President is there, that ever bore unequivocally opposite testimony-that disapproved a Bank charter, in the sense intended by President Tyler? General Jackson, although he did apply the Veto power to the bill for re-chartering the late Bank of the United States in 1832, it is within the perfect recollection of us all, not only testified to the utility of a Bank of the United States, but declared, that, if he had been applied to by Congress, he could have furnished the plan of such a Bank.

"Thus, Mr. President, we perceive, that, in reviewing the action of the legislative and executive departments of the Government, there is a vast preponderance of the weight of authority maintaining the existence of the power in Congress. But President Tyler has, I presume unintentionally, wholly omitted to notice the judgment and decisions of the third co-ordinate department of the Government upon this controverted question that department, whose interpretations of the Constitution, within its proper jurisdiction and sphere of action, are binding upon all; and which, therefore, may be considered as exercising a controlling power over both the other departments. The

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Supreme Court of the United States, with its late Chief Justice, the illustrious Marshall, at its head, unanimously decided that Congress possessed this Bank power; and this adjudication was sustained and re-affirmed whenever afterward the question arose before the court.

"After recounting the occasions, during his public career, on which he had expressed an opinion against the power of Congress to charter a Bank of the United States, the President proceeds to say :

"Entertaining the opinions alluded to, and having taken this oath, the Senate and the country will see that I could not give my sanction to a measure of the character described, without surrendering all claim to the respect of honourable men-all confidence on the part of the people, all self respect, all regard for moral and religious obligations; without an observance of which no Government can be prosperous, and no people can be happy. It would be to commit a crime, which I would not wilfully commit to gain any earthly reward, and which would justly subject me to the ridicule and scorn of all virtuous men.'

"Mr. President, I must think, and hope I may be allowed to say, with profound deference to the Chief Magistrate, that it appears to me he has viewed with too lively sensibility the personal consequences to himself of his approval of the Bill; and that, surrendering himself to a vivid imagination, he has depicted them in much too glowing and exaggerated colours, and that it would have been most happy, if he had looked more to the deplorable consequences of a Veto upon the hopes, the interests, and the happiness of his country. Does it follow that a Magistrate who yields his private judgment to the concurring authority of numerous decisions, repeatedly and deliberately pronounced, after the lapse of long intervals, by all the departments of Government, and by all parties, incurs the dreadful penalties described by the President? Can any man be disgraced and dishonoured, who yields his private opinion to the judgment of the nation? In this case, the country (I mean a majority), Congress, and, according to common fame, a unanimous Cabinet, were all united in favour of the Bill. Should any man feel himself humbled and degraded

in yielding to the conjoint force of such high authority? Does any man, who at one period of his life shall have expressed a particular opinion, and at a subsequent period shall act upon the opposite opinion, expose himself to the terrible consequences which have been pourtrayed by the President? How is it with the Judge, in the case by no means rare, who bows to the authority of repeated precedents, settling a particular question, while in his private judgment, the law was otherwise? How is it with that numerous class of public men in this country, and with the two great parties that have divided it, who, at different periods, have maintained and acted on opposite opinions in respect to this very Bank question.

"How is it with James Madison, the Father of the Constitution-that great man whose services to his country placed him only second to Washington; whose virtues and purity in private life, whose patriotism, intelligence, and wisdom in public councils, stand unsurpassed? He was a member of the National Convention that formed, and of the Virginia Convention that adopted, the Constitution. No man understood it better than he did.

He was opposed, in 1791, to the establishment of the Bank of the United States, upon constitutional ground; and, in 1816, he approved and signed the charter of the late Bank of the United States. It is a part of the secret history connected with the first Bank, that James Madison had, at the instance of General Washington, prepared a Veto for him in the contingency of his rejection of the bill. Thus stood James Madison, when, in 1815, he applied the Veto to a bill to charter a Bank upon considerations of expediency, but with a clear and express admission of the existence of a constitutional power of Congress to charter one. In 1816, the bill which was then presented to him being free from the objections applicable to that of the previous year, he sanctioned and signed it. Did James Madison surrender all claim to the respect of honourable men, all confidence on the part of the people, all self-respect, all regard for moral and religious obligations?" Did the pure, the virtuous, the gifted James Madison, by his sanction and signature to the charter of the late Bank of the United States, commit a crime which justly sub