of the revenue?  So far as the mere discounting of paper is concerned, it is quite immaterial to this question whether the discount is obtained at a State bank or a United States bank.  They are both equally local, both beginning and both ending in a local accommodation.  What influence have local discounts granted by any form of bank in the regulating of the currency and the exchanges?  Let the history of the late United States Bank aid us in answering this inquiry.

For several years after the establishment of that institution it dealt almost exclusively in local discounts, and during that period the country was for the most part disappointed in the consequences anticipated from its incorporation.  A uniform currency was not provided, exchanges were not regulated, and little or nothing was added to the general circulation, and in 1820 its embarrassments had become so great that the directors petitioned Congress to repeal that article of the charter which made its notes receivable everywhere in payment of the public dues.  It had up to that period dealt to but a very small extent in exchanges, either foreign or domestic, and as late as 1823 its operations in that line amounted to a little more than $7,000,000 per annum.  A very rapid augmentation soon after occurred, and in 1833 its dealings in the exchanges amounted to upward of $100,000,000, including the sales of its own drafts; and all these immense transactions were effected without the employment of extraordinary means.  The currency of the country became sound, and the negotiations in the exchanges were carried on at the lowest possible rates.  The circulation was increased to more than $22,000,000 and the notes of the bank were regarded as equal to specie all over the country, thus showing almost conclusively that it was the capacity to deal in exchanges, and not in local discounts, which furnished these facilities and advantages.  It may be remarked, too, that notwithstanding the immense transactions of the bank in the purchase of exchange, the losses sustained were merely nominal, while in the line of discounts the suspended debt was enormous and proved most disastrous to the bank and the country.  Its power of local discount has in fact proved to be a fruitful source of favoritism and corruption, alike destructive to the public morals and to the general weal.

The capital invested in banks of discount in the United States, created by the States, at this time exceeds $350,000,000, and if the discounting of local paper could have produced any beneficial effects the United States ought to possess the soundest currency in the world; but the reverse is lamentably the fact.

Is the measure now under consideration of the objectionable character to which I have alluded?  It is clearly so unless by the sixteenth fundamental article of the eleventh section it is made otherwise.  That article is in the following words: