the federal constitution, now assumed the shape of a party opposed to
the financial policy of the administration. At the head of this
opposition was Mr. Jefferson, the secretary of state; and the herald's
trumpet for the tilt was sounded by the Virginia assembly, in the
adoption of a resolution, declaring so much of the late act of Congress
as provided for the assumption of the state debts "repugnant to the
constitution of the United States," and "the exercise of a power not
expressly granted to the general government." That clause of the act for
funding the continental debt, which restrained the government from
redeeming at pleasure any part of that debt, was denounced as "dangerous
to the rights, and subversive of the interests, of the people."

The bank project encountered very little opposition in the senate, where
the bill originated; but in the house it was assailed vehemently,
chiefly on the ground of its being unconstitutional. Its policy was
questioned, and the utility of banking systems stoutly denied. The
arguments on both sides, in relation to the constitutionality of the
measure (the constitution being utterly silent on the subject), assumed
on frequent occasions an extremely metaphysical tone. It was argued, in
favor of a bank, that the power to establish one was implied in the
powers delegated to Congress by the constitution to collect a revenue,
and to pay the debts of the United States, and in the authority
expressly granted to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying
those powers into execution.

On the twentieth of January 1791, the bank bill passed the senate
without a division, and on the eighth of February it passed the house of
representatives by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty. Before signing it,
the president requested the written opinion of each member of his
cabinet as to its constitutionality, and his reasons for such opinion.
They promptly complied. The cabinet was divided. Hamilton and Knox
strongly maintained that it was constitutional: Jefferson and Randolph
(the attorney-general) as strongly contended that it was
unconstitutional. Washington examined the whole subject with great
deliberation, and then put his signature to the act. That act gave a
charter to the institution limited to twenty years, and for that period
Congress renounced the power of establishing any other bank. The capital
was to be ten millions of dollars, divided into twenty-five thousand
shares of four hundre