A power to _lay taxes_ for the purpose of paying the debts of the
United States. But no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were
it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it
by the constitution.
2. To 'borrow money.' But this bill neither borrows money, nor insures
the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free
as any other money-holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the
public. The operation proposed in the bill, first to lend them two
millions, and then borrow them back again cannot change the nature of
the latter act, which will still be a payment and not a loan, call it by
what name you please.
3. 'To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and
with the Indian tribes.' To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are
very different acts. He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce
in its bills: so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar
out of the mines. Yet neither of these persons regulates commerce
thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to
prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were
an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as
extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its
external. For the power given to Congress by the constitution, does not
extend to the internal regulation, of the commerce of a State (that
is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen), which remains
exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce
only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign
nations, or with the Indian tribes.
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