States. This, it is true, might require
some of those Judges, if then living, to change their opinion on some
points; but this has been done before, and even on constitutional
questions; and State banks will fall before judicial action, as well as
nullification, State allegiance, secession, and the whole brood of
kindred heresies.

A republic which cannot regulate its currency, or which leaves that
power with thirty-four separate States, each legislating at its pleasure
and without uniformity, abandons an essential national authority, and
this abdication has furnished one of the main supports of the rebellion.
With nothing but a national currency, the revolted States never could
have successfully inaugurated this war, and we must deprive them in all
time to come of this terrible ally of treason. To permit the States to
provide the circulating medium, the money of the country, is to enable
them to furnish the sinews of war, and clothe them with a power to
overthrow the Government.

With only such a national currency as is now proposed, issued by the
Government to these banks, organized by Congress, and based on the
deposit in the Federal treasury of United States stock, the rebellion
would have been impossible. Our Government was so mild and benignant,
that we deemed it exempt from the assault of traitors; but this revolt
has dissipated this delusion, and warned us to provide all the
safeguards indicated by experience as necessary to maintain the Union.
Among the most important is the resumption by the Government of the
great sovereign function of regulating the currency and giving to it
uniformity and nationality. Such was clearly the intention of the
Constitution. The Government has, by the Constitution, the _exclusive_
power 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several
States.' But commerce is _regulated_ mainly by money, and by it all
interstate and international exchanges of products are made. If the
currency is redundant, prices rise, exports are diminished; and the
reverse follows with a contracted circulation. But banks inflate or
restrict the currency at their pleasure, and thus control prices,
commerce, exports, imports, and revenue. But they also destroy or
depreciate the money of the Government, and deprive it of a vital power.
Thus, the nation issues treasury notes, and makes them a legal tender:
the banks immediately make such notes the basis of bank issues, in the
ratio of three to