And in the other cases, of forts, arsenals, and dock-yards, if Congress has exclusive and absolute legislative power, it must, of course, have the power, if it could be supposed to be guilty of such folly, whether proposed to be exercised in a district within a free State, to establish slavery, or in a district in a slave State, to abolish or regulate it.  If it be a district over which Congress has, as it has in this District, unlimited power of legislation, it seems to me that whatever would stay the exercise of this power, in either case, must be drawn from discretion, from reasons of justice and true policy, from those high considerations which ought to influence Congress in questions of such extreme delicacy and importance; and to all these considerations I am willing, and always shall be willing, I trust, to give full weight.  But I cannot, in conscience, say that the power so clearly conferred on Congress by the Constitution, as a power to be exercised, like others, at its own discretion, is immediately taken away again by an implied faith that it shall not be exercised at all.

THE CREDIT SYSTEM AND THE LABOR OF THE UNITED STATES.

FROM THE SECOND SPEECH ON THE SUB-TREASURY, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 12th OF MARCH, 1838.

Now, Mr. President, what I understand by the credit system is, that which thus connects labor and capital, by giving to labor the use of capital.  In other words, intelligence, good character, and good morals bestow on those who have not capital a power, a trust, a confidence, which enables them to obtain it, and to employ it usefully for themselves and others.  These active men of business build their hopes of success on their attentiveness, their economy, and their integrity.  A wider theatre for useful activity is under their feet, and around them, than was ever open to the young and enterprising generations of men, on any other spot enlightened by the sun.  Before them is the ocean.  Every thing in that direction invites them to efforts of enterprise and industry in the pursuits of commerce and the fisheries.  Around them, on all hands, are thriving and prosperous manufactures, an improving agriculture, and the daily presentation of new objects of internal improvement; while behind them is almost half a continent of the richest land, at the cheapest prices, under healthful climates, and washed by the most magnificent rivers that on any part of the globe pay their homage to the sea.  In the midst of all these glowing and glorious prospects, they are neither restrained by ignorance, nor smitten down by the penury of personal circumstances.  They are not compelled to contemplate, in hopelessness and despair, all the advantages thus bestowed on their condition by Providence.  Capital they may have little or none, but CREDIT supplies its place; not as the refuge of the prodigal and the reckless; not as gratifying present wants with the certainty of future absolute ruin; but as the genius of honorable trust and confidence; as the blessing voluntarily offered to good character and to good conduct as the beneficent agent, which assists honesty and enterprise in obtaining comfort and independence.