12 Bank. Now, sir, in my humble opinion; the power to regulate commerce. does not include the power to make internal improvements of the character just noticed—to protect manufactures, by imposing a tariff—nor to establish a national bank. Neither the clause immediately under consideration, nor any other found in the constitution, authorizes Congress, in my judgment, to do either of those three things. Sir, is it meant to be affirmed, that the power to “ regulate commerce,’.’ includes the power to regulate the currency of the several States ? If so, then is Congress authorized, under the power to “regulate commerce,” to regulate the issues of all the State banks—for these constitute the principal currency of. the country; on the other hand, if it be meant that Congress have not the power, under this clause of the constitution, to regulate the currency, how can it be said that Congress are thereby authorized to charter a bank for the purpose of regulating commerce, when the only object of a national bank, as we are told, is to regulate and equalize the exchanges and currency .of the country ? Again : If the power “to regulate commerce” includes the power to incorporate a bank, why may it not also include the power to grant charters of incorporation for other purposes? Why not authorize Congress to incorporate companies for objects of internal improvements—for manufactures—or, what would appear to be rather more congenial, for ordinary commercial purposes? If Congress can, by this clause of the constitution, authorize one set of men, under an act of incorporation, to deal in bank paper, they possess equally the power to authorize another set to deal in silks and satins, calicoes and. ginghams. Nor can this position be controverted. The stockholders and agents of a bank are as much traffickers and dealers in paper money, which is a species of commercial commodity, as merchants are in, broadcloths and cassimeres. If an act of incorporation, therefore, can be claimed in the one case, as a proper and necessary means to “ regulate commerce,” it unquestionably can in the other. But the clause in question confers no such power. The power to “regulate commerce,” and the power to grant charters of incorporation are separate and distinct. The former is conferred by the constitution, the latter is not. Sir, what was the nature of the power which the framers of the constitution intended to confer on Congress by this clause? Evidently, to authorize Congress to prescribe or establish certain rules by which commerce should be governed. But will it be pretended that the authors of the constitution meant that this power, which they vested in Congress alone, should be transferred by Congress to an incorporated company? That a chartered company should possess the exclusive power of regulating the commercial interests of the nation ? of prescribing rules for its government? of determining the principles on which it should be conducted ? and thus place one of the great interests of the country beyond legislative and constitutional control? No one, I presume, will say, in direct terms, that such was the intention of the framers of the constitution ; and yet such is the inevitable result to which the doctrine of construction, here combatted, leads/ If such rules of construction prevail, it will be impossible to define the limits of the power of the federal government j under the clause, “Congress shall have power to regulate commerce,” &c. I will conclude my remarks on this clause, by reading from Mr. Jefferson’s official opinion on the constitutionality of a United States Bank, the following extract: “ To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank
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