and matter of opinion, Congress only can decide it, because Congress alone can frame or grant the charter.  A charter, thus granted to individuals, becomes a contract with them, upon their compliance with its terms.  The bank becomes an agent, bound to perform certain duties, and entitled to certain stipulated rights and privileges, in compensation for the proper discharge of these duties; and all these stipulations, so long as they are appropriate to the object professed, and not repugnant to any other constitutional injunction, are entirely within the competency of Congress.  And yet, Sir, the message of the President toils through all the commonplace topics of monopoly, the right of taxation, the suffering of the poor, and the arrogance of the rich, with as much painful effort, as if one, or another, or all of them, had something to do with the constitutional question.

What is called the “monopoly” is made the subject of repeated rehearsal, in terms of special complaint.  By this “monopoly,” I suppose, is understood the restriction contained in the charter, that Congress shall not, during the twenty years, create another bank.  Now, Sir, let me ask, Who would think of creating a bank, inviting stockholders into it, with large investments, imposing upon it heavy duties, as connected with the government, receiving some millions of dollars as a bonus or premium, and yet retaining the power of granting, the next day, another charter, which would destroy the whole value of the first?  If this be an unconstitutional restraint on Congress, the Constitution must be strangely at variance with the dictates both of good sense and sound morals.  Did not the first Bank of the United States contain a similar restriction?  And have not the States granted bank charters with a condition, that, if the charter should be accepted, they would not grant others?  States have certainly done so; and, in some instances, where no bonus or premium was paid at all; but from the mere desire to give effect to the charter, by inducing individuals to accept it and organize the institution.  The President declares that this restriction is not necessary to the efficiency of the bank; but that is the very thing which Congress and his predecessor in office were called on to decide, and which they did decide, when the one passed and the other approved the act.  And he has now no more authority to pronounce his judgment on that act than any other individual in society.  It is not his province to decide on the constitutionality of statutes which Congress has passed, and his predecessors approved.