13 creates a subject of coilitncrte in its bills: so does he who makes a bushel'of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines. Yet neither ’of these persons regulate commerce thereby. To make a. thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Be* sides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the constitution, does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remains exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordingly, the bill does not propose the measure as a ‘ regulation of trade/ but as ‘productive of considerable advantage to trade.’ ” Some have attempted to locate the power to incorporate a national bank— Mr. McDuffie, for example, in his report of 1830,. as chairman of the Com* mittee of Ways and Means—on the fifth article of the eight.section of the constitution, which gives Congress the power “ to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures “ The power to * coin money and fix the value thereof,’ is expressly and exclusively vested in Congress. This grant was evidently intended to invest Congress with the power of regulating the circulating medium. ‘Coin’ was regarded, at the peripd of framing the constitution, as synonymous with ‘currency,’ as it was then generally believed that bank notes could only be maintained in circulation by being the true, representative of the precious metals. The word ‘coin,’ therefore, must be regarded as a particular term, standing as the representative of a general idea.”-—Rep. H. R. 1st Sess: 21st Cong. No. 358,' Vol. 3, p. 6. Now, sir, if “coin and currency are synonymous,” signifying the same thing, if coin be currency and currency coin, Congress is vested with the power “to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign currency? According to this reading, Congress is authorized, not only to regulate the currency of this country, which consists principally of bank notes, blit also the currency of other nations, whatever symbols of industry they may select as mediums of exchange. The chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means appears to have been as much at fault in his knowledge of the currency, properly considered, as of the character and powers of the constitution'; otherwise he would not have confounded bank notes with coin— the pretended representative with the thing represented. I say the pretended representative, because the amount of paper money afloat, exceeds, at least, five times the amount of specie wherewith to redeem it. It is not, therefore, strictly speaking, a representative of coin, or real money. It has become rather an instrument of speculation, than a measure or representative of value. The currency of a country in order to be sound, as every political economist knows; ought to be equal to the precious metals, or to consist of the metals themselves. But the paper currency of this country is, and was even during the existence of the late United States Bank, but the mere supposititious representative of property. That paper money can never become a proper standard of value, is evident from the fact that it is constantly liable to fluctuation, depreciation, expansion, and contraction. And would it be doing justice to the framers of the constitution—to their sagacity and integrity—-so to construe that instrument, or any part thereof, as to authorize Congress to make paper credit, of whatever kind or description, a standard of value ? The only standard or measure of value known to the constitution is gold and silver ; a standard, by the way, which has been recognised and adopted from the earliest ages, by all civilized nations throughout the world. If Congress are authorized, to incorporate a com-
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