to bo found : but, like certain deluded ones of old, one cries, lo! it is here— and another, lo! it is there; when, as was the case with the asses of Kish, it happens to be “ nowhere.” But, sir, let us examine those parts of the constitution where this power is said to reside. Some have attempted to locate it in the first article of the eighth section of the constitution, which gives Congress the 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.” The power to “ lay and collect taxes” and to “ pay the debts of the United States in other words, the power to raise and appropriate money, and the power to grant charters of incorporation, 1 believe never have been, and I presume never will be, regarded as synonymous, even by the most desperate “ constructionists.” Those, therefore, who pretend to find authority to grant charters of incorporation, in the article under consideration, must look for it in the words “ common defence and general welfare.” And it is from these words that some pretend to derive the power to incorporate a national bank. Can those who have contended for this construction have considered well of the consequences which must inevitably follow from an exercise of such implied powers? Have they reflected, that, by giving to these words the construction they contend for, they render the enumerated powers of the constitution nugatory? that they virtually annul the powers reserved to the State Governments? break down all the constitutional guards designed to protect the rights of the States, and of the people, and make the constitution itself, in the hands of Congress, what clay would be in the hands of the potter? And, lastly, have they considered that this doctrine is-flatly contradicted by the tenth amendment to the constitution, which expressly declares 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?” General Hamilton, latitudinarian as he was on the subject of construction, had too much regard for his reputation to give to the words, “to provide for the common defence and general welfare,” a construction that would confer on Congress powers not enumerated in the constitution. By reference to his report on manufactures, it will be found that he confines, in every instance, the application of these words to the power given by the firstsentence of the clause; and in this particular Mr. Jefferson agrees with him. The latter,'in adverting to this subject, calls it “ a grammatical quibble, which has countenanced the General Government in a claim of universal power.. For, continues he, in the phrase to lay taxes, lo 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.” Sir, I conceive that the clause of the constitution under consideration admits of but two constructions; the one, limiting the powers of Congress, as contended by General Hamilton and, Mr. Jefferson; the other, conferring on Congress powers incompatible with the spirit, and utterly subversive of all the express powers of the.constitution—powers independent of, and paramount to, the constitution itself-—powers indefinite, boundless, omnipotent. If the latter construction be admitted, the will of Congress, and not the constitution, is the law of the land. Or, if, peradventure, Congress should think it expedient to revert to the constitution at all, it would only be necessary to refer to that part of it containing the cabalistic words “ common defence and general welfare.” And as these
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