston, our western friends, rather than carry the hard dollars, are in the habit of giving two or three per cent. for bills of the Bank of the United States. Destroy this national medium, you insulate the State banks, which are so far asunder as not to be within the influence of the neighborhood medium of circulation. The stroke of our dreadful wand disconnects the ligament by which they are bound together in their distant operations.
Mr. Pickering.—I will now, Mr. President, make some observations on the main question under consideration. Whether Congress have the power by the constitution to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States?