President should have been first consulted, and that he should have had the framing of the bill; but we are not yet accustomed to that order of things in enacting laws, nor do I know a parallel to this claim, thus now brought forward, except that, in some peculiar cases in England, highly affecting the royal prerogative, the assent of the monarch is necessary before either the House of Peers, or his Majesty’s faithful Commons, are permitted to act upon the subject, or to entertain its consideration.  But supposing, Sir, that our accustomed forms and our republican principles are still to be followed, and that a law creating a bank is, like all other laws, to originate with Congress, and that the President has nothing to do with it till it is presented for his approval, then it is clear that the powers and duties of a proposed bank, and all the terms and conditions annexed to it, must, in the first place, be settled by Congress.

This power, if constitutional at all, is only constitutional in the hands of Congress.  Anywhere else, its exercise would be plain usurpation.  If, then, the authority to decide what powers ought to be granted to a bank belong to Congress, and Congress shall have exercised that power, it would seem little better than absurd to say, that its act, nevertheless would be unconstitutional and invalid, if, in the opinion of a third party, it had misjudged, on a question of expediency, in the arrangement of details.  According to such a mode of reasoning, a mistake in the exercise of jurisdiction takes away the jurisdiction.  If Congress decide right, its decision may stand; if it decide wrong, its decision is nugatory; and whether its decision be right or wrong, another is to judge, although the original power of making the decision must be allowed to be exclusively in Congress.  This is the end to which the argument of the message will conduct its followers.

Sir, in considering the authority of Congress to invest the bank with the particular powers granted to it, the inquiry is not, and cannot be, how appropriate these powers are, but whether they be at all appropriate; whether they come within the range of a just and honest discretion; whether Congress may fairly esteem them to be necessary.  The question is not, Are they the fittest means, the best means? or whether the bank might not be established without them; but the question is, Are they such as Congress, bona fide, may have regarded as appropriate to the end?  If any other rule were to be adopted, nothing could ever be settled.  A law would be constitutional to-day and unconstitutional to-morrow.  Its constitutionality would altogether depend upon individual opinion on a matter of mere expediency.  Indeed, such a case as that is now actually before us.  Mr. Madison deemed the powers given to the bank, in its present charter, proper and necessary.  He held the bank, therefore, to be constitutional.  But the present President, not acknowledging that the power of deciding