reate a bank, and its decision, therefore, is
precisely the other way, and is a direct practical precedent in favor of
the constitutional power. What are we to think of a constitutional
argument which deals in this way with historical facts? When the message
declares, as it does declare, that there is nothing in precedent which
ought to weigh in favor of the power, it sets at naught repeated acts of
Congress affirming the power, and it also states other acts, which were
in fact, and which are well known to have been, directly the reverse of
what the message represents them. There is not, Sir, the slightest
reason to think that any Senate or any House of Representatives, ever
assembled under the Constitution, contained a majority that doubted the
constitutional existence of the power of Congress to establish a bank.
Whenever the question has arisen, and has been decided, it has always
been decided one way. The legislative precedents all assert and maintain
the power; and these legislative precedents have been the law of the
land for almost forty years. They settle the construction of the
Constitution, and sanction the exercise of the power in question, so far
as these effects can ever be produced by any legislative precedents
whatever.

But the President does not admit the authority of precedent. Sir, I have
always found, that those who habitually deny most vehemently the general
force of precedent, and assert most strongly the supremacy of private
opinion, are yet, of all men, most tenacious of that very authority of
precedent, whenever it happens to be in their favor. I beg leave to ask,
Sir, upon what ground, except that of precedent, and precedent alone,
the President's friends have placed his power of removal from office. No
such power is given by the Constitution, in terms, nor anywhere
intimated, throughout the whole of it; no paragraph or clause of that
instrument recognizes such a power. To say the least, it is as
questionable, and has been as often questioned, as the power of Congress
to create a bank; and, enlightened by what has passed under our own
observation, we now see that it is of all powers the most capable of
flagrant abuse. Now, Sir, I ask again, What becomes of this power, if
the authority of precedent be taken away? It has all along been denied
to exist; it is nowhere found in the Constitution; and its recent
exercise, or, to call things by their right names, its recent abuse,
has, more than any ot