be considered and treated as money at the Treasury. Still further, sir. The bill containing this provision did not pass the House; and as I deemed some provision necessary, indispensably necessary, for the state of things then existing, I introduced, I think the very next day after the failure of the honorable gentleman's bill, three resolutions. The two first were merely declaratory, asserting that all duties, taxes, and imposts, ought to be uniform, and that the revenues of the United States ought to be collected and received in the legal currency, or in Treasury notes, or the notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided. These two resolutions I agreed to waive, as it was thought they were not essential, and that they might imply some degree of censure upon past transactions. The third resolution was in these words:

"And resolved, further, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, required and directed to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as aforesaid; and that from and after the 1st day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States as aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as aforesaid."

The Senate will perceive that, in this resolution of mine, there was no provision whatever for receiving bank notes, except of the Bank of the United States, according to its charter. Well, what happened thereon? Why, sir, if you look into the National Intelligencer of a succeeding day, you will find it stated, that Mr. Calhoun moved to amend Mr. Webster's resolution by "extending its provisions to the notes of all banks which should, at the time specified therein, pay their notes in specie on demand."

This amendment was opposed, and for a time defeated; but it was renewed, and finally prevailed. It was incorporated into the resolution, became part of the law of the land, and so remains at this very moment. Sir, may I not now say to the honorable member, that if the constitution of the country has been violated by treating bank notes as money-"Thou art the man!"

How is it possible, sir, the gentleman could so far forget his own agency in these most important transactions, as to stand up here, the other day, and with an air not only of confidence but of defiance, say: "But I take a still higher ground; I strike at the root of the mischief. I deny the right of this Government to treat bank notes as money in its fiscal transactions. On this great question I never have before committed myself, though not generally disposed to albstain from forming or expressing opinions."

I will only add, sir, that this reception and payment of bank notes was expressly recognised by the act of the 14th April, 1836; by the deposite act of June of that year, and by the bill which passed both

Houses in 1837, but which the President did neither approve nor return. In all these acts, so far as I know, the honorable member from South Carolina himself concurred.

So much for authority.

But now, sir, what is the principle of construction upon which the gentleman relies to sustain his doctrine? "The genius of our constitution," he says, " is opposed to the assumption of power." This is undoubtedly true: no one can deny it. But he adds, "whatever power it gives, is expressly granted."

But I think, sir, this by no means follows from the first proposition, and cannot be maintained. It is doubtless true that no power is to be assumed; but then powers may be inferred, or necessarily implied. It is not a question of assumption, it is a question of fair, just, and reasonable inference. To hold that no power is granted and no means authorized, but such as are granted or authorized by express words, would be to establish a doctrine that would put an end to the Government. It could not last through a single session of Congress. If such opinions had prevailed in the beginning, it never could have been put in motion, and would not have drawn its first breath. My friend, near me, from Delaware, has gone so fully and so ably into this part of the subject, that it has become quite unnecessary for me to pursue it. Where the constitution confers on Congress a general power, or imposes a general duty, all other powers necessary for the exercise of that general power and for fulfilling that duty, are implied, so far as there is no prohibition. We act every day upon this principle, and could not carry on the Government without its aid. Under the power to coin money, we build expensive mints-fill them with officers-punish such officers for embezzlement-buy bullion-and exercise various other acts of power.

The constitution says that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in certain courts. Under this general authority we not only establish such courts, but protect their records by penalties against forgery, and the purity of their administration by punishing perjuries.

The Department of the Post Office is another, and signal instance, of the extent and necessity of implied powers. The whole authority of Congress over this subject is expressed in very few words; they are merely "to establish post offices and post roads." Under this short and general grant, laws of Congress have been extended to a great variety of very important enactments, without the specific grant of any power whatever, as any one may see who will look over the post-office laws. In these laws, among other provisions, penalties are enacted against a great number of offences; thus deducing the highest exercise of criminal jurisdiction, by reasonable and necessary inference, from the general authority. But I forbear from traversing a field already so fully explored.

There are one or two other remarks, sir, in the gentleman's speech, which I must not entirely omit to notice.

In speaking of the beneficial effects of this measure, one, he says, would be, that "the weight of the banks would be taken from

:

the side of the tax-consumers, where it has been, from the commencement of the Government, and placed on the side of the taxpayers. This great division of the community necessarily grows out of the fiscal action of the Government.”

Sir, I utterly deny that there is the least foundation, in fact, for this distinction. It is an odious distinction, calculated to inspire envy and hatred; and being, as I think, wholly groundless, its suggestion, and the endeavor to maintain it, ought to be resisted, and repelled. We are all tax-payers, in the United States, who use articles on which imposts are laid; and who is there that is excused from this tax, or does not pay his proper part of it, according to his consumption? Certainly no one.

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On the other hand, who are the tax-consumers? Clearly, the army, the navy, the laborers on public works, and other persons in Government employment. But even these are not idle consumers; they are agents of the Government and of the people. Pensioners may be considered as persons who enjoy benefit from the public taxes of the country, without rendering present service in return; but the legal provision for them stands on the ground of previous merits, which none deny. If we had a vast national debt, the annual interest of which was a charge upon the country, the holders of this debt might be considered as tax-consumers. But we have no such debt. If the distinction, therefore, which the gentleman states exists anywhere, most certainly it does not exist here. And I cannot but exceedingly regret that sentiments and opinions should be expressed here, having so little foundation, and yet so well calculated to spread prejudice and dislike, far and wide, against the Government and institutions of the country.

But, sir, I have extended these remarks already to a length for which I find no justification but in my profound conviction of the importance of this crisis in our national affairs. We are, as it seems to me, about to rush madly from our proper spheres. We are to relinquish the performance of our own incumbent duties; to abandon the exercise of essential powers, confided by the constitution to our hands, for the good of the country. This was my opinion in September-it is my opinion now. What we propose to do, and what we omit to do, are, in my judgment, likely to make a fearful, perhaps a fatal, inroad upon the unity of commerce between these States, as well as to embarrass and harass the employments of the people, and to prolong existing evils.

Sir, whatever we may think of it now, the constitution had its immediate origin in the conviction of the necessity for this uniformity, or identity, in commercial regulations.

The whole history of the country, of every year and every month, from the close of the war of the Revolution to 1789, proves this. Over whatever other interests it was made to extend, and whatever other blessings it now does, or hereafter may, confer on the millions of free citizens who do or shall live under its protection; even though in time to come, it should raise a pyramid of power and grandeur, whose apex should look down, on the loftiest political structures of other nations and other ages, it will yet be true, that it was itself the child of pressing commercial necessity. Unity and identity of commerce among all the States was its seminal principle. It had been found absolutely impossible to excite or foster enterprise in trade, under the influence of discordant and jarring State regulations. The country was losing all the advantages of its position. The Revolution itself was beginning to be regarded as a doubtful blessing. The ocean before us was a barren waste. No American canvass whitened its bosom-no keels of ours ploughed it waters. The journals of the Congress of the Confederation show the most constant, unceasing, unwearied, but always unsuccesful appeals to the States and the people, to renovate the system, to infuse into that Confederation at once a spirit of union and a spirit of activity, by conferring on Congress the power over trade. By nothing but the perception of its indispensable necessity-by nothing but their consciousness of suffering from its want, were the States and the people brought, and brought by slow degrees, to invest this power, in a permanent and competent Government.

Sır, hearken to the fervent language of the old Congress, in July, 1785, in a letter addressed to the States, prepared by Mr. Monroe, Mr. King, and other great names, now transferred from the lists of living men, to the records which carry down the fame of the distinguished dead. The proposition before them, the great objects to which they so solicitously endeavored to draw the attention of the States, was this, viz: that "the United States, in Congress assembled, should have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade of the States, as well with foreign nations as with each other." This, they say, is urged upon the States by every consideration of local as well as of federal policy; and they beseech them to agree to it, if they wish to promote the strength of the Union, and to connect it by the strongest ties of interest and affection. This was in July,

1785.

In the same spirit, and for the same end, was that most important resolution which was adopted in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 21st day of the following January. Sir, I read the resolution entire.

"Resolved, That Edmund Randolph, and others, be appointed commissioners, who, or any five of whom, shall meet such commissioners as may be appointed by the other States in the Union, at a time and place to be agreed on, to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situations and trade of the said States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony, and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object, as, when unanimously ratified by them, will enable the United States, in Congress assembled, effectually to provide for the same: that the said commissioners shall immediately transmit to the several States, copies of the preceding reslution, with a circular letter requesting their concurrence therein, and proposing a time and place for the meeting aforesaid."

Here, sir, let us pause. Let us linger, at the waters of this original fountain. Let us contemplate this, the first step, in that series of proceedings, so full of great events to us and to the world. Notwithstanding the embarrassment and distress of the country, the recommendation of the old Congress had not been complied with. Every attempt to bring the State Legislatures into any harmony of action, or any pursuit of a common object, had signally and disastrously failed. The exigency of the case called for a new movement; for a more direct and powerful attempt to bring the good sense and patriotism of the country into action upon the crisis. A solemn assembly was therefore proposed a general convention of delegates from all the States. And now, sir, what was the exigency? What was this crisis? Look at the resolution itself; there is not an idea in it but trade. Commerce! commerce! is the beginning and end of it. The subject to be considered and examined was "the relative situation of the trade of the States;" and the object to be obtained was the "establishment of a uniform system in their commercial regulations, as necessary to the common interest and their permanent harmony." This is all. And, sir, by the adoption of this ever-memorable resolution, the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 21st day of January, 1786, performed the first act in the train of measures which resulted in that constitution, under the authority of which you now sit in that chair, and I have now the honor of addressing the members of this body.

Mr. President, I am a Northern man. I am attached to one of the States of the North, by the ties of birth and parentage, education, and the associations of early life; and by sincere gratitude for proofs of public confidence early bestowed. I am bound to another Northern State by adoption, by long residence, by all the cords of social and domestic life, and by an attachment and regard, springing from her manifestation of approbation and favor, which grapple me to her with hooks of steel. And yet, sir, with the same sincerity of respect, the same deep gratitude, the same reverence, and hearty good will, with which I would pay a similar tribute to either of these States, do I here acknowledge the Commonwealth of Virginia to be entitled to the honor of commencing the work of establishing this constitution. The honor is hers; let her enjoy it; let her forever wear it proudly; there is not a brighter jewel in the tiara that adorns her brow. Let this resolution stand, illustrating her records, and blazoning her name through all time!

The meeting, sir, proposed by the resolution was holden. It took place, as all know, in Annapolis, in May of the same year; but it was thinly attended, and its members, very wisely, adopted measures to bring about a fuller and more general convention. Their letter to the States on this occasion is full of instruction. It shows their sense of the unfortunate condition of the country. In their meditations on the subject, they saw the extent to which the commercial power