The American Republic [85]
government is clothed with the treaty-making power, and the whole charge of the foreign relations of the country; with power to admit new States into the Union; to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory and all other property belonging to the United States; to declare, with certain restrictions, the punishment 259 of treason, the constitution itself defining what is treason against the United States; and to propose, or to call, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of all the states, a convention for proposing amendments to this constitution; and is vested with supreme judicial power, original or appellate, in all cases of law and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made or to be made under their authority, in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, in all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, in all controversies to which the United States shall be a party, all controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State or the citizens thereof and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.
These, with what is incidental to them, and what is necessary and proper to carry them into effect, are all the positive powers with which the convention vests the General government, or government of the United States, as distinguished from the governments of the particular States; and these, with the exception of what relates to the district in which it has 260 its seat, and places of forts, magazines, &c., are of a general nature, and restricted to the common relations and interests of the people, or at least to interests and relations which extend beyond the limits of a particular State. They are all powers that regard matters which extend beyond not only the individual citizen, but the individual State, and affect alike the relations and interests of all the States, or matters which cannot be disposed of by a State government without the exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction. They give the government no jurisdiction of questions which affect individuals or citizens only in their private and domestic relations which lie wholly within a particular State. The General government does not legislate concerning private rights, whether of persons or things, the tenure of real estate, marriage, dower, inheritance, wills, the transferrence or transmission of property, real or personal; it can charter no private corporations, out of the District of Columbia, for business, literary, scientific, or eleemosynary purposes, establish no schools, found no colleges or universities, and promote science and the useful arts only by securing to authors and inventors for a time the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. The United States Bank was man- 261 ifestly unconstitutional, as probably are the present so-called national banks. The United States Bank was a private or particular corporation, and the present national banks are only corporations of the same sort, though organized under a general law. The pretence that they are established to supply a national currency, does not save their constitutionality, for the convention has not given the General government the power nor imposed on it the duty of furnishing a national currency. To coin money, and regulate the value thereof, is something very different from authorizing private companies to issue bank notes, on the basis of the public stocks held as private property, or even on what is called a specie basis. To claim the power under the general welfare clause would be a simple mockery of good sense. It is no more for the general welfare than any other successful private business. The private welfare of each is, no
These, with what is incidental to them, and what is necessary and proper to carry them into effect, are all the positive powers with which the convention vests the General government, or government of the United States, as distinguished from the governments of the particular States; and these, with the exception of what relates to the district in which it has 260 its seat, and places of forts, magazines, &c., are of a general nature, and restricted to the common relations and interests of the people, or at least to interests and relations which extend beyond the limits of a particular State. They are all powers that regard matters which extend beyond not only the individual citizen, but the individual State, and affect alike the relations and interests of all the States, or matters which cannot be disposed of by a State government without the exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction. They give the government no jurisdiction of questions which affect individuals or citizens only in their private and domestic relations which lie wholly within a particular State. The General government does not legislate concerning private rights, whether of persons or things, the tenure of real estate, marriage, dower, inheritance, wills, the transferrence or transmission of property, real or personal; it can charter no private corporations, out of the District of Columbia, for business, literary, scientific, or eleemosynary purposes, establish no schools, found no colleges or universities, and promote science and the useful arts only by securing to authors and inventors for a time the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. The United States Bank was man- 261 ifestly unconstitutional, as probably are the present so-called national banks. The United States Bank was a private or particular corporation, and the present national banks are only corporations of the same sort, though organized under a general law. The pretence that they are established to supply a national currency, does not save their constitutionality, for the convention has not given the General government the power nor imposed on it the duty of furnishing a national currency. To coin money, and regulate the value thereof, is something very different from authorizing private companies to issue bank notes, on the basis of the public stocks held as private property, or even on what is called a specie basis. To claim the power under the general welfare clause would be a simple mockery of good sense. It is no more for the general welfare than any other successful private business. The private welfare of each is, no