any other to give complete security against the danger of insolvency. It has been already observed that the original capital of the Bank of England, amounting to more than fourteen millions sterling, has been loaned to government, and, remaining in its hands, affords the best security to the holders of notes and to depositors. The propriety of extending a similar provision to country banks has been strongly urged in England; and the same measure, with respect to our banks generally, has also been suggested. It is quite practicable, and seems unobjectionable, in a country possessed of so large a capital as England, and where the large amount of public debt would enable the banks to comply with the condition without any difficulty. But this might not be practicable here, where the banking capital is much larger than the amount of all other public stocks, and we apprehend that mortgages on real estate must, if such provision becomes general, be resorted to for want of such stocks. We must also refer to our former observations respecting the nature of our banking capital. Should this be permanently vested in mortgages or stocks, the accommodations which the banks afford to individuals might be too much curtailed. If these objections can be removed, the plan proposed would give to the banking system of the United States a solidity, and inspire a confidence, which it cannot otherwise possess.

The constitutional powers of Congress on the subject are the next and principal object of inquiry.

We have already adverted to the provisions of the Constitution, which declare that no State shall either coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coins a tender in payment of debts, or pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, and which vest in Congress the exclusive power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin. It was obviously the object of the Constitution to consolidate the United States into one nation, so far as regarded all their relations with foreign countries, and that the internal powers of the general government should be applied only to

objects necessary for that purpose, or to those few which were deemed essential to the prosperity of the country and to the general convenience of the people of the several States. Amongst the objects thus selected were the power to regulate commerce among the several States, and the control over the monetary system of the country.

This last-mentioned power is, and has ever been, one of primary importance. It is for want of such general power that Germany has always been inundated with coins often debased, and varying from state to state in standard and denomination; the same defect was found in the former United Provinces of the Netherlands; and the banks of deposit of Hamburg and Amsterdam were originally established for the purpose of correcting that evil. Even under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had already the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coins struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States. It was on a most deliberate view of the subject that the same powers were confirmed and enlarged by the Constitution, and the individual States excluded from any participation which might interfere with the controlling power of the general government. With the exception of those which are connected with the foreign relations of the United States, either in war or in peace, there are no powers more expressly and exclusively vested in Congress of a less disputable nature, or of greater general utility, than those on the subject of currency. Arbitrary governments have, at various times, in order to defraud their creditors, debased the coin whilst they preserved its denomination, and thus subverted the standard of value by which the payment of public and private debts and the performance of contracts ought to have been regulated. This flagrant mode of violating public faith has been long proscribed by public opinion. Governments have, in modern times, substituted for the same purpose issues of paper money, gradually increasing in amount and decreasing in value. It was to guard against those evils that the provisions in the Constitution on that subject were intended, and it is the duty, not less than the right, of the United States to carry them into effect.

The first paragraph of the eighth section of the first article provides that Congress shall have power "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, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

It has sometimes been vaguely asserted, though, as we believe, never seriously contended, that the words "to provide for the common defence and general welfare" were intended and might be construed as a distinct and specific power given to Congress, or, in other words, that that body was thereby invested with a sweeping power to embrace within its jurisdiction any object whatever which it might deem conducive to the general welfare of the United States. This doctrine is obviously untenable, subversive of every barrier in the Constitution which guards the rights of the States or of the people, expressly contradicted by the tenth amendment, which provides that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people, and tantamount to an assertion that there is no Constitution and that Congress is omnipotent. Mr. Jefferson stigmatizes this construction as "a grammatical quibble which has countenanced the general government in a claim of universal power. For (he adds) in the phrase to lay taxes to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare, it is a mere question of syntax whether the two last infinitives are governed by the first, or are distinct and co-ordinate powers; a question unequivocally decided by the exact definition of powers immediately following."

The words "to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States" are as obligatory as any other part of the Constitution; they cannot be expunged, and must be so construed as to be effective. Mr. Jefferson did not deny this, which is indeed undeniable; and he only contended that the words did not convey a distinct power, but were governed by the preceding infinitive; that is to say, that this clause in the Constitution, instead of giving to Congress the three distinct powers, 1st, to lay taxes, &c.; 2dly, to pay the debts; 3dly, to provide

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for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, gave only that " to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises in order to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." He states the question as one of syntax, susceptible of only two constructions; one which would give, as a distinct, a sweeping power inconsistent with the spirit and other express provisions of the Constitution, and which he accordingly rejects; the other, which he adopts, and which admits, but confines the application of the words "to provide for the general welfare" to the only power given by that clause, viz., that of laying taxes, duties, &c.

This appears to have been the construction universally given to that clause of the Constitution by its framers and contemporaneous expounders. ` Mr. Hamilton, though widely differing in another respect from Mr. Jefferson in his construction of this clause, agrees with him in limiting the application of the words "to provide for the general welfare" to the express power given by the first sentence of the clause. In his report on manufactures, he contends for the power of Congress to allow bounties for their encouragement, and, after having stated the three qualifications of the power to lay taxes, viz., 1st, that duties, imposts, and excises should be uniform throughout the United States; 2d, that no direct tax should be laid unless in proportion to the census; 3d, that no duty should be laid on exports; he argues on the constitutional question in the following words:

"These three qualifications excepted, the power to raise money is plenary and indefinite, and the objects to which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive than the payment of the public debts and the providing for the common defence and general welfare. The terms 'general welfare' were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies, incident to the affairs of a nation, would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used, because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the 'general welfare,' and because

this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.

"It is, therefore, of necessity left to the discretion of the national Legislature to pronounce upon the objects which concern the general welfare, and for which, under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general interests of learning, of agriculture, of manufactures, and of commerce are within the sphere of the national councils, as far as regards an application of money.

"The only qualification of the generality of the phrase in question which seems to be admissible is this, that the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be general and not local; its operation extending, in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.

"No objection ought to arise to this construction from the supposition that it would imply a power to do whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the general welfare. A power to appropriate money with this latitude, which is granted, too, in express terms, would not carry a power to any other thing not authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implication."

Mr. Hamilton insisted that the power to lay and collect taxes and duties implied that of appropriating the money thus raised to any object which Congress might deem conducive to "the general welfare." But he confines throughout the application of those words to the power given, as he understood it, by the first sentence of the clause. Mr. Jefferson, who agreed with him in that respect, denied altogether that the power to lay taxes implied that of applying the money thus raised to objects conducive to the general welfare. It cannot be objected to this construction, which is the most literal, that the words " for the general welfare" are thereby rendered of no effect. For there are several cases in which the laying a tax or duty does alone effect the object in view, without the aid of an appropriation or of any other distinct act of the Legislature. On that point, however, and on that alone, they differed. But it is foreign to