General Smith here rose, and said, that he voted against the bank
     in 1811, but not at all on constitutional grounds, and had no doubt
     such was the case with other members.

We all know, Sir, the fact to be as the gentleman from Maryland has stated it.  Every man who recollects, or who has read, the political occurrences of that day, knows it.  Therefore, if the message intends to say, that in 1811 Congress denied the existence of any such constitutional power, the declaration is unwarranted, and altogether at variance with the facts.  If, on the other hand, it only intends to say, that Congress decided against the proposition then before it on some other grounds, then it alleges that which is nothing at all to the purpose.  The argument, then, either assumes for truth that which is not true, or else the whole statement is immaterial and futile.

But whatever value others may attach to this argument, the message thinks so highly of it, that it proceeds to repeat it.  “One Congress,” it says, “in 1815, decided against a bank, another, in 1816, decided in its favor.  There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act before me.”  Now, Sir, since it is known to the whole country, one cannot but wonder how it should remain unknown to the President, that Congress did not decide against a bank in 1815.  On the contrary, that very Congress passed a bill for erecting a bank, by very large majorities.  In one form, it is true, the bill failed in the House of Representatives; but the vote was reconsidered, the bill recommitted, and finally passed by a vote of one hundred and twenty to thirty-nine.  There is, therefore, not only no solid ground, but not even any plausible pretence, for the assertion, that Congress in 1815 decided against the bank.  That very Congress passed a bill to create a bank, and its decision, therefore, is precisely the other way, and is a direct practical precedent in favor of the constitutional power.  What are we to think of a constitutional argument which deals in this way with historical facts?  When the message declares, as it does declare, that there is nothing in precedent which ought to weigh in favor of the power, it sets at naught repeated acts of Congress affirming the power, and it also states other acts, which were in fact, and which are well known to have been, directly the reverse of what the message represents them.  There is not, Sir, the slightest reason to think that any Senate or any House of Representatives, ever assembled under the Constitution, contained a majority that doubted the constitutional existence of the power of Congress to establish a bank.  Whenever the question has arisen, and has been decided, it has always been decided one way.  The legislative precedents all assert and maintain the power; and these legislative precedents have been the law of the land for almost forty years.  They settle the construction of the Constitution, and sanction the exercise of the power in question, so far as these effects can ever be produced by any legislative precedents whatever.