The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831

by Various

"It is thought practicable to organize such a bank, with the necessary officers, as a branch of the treasury department, based on the public and individual deposits, without power to make loans or purchase property, which shall remit the funds of the government, and the expenses of which may be paid, if thought advisable, by allowing its officers to sell bills of exchange to private individuals at a moderate premium. Not being a corporate body, having no stockholders, debtors, or property, and but few officers, it would not be obnoxious to the constitutional objections which are urged against the present bank; and having no means to operate on the hopes, fears, or interests, of large masses of the community, it would be shorn of the influence which makes that bank formidable. The states would be strengthened by having in their hands the means of furnishing the local paper currency through their own banks; while the bank of the United States, though issuing no paper, would check the issues of the state banks, by taking their notes in deposit, and for exchange, only so long as they continue to be redeemed with specie. In times of public emergency, the capacities of such an institution might be enlarged by legislative provisions.

"These suggestions are made, not so much as a recommendation, as with a view of calling the attention of congress to the possible modifications of a system, which cannot continue to exist in its present form without occasional collisions with the local authorities, and perpetual apprehensions and discontent on the part of the states and the people."

When the president's views, as here disclosed, are analyzed, they seem to involve the following propositions, to each of which we will give a separate consideration.

1. That the present Bank of the United States is unconstitutional.

2. That it exercises a dangerous influence.

3. That it creates discontent with the people, and collisions with the states.

4. That such a bank as is proposed in its place, is free from all these objections.

1. On the constitutionality of the bank, we have little to add to the remarks made on the subject in our last number. The arguments then urged having received no answer, and being, as we conceive, unanswerable, we must consider that the more the question is investigated, the more it will be found that a power which has been recognised by every branch of the government, and at some time or other, by every party that has administered the affairs of the nation, will be found to be correct. We cannot, however, forbear to add one other, because of its peculiar fitness to the present occasion.

It is known, that the power of the general government to establish a national bank, mainly turns on that clause of the Constitution of the United States, which gives congress the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the powers specifically granted—one party deducing the constitutionality of the bank from a liberal interpretation of the word "necessary," and the other drawing the opposite inference from their interpreting the same word in a narrower sense; both reasoning justly from their respective premises, and both agreeing, that on the true meaning of that term, rest the merits of the controversy.

Whenever a doubt occurs about the meaning of a phrase in a written instrument, it has always been considered a good rule of interpretation, to refer to the use of the same phrase in other parts of the same instrument, for the purpose of discovering the sense attached to it by those who used it. Applying this rule, we find in the article concerning the duties and powers of the president, (3d section) that "he shall, from time to time, give to the congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." It is by virtue of this power thus granted, and of this alone, that the president has recommended the creation of a new bank to the legislature. Now, it will not be pretended that he could have judged this recommendation to be necessary, in the strictest sense of the term, but at most, that it was highly useful and important. It must then be admitted, either that the narrow interpretation of the word "necessary," relied on by those who deny the constitutionality of the bank, is erroneous, or that the president himself has violated the constitution in the recommendation he has made. If it be insisted, that he had the constitutional right to recommend a measure, which both houses of congress had pronounced highly inexpedient, because he believed it prudent, and politic, and salutary—the ground on which he himself places it—then the same liberal interpretation of the term "necessary," which we admit to be the true one, will make the bank constitutional. We have resorted to this rule, not so much because it furnishes an argument ad hominem which is irresistible, as for the higher purpose of throwing light on one of the most controverted parts of the constitution.