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common evil confers a right to consider and apply a common remedy. Nor is it a valid objection that this remedy is partial in its operation or distant in its efficacy. A patient, writhing under the tortures of excruciating disease, asks of his physician to cure him if he can, and, if he cannot, to mitigate his sufferings. But the remedy proposed, if generally adopted, and perseveringly applied, for a sufficient length of time, should it not entirely eradicate the disease, will enable the body politic to bear it without danger and without suffering.

We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation of this question. The society goes into no household to disturb its domestic tranquility; it addresses itself to no slaves to weaken their obligations of obedience. It seeks to affect no man's property. It neither has the power nor the will to affect the property of any one contrary to his consent. The execution of its scheme would augment instead of diminishing the value of the property left behind. The society, composed of free men, concerns itself only with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. It is not this society which has produced the great moral revolution which the age exhibits. What would they, who thus reproach us, have done? If they would repress all tendencies towards liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of this society. They must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. They must revive the slave trade, with all its train of atrocities. They must suppress the workings of British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the condition of the unfortu nate West Indian slaves. They must arrest the career of South American deliverance from thraldom. They must blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest torch of all which America presents to a benighted world, pointing the way to their rights, their liberties, and their happiness. And when they have achieved all these purposes, their work will be yet incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, and repress all sympathies, and all humane and benevolent efforts among freemen, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to bondage.

Our friends, who are curst with this greatest of human evils, deserve the kindest attention and consideration. Their property and their safety are both involved. But the liberal and candid among them will not, cannot, expect that every project to deliver our country from it is to be crushed because of a possible and ideal danger.

Animated by the encouragement of the past, let us proceed under the cheering prospects which lie before us. Let us continue to appeal to the pious, the liberal, and the wise. Let us bear in mind the condition of our forefathers, when, collected on

the beach of England, they embarked, amidst the scoffings and the false predictions of the assembled multitude, for this distant land; and here, in spite of all the perils of forest and ocean, which they encountered, successfully laid the foundations of this glorious republic. Undismayed by the prophecies of the presumptuous, let us supplicate the aid of the American representatives of the people, and redoubling our labors, and invoking the blessings of an all-wise Providence, I boldly and confidently anticipate success. I hope the resolution which I offer will be unanimously adopted.

ON THE BANK QUESTION.

A sketch of what Mr. Clay said on the Bank Question, in an Address to his Constituents, in Lexington, June 3d, 1816.— [Extracted from the Kentucky Gazette.]

On one subject, that of the Bank of the United States, to which, at the late session of Congress, he gave his humble support, Mr. Clay felt particularly anxious to explain the grounds on which he had acted. This explanation, if not due to his own character, the state and district to which he belonged had a right to demand. It would have been unnecessary, if his observations, addressed to the House of Representatives, pending the measure, had been published; but they were not published, and why they were not published, he was unadvised.

When he was a member of the Senate of the United States, he was induced to oppose the renewal of the charter of the old bank of the United States, by three general considerations. The first was, that he was instructed to oppose it by the Legislature of the state. What were the reasons that operated with the Legislature, in giving the instruction, he did not know. He has understood from members of that body, at the time it was given, that a clause, declaring that Congress had no power to grant the charter, was stricken out; from which it might be inferred, either that the Legislature did not believe a bank to be unconstitutional, or that it had formed no opinion on that point. This inference derives additional strength from the fact, that, although the two late Senators from this state, as well as the present Senators, voted for a national bank, the Legislature, which must have been well apprised that such a measure was in contemplation, did not again interpose, either to protest against the measure itself, or to censure the conduct of those Senators. From this silence on the part of a body which has ever fixed a watchful eye upon the proceedings of the general government, he had a right to believe that the Legislature of Kentucky saw, without dissatisfaction, the proposal to establish a national bank; and

that its opposition to the former one was upon grounds of expediency, applicable to that corporation alone, or no longer existing. But when, at the last session, the question came up as to the establishment of a national bank, being a member of the House of Representatives, the point of inquiry with him was not so much what was the opinion of the Legislature, although undoubtedly the opinion of a body so respectable would have great weight with him under any circumstances, as what were the sentiments of his immediate constituents. These he believed to be in favor of such an institution, from the following circumstances: In the first place, his predecessor, (Mr. Hawkins,) voted for a national bank, without the slightest murmur of discontent. Secondly, during the last fall, when he was in his district, he conversed freely with many of his constituents upon that subject, then the most common topic of conversation, and all, without a single exception as far as he recollected, agreed that it was a desirable, if not the only efficient remedy, for the alarming evila in the currency of the country. And lastly, during the session he received many letters from his constituents, prior to the pas sage of the bill, all of which concurred, he believed without a solitary exception, in advising the measure. So far, then, from being instructed by his district to oppose the bank, he had what was perhaps tantamount to an instruction to support it-the acquiescence of his constituents in the vote of their former representative, and the communications, oral and written, of the opinions of many of them in favor of a bank.

The next consideration which induced him to oppose the renewal of the old charter, was, that he believed the corporation had, during a portion of the period of its existence, abused its powers, and had sought to subserve the views of a political party. Instances of its oppression for that purpose were asserted to have occurred at Philadelphia and at Charleston; and, although denied in Congress by the friends of the institution during the discussions on the application for the renewal of the charter, they were, in his judgment, satisfactorily made out. This op pression, indeed, was admitted in the House of Representatives, in the debate on the present bank, by a distinguished member of that party which had so warmly espoused the renewal of the old charter. It may be said, what security is there that the new bank will not imitate this example of oppression? He answered, the fate of the old bank warning all similar institutions to shun politics, with which they ought not to have any concern; the existence of abundant competition, arising from the great multiplication of banks, and the precautions which are to be found in the details of the present bill.

A third consideration, upon which he acted tn 1811, was that, as the power to create a corporation, such as was proposed to be continued, was not specifically granted in the constitution, and did not then appear to him to be necessary to carry intɔ effect any of the powers which were specifically granted, Con

gress was not authorized to continue the bank. The constitution, he said, contained powers delegated and prohibitory, powers expressed and constructive. It vests in Congress all powers necessary to give effect to the enumerated powers-all that may be necessary to put into motion and activity the machine of government which it constructs. The powers that may be so necessary are deducible by construction. They are not defined in the constitution. They are, from their nature, indefinable. When the question is in relation to one of these powers, the point of inquiry should be, is its exertion necessary to carry effect any of the enumerated powers and objects of the general government? With regard to the degree of necessity, various rules have been, at different times, laid down; but, perhaps, at last, there is no other than a sound and honest judgment exercised, under the checks and control which belong to the constitution and to the people.

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The constructive powers, being auxiliary to the specifically granted powers, and depending, for their sanction and existence, upon a necessity to give effect to the latter, which necessity is to be sought for and ascertained by a sound and honest discretion, it is manifest that this necessity may not be perceived, at one time, under one state of things, when it is perceived at another time, under a different state of things. The constitution, it is true, never changes; it is always the same; but the force of circumstances and the lights of experience may evolve to the fallible persons, charged with its administration, the fitness and necessity of a particular exercise of a constructive power to-day, which they did not see at a former period.

Mr. Clay proceeded to remark, that when the application was made to renew the old charter of the bank of the United States, such an institution did not appear to him to be so necessary to the fulfillment of any of the objects specifically enumerated in the constitution as to justify Congress in assuming, by construction, power to establish it. It was supported mainly upon the ground that it was indispensable to the treasury operations. But the local institutions, in the several states were at that time in prosperous existence, confided in by the community, having a confidence in each other, and maintaining an intercourse and connexion the most intimate. Many of them were actually employed by the treasury to aid that department, in a part of its fiscal arrangements; and they appeared to him to be fully capable of affording to it all the facility that it ought to desire in all of them. They superceded, in his judgment, the necessity of a national institution. But how stood the case in 1816, when he was called upon again to examine the power of the general government to incorporate a national bank. A total change of circumstances was presented. Events of the utmost magnitude had intervened.

A general suspension of specie payments had taken place, and this had led to a train of consequences of the most alarm

ing nature. He beheld, dispersed over the immense extent of the United States, about three hundred banking institutions, enjoying, in different degrees, the confidence of the public, shaken as to them all, under no direct control of the general government, and subject to no actual responsibility to the state authorities. These institutions were emitting the actual currency of the United States; a currency consisting of a paper, on which they neither paid interest nor principal, whilst it was exchanged for the paper of the community, on which both were paid. He saw these institutions, in fact, exercising what had been considered, at all times and in all countries, one of the highest attributes of sovereignty, the regulation of the current medium of the country. They were no longer competent to assist the treasury in either of the great operations of collection, deposit or distribution of the public revenues. In fact, the paper which they emitted, and which the treasury, from the force of events, found itself constrained to receive, was constantly obstructing the operations of that department. For it would accumulate where it was not wanted, and could not be used where it was wanted for the purposes of government, without a ruinous and arbitrary brokerage. Every man who paid or received from the government, paid or received as much less than he ought to have done, as was the difference between the medium in which the payment was effected, and specie. Taxes were no longer uniform. In New England, where specie payments have not been suspended, the people were called upon to pay larger contributions than where they were suspended. In Kentucky, as much more was paid by the people in their taxes than was paid, for example, in the state of Ohio, as Kentucky paper was worth more than Ohio paper.

It appeared to Mr. Clay that, in this condition of things, the general government could depend no longer upon these local institutions, multiplied and multiplying daily-coming into existence by the breath of eighteen state sovereignties, some of which, by a single act of volition, had created twenty or thirty at a time. Even if the resumption of specie payments could have been anticipated, the general government remaining passive, it did not seem to him that the general government ought longer to depend upon these local institutions exclusively for aid in its operations. But he did not believe it could be justly so anticipated. It was not the interest of all of them that the renewal should take place of specie payments, and yet, without concert between all or most of them, it could not be effected. With regard to those disposed to return to a regular state of things, great difficulties might arise, as to the time of its com

mencement.

Considering, then, that the state of the currency was such that no thinking man could contemplate it without the most serious alarm, that it threatened general distress, if it did not ultimately lead to convulsion and subversion of the government, it

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