every day's neglect is a violation of duty. I therefore again insist, that we have the power, and I again press its exercise on the two Houses of Congress. I again assert, that the regulation of the general currency of the money of the country, whatever actually constitutes that money-is one of our solemn duties.

The constitution confers on us, sir, the exclusive power of coinage. This must have been done for the purpose of enabling Congress to establish one uniform basis for the whole money system. Congress, therefore, and Congress alone, has power over the foundation, the ground-work, of the currency; and it would be strange and anomalous, having this, if it had nothing to do with the structure, the edifice, to be raised on this foundation! Convertible paper was already in circulation when the constitution was framed, and must have been expected to continue and to increase. But the circulation of paper tends to displace coin; it may banish it altogether: at this very moment it has banished it. If, therefore, the power over the coin does not enable Congress to protect the coin, and to restrain any thing which would supersede it, and abolish its use, the whole power becomes nugatory. If others may drive out the coin, and fill the country with paper which does not represent coin, of what use, I beg to know, is that exclusive power over coins and coinage which is given to Congress by the constitution?

Gentlemen on the other side admit that it is the tendency of paper circulation to expel the coin; but then they say, that, for that 'very reason, they will withdraw from all connexion with the general currency, and limit themselves to the single and narrow object of protecting the coin, and providing for payments to Government. This seems to me to be a very strange way of reasoning, and a very strange course of political conduct. The coinage power was given to be used for the benefit of the whole country, and not merely to furnish a medium for the collection of revenue. The object was to secure, for the general use of the people, a sound and safe circulating medium. There can be no doubt of this intent. If any evil arises, threatening to destroy or endanger this medium or this currency, our duty is to meet it, not to retreat from it; to remedy it, not to let it alone; we are to control and correct the mischief, not to submit to it. Wherever paper is to circulate, as subsidiary to coin, or as performing, in a greater or less degree, the function of coin, its regulation naturally belongs to the hands which hold the power over the coinage. This is an admitted maxim by all writers; it has been admitted and acted upon, on all necessary occasions, by our own Government, throughout its whole history. Why will we now think ourselves wiser than all who have gone before us?

This conviction of what was the duty of Government led to the establishment of the bank in the administration of General Washington. Mr. Madison, again, acted upon the same conviction in 1816, and Congress entirely agreed with him. On former occasions, I have referred the Senate, more than once, to the clear and emphatic opinions and language of Mr. Madison, in his messages in 1815 and

1816, and they ought to be repeated, again and again, and pressed upon the public attention.

And now let me say, sir, that no man in our history has carried the doctrine farther, defended it with more ability, or acted upon it with more decision and effect, than the honorable member from South Carolina. His speech upon the Bank bill, on the 26th of February, 1816, is strong, full, and conclusive. He has heretofore said that some part of what he said on that occasion does not appear in the printed speech; but, whatever may have been left out by accident, that which is in the speech could not have got in by accident. Such accidents do not happen. A close, well-conducted, and conclusive constitutional argument, is not the result of an accident or of chance; and his argument on that occasion, as it seems to me, was perfectly conclusive. He founds the right of regulating the paper currency directly on the coinage power. "The only object," he says, "the framers of the constitution could have in view, in giving to Congress the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, must have been to give a steadiness and fixed value to the currency of the United States." The state of things, he insisted, existing at the time of the adoption of the constitution, afforded an argument in support of the construction. There then existed, he said, a depreciated paper currency, which could only be regulated and made uniform by giving a power, for that purpose, to the General Goverır

ment.

He proceeded to say that, by a sort of under-current, the power of Congress to regulate the money of the country had caved in, and upon its ruin had sprung up those institutions which now exercised the right of making money for and in the United States. "For gold and silver (he insisted) are not the only money; but whatever is the medium of purchase and sale; in which bank paper alone was now employed, and had, therefore, become the money of the country." "The right of making money," he added" an attribute of sovereign. power, a sacred and important right, was exercised by two hundred and sixty banks, scattered over every part of the United States."

Certainly, sir, nothing can be clearer than this language; and, acting vigorously upon principles thus plainly laid down, he conducted the Bank bill, through the House of Representatives. On that occasion, he was the champion of the power of Congress over the currency, and others were willing to follow his lead.

But the Bank bill was not all. The honorable gentleman went much farther. The bank, it was hoped and expected, would furnish a good paper currency to the extent of its own issues; but there was a vast quantity of bad paper in circulation, and it was possible that the mere influence of the bank, and the refusal to receive this bad money at the Treasury, might not, both, be able to banish it entirely from the country. The honorable member meant to make clean work. He meant that neither Government nor people should suffer the evils of irredeemable paper. Therefore, he brought in another bill, entitled "A bill for the more effectual collection of the public revenue." By the provisions of this bill, he proposed to lay a direct stamp tax on

the bills of State banks; and all notes of non-specie-paying banks were, by this stamp, to be branded with the following words, in distinct and legible characters, at length-" NOT A SPECIE NOTE." For the tax laid on such notes, there was to be no composition, no commutation; but it was to be specifically collected, on every single bill issued, until those who issued such bills should announce to the Secretary of the Treasury, and prove to his satisfaction, that, after a day named in the bill, all their notes would be paid in specie on demand. And now, how is it possible, sir, for the author of such a measure as this, to stand up and declare, that the power of Congress over the currency is limited to the mere regulation of the coin? So much for our authority, as it has heretofore been admitted and acknowledged, under the coinage power.

Nor, sir, is the other source of power, in my opinion, at all more questionable.

Congress has the supreme regulation of commerce. This gives it, necessarily, a superintendence over all the interests, agencies, and instruments of commerce. The words are general, and they confer the whole power. When the end is given, all the usual means are given. Money is the chief instrument or agent of commerce; there can, indeed, be no commerce without it, which deserves the name. Congress must, therefore, regulate it as it regulates other indispensable commercial interests. If no means were to be used to this end but such as are particularly enumerated, the whole authority would be nugatory, because no means are particularly enumerated. We regulate ships; their tonnage; their measurement; the shipping articles; the medicine chest; and various other things belonging to them; and for all this we have no authority but the general power to regulate commerce; none of these, or other means or modes of regulation are particularly and expressly pointed out.

But is a ship a more important instrument of commerce than money? We protect a policy of insurance, because it is an important instrument of ordinary commercial contract; and our laws punish with death any master of a vessel, or others, who shall commit a fraud on the parties to this contract by casting away a vessel. For all this we have no express authority. We infer it from the general power of regulating commerce, and we exercise the power in this case, because a policy of insurance is one of the usual instruments, or means, of commerce. But how inconsiderable and unimportant is a policy of insurance, as the means or an instrument of commerce, compared with the whole circulating paper of a country?

Sir, the power is granted to us; and granted without any specification of means; and therefore we may lawfully exercise all the usual means. I need not particularize these means, nor state, at present, what they are, or may be. One is, no doubt, a proper regulation of receipts at the custom-houses and land offices. But this, of itself, is not enough. Another is a national bank, which, I fully believe, would, even now, answer all desired purposes, and reinstate the currency in ninety days. These, I think, are the means to be first tried

and if, notwithstanding these, irredeemable paper should overwhelm us, others must be resorted to. We have no direct authority over State banks; but we have power over the currency, and we must protect it, using, of course, always, such means, if they be found adequate, as shall be most gentle and mild. The great measure, sir, is a bank; because a bank is not only able to restrain the excessive issues of State banks, but it is able also to furnish for the country a currency of universal credit, and of uniform value. This is the grand desideratum. Until such a currency is established, depend on it, sir, what is necessary for the prosperity of the country can never be accomplished.

On the question of power, sir, we have a very important and striking precedent.

The members of the Senate, Mr. President, will recollect the controversy between New York and her neighbor States, fifteen or sixteen years ago, upon the exclusive right of steam navigation. New York had granted an exclusive right of such navigation over her waters to Mr. Fulton and his associates; and declared by law, that no vessel propelled by steam should navigate the North river or the Sound, without license from these grantees, under penalty of confiscation.

To counteract this law, the Legislature of New Jersey enacted, that if any citizen of hers should be restrained, or injured, in person or property, by any party acting under the law of New York, such citizen should have remedy in her courts, if the offender could be caught within her territory, and should be entitled to treble damages and costs. New Jersey called this act a law of retortion; and justified it on the general ground of reprisals.

On the other side, Connecticut took fire, and as no steamboat could come down the Sound from New York to Connecticut, or pass up from Connecticut to New York, without a New York license, she enacted a law, by which heavy penalties were imposed upon all who should presume to come into her ports and harbors, having any such license. Here, sir, was a very harmonious state of commercial intercourse! a very promising condition of things, indeed! You could not get from New York to New Haven by steam; nor could you go from New York to New Jersey, without transhipment in the bay. And now, sir, let me remind the country, that this belligerant legislation of the States concerned was justified and defended, by exactly the same arguments as those which we have heard in this debate. Every thing which has been said here, to prove that the authority to regulate commerce does not include a power to regulate currency, was said in that case, to prove that the same authority did not include an exclusive power over steamboats or other means of navigation. I do not know a reason, a suggestion, an idea, which has been used in this debate, or which was used in the debate in September, to show that Congress has no power to control the currency of the country and make it uniform, which was not used in this steamboat controversy, to prove that the authority of this Government did not reach the matter then in dispute.

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Look to the forensic discussions in New York! Look to the argument in the court here! You will find it every where urged that navigation does not come within the general idea of regulating commerce; that steamboats are but vehicles and instruments; that the power of Congress is general, and general only; and that it does not extend to agents and instruments.

And what, sir, put an end to this state of things? What stopped these seizures and confiscations? Nothing in the world, sir, but the exercise of the constitutional power of this Government. Nothing in the world, but the decision of the Supreme Court, that the power of Congress to regulate commerce was paramount; that it overruled any interfering State laws; and that these acts of the States did interfere with acts of Congress, enacted under its clearconstitutional authority.

As to the extent of the power of regulating commerce, allow me to quote a single sentence from the opinion of one of the learned judges of the Supreme Court, delivered on that occasion; a judge always distinguished for the great care with which he guarded State rights: I mean Mr. Justice Johnson. And when I have read it, sir, then say, if it does not confirm every word and syllable which I have uttered on this subject, either now, or at the September session. "In the advancement of society," said the judge," labor, transportation, intelligence, care, and various means of exchange, become commodities, and enter into commerce; and the subject, the vehicle, the agent, and these various operations, become the objects of commercial regulation."

These just sentiments prevailed. The decision of the Court quieted the dangerous controversy; and satisfied, and I will add gratified, most highly gratified, the whole country.

Sir, may we not perceive at the present moment, without being suspected of looking with eyes whose sight is sharpened by too much apprehension-may we not perceive, sir, in what is now passing around us, the possible beginnings of another controversy between States, which may be of still greater moment, and followed, if not arrested, by still more deplorable consequences? Do we see no danger, no disturbance, no contests ahead? Sir, do we not behold excited commercial rivalship, evidently existing between great States and great cities? Do we not see an emulous competition for trade, external and internal? Do we not see the parties concerned enlarging, and proposing to enlarge, to a vast extent, their plans of currency, evidently in connexion with these objects of trade and commerce? Do we not see States themselves becoming deeply interested in great banking institutions? Do we not know that, already, the notes and bills of some States are prohibited by law from circulating in others?

Sir, I will push these questions no farther: but I tell you that it was for exactly such a crisis as this-for this very crisis-for this identical exigency now upon us-that this constitution was framed, and this Government established. And, sir, let those who expect to get over this crisis without effort and without action, let those whose