3. This scarcity has been occasioned by the late loans. But does the
government borrow money to keep it in their coffers? Is it not instantly
restored to circulation by payment for its necessary supplies? And are
we to restore a vacuum of twenty millions of dollars by an emission of
ninety millions?

4. The want of medium is proved by the recurrence of individuals with
good paper to brokers at exorbitant interest; and

5. By the numerous applications to the State governments for additional
banks; New York wanting eighteen millions, Pennsylvania ten millions,
&c. But say more correctly, the speculators and spendthrifts of New York
and Pennsylvania, but never consider them as being the States of New
York and Pennsylvania. These two items shall be considered together.

It is a litigated question, whether the circulation of paper, rather
than of specie, is a good or an evil. In the opinion of England and
of English writers it is a good; in that of all other nations it is an
evil; and excepting England and her copyist, the United States, there is
not a nation existing, I believe, which tolerates a paper circulation.
The experiment is going on, however, desperately in England, pretty
boldly with us, and at the end of the chapter, we shall see which
opinion experience approves: for I believe it to be one of those cases
where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by
ruin. In the mean time, however, let us reason on this new call for a
national bank.

After the solemn decision of Congress against the renewal of the charter
of the bank of the United States, and the grounds of that decision (the
want of constitutional power), I had imagined that question at rest, and
that no more applications would be made to them for the incorporation
of banks. The opposition on that ground to its first establishment, the
small majority by which it was overborne, and the means practised
for obtaining it, cannot be already forgotten. The law having passed,
however, by a majority, its opponents, true to the sacred principle
of submission to a majority, suffered the law to flow through its term
without obstruction. During this, the nation had time to consider
the constitutional question, and when the renewal was proposed, they
condemned it, not by their representatives in Congress only, but by
express instructions from different organs of their will. Here then
we might stop, and consider the memorial as answered. But, se