The present corporate body . . . will have existed, at the time this act is intended to take effect, twenty years. It enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking, under the authority of the general government, a monopoly of its favor and support, and, as a necessary consequence, almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. . . .

It has been urged as an argument in favor of rechartering the present bank, that the calling in its loans will produce great embarrassment and distress. The time allowed to close its concerns is ample; and if it has been well managed, its pressure will be light, and heavy only in case its management has been bad. If, therefore, it shall produce distress, the fault will be its own: and it would furnish a reason against renewing a power which has been so obviously abused. But will there ever be a time when this reason will be less powerful? To acknowledge its force, is to admit that the bank ought to be perpetual; and, as a consequence, the present stockholders, and those inheriting their rights as successors, be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power, and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connexion with the government.

The modifications of the existing charter, proposed by this act, are not such, in my view, as make it consistent with the rights of the states or the liberties of the people. . . . All the objectionable principles of the existing corporation, and most of its odious features, are retained without alleviation. . . .

It will make the American people debtors to aliens, in nearly the whole amount due to this bank, and send across the Atlantic from two to five millions of specie every year to pay the bank dividends.

In another of its bearings, this provision is fraught with danger. Of the twenty-five directors of this bank, five are chosen by the government, and twenty by the citizen stockholders. From all voice in these elections, the foreign stockholders are excluded by the charter. In proportion, therefore, as the stock is transferred to foreign holders the extent of suffrage in the choice of directors is curtailed.

Already is almost a third of the stock in foreign hands, and not represented in elections. It is constantly passing out of the country, and this act will accelerate its departure. The entire control of the institution would necessarily fall into the hands of a few citizen stockholders; and the ease with which the object would be accomplished, would be a temptation to designing men to secure that control in their own hands, by monopolizing the remaining stock. There is danger that a president and directors would then be able to elect themselves from year to year, and without responsibility or control, manage the whole concerns of the bank during the existence of its charter. It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men, irresponsible to the people. . . .

Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with that country, what would be our condition? Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction, there can be no doubt. All its operations within, would be in aid of the hostile fleets and armies without. Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.

If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound policy, and every impulse of American feeling, admonishes that it should be purely American. . . .

It is maintained by the advocates of the bank, that its constitutionality, in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by precedent, and by the decision of the supreme court. To this conclusion I can not assent. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power, except where the acquiescence of the people and the states can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that source were equal. If we resort to the states, the expressions of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank have been probably to those in its favor as four to one. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor to the act before me.

If the opinion of the supreme court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this government. The Congress, the executive, and the court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges; and, on that point, the president is independent of both. The authority of the supreme court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the executive, when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve. . . .

The old bank of the United States possessed a capital of only eleven millions of dollars, which was found fully sufficient to enable it, with despatch and safety, to perform all the functions required of it by the government. The capital of the present bank is thirty-five millions of dollars, at least twenty-four more than experience has proved to be necessary to enable a bank to perfrom its public functions. The public debt which existed during the period of the old bank, and on the establishment of the new, has been nearly paid off, and our revenue will soon be reduced. This increase of capital is, therefore, not for public but for private purposes. . . .

It can not be necessary to the character of the bank as a fiscal agent of the government, that its private business should not be exempted from that taxation to which all the state banks are liable; nor can I conceive it proper that the substantive and most essential powers reserved by the states shall be thus attacked and annihilated as a means of executing the powers delegated to the general goverment. . . .

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of heaven, and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law. But when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages, artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer, and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society, the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me, there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

Nor is our government to be maintained, or our Union preserved, by invasions of the rights and powers of the several states. In thus attempting to make our general government strong, we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and states as much as possible to themselves; in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence, not in its control but in its protection, not in binding the states more closely to the centre, but leaving each to move unobstructed, in its proper orbit. . . .

It is time to pause in our career, to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the revolution of the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.

I have now done my duty to my country. If sustained by my fellow-citizens, I shall be grateful and happy; if not, I shall find in the motives which impel me, ample grounds for contentment and peace. . . .