3. Reciprocity treaties as the basis of commerce among civilized nations.

4. The abolition of the funding system, with its standing armies, banks, protective tariffs, and gambling corporations, based upon visionary capital.

5. The restoration of the Constitution of the United States, as a perpetual bond of union among all the States, and a wall of fire, with its leaping flames to environ the liberties of the people.

PEOPLE OF THE WEST OF ALL NAMES, emancipate yourselves from the leagues, societies and combinations of party, which are always corrupt and corrupting; elevate your souls to the contemplation of those great truths which were sealed by the blood of our fathers, of which our material interests were the most enduring testimonial. Cast your eye forward to the future dwelling place of our children, together in a great valley, with all of the diversities of wealth, and sources of happiness, grandeur of empire and beauty of scenery, which adorned the primeval habitations of our first parents. Let the sacred ashes of our fathers, preserved undisturbed in the beautiful cemeteries adorned by our children, remind us of the glories of the past, and the growth, prosperity and power of our posterity, stimulate us to firmly demand and unflinchingly maintain our equal rights of commerce, agriculture, representation and constitutional government.

This, honest men will not deny us, and no power of villainy can extort by violence.

We appeal to the young men of the Mississippi Valley to join us in the movement to save us from the bondage of the capitalists. The young men of this great valley, of both armies, inspired by youthful fire and love of country, as they understood it, went to war with each other. Now the war is over. The Mississippi Valley, once the garden of the world, sits in desolation, while Eastern capital, enriched by your mutual blood, is absorbing your labor. In Heaven's beneficent name, let all the past be forgotten, and call back the precious recollection that we are brethren; forget not that the crystal waters of Lake Pepin, which reflect the images of the lovely daughters of the upper Mississippi, sweep on their majestic course, and cast back the shadows of the children of the Gulf, that we are all one. Upon

this one subject we can all agree; "Radical," "Rebel," Conservative, Democrat,-that Saint Louis must not be tributary to Boston; that Chicago must no longer be the mere tenant of Eastern capitalists; that we, who hold the granary of the world in our hands, need not go begging for bread. Then let us organize, without regard to subjects of discord, and unite to rid us of this debasing servitude.

BOOK FOURTH.

CRIMES OF THE BANKING SYSTEM.

CHAPTER I.

MR. JEFFERSON'S OBJECTIONS TO NATIONAL BANKS.

1. To form the subscribers into a corporation.

2. To enable them in their corporate capacities, to receive grants of land, and so far, is against the laws of mortmain.

[NOTE.-Though the Constitution controls the laws of mortmain, so far as to permit Congress itself to hold lands for certain purposes, yet not so far as to permit them to communicate a similar right to other corporate bodies.]

3. To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands, so far, is against the laws of alienage.

4. To transmit these lands, on the death of a proprietor, to a certain line of successors, and so far, changes the course of descent.

5. To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat, and so far, is against the laws of forfeiture and escheat.

6. To transmit personal chattles to successors in a certain line, and so far, is against the laws of distribution.

7. To give them the sole and exclusive right of banking, under the national authority, and so far, is against the laws of monopoly.

8. To communicate to them a power to make laws, paramount to the laws of the States, for so they must be construed; to protect the institution from the control of the State Legislatures, and so, probably, they will be construed. I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground; that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, or to the people.

XIIth Amendment.-To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power; no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

They are not among the enumerated powers, for these are:-1. A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States, but no debt is paid by this bill nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its organization in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. To borrow money; but this bill neither borrows money, nor insures the borrowing of it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money-holders to lend, or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill, first, to lend them two millions and then borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment and not a loan,- call it by what name you please. 3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States, and with the Indian tribes.

To erect a bank and regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank, creates a subject of commerce in its bills; so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines. Yet neither of these persons regulate commerce

thereby.

To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State as to its external.

For the power given to the Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State; that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen, which remains exclusively with its own legislature: but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordingly, the bill does not propose the measure as a regulation of trade, but as productive of considerable advantage to trade. Still less

are these powers covered by any other of the special enumer

ations.

II. Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:

1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States; that is to say, to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare. For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose, for which the power is to be exercised. Congress is not to lay taxes ad libitium, for any purpose they please, but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please, to provide for the general well, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as a describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase.

That of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States, and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased. It is an established rule of construction, where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which will render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them.

It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers; and those without which as means these powers, could not be carried into effect. It is known that the very power now proposed as a means, was rejected as an end by the convention which formed the Constitution. A proposition was made to them, to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons of the rejection urged in debate, was, that they then would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the greater cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies upon that subject, adverse to the reception of the Consti

tution.