ison, when President, forcibly illustrates this
policy. He had made up his opinion that Congress had no power under
the Constitution to establish a National Bank. In 1815, Congress
passed a bill to establish a bank. He vetoed the bill, on objections
other than constitutional. In his message, he speaks as a wise
statesman and Chief Magistrate, as follows:

"Waiving the question of the constitutional authority of the
Legislature to establish an incorporated bank, as being precluded, in
my judgment, by the repeated recognitions under varied circumstances
of the validity of such an institution, in acts of the Legislative,
Executive, and Judicial branches of the Government, accompanied by
indications, in different modes, of a concurrence of the general will
of the nation."

Has this impressive lesson of practical wisdom become lost to the
present generation?

If the great and fundamental principles of our Government are never to
be settled, there can be no lasting prosperity. The Constitution will
become a floating waif on the billows of popular excitement.

The prohibition of slavery north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes,
and of the State of Missouri, contained in the act admitting that
State into the Union, was passed by a vote of 134, in the House of
Representatives, to 42. Before Mr. Monroe signed the act, it was
submitted by him to his Cabinet, and they held the restriction of
slavery in a Territory to be within the constitutional powers of
Congress. It would be singular, if in 1804 Congress had power to
prohibit the introduction of slaves in Orleans Territory from any
other part of the Union, under the penalty of freedom to the slave, if
the same power embodied in the Missouri compromise, could not be
exercised in 1820.

But this law of Congress, which prohibits slavery north of Missouri
and of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, is declared to have been
null and void by my brethren. And this opinion is founded mainly, as I
understand, on the distinction drawn between the ordinance of 1787 and
the Missouri compromise line. In what does the distinction consist?
The ordinance, it is said, was a compact entered into by the
confederated States before the adoption of the Constitution; and that
in the cession of territory authority was given to establish a
Territorial Government.

It is clear that the ordinance did not go into operation by virtue of
the authority of the Confederation, but by reason of its modific