sideration. The laws must be uniform. It may perhaps be said that the condition of uniformity is not violated by exempting from the operation of the law a certain class of dealers, provided all the dealers of that description are exempted. But this would be a dangerous principle. The power of passing laws on the subject of bankruptcies, like that to regulate commerce among the several States, of which it is in fact only a part, must be uniform in every respect. To permit every other species of property to be freely carried from one State to another, and to except slaves by forbidding their being transported from one slaveholding to another slaveholding State, would certainly be considered as a direct violation of the Constitution.

The power of the several States to create corporations or artificial bodies is universally acknowledged. And, although the privilege may not be absolutely essential, yet, as by usage it is almost universal, the power to confine the responsibility to the property owned by the corporation as such and to make its members irresponsible is also admitted. But it is not perceived on what principle those artificial bodies can in any other respect be, any more than natural persons, rightfully exempted from the legitimate general laws of the United States. Such exemption has not heretofore been claimed. The incorporated banks may, in many instances, be sued in the courts of the United States. Judgments may be obtained in those courts against them, and execution levied on their corporate property. Their real estate is liable to taxation whenever the United States lay a direct tax on property of that description. Their notes were made liable to the stamp duty in common with the notes of private individuals. The individual States might have claimed the right to exempt those institutions in all those respects with as much propriety as in reference to a bankrupt law. The claim might be extended to all other associations of persons incorporated for establishing manufactures or for any other enterprise whatever; and associations not only for carrying on manufactories, but also fisheries, the fur-trade, and other species of business, have actually been incorporated by some of the States.

A system of free banking has been introduced into the State of New York by authorizing associations for that purpose which

are not by law considered as corporations, and it is hoped that the system will become general and operate a conversion of all the chartered banks into free and not incorporated associations. Would it be just that they should be subject to the bankrupt law whilst the chartered banks remain exempted from its operation?

It may perhaps be alleged that, inasmuch as the States have respectively passed laws providing for the manner in which the property of the incorporated banks may be sequestered, placed in the hands of trustees or receivers, and be distributed amongst the creditors, the United States have no right to interfere and to provide other means for the same purpose. But it has been generally admitted, and the doctrine is sound and rational, that so long as Congress does not exercise a discretionary power, given to it by the Constitution, the laws of the States on such subjects are legitimate and obligatory; but that they are superseded by the laws of Congress whenever that body thinks it proper to exercise such discretionary power. This has happened very lately in the provisions respecting pilots: the sanction of Congress has been given to the quarantine laws of the several States: it has been adjudged that they had the right to naturalize aliens, until Congress had passed a general law on that subject, and that from that time the right ceased.

Some difficulties may be suggested respecting the practicability of applying the provisions of a bankrupt law to corporations; but it is believed that they may be easily surmounted.

There are some acts, considered by the English laws as acts of bankruptcy, which could not be done by a corporation. The only consequence would be that, since the act could not be done, the law in that respect could not be applied to the incorporated banks. But Congress is not at all bound by the special provisions of the English bankrupt laws. It is generally authorized to pass laws on the subject of bankruptcies, and it may therefore define what shall be considered as acts of bankruptcy, and adapt the definition to the object in view. It has already been suggested that nothing more was wanted in reference to banks than to make it an act of bankruptcy for all those who issue paper money, to refuse for a certain length of time to redeem it in specie.

There are also some penalties which are inapplicable to corporations, and from which they would, of course, be exempted. But there is a point which deserves consideration. No bankrupt law would be passed in this age and in this country which would condemn a bankrupt to death. By parity of reasoning it may be insisted that the act of Congress which will not inflict the pain of death on the natural person ought not to kill, or, in other words, to dissolve, the artificial body. This may be granted: the power of dissolving may be left to the State which created. The essential object of a bankrupt law, with respect to the creditor, is to preserve from dilapidation the property in the possession of his debtor, and to make an equal division of it amongst all the creditors. This may be attained without putting to death the person or dissolving the corporate body.'

1 The establishment of a mint in New York would have a tendency to sustain the currency. Foreign coins are generally exported in preference to those of the United States. A very considerable proportion of the foreign gold and silver coins which pass through the banks of the city of New York would be converted into American coins if it could be done without the expense, risk, delay, and inconvenience of sending them to Philadelphia. The practical injury is much greater than may be generally supposed. It must not be forgotten that New York is the principal place of importation, and still more so of the exportation, of the precious metals; and that it is also, as being the most exposed, that which it is most important to protect against the danger of a suspension of specie payments.

ERSITY

CANIA.

APPENDIX.

DOCUMENTS RESPECTING THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS IN THE YEAR 1838.

CIRCULAR. To the Principal Banks in the United States.

NEW YORK, August 18, 1837.

SIR,-At a general meeting of the officers of the banks of the city of New York, held on the 15th of this month, the following resolution was unanimously adopted, viz. :

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to correspond with such banks in the several States as they may think proper, in order to ascertain at what time and place a convention of the principal banks should be held for the purpose of agreeing on the time when specie payments should be resumed, and on the measures necessary to effect that purpose.

Having been appointed a committee in conformity with that resolution, we beg leave to call your attention to the important subject to which it refers.

The suspension of specie payments was forced upon the banks immediately by a panic and by causes not under their control, remotely by the unfortunate coincidence of extraordinary events and incidents, the ultimate result of which was anticipated neither by government or by any part of the community.

But it is nevertheless undeniable that, by accepting their charters, the banks had contracted the obligation of redeeming their issues at all times and under any circumstances whatever; that they have not been able to perform that engagement; and that a depreciated paper, differing in value in different places, and subject to daily fluctuations in the same place, has thus been substituted for the currency, equivalent to gold or silver, which, and no other, they were authorized and had the exclusive right to issue.

Such a state of things cannot and ought not to be tolerated any longer than an absolute necessity requires it. We are very certain that you unite with us in the opinion that it is the paramount and most sacred duty of the

banks to exert every effort, to adopt every measure within their power which may promote and accelerate the desired result; and that they must be prepared to resume specie payments within the shortest possible notice whenever a favorable alteration shall occur in the rate of foreign exchanges.

We are quite aware of the difficulties which must be surmounted, and of the impropriety of any premature attempt. No banking system could indeed be tolerated which was not able to withstand the ordinary and unavoidable fluctuations of exchange. But the difference is great between continuing and resuming specie payments; and we do not believe that the banks in the United States can, without running the imminent danger of another speedy and fatal catastrophe, resume such payments before the foreign debt shall have been so far lessened or adjusted as to reduce the rate of exchanges to true specie par, and the risk of an immediate exportation of the precious metals shall have thus been removed.

The appearances in that respect have become more flattering; and it is not improbable that the expected change may take place shortly after the next crop of our principal article of exports shall begin to operate. Yet we are sensible that we must not rely on conjectures, and that the banks cannot designate the time when they may resume before the ability to sustain specie payments shall have been ascertained by the actual reduction in the rate of the exchanges.

But even when the apprehension of a foreign drain of specie shall have ceased, the great object in view cannot be effected without a concert of the banks in the several sections of the Union. Those of this city had the misfortune to be, with few exceptions, the first that were compelled to declare their inability to sustain, for the time, specie payments. It appears that it became absolutely necessary for the other banks to pursue the same course; and it would be likewise impracticable for those of any particular section to resume without a general co-operation of at least the principal banks of the greater part of the country. A mutual and free communication of their respective situations, prospects, and opinions seems to be a necessary preliminary step, to be followed by a convention at such time and place as may be agreed upon.

As relates to the banks of this city, we are of opinion that, provided the co-operation of the other banks is obtained, they may, and ought to, we should perhaps say that they must, resume specie payments before next spring, or, to be more precise, between the first of January and the middle of March, 1838.

Both the time and place of meeting in convention must of course be determined in conformity with the general wishes of the banks. In order to bring the subject in a definite shape before you, we merely suggest the latter end of October as the proper time and this city as the most eligible place for the proposed convention.

A sufficient time will have then elapsed to enable us to judge of the