bank would be
compellable to give specie in exchange could not be kept in circulation.
The most the bank could effect, and the most it could be expected to
aim at, would be to keep the institution alive by limited and local
transactions which, with the interest on the public stock in the bank,
might yield a dividend sufficient for the purpose until a change from
war to peace should enable it, by a flow of specie into its vaults and
a removal of the external demand for it, to derive its contemplated
emoluments from a safe and full extension of its operations.

On the whole, when it is considered that the proposed establishment
will enjoy a monopoly of the profits of a national bank for a period of
twenty years; that the monopolized profits will be continually growing
with the progress of the national population and wealth; that the nation
will during the same period be dependent on the notes of the bank for
that species of circulating medium whenever the precious metals may
be wanted, and at all times for so much thereof as may be an eligible
substitute for a specie medium, and that the extensive employment of the
notes in the collection of the augmented taxes will, moreover, enable
the bank greatly to extend its profitable issues of them without the
expense of specie capital to support their circulation, it is as
reasonable as it is requisite that the Government, in return for these
extraordinary concessions to the bank, should have a greater security
for attaining the public objects of the institution than is presented in
the bill, and particularly for every practicable accommodation, both in
the temporary advances necessary to anticipate the taxes and in those
more durable loans which are equally necessary to diminish the resort
to taxes.

In discharging this painful duty of stating objections to a measure
which has undergone the deliberations and received the sanction of
the two Houses of the National Legislature I console myself with the
reflection that if they have not the weight which I attach to them they
can be constitutionally overruled, and with a confidence that in a
contrary event the wisdom of Congress will hasten to substitute a more
commensurate and certain provision for the public exigencies.

JAMES MADISON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

A PROCLAMATION.

The two Houses of the National Legislature having by a joint resolution
expressed their desire that in the pr