d laws have been exhausted, and always and without exception the
decision has been in favor of the validity of the law. But all this
practice, all this precedent, all this public approbation, all this
solemn adjudication directly on the point, is to be disregarded and
rejected, and the constitutional power flatly denied. And, Sir, if we
are startled at this conclusion, our surprise will not be lessened when
we examine the argument by which it is maintained.

By the Constitution, Congress is authorized to pass all laws "necessary
and proper" for carrying its own legislative powers into effect.
Congress has deemed a bank to be "necessary and proper" for these
purposes, and it has therefore established a bank. But although the law
has been passed, and the bank established, and the constitutional
validity of its charter solemnly adjudged, yet the President pronounces
it unconstitutional, because some of the powers bestowed on the bank
are, in his opinion, not necessary or proper. It would appear that
powers which in 1791 and in 1816, in the time of Washington and in the
time of Madison, were deemed "necessary and proper," are no longer to be
so regarded, and therefore the bank is unconstitutional. It has really
come to this, that the constitutionality of a bank is to depend upon the
opinion which one particular man may form of the utility or necessity of
some of the clauses in its charter! If that individual chooses to think
that a particular power contained in the charter is not necessary to the
proper constitution of the bank, then the act is unconstitutional!

Hitherto it has always been supposed that the question was of a very
different nature. It has been thought that the policy of granting a
particular charter may be materially dependent on the structure and
organization and powers of the proposed institution. But its general
constitutionality has never before been understood to turn on such
points. This would be making its constitutionality depend on subordinate
questions; on questions of expediency and questions of detail; upon that
which one man may think necessary, and another may not. If the
constitutional question were made to hinge on matters of this kind, how
could it ever be decided? All would depend on conjecture; on the
complexional feeling, on the prejudices, on the passions, of
individuals; on more or less practical skill or correct judgment in
regard to banking operations among those who should be the ju