On two subjects only does the Constitution recognize in Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges or monopolies.  It declares that “Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”  Out of this express delegation of power have grown our laws of patents and copyrights.  As the Constitution expressly delegates to Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges in these cases as the means of executing the substantive power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts,” it is consistent with the fair rules of construction to conclude that such a power was not intended to be granted as a means of accomplishing any other end.  On every other subject which comes within the scope of Congressional power there is an ever-living discretion in the use of proper means, which can not be restricted or abolished without an amendment of the Constitution.  Every act of Congress, therefore, which attempts by grants of monopolies or sale of exclusive privileges for a limited time, or a time without limit, to restrict or extinguish its own discretion in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers is equivalent to a legislative amendment of the Constitution, and palpably unconstitutional.

This act authorizes and encourages transfers of its stock to foreigners and grants them an exemption from all State and national taxation.  So far from being “necessary and proper” that the bank should possess this power to make it a safe and efficient agent of the Government in its fiscal operations, it is calculated to convert the Bank of the United States into a foreign bank, to impoverish our people in time of peace, to disseminate a foreign influence through every section of the Republic, and in war to endanger our independence.

The several States reserved the power at the formation of the Constitution to regulate and control titles and transfers of real property, and most, if not all, of them have laws disqualifying aliens from acquiring or holding lands within their limits.  But this act, in disregard of the undoubted right of the States to prescribe such disqualifications, gives to aliens stockholders in this bank an interest and title, as members of the corporation, to all the real property it may acquire within any of the States of this Union.  This privilege granted to aliens is not “necessary” to enable the bank to perform its public duties, nor in any sense “proper” because it is vitally subversive of the rights of the States.