Mobile daily commercial register and patriot., 1841-06-30


 On the 2lst inst. MT. Clay, as chairman of the committee of finance, Sc. submitted bank report to the Senate It conflicts in almost every essential feature with the plan of Mr. Ewing. It sets out by declaring internationally that the old bank was con stutona it adopts the capital proposed by the Sec retary of the Treasury, but gives discretion to Con- gress to increase it to fifty millions, recommends the
 limiting the dividends to seven per cent, and grants it the power of dealing in foreign exchanges In short, gives it all the privileges of the old bank ex cept trading in stocks and entering into commercial operations. ,., ,a.
 The report discusses at large that feature of Mr. Ewings plan which provides for the establishment of branches, with the permission of the States As it. reasoning agrees with some opinions advanced by this paper that portion of the subject, we give an extract below:-aiul nHHrtI '1I. r
 ''But the question of establishing bank thus to be restricted and circumscrbed involves higher and ora yer Considerations than those of mere expede1cv The General Government has or has not the power o establish National Bank. If it has the power, ii derives from the existing grants in the Constitution of the United States. The committee believe if has the power, and ought to exercise it. But after con test during the last ten twelve years in respect o the constitutional power of Congress which has been marked by much animation and bitterness, a for bearance to exercise the power would be virtual sur- render of the power. If bank were to be created whose operations within the limits of the States were dependent not upon the will of Cong ess but upon u will of each State separately announced, the crea- ton of such bank would add another to the list of disastrous experiments, and would be tantamount in relinquishment of the national power and it could never he resumed. y
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 be found in the grants of the Constitution If they inadequate to the ulment of the great purposes of its establishment, they only be increased in the mode of amendment which the instrument itself has prescribed They cannot be augmented by the grants consent ofany State States short of the number of twothrds, whose concurrence is necessary to give validity to an amendment. derivation of power to the General Government from the consent of particular States would be unsound in principle, and the com mttee apprehend dangerous in practices Admit such consent to be legitimate source of power, the Government would not operate equally in all the States, and the Constitution, losing it's uniform character, would exhibit an irregular and incongruous action. A 78 e.tIliri DIo- 'I-lft
 Entertaining these deliberate views, the con- mitee decidedly of opinion that no bill for the establishment of bank in the District of Columbia will be effectual which does not contain a clear re- cognItion of the constitutional power of Congress to establish branches wherever, in the United States, tic i'uDhS """tSJ TIT 'tS JuuSmtht, Ttqulfe mem. They cannot consent that bank, cmanatng from the will of the nation, and imperatyely demanded by the ofthe Government and of the nation, shall be wholly dependent for it's useful operation upon the will of each and every State, distinctly expressed"
 Assuming that the premises here (yiz: the consttu tionality of the bank) right, of course the concu sions inevitably follow; and it's most striking mark ofnegligence ignorance in the report of Mr. Ewing that recommendations should have been made con acting with it. .st4 ir a1 iYt. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his anxiety to avoid constitutional scruples, threw himself into dilemma infinitely more troublesome than the one he was so anxious to escape. By asking the permis- sion of the States place branches within their re- spectiye boundaries, he tacitly acknowledged that the general government had no right to enforce that portion of his plan; and by doing so, he directly ad- mted that the bank itself was unconstitutional. The argument is pain:--H the fiscal agent be constiu- tional and branches be necessary to it. has right establish those branches wherever tpleases and the right to do this be yielded, (and the Sec