on these points I find ample reasons
why it should not become a law.

It has been urged as an argument in favor of rechartering the present
bank that the calling in its loans will produce great embarrassment and
distress. The time allowed to close its concerns is ample, and if it has
been well managed its pressure will be light, and heavy only in case its
management has been bad. If, therefore, it shall produce distress, the
fault will be its own, and it would furnish a reason against renewing a
power which has been so obviously abused. But will there ever be a time
when this reason will be less powerful? To acknowledge its force is to
admit that the bank ought to be perpetual, and as a consequence the
present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be
established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power
and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with the
Government.

The modifications of the existing charter proposed by this act are not
such, in my view, as make it consistent with the rights of the States or
the liberties of the people. The qualification of the right of the bank
to hold real estate, the limitation of its power to establish branches,
and the power reserved to Congress to forbid the circulation of small
notes are restrictions comparatively of little value or importance. All
the objectionable principles of the existing corporation, and most of
its odious features, are retained without alleviation.

The fourth section provides "that the notes or bills of the said
corporation, although the same be, on the faces thereof, respectively
made payable at one place only, shall nevertheless be received by the
said corporation at the bank or at any of the offices of discount and
deposit thereof if tendered in liquidation or payment of any balance or
balances due to said corporation or to such office of discount and
deposit from any other incorporated bank." This provision secures to the
State banks a legal privilege in the Bank of the United States which is
withheld from all private citizens. If a State bank in Philadelphia owe
the Bank of the United States and have notes issued by the St. Louis
branch, it can pay the debt with those notes, but if a merchant,
mechanic, or other private citizen be in like circumstances he can not
by law pay his debt with those notes, but must sell them at a discount
or send them to St. Louis to be cashed. This boon conced