Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4

For some matters connected with this, see my notes of February the 12th and 14th, 1801, made at the moment. But the following transactions took place about the same time, that is to say, while the Presidential election was in suspense in Congress, which, though I did not enter at the time, they made such an impression on my mind, that they are now as fresh, as to their principal circumstances, as if they had happened yesterday. Coming out of the Senate chamber one day, I found Gouverneur Morris on the steps. He stopped me, and began a conversation on the strange and portentous state of things then existing, and went on to observe, that the reasons why the minority of States was so opposed to my being elected, were, that they apprehended that, 1. I would turn all federalists out of office; 2. put down the navy; 3. wipe off the public debt. That I need only to declare, or authorize my friends to declare, that I would not take these steps, and instantly the event of the election would be fixed. I told him, that I should leave the world to judge of the course I meant to pursue, by that which I had pursued hitherto, believing it to be my duty to be passive and silent during the present scene; that I should certainly make no terms; should never go into the office of President by capitulation, nor with my hands tied by any conditions which should hinder me from pursuing the measures which I should deem for the public good. It was understood that Gouverneur Morris had entirely the direction of the vote of Lewis Morris of Vermont, who, by coming over to Matthew Lyon, would have added another vote, and decided the election. About the same time, I called on Mr. Adams. We conversed on the state of things. I observed to him, that a very dangerous experiment was then in contemplation, to defeat the Presidential election by an act of Congress declaring the right of the Senate to name a President of the Senate, to devolve on him the government during any interregnum: that such a measure would probably produce resistance by force, and incalculable consequences, which it would be in his power to prevent by negativing such an act. He seemed to think such an act justifiable, and observed, it was in my power to fix the election by a word in an instant, by declaring I would not turn out the federal officers, nor put down the navy, nor spunge the national debt. Finding his mind made up as to the usurpation of the government by the President of the Senate, I urged it no further, observed, the world must judge as to myself of the future by the past, and turned the conversation to something else. About the same time, Dwight Foster of Massachusetts called on me in my room one night, and went into a very long conversation on the state of affairs, the drift of which was to let me understand, that the fears above mentioned were the only obstacle to my election, to all of which I avoided giving any answer the one way or the other. From this moment he became most bitterly and personally opposed to me, and so has ever continued. I do not recollect that I ever had any particular conversation with General Samuel Smith on this subject. Very possibly I had, however, as the general subject and all its parts were the constant themes of conversation in the private tête-à-têtes with our friends. But certain I am, that neither he nor any other republican ever uttered the most distant hint to me about submitting to any conditions, or giving any assurances to any body; and still more certainly, was neither he nor any other person ever authorized by me to say what I would or would not do.

[The following official opinion, though inadvertently omitted in its proper place, is deemed of sufficient importance to be inserted here.]

The bill for establishing a National Bank, undertakes, among other things,

1. To form the subscribers into a corporation.

2. To enable them, in their corporate capacities, to receive grants of land; and so far, is against the laws of Mortmain.18

3. To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands; and so far, is against the laws of Alienage.

4. To transmit these lands, on the death of a proprietor, to a certain line of successors; and so far, changes the course of Descents.

5. To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat; and so far, is against the laws of Forfeiture and Escheat.

6. To transmit personal chattels to successors in a certain line; and so far, is against the laws of Distribution.

7. To give them the sole and exclusive right of banking under the national authority; and so far, is against the laws of Monopoly.

8. To communicate to them a power to make laws paramount to the laws of the States; for so they must be construed, to protect the institution from the control of the State legislatures; and so, probably, they will be construed.

I consider the foundation of the constitution as laid on this ground, that all powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ (Twelfth amendment.) To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the constitution.

I. They are not among the powers specially, enumerated. For these are,

1. A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States. But no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the constitution.

2. To ‘borrow money.’ But this bill neither borrows money, nor insures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money-holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill, first to lend them two millions, and then borrow them back again cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment and not a loan, call it by what name you please.

3. ‘To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes.’ To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce in its bills: so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines. Yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the constitution, does not extend to the internal regulation, of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen), which remains exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordingly, the bill does not propose the measure as a ‘regulation of trade,’ but as ‘productive of considerable advantage to trade.’

Still less are these powers covered by any other of the special enumerations.

II. Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following.

1. ‘To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States’; that is to say, ‘to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.’ For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. Congress are not to lay taxes, ad libitum, for any purpose they please: but only to pay the debts, or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do any thing they please, to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased. It is an established rule of construction, where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which will render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. It is known that the very power now proposed as a means, was rejected as an end by the convention which formed the constitution. A proposition was made to them, to authorize Congress to open parials, and an amendatory one, to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected; and one of the reasons of rejection urged in debate was, that they then would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the great cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on that subject, adverse to the reception of the constitution.

2. The second general phrase is, ‘to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated powers.’ But they can all be carried into execution without a bank. A bank, therefore, is not necessary, and consequently, not authorized by this phrase.

It has been much urged, that a bank will give great facility or convenience in the collection of taxes. Suppose this were true: yet the constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary’ not those which are merely ‘convenient’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase, as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one; for there is no one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience, in some way or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one phrase, as before observed. Therefore it was, that the constitution restrained them to the necessary means, that is to say, to those means without which the grant of the power would be nugatory.

But let us examine this ‘convenience,’ and see what it is. The report on this subject, page 2, states the only general convenience to be, the preventing the transportation and re-transportation of money between the States and the treasury. (For I pass over the increase of circulating medium ascribed to it as a merit, and which, according to my ideas of paper money, is clearly a demerit.) Every State will have to pay a sum of tax-money into the treasury; and the treasury will have to pay in every State a part of the interest on the public debt, and salaries to the officers of government resident in that State. In most of the States, there will be still a surplus of tax-money, to come up to the seat of government, for the officers residing there. The payments of interest and salary in each State, may be made by treasury orders on the state collector. This will take up the greater part of the money he has collected in his State and consequently prevent the great mass of it from being drawn out of the state. If there be a balance of commerce in favor of that State, against the one in which the government resides, the surplus of taxes will be remitted by the bills of exchange drawn for that commercial balance. And so it must be if there were a bank. But if there be no balance of commerce, either direct or circuitous, all the banks in the world could not bring us the surplus of taxes but in the form of money. Treasury orders, then, and bills of exchange, may prevent the displacement of the main mass of the money collected, without the aid of any bank: and where these fail, it cannot be prevented even with that aid.

Perhaps, indeed, bank bills may be a more convenient vehicle than treasury orders. But a little difference in the degree of convenience, cannot constitute the necessity which the constitution makes the ground for assuming any non-enumerated power.

Besides; the existing banks will, without doubt, enter into arrangements for lending their agency, and the more favorable, as there will be a competition among them for it. Whereas, this bill delivers us up bound to the national bank, who are free to refuse all arrangements but on their own terms, and the public not free, on such refusal to employ any other bank. That of Philadelphia, I believe, now does this business by their post notes, which, by an arrangement with the treasury, are paid by any State collector to whom they are presented. This expedient alone, suffices to prevent the existence of that necessity which may justify the assumption of a non-enumerated power, as a means for carrying into effect an enumerated one. The thing may be done, and has been done, and well done, without this assumption; therefore, it does not stand on that degree of necessity which can honestly justify it.

It may be said, that a bank, whose bills would have a currency all over the States, would be more convenient than one whose currency is limited to a single State. So it would be still more convenient, that there should be a bank whose bills should have a currency all over the world. But it does not follow from this superior conveniency, that there exists any where a power to establish such a bank, or that the world may not go on very well without it. Can it be thought that the constitution intended, that for a shade or two of convenience, more or less, Congress should be authorized to break down the most ancient and fundamental laws of the several States, such as those against mortmain, the laws of alienage, the rules of descent, the acts of distribution, the laws of escheat and forfeiture, and the laws of monopoly. Nothing but a necessity invincible by any other means, can justify such a prostration of laws, which constitute the pillars of our whole system of jurisprudence. Will Congress be too strait-laced to carry the constitution into honest effect, unless they may pass over the foundation laws of the State governments, for the slightest convenience to theirs?

The negative of the President is the shield provided by the constitution, to protect against the invasions of the legislature, 1. the rights of the Executive; 2. of the Judiciary; 3. of the States and State legislatures. The present is the case of a right remaining exclusively with the States, and is, consequently, one of those intended by the constitution to be placed under his protection.

It must be added, however, that unless the President’s mind, on a view of every thing which is urged for and against this bill, is tolerably clear that it is unauthorized by the constitution, if the pro and the con hang so even as to balance his judgment, a just respect for the wisdom of the legislature would naturally decide the balance in favor of their opinion. It is chiefly for cases where they are clearly misled by error, ambition, or interest, that the constitution has placed a check in the negative of the President.

Th: Jefferson.

February 15, 1791.

1

November 8. It is now said that it did not take place on the 3rd, but will this day.

2

In the margin is written by the author, ‘La Fayette.‘

3

This letter is endorsed, ‘not sent.‘

4

The real cash or money necessary to carry on the circulation and barter of a State, is nearly one third part of all the annual rents of the proprietors of the said State; that is, one ninth of the whole produce of the land. Sir William Petty supposes one tenth part of the value of the whole produce sufficient. Postlethwayt, voce, Cash.

5

Within five months after this they were compelled, by the necessities of the war, to abandon the idea of emitting only an adequate circulation, and to make those necessities the sole measure of their emissions.

6

This is endorsed;’ not sent.‘

7

This letter was accidentally misplaced, and is now inserted out of its regular order.

8

The constitution controlling the common law in this particular.

9

That of Athanasius and the Council of Nicasa, anno 324

10

The clergy of the United States may probably be estimated at eight thousand. The residue of this society at four hundred; but if the former number be halved, the reasoning will be the same.

11

I found such an act, but not noting it at the time, I have not been able to find it again. But there is such an one.

12

These are the volumes containing the Ana to the time that the Author retired from the office of Secretary of State. The official opinions and documents referred to, being very voluminous, are for the most part omitted, to make room for the conversations which the same volumes comprise.

13

See conversation with General Washington, of October 1,1792,

14

There had been a previous consultation at the President’s (about the first week in November) on the expediency of suspending payments to France, under her present situation. I had admitted that the late constitution was dissolved by the dethronement of the King; and the management of affairs surviving to the National Assembly only, this was not an integral legislature, and therefore not competent to give a legitimate discharge for our payments: that I thought consequently, that none should be made till some legitimate body came into place; and that I should consider the National Convention, called, but not met as we had yet heard, to be a legitimate body. Hamilton doubted whether it would be a legitimate body, and whether, if the King should be re-established, he might not disallow such payments on good grounds. Knox, for once, dared to differ from Hamilton, and to express, very submissively, an opinion, that a convention named by the whole body of the nation, would be competent to do any thing. It ended by agreeing, that I should write to Gouverneur Morris to suspend payment generally, till further orders.

15

In the margin is written, by Mr. Jefferson; ‘Impossible as to Hamilton; he was far above that.

16

He said that Mr. Morris, taking a family dinner with him the other day, went largely, and of his own accord, into this subject; advised this appeal, and promised, if the President adopted it, that he would support it himself, and engage for all his connections. The President repeated this twice, and with an air of importance. Now Mr. Morris has no family connections; he engaged then for his political friends. This shows that the President has not confidence enough in the virtue and good sense of mankind, to confide in a government bottomed on them, and thinks other props necessary.

17

He observed, that eight or ten years ago he gave only fifty dollars to a common laborer for his farm, finding him food and lodging. Now he gives one hundred and fifty dollars, and even two hundred dollars to one.

18

Though the constitution controls the laws of Mortmain, so far as to permit Congress itself to hold lands for certain purposes, yet not so far as to permit them to communicate a similar right to other corporate bodies.