the objections to the constitutional authority of
congress deserved to be seriously considered.

That the government was limited by the terms of its creation was not
controverted; and that it could exercise only those powers which were
conferred on it by the constitution, was admitted. If, on examination,
that instrument should be found to forbid the passage of the bill, it
must be rejected, though it would be with deep regret that its friends
would suffer such an opportunity of serving their country to escape
for the want of a constitutional power to improve it.

In asserting the authority of the legislature to pass the bill,
gentlemen contended, that incidental as well as express powers must
necessarily belong to every government: and that, when a power is
delegated to effect particular objects, all the known and usual means
of effecting them, must pass as incidental to it. To remove all doubt
on this subject, the constitution of the United States had recognized
the principle, by enabling congress to make all laws which may be
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested in
the government. They maintained the sound construction of this grant
to be a recognition of an authority in the national legislature, to
employ all the known and usual means for executing the powers vested
in the government. They then took a comprehensive view of those
powers, and contended that a bank was a known and usual instrument by
which several of them were exercised.

After a debate of great length, which was supported on both sides with
ability, and with that ardour which was naturally excited by the
importance attached by each party to the principle in contest, the
question was put, and the bill was carried in the affirmative by a
majority of nineteen voices.

[Sidenote: The opinions of the cabinet on the constitutionality of
this last law.]

The point which had been agitated with so much zeal in the house of
representatives, was examined with equal deliberation by the
executive. The cabinet was divided upon it. The secretary of state,
and the attorney general, conceived that congress had clearly
transcended their constitutional powers; while the secretary of the
treasury, with equal clearness, maintained the opposite opinion. The
advice of each minister, with his reasoning in support of it, was
required in writing, and their arguments were considered by the
President with all that attention which the magnitud