The Government of the United States have no constitutional power to purchase lands within the States except “for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings,” and even for these objects only “by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be.”  By making themselves stockholders in the bank and granting to the corporation the power to purchase lands for other purposes they assume a power not granted in the Constitution and grant to others what they do not themselves possess.  It is not necessary to the receiving, safe-keeping, or transmission of the funds of the Government that the bank should possess this power, and it is not proper that Congress should thus enlarge the powers delegated to them in the Constitution.

The old Bank of the United States possessed a capital of only $11,000,000, which was found fully sufficient to enable it with dispatch and safety to perform all the functions required of it by the Government.  The capital of the present bank is $35,000,000—­at least twenty-four more than experience has proved to be necessary to enable a bank to perform 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.

The Government is the only “proper” judge where its agents should reside and keep their offices, because it best knows where their presence will be “necessary.”  It can not, therefore, be “necessary” or “proper” to authorize the bank to locate branches where it pleases to perform the public service, without consulting the Government, and contrary to its will.  The principle laid down by the Supreme Court concedes that Congress can not establish a bank for purposes of private speculation and gain, but only as a means of executing the delegated powers of the General Government.  By the same principle a branch bank can not constitutionally be established for other than public purposes.  The power which this act gives to establish two branches in any State, without the injunction or request of the Government and for other than public purposes, is not “necessary” to the due execution of the powers delegated to Congress.

The bonus which is exacted from the bank is a confession upon the face of the act that the powers granted by it are greater than are “necessary” to its character of a fiscal agent.  The Government does not tax its officers and agents for the privilege of serving it.  The bonus of a million and a half required by the original charter and that of three millions proposed by this act are not exacted for the privilege of giving “the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place within the United States or the Territories thereof,