dges; on
the impulse of momentary interests, party objects, or personal purposes.
Put the question in this manner to a court of seven judges, to decide
whether a particular bank was constitutional, and it might be doubtful
whether they could come to any result, as they might well hold very
various opinions on the practical utility of many clauses of the
charter.

The question in that case would be, not whether the bank, in its general
frame, character, and objects, was a proper instrument to carry into
effect the powers of the government, but whether the particular powers,
direct or incidental, conferred on a particular bank, were better
calculated than all others to give success to its operations. For if
not, then the charter, according to this sort of reasoning, would be
unwarranted by the Constitution. This mode of construing the
Constitution is certainly a novel discovery. Its merits belong entirely
to the President and his advisers. According to this rule of
interpretation, if the President should be of opinion, that the capital
of the bank was larger, by a thousand dollars, than it ought to be; or
that the time for the continuance of the charter was a year too long; or
that it was unnecessary to require it, under penalty, to pay specie; or
needless to provide for punishing, as forgery, the counterfeiting of its
bills,--either of these reasons would be sufficient to render the
charter, in his opinion, unconstitutional, invalid, and nugatory. This
is a legitimate conclusion from the argument. Such a view of the subject
has certainly never before been taken. This train of reasoning has
hitherto not been heard within the halls of Congress, nor has any one
ventured upon it before the tribunals of justice. The first exhibition,
its first appearance, as an argument, is in a message of the President
of the United States.

According to that mode of construing the Constitution which was adopted
by Congress in 1791, and approved by Washington, and which has been
sanctioned by the judgment of the Supreme Court, and affirmed by the
practice of nearly forty years, the question upon the constitutionality
of the bank involves two inquiries. First, whether a bank, in its
general character, and with regard to the general objects with which
banks are usually connected, be, in itself, a fit means, a suitable
instrument, to carry into effect the powers granted to the government.
If it be so, then the second, and the only other quest