led by Congress.

This power, if constitutional at all, is only constitutional in the
hands of Congress. Anywhere else, its exercise would be plain
usurpation. If, then, the authority to decide what powers ought to be
granted to a bank belong to Congress, and Congress shall have exercised
that power, it would seem little better than absurd to say, that its
act, nevertheless would be unconstitutional and invalid, if, in the
opinion of a third party, it had misjudged, on a question of expediency,
in the arrangement of details. According to such a mode of reasoning, a
mistake in the exercise of jurisdiction takes away the jurisdiction. If
Congress decide right, its decision may stand; if it decide wrong, its
decision is nugatory; and whether its decision be right or wrong,
another is to judge, although the original power of making the decision
must be allowed to be exclusively in Congress. This is the end to which
the argument of the message will conduct its followers.

Sir, in considering the authority of Congress to invest the bank with
the particular powers granted to it, the inquiry is not, and cannot be,
how appropriate these powers are, but whether they be at all
appropriate; whether they come within the range of a just and honest
discretion; whether Congress may fairly esteem them to be necessary. The
question is not, Are they the fittest means, the best means? or whether
the bank might not be established without them; but the question is, Are
they such as Congress, _bona fide_, may have regarded as appropriate to
the end? If any other rule were to be adopted, nothing could ever be
settled. A law would be constitutional to-day and unconstitutional
to-morrow. Its constitutionality would altogether depend upon individual
opinion on a matter of mere expediency. Indeed, such a case as that is
now actually before us. Mr. Madison deemed the powers given to the bank,
in its present charter, proper and necessary. He held the bank,
therefore, to be constitutional. But the present President, not
acknowledging that the power of deciding on these points rests with
Congress, nor with Congress and the then President, but setting up his
own opinion as the standard, declares the law now in being
unconstitutional, because the powers granted by it are, in his
estimation, not necessary and proper. I pray to be informed, Sir,
whether, upon similar grounds of reasoning, the President's own scheme
for a bank, if Congress should do so un