by giving time to the banks, they may call in and pay off their paper
by degrees. But no remedy is ever to be expected while it rests with
the State legislatures. Personal motives can be excited through so many
avenues to their will, that, in their hands, it will continue to go on
from bad to worse, until the catastrophe overwhelms us. I still
believe, however, that on proper representations of the subject, a great
proportion of these legislatures would cede to Congress their power of
establishing banks, saving the charter rights already granted. And this
should be asked, not by way of amendment to the constitution, because
until three fourths should consent, nothing could be done; but accepted
from them one by one, singly, as their consent might be obtained. Any
single State, even if no other should come into the measure, would find
its interest in arresting foreign bank-paper immediately, and its own
by degrees. Specie would flow in on them as paper disappeared. Their
own banks would call in and pay off their notes gradually, and their
constituents would thus be saved from the general wreck. Should the
greater part of the States concede, as is expected, their power over
banks to Congress, besides insuring their own safety, the paper of
the non-conceding States might be so checked and circumscribed, by
prohibiting its receipt in any of the conceding States, and even in the
non-conceding as to duties, taxes, judgments, or other demands of the
United States, or of the citizens of other States, that it would
soon die of itself, and the medium of gold and silver be universally
restored. This is what ought to be done. But it will not be done.
_Carthago non delebitur_. The overbearing clamor of merchants,
speculators, and projectors, will drive us before them with our eyes
open, until, as in France, under the Mississippi bubble, our citizens
will be overtaken by the crash of this baseless fabric, without
other satisfaction than that of execrations on the heads of those
functionaries, who, from ignorance, pusillanimity, or corruption, have
betrayed the fruits of their industry into the hands of projectors and
swindlers.

When I speak comparatively of the paper emissions of the old Congress
and the present banks, let it not be imagined that I cover them under
the same mantle. The object of the former was a holy one; for if ever
there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us
independence. The object o