Boon's Lick times. [volume] (Fayette, Mo.) 1840-1848, 1841-09-25


uncontrolled, and where, without any con-
stitutional impeachment, charters of incor-
poration may be granted"
There is the answer-the triumphant,
the conclusive answer. That branch was
to be established in a Territory, where the
Constitution expressly gives to Congress
a general discretionary legislative authority.
This bill, on the contrary, contemplates the
establishment within the limits of sover-
eign States, in regard to which Congress
has none but specific powers, formally
enumerated and defined. As to the other
bill, to punish counterfeiters of the bank
paper, what did the honorable Senator also
tell us in 1917 These are his words:
GAS to the other act it was passed no
less for the benefit of the community than
the bank-to protect the ignorant and I'M
wary from counterfeit paper purporting
to have been emitted by the bank. When
gentlemen are claiming the advantage sup
posed to be deducible from acquiescence,
let me inquire what they would have had
those to have done who believed the es-
tabshment of the bank an encroachment
upon State rights? Were they to have
resisted, and how? by force!"
The honorable Senator then proceeds to
bear the following testimony, as an actor
in the scene, to the principles upon which
both of those laws were passed:
THE acts of 1904 and 1907, relied on
as pledges for rcchartering this company,
passed not only without any discussion
whatever of the constitutional power of
Congress to establish a bank, but, | ven
ture to say, without a single member hav-
ing had his attention drawn to this ques-
ton. ] had the honor of seat in the
probably voted for it; and | declare with
the utmost sincerity. that | never once
thought of that point. and appeal conf
IDENTIFY to every honorable member who
was then present to say if that was not
his situation"
The Senator himself thus furnishes the
true explanation Of the considerations on
which those acts We're passcd-an explana-
ton the benefit of which he must in JUS
tice extend to Mr.. Jefferson. while he
claims it for himself, and has so disposed
of his own argument.
| hold, therefore. that if President Tv-
or the sever glorious example" of the
"fathers of the great Republican school"
he never could have brought his mind to
the conclusion that he was in duty bound
to give his official signature and approval
to such bill as we sent him.
beg leave to refer the honorable Sena-
tor from Kentucky to another passage in
the Inaugural address of President Tyler,
which he seems to have wholly overlooked
and which plainly intimates, as it appears to
Inc, the determination of the President to
make the Constitution, in his own conscien-
!, tious Interpretation of it, the sole rule of
his conduct. In the opening of that address
he makes the following impressive reference
to the solemn obligation he had taken upon
himself in assuming the office of Chief Mag
istrate: "My earnest prayer" says he "shall
be to carry out understandings the princi-
pies Of that Constitution which have sworn
to protect. preserve and defend" Why
this emphatic reference to the Constitution
of his country in connexion with the solemn
sanction of his oath of office. if he did not
intend to make it, under all circumstances.
the primary and unbending rule of his off
cial conduct! In the closing part of the
same address he repeats, in the following
language, just admonltion against the ex-
ere sc of any power not clearly granted by
the Constitution.
Those (said hey who are charged with
the administration of the Government,
should carefully abstain from all attempts to
enlarge the range of powers, thus granted
to the several Departments, other than by
an appeal TO the people lor additional grants,
lest by so doing they disturb that balance
which the patriots and statesmen, who
framed the Constitution, designed to estab-
fish between the Federal Government and
the States composing the Union"
Surely, with language like this upon his
lips and sentiments such as these in his
heart, the President could not be Justly ex-
pected to sign bill which in his conscience
he believed, and had so repeatedly and SOL
EMMY declared, to be contrary to the Con-
stituton of his country.
There being then, nothing in the opinions
of the fathers and founders of the republi-
can school, to induce President TYLER as a
consistent disciple of that school for twenty
five years past, and one who had over and
over expressed his conviction of the uncon-
stitutionality ola Bank of the United States,
to change that opinion, what course bul
that which he has pursued was left to him
when the bill for such bank was presented
for his approval.
The Senator from Kentucky tells us that
the opinions of the individual nominated,
by the patriotic and enlightened Conven-
ton which assembled at Harrisburg, as q