All this they will justly charge on their
legislatures; but this will be poor satisfaction for the two or three
hundred millions they will have lost. It is time, then, for the public
functionaries to look to this. Perhaps it may not be too late. Perhaps,
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.
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