t retaining the power of granting, the next day, another charter,
which would destroy the whole value of the first? If this be an
unconstitutional restraint on Congress, the Constitution must be
strangely at variance with the dictates both of good sense and sound
morals. Did not the first Bank of the United States contain a similar
restriction? And have not the States granted bank charters with a
condition, that, if the charter should be accepted, they would not grant
others? States have certainly done so; and, in some instances, where no
_bonus_ or premium was paid at all; but from the mere desire to give
effect to the charter, by inducing individuals to accept it and organize
the institution. The President declares that this restriction is not
necessary to the efficiency of the bank; but that is the very thing
which Congress and his predecessor in office were called on to decide,
and which they did decide, when the one passed and the other approved
the act. And he has now no more authority to pronounce his judgment on
that act than any other individual in society. It is not his province to
decide on the constitutionality of statutes which Congress has passed,
and his predecessors approved.

There is another sentiment in this part of the message, which we should
hardly have expected to find in a paper which is supposed, whoever may
have drawn it up, to have passed under the review of professional
characters. The message declares, that this limitation to create no
other bank is unconstitutional, because, although Congress may use the
discretion vested in them, "they may not limit the discretion of their
successors." This reason is almost too superficial to require an answer.
Every one at all accustomed to the consideration of such subjects knows
that every Congress can bind its successors to the same extent that it
can bind itself. The power of Congress is always the same; the authority
of law always the same. It is true, we speak of the Twentieth Congress
and the Twenty-first Congress, but this is only to denote the period of
time, or to mark the successive organizations of the House of
Representatives under the successive periodical election of its members.
As a politic body, as the legislative power of the government, Congress
is always continuous, always identical. A particular Congress, as we
speak of it, for instance, the present Congress, can no farther restrain
itself from doing what it may choose to do at the ne