ervation of the General Government, in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home, and safety abroad," shall be scrupulously observed and inviolably maintained.

In ascertaining the true line of separation between the powers of the General Government and of the States, much difficulty has often been experienced in the operations of our system. The powers delegated to the General Government are either express or implied. The general rule of construction laid down by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1799, may be regarded as a sound one by which to determine whether a given power has been delegated to that Government, or is reserved to the States. That rule is "Whenever a question arises concerning the constitutionality of a particular power, the first question is, whether the power be expressed in the constitution. If it be, the question is decided. If it be not expressed, the next question must be, whether it is properly an incident to an expressed power, and necessary to its execution. If it be, it may be exercised by Congress. If it be not, Congress cannot exercise it." If the power be not expressed, it is not enough that it may be convenient or expedient to exercise it, for such a construction of the Constitution of the United States would refer its exercise to the unlimited and unrestrained discretion of Congress—to determine what would be convenient or expedient; thereby making the exercise of important powers, by the General Government, to depend upon the varying discretion of successive Congresses. It must be a 'necessary and proper" power. It must be an incident to an express power, "necessary and proper" to carry that express power into effect, and, without which, it could not be exercised, and would be nugatory.

Mr. Jefferson, whose sound expositions of the relative powers of the Federal and State Governments but few of my constituents will be prepared at this day to question, near the close of a long and eventful life of public usefulness, de

clared "to be most false and unfounded, the doctrine that the compact, in authorizing its federal branch to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, has given them thereby a power to do whatever they may think, or pretend, would promote the general welfare, which construction would make that, of itself, a complete government, without limitation of powers; but, that the plain sense and obvious meaning were, that they might levy the taxes necessary to provide for the general welfare, by the various acts of power therein specified and delegated to them, and by no others."

In all cases of well-founded constitutional doubt, it is safest and wisest for all the functionaries of government, both State and Federal, to abstain from the exercise of the doubtful power. In all such cases, it is both safest and wisest to appeal to the people, the only true source of power in the constitutional forms, by an amendment of the fundamental law, to remove such doubt, either by an enlargement or a restriction of the doubtful power in question.

The Federal Government has at different times assumed, or attempted to exercise powers, which, in my judgment, have not been conferred upon that government by the compact. Among these, I am free to declare my solemn conviction that the Federal Government possesses no constitutional power to incorporate a National Bank. The advocates of a bank insist that it would be convenient and expedient, and that it would promote the "general welfare;" but they have, in my judgment, failed to show that the power to create it is either expressly granted, or that it is an incident to any express power, that is "necessary and proper" to carry that power into effect. The alarming dangers of the power of such a corporation (vast and irresponsible as experience has shown it to be) to the public liberty, it does not fall within the scope of my present purpose fully to examine. We have seen the

power of associated wealth in the late Bank of the United States, wrestling with a giant's strength with the Government itself—and although finally overthrown, it was not until after a long and doubtful contest. During the struggle, it manifested a power for mischief which it would be dangerous to permit to exist in a free country. The panic and alarm, the distress and extensive suffering, which in its convulsive struggle to perpetuate its power it inflicted on the country, will not soon be forgotten. Its notorious alliance with leading politicians, and its open interference by means of the corrupting power of money in the political contests of the times, had converted it into a political engine, used to control elections and the course of public affairs. No restraints of law could prevent any similar institution from being the willing instrument used for similar purposes. The State of Tennessee, through her Legislature, has repeatedly declared her settled opinions against the existence of such an institution, and at no time in its favor. She has instructed her Senators, and requested her Representatives in Congress to vote against the establishment of such an institution. In these opinions, heretofore expressed by the State, I entirely

concur.

Of the same character is the power which at some time has been attempted to be exercised by the Federal Government, of first collecting by taxation on the people a surplus revenue beyond the wants of that Government, and then distributing such surplus, in the shape of donations, among the States: a power which has not been conferred on that Government by any express grant, nor is it an incident to any express power, necessary and proper" for its execution. To concede such a power, would be to make the Federal Government the taxgatherer of the States, and accustom them to look to that source from which to supply the State Treasuries, and to defray the expenses of the State Governments. It is clear that this constituted no one of the objects of the creation of the

Federal Government; and to permit its exercise would be to reduce the States to the degraded condition of subordinate dependencies upon that Government, to destroy their separate and independent sovereignty, and to make the Government of the Union in effect a consolidation. The power to make provision for the support of its own Government, by the levy of the necessary taxes upon its own citizens, and the adoption of such measures of policy for its internal Government not inconsistent with the Federal Constitution, as may be deemed proper and expedient, "remains to each State among its domestic and unalienated powers exercisable within itself and by its domestic authorities alone."

A surplus Federal revenue, raised by means of a tariff of duties, must necessarily be collected in unequal proportions from the people of the respective States. The planting and producing States must bear the larger portion of the burden. It was this inequality which has heretofore given rise to the just complaints of these States, as also of the commercial interests, against the operations of a high and protective tariff. If the proceeds of the sales of the public lands be set apart for distribution among the States, as has been sometimes proposed, the operation and effect would be the same; for, by abstracting from the Federal Treasury the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, a necessity is thereby created for an increased Tariff to the amount thus abstracted. To collect a surplus revenue by unequal taxation, and then to return to the people, by a distribution among the States, their own money, in sums diminished by the amount of the cost of collection and distribution, aside from its manifest injustice, is a power which it could never have been intended to confer on the Federal Government.

When, from the unforeseen operation of the revenue laws of the United States, a surplus at any time exists or is likely to exist in the Federal Treasury, the true remedy is, to reduce or to repeal the taxes so as to collect no more money

than shall be absolutely necessary for the economical wants of that Government, and thus leave what would otherwise be surplus uncollected in the pockets of the people. The act of Congress of 1836, by which a large amount of the surplus on hand was distributed among the States, is upon its face a deposit and not a donation of the sums distributed. The States have become the debtors to the Federal Government for their respective proportions, and are subject to be called upon to refund it. Had the act provided for an absolute donation to the States, so palpable an infraction of the Constitution it is scarcely possible to conceive could have been sanctioned. By making it assume the form of a mere deposit of the money of the United States in the State Treasuries for safe-keeping until needed for public purposes, it became the law. Though it may not be probable that the sums distributed on deposit will be called for at an early period, if indeed they will ever be, unless in cases of exigencies growing out of a foreign war, yet the States should be at all times prepared to meet the call when made; and it will be unsafe for them to rely upon the sums they have received as a permanent fund. They should rather look to their own credit and resources in the accomplishment of their purposes.

It becomes the duty of all the States, and especially of those whose constitutions recognize the existence of domestic slavery, to look with watchfulness to the attempts which have been recently made to disturb the rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States. The agitation of the abolitionists can by no possibility produce good to any portion of the Union, and must, if persisted in, lead to incalculable mischief. The institution of domestic slavery, as it existed at the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and as it still exists in some of the States, formed the subject of one of the compromises of opinion and of interest upon the settlement of which all the old States became parties to the compact and agreed