Sir, I will pursue this topic no farther.  I would not have pursued it so far, I would not have entered upon it at all, had it not been for the astonishment I felt, mingled, I confess, with something of warmer feeling, when the honorable gentleman declared that he had always differed with me on constitutional questions.  Sir, the honorable member read a quotation or two from a speech of mine in 1816, on the currency or bank question.  With what intent, or to what end?  What inconsistency does he show?  Speaking of the legal currency of the country, that is, the coin, I then said it was in a good state.  Was not that true?  I was speaking of the legal currency; of that which the law made a tender.  And how is that inconsistent with any thing said by me now, or ever said by me?  I declared then, he says, that the framers of this government were hard-money men.  Certainly they were.  But are not the friends of a convertible paper hard-money men, in every practical and sensible meaning of the term?  Did I, in that speech, or any other, insist on excluding all convertible paper from the uses of society?  Most assuredly I did not.  I never quite so far lost my wits, I think.  There is but a single sentence in that speech which I should qualify if I were to deliver it again, and that the honorable member has not noticed.  It is a paragraph respecting the power of Congress over the circulation of State banks, which might perhaps need explanation or correction.  Understanding it as applicable to the case then before Congress, all the rest is perfectly accordant with my present opinions.  It is well known that I never doubted the power of Congress to create a bank; that I was always in favor of a bank, constituted on proper principles; that I voted for the bank bill of 1815; and that I opposed that of 1816 only on account of one or two of its provisions, which I and others hoped to be able to strike out.  I am a hard-money man, and always have been, and always shall be.  But I know the great use of such bank paper as is convertible into hard money on demand; which may be called specie paper, and which is equivalent to specie in value, and much more convenient and useful for common purposes.  On the other hand, I abhor all irredeemable paper; all old-fashioned paper money; all deceptive promises; every thing, indeed, in the shape of paper issued for circulation, whether by government or individuals, which cannot be turned into gold and silver at the will of the holder.

But, Sir, I have insisted that government is bound to protect and regulate the means of commerce, to see that there is a sound currency for the use of the people.  The honorable gentleman asks, What then is the limit?  Must Congress also furnish all means of commerce?  Must it furnish weights and scales and steelyards?  Most undoubtedly, Sir, it must regulate weights and measures, and it does so.  But the answer to the general question is very obvious.  Government must furnish all that