A motion was made by Mr. Fisk, that the House do now adjourn; and the question being taken thereon, it was determined in the negative—yeas 6, nays 59.
Bank of the United States.
The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States.
Mr. Burwell's motion for striking out the first section being still under consideration.
Mr. P. B. Porter.—Mr. Chairman: As this bank has excited so extraordinary an interest in every part of the United States, and particularly in the State which I have the honor to represent; as I am apprehensive, from what took place yesterday, that I shall be found, on this question, in opposition to a majority of my colleagues; and, (what will always be an imperative motive with me,) as I think this bill aims a deadly blow at some of the best principles of the constitution, I feel it my duty to state to the House the grounds on which I shall be constrained to vote for striking out the section now under consideration.
I acknowledge that I had not, until lately, paid any particular attention to the question of the constitutionality of this institution. I stand, therefore, in this respect, on safer ground than the respectable member from North Carolina (Mr. Macon,) for I have no reason to suspect myself of any long-rooted prejudices on the question. The Bank of the United States was established at a time when I was not in the habit of troubling myself with such questions. I had been accustomed to think of it as an institution, the constitutionality of which was conceded by common consent. But, sir, when the question was again stirred, I felt it my duty to give it a thorough investigation before I should sanction it by my vote. I have given it, if not a thorough, at least a candid and impartial examination; and the result has been, a full conviction that we have no right to incorporate a bank upon the principles of the bill on the table, or rather, upon the principles of the original charter, which this bill proposes to renew. The ground of my objection is, that it assumes the exercise of legislative powers which belong exclusively to the State Governments.
I shall not touch the question of the expediency of this bank, much less the expediency of banking generally. If I were competent, which I confess I am not, to the task, I should think it a very unprofitable one, to follow the gentleman through all the mazes of the banking system—a system, sir, about the various and important operations and effects of which on civil society, aside from a few obvious truths which it furnishes, I have found that those gentlemen who have professed to understand them best, have differed most. As I propose to confine myself to the constitutional question solely, I hope I shall be allowed to take a little broader range on this point, than has been taken by the gentlemen who have preceded me.
I am aware how ungracious constitutional objections to the powers of this House are with those, and there are many such, who believe that the powers of the Federal Government are, at best, too contracted; and who would be glad to see all the State rights merged and sunk into a consolidated government. Whatever may be my speculative opinions on this subject, I can never be influenced, by motives of expediency, to swerve from my allegiance to the constitution. This sentiment is indelibly fixed on my mind, and I trust it is a common one to the members of this committee. That, in adhering strictly to the obligation we have taken to support the Constitution of the United States, we not only perform a sacred duty to ourselves, but we render a better service to the real and permanent interests of our country than we could possibly render by a departure from that obligation; even though that departure were to avert so serious a calamity as a general bankruptcy—a calamity which, in order to alarm the timid, has been held out as the inevitable consequence of a refusal to renew this charter.
I should be surprised at the general acquiescence which seems to have been yielded to the constitutionality of this institution, did I not believe that others had been as superficial in their examination of the subject as I had myself. When objections are made to the constitutionality of the law, the people, in the cursory views which they are accustomed to take of such objects, are apt to adopt, as the tests of its constitutionality, the powers of the State and Federal Governments collectively; and if they find nothing in the law offensive to the principles of civil liberty, nothing uncongenial with the spirit of a Republican Government, they rest satisfied, and do not trouble themselves with nice distinctions between the powers peculiar to the one or the other of these Governments. Such reasoning would, however, ill become the sagacity of this House.
One of the most serious dangers with which our Government is threatened, and it is a danger growing out of the very nature and structure of the Government itself, consists in its tendency to produce collisions between State and Federal authorities. The Federal Government, as was observed by my learned colleague, (Mr. Mitchill,) is imperium in imperio, a government within a government; and the misfortune is, that there exists no friendly third power to decide the controversies which may arise between these two great, independent, and, in many respects, rival authorities. The public peace must be kept, if kept at all, by the conciliatory dispositions of the parties themselves. As then we have a common interest in the preservation of both these Governments—as we are as well the subjects of the imperio as of the imperium, we ought to act with great circumspection and delicacy in the assumption of powers which do not clearly belong to us. It is better to forego the exercise of powers to which we are entitled, if the exercise of them is not very important, rather than hazard the assumption of doubtful ones, the fatal consequences of which my honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Burwell) has so justly deprecated.