Wheaton 193, as to any such power that
'should be exercised _exclusively_ by Congress, the subject is as
_completely_ taken from the State Legislature as if they had been
_forbidden to act on it_.' All then who agree that Congress has 'the
entire regulation of the currency,' must admit that all banks of issue
incorporated by States are unconstitutional, not because such issues are
bills of credit, but because they violate the exclusive authority of
Congress to regulate commerce, coin, and its value. I repeat, that while
this question has never been adjudicated by the Supreme Court, yet, if
their decision in fourth and ninth Wheaton is maintained, such bank
issues are clearly unconstitutional. It is clear, also, whatever may be
the case of bank issues, based only 'upon private capital,' or, in the
language of Judge Story, 'if the corporate stock, and that only by the
charter, is made liable for the debts of the bank,' yet, if the bank
issues are based on the 'funds' or 'credit' of the State, such issues do
violate the prohibition against bills of credit. Such bank issues, then,
as are furnished and countersigned by State officers, acting under State
laws, and are secured by the deposit with the State of its own stock,
are most clearly unconstitutional.

In No. 44 (by Hamilton) of the _Federalist_, the great contemporaneous
exposition of the Constitution (prepared by Hamilton, Madison, and Chief
Justice Jay of the Supreme Court of the United States), it is said: 'The
same reasons which show the necessity of denying to the States the power
of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at
liberty to substitute a paper medium instead of coin.' Such was the
opinion of the two great founders of the Constitution (Hamilton and
Madison), and its first judicial expositor, the eminent Chief Justice
Jay. Justice Story quotes and approves this remarkable passage, and says
'that the prohibition was aimed at a _paper medium_ which was intended
to _circulate as money_, and to that alone.'

In his message of December 3, 1816, President Madison, referring
expressly to a _bank_ and _paper_ medium, said: 'It is essential that
the nation should possess a currency of equal value, credit, and use,
wherever it may circulate. The Constitution has entrusted Congress
_exclusively_ with the power of _creating_ and _regulating_ a currency
of that description.'

This rebellion proves the awful danger of State violations of th