ch
the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to
transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore
unconstitutional.

By its silence, considered in connection with the decision of the
Supreme Court in the case of McCulloch against the State of Maryland,
this act takes from the States the power to tax a portion of the banking
business carried on within their limits, in subversion of one of the
strongest barriers which secured them against Federal encroachments.
Banking, like farming, manufacturing, or any other occupation or
profession, is _a business_, the right to follow which is not originally
derived from the laws. Every citizen and every company of citizens in
all of our States possessed the right until the State legislatures
deemed it good policy to prohibit private banking by law. If the
prohibitory State laws were now repealed, every citizen would again
possess the right. The State banks are a qualified restoration of the
right which has been taken away by the laws against banking, guarded by
such provisions and limitations as in the opinion of the State
legislatures the public interest requires. These corporations, unless
there be an exemption in their charter, are, like private bankers and
banking companies, subject to State taxation. The manner in which these
taxes shall be laid depends wholly on legislative discretion. It may be
upon the bank, upon the stock, upon the profits, or in any other mode
which the sovereign power shall will.

Upon the formation of the Constitution the States guarded their taxing
power with peculiar jealousy. They surrendered it only as it regards
imports and exports. In relation to every other object within their
jurisdiction, whether persons, property, business, or professions, it
was secured in as ample a manner as it was before possessed. All
persons, though United States officers, are liable to a poll tax by the
States within which they reside. The lands of the United States are
liable to the usual land tax, except in the new States, from whom
agreements that they will not tax unsold lands are exacted when they are
admitted into the Union. Horses, wagons, any beasts or vehicles, tools,
or property belonging to private citizens, though employed in the
service of the United States, are subject to State taxation. Every
private business, whether carried on by an officer of the General
Government or not, whether it be mixed with public concerns