The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, Volume Ii
• Our Mechanical Industry, &c.
• Chapter I.: Losses In Our Mechanical Industry Resulting From Our Reliance Upon Gold and Silver As the Basis of Our Currency and Credit.
• Articles of Association of the Spooner Copyright Company For Massachusetts.
• Considerations For Bankers.
• Chapter I.: Explanation of the Author’s New System of Paper Currency.
• Chapter II.: The Author’s System Cannot Be Prohibited By the States.
• Chapter III.: The Author’s System Cannot Be Taxed, Either By the United States, Or the States.
• Chapter IV.: The State Governments Cannot Control, Or In Any Manner Interfere With, the Author’s System.
• Chapter V.: Unconstitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts of Congress.
• Chapter VI.: Unconstitutionality of the National Bank Act.
• Chapter VII.: Exchanges Under the Author’s System.
• Appendix.: the Author’s Copyright.
• Thomas Drew Vs. John M. Clark.
• A New Banking System the Needful Capital For Rebuilding the Burnt District.
• Chapter I.: A New Banking System.
• Chapter II.: Specie Payments.
• Chapter III.: No Inflation of Prices.
• Chapter IV.: Security of the System.
• Chapter V.: The System As a Credit System.
• Chapter VI.: Amount of Currency Needed.
• Chapter VII.: Importance of the System to Massachusetts.
• Chapter VIII.: The True Character of the “national” System.
• Chapter IX.: Amasa Walker’s Opinion of the Author’s System
• Vices Are Not Crimes. a Vindication of Moral Liberty.
• Our Financiers: Their Ignorance, Usurpations, and Frauds.
• The Law of Prices: a Demonstration of the Necessity For an Indefinite Increase of Money.
• Gold and Silver As Standards of Value: the Flagrant Cheat In Regard to Them.
• Universal Wealth.
• Revolution: a Reply to “dunraven.”
• Letter to Scientists and Inventors.

CHAPTER VI.

UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE NATIONAL BANK ACT.

The National Bank Act is unconstitutional in various particulars, as follows:

1. It proceeds throughout on the assumption that the notes of the government will be a legal tender in payment of all debts due to and by the banks. If, then, the Legal Tender Acts of Congress are unconstitutional, as shown in the preceding chapter, the Bank Act must fall with them; for the banks, authorized by the act, cannot sustain themselves for an hour, as practical business institutions, if liable to be sued on their notes for specie; nor can the customers of banks, if solvent men, afford to borrow depreciated currency, and give their notes for it, if they are liable to be sued on those notes for specie. The unconstitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts, therefore, settles at once all questions as to the practicability of the national banks.

2. The guaranty of the notes of the banks by the government is unconstitutional.

Where did Congress get their power to guarantee the notes of banks all over the country? In the same clause of the Constitution that gives them power to guarantee the notes of all the farmers, mechanics, merchants, and every body else, throughout the country; and in no other. And that clause will be found, if at all, in the Constitution manufactured by Congress themselves. It certainly exists in no Constitution that the country has ever known any thing of previous to the last Congress.

But it will be said that Congress secure the United States against loss, by requiring a deposit of their own bonds with the United States Treasurer. Well, suppose they do. Have Congress the power to guarantee the notes of all other persons, who will deposit bonds or other property, satisfactory to Congress, to indemnify the United States against loss? If not, then they have no power to guarantee the notes of bankers on those conditions. And if any officer of the government should ever pay a dollar of the public money on any such guaranty, or if the President should suffer any officer of the government to pay a dollar on any such guaranty, he ought to be impeached. And if any judge, having jurisdiction, should refuse to enjoin the United States Treasurer against thus paying the public money, he would deserve impeachment.

The idea that Congress have any constitutional power to guarantee the notes of bankers, or of any body else, is perfect idiocy.

3. As Congress have no constitutional power to guarantee the notes of bankers, or any body else, and as such guaranty, if given, is void, they have no constitutional power to require or accept deposits of their own bonds, or of any other property, to indemnify the United States for such unconstitutional and void guaranty. Consequently all such deposits are, in law, void; and Congress have no authority to avail themselves of them. Any bonds actually deposited with the United States Treasurer, for such a purpose, are, in law, deposited with him as an individual, and not as an agent or officer of the United States; and Congress have no power to make the United States responsible for his safe keeping of the bonds. And he is in no manner responsible to the United States for the use he makes of the bonds. The owners of them may demand them at pleasure, on the ground that they were deposited for no lawful purpose, and that the United States have no lien upon them. Or the Treasurer may appropriate them to his own use, and Congress could call him to no account for so doing. The owners alone could have any action against him.

Suppose Congress were to appoint agents throughout the country, to receive deposits of property, from all persons who might choose to make them, and thereupon to furnish, to the depositors, notes guaranteed by the United States. We all know that all such transactions would be void in law, on the grounds that Congress had no power to make any such guaranty, or consequently to receive any deposits of property to protect the United States against it. Congress would have no power to make the United States responsible for the safe keeping of such deposits; or to hold their illegal agents to any legal responsibility for the property deposited with them. These pretended agents of the United States would be, in law, the agents of the depositors alone; and the depositors could recover their deposits at pleasure, without any interference from the United States. And the case is the same with these bankers, as it would be with any other persons, farmers, merchants, or others, who might deposit property with any pretended agent of the United States, and receive in exchange notes guaranteed by the United States.

Congress have just as much constitutional power to go into a general guarantee business, guaranteeing the notes of any body, and every body, as they have to guarantee the notes of bankers.

4. The undertaking of Congress to furnish the banks with the notes they are to use, is unconstitutional. Where did Congress find their power to go into the business of bank note engraving? In the same clause of the Constitution that gives them power to go into the daguerreotype business; and in no other. Congress have just as much power to furnish the banks with banking houses, with vaults, safes, desks, and stationery; and to appoint and pay their presidents, cashiers, and clerks, as they have to furnish the bills of the banks. And the fact that Congress are to be paid for the bills they furnish, and that the business may be a profitable one, does not at all alter the case. There are, perhaps, many kinds of business that might be made profitable, if Congress were to take it into their own hands, and suppress all competition. But it does not, therefore, follow that Congress can go into such business.

Congress have just as much power to go into the business of making farming utensils, and selling them to the farmers; of making machinery, and selling it to manufacturers; of making locomotives, and selling them to rail-road companies, as they have to go into the bank note business.

5. Congress have no power to incorporate these banking companies, or give them any corporate privileges, or hold them to any corporate responsibility whatever.

As long ago as 1819, in the case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, (4 Wheaton’s Reports,) the Supreme Court of the United States gave an opinion, which fully covers the Bank Act of Congress, and declares it unconstitutional. In that case the court held that the law incorporating the old bank of the United States was constitutional. But they declared it so, distinctly and solely, on the ground that the bank was a necessary, or at least a proper and useful, agency to be employed in keeping and disbursing the public monies. And those services the bank was required, by its charter, to perform, free of expense to the government; transmitting money from one part of the country to another, without any charge for exchange.*

Thus the court say:

By the “fiscal operations” of the government, the court must be supposed to mean simply the keeping and disbursing of the public money; for those were the only “fiscal operations” the bank was required, by its charter, to perform for the government; and they were also the only “fiscal operations,” that were specially pointed out by the court, as being such as the bank could perform as the agent of the government. The bank was, therefore, held constitutional solely upon the ground of its being a proper and useful agent of the government for keeping and disbursing the public money.

The point of the opinion was, that, if the government needed an agency of that kind, for executing any of its constitutional powers, it had a right to create one by an act of incorporation.

On this principle, if the government were to make a contract, with a body of men, to carry the mail, or furnish supplies for the army, it would have a right to incorporate them.

That was the only ground on which the court held that that bank charter was constitutional. The whole argument of the court proceeded upon the ground that Congress had no power to grant charters of incorporation, except to companies whose services were needed by the government itself, in performing some one or other of its constitutional duties.

If that opinion of the court was correct, it follows that the present Bank Act of Congress is clearly unconstitutional; inasmuch as the banks, authorized by it, are, in no sense, agencies of the government; and are not required, by the act, to perform any services whatever for the government. And Congress, therefore, have no more power to incorporate them, than they have to incorporate hospitals, schools, churches, rail-road, insurance, manufacturing, and mining companies.

It is worthy of notice, too, that notwithstanding the Supreme Court held that the charter of the old bank was constitutional, probably more than half the people of the United States have always believed it unconstitutional.

And it was unconstitutional, in so far as it licensed the stockholders to contract debts among the people, in their corporate capacity, and under a limited liability. Congress have no authority to pass any law impairing or limiting the obligation of men’s contracts, or screening their property from liability for debt, unless it be a “uniform law on the subject of bankruptcies.” A bank charter does not come within that definition; and therefore a bank charter is unconstitutional, in so far as it attempts to exempt the corporators from their liability as partners, no matter what services the bank may perform for the government.

The argument of the court does not at all sustain the conclusion that Congress have any such power. That argument was that Congress had authority to “pass all laws that were necessary and proper for carrying into execution” the substantive powers of the government; and that, therefore, if a corporation were a convenient and proper agent to be employed in keeping and disbursing the revenues, Congress had a right to create such an agent. That is to say, if Congress wished to contract with a company of men to perform a certain service for the government, they had power to recognize them as a corporation, so far as the performance of that particular service was concerned. This all looks reasonable enough; and it is probably correct law that Congress may incorporate a company, and authorize them to do, in their corporate capacity, any thing which they are to do for the government. And Congress may undoubtedly limit, at discretion, the liability which the stockholders shall incur to the government. And the company may probably, in their corporate capacity, buy and sell bills of exchange, so far as it may be convenient to do so, in transmitting the public funds from one point of the country to another; because bills of exchange are the most usual, safe, cheap, and expeditious mode of transmitting money.

But all this is a wholly different thing from a charter authorizing the company, not only to perform these services for the government, but also to carry on the trade of bankers, in all its branches, and contract debts at pleasure among the people, without being liable to have payment of their debts enforced, either according to the natural obligation of contracts, or the laws of the States in which they live.

The argument of the court does not justify the grant of any such authority to the company. It goes only to the extent of authorizing the company to use their corporate rights in doing the business of the government alone; for the court say, that if an agent be needed to perform certain services for the government, the government may create an agent for that purpose. The court admit also, that the need or utility of such an agent for carrying into execution the powers of the government, is the only foundation of the authority to create the agent. This principle clearly excludes the idea of creating the corporation for any other purpose; and of course it excludes the idea of giving it any other corporate powers than that of performing the services required of it by the government. Now, in order that the company may keep and disburse the revenues (which were the only services the government required, or which the opinion of the court contemplated that the bank would perform) it plainly was not at all necessary that they should have the privilege of contracting debts among the people, as bankers, in their corporate capacity, or under a limited liability, or with an exemption from the operation of those State laws, to which all other citizens are liable.

If Congress may, by a charter, protect the private property of a company of bankers, from liability for their banking debts, according to the laws of the States, merely because, in addition to their banking business, they perform for the government the service of keeping and disbursing its revenues, then, by the same rule, Congress may by law forbid the State governments to touch the private property of any Collector of the Customs, or of any clerk in the Custom House, for the purpose of satisfying his debts. And the result of this doctrine would be, that every person, who should perform the slightest service of any kind for the government, might be authorized by Congress to contract private debts at pleasure among the people, and then claim the protection of Congress, not merely for his person, but also for his property, against the State laws which would enforce the obligation of his contracts. Every postmaster, for instance, and every mail contractor might have this privilege granted to them as part consideration for their services; for Congress have as much power to grant this privilege to postmasters and mail carriers, in consideration of the particular services they perform for the government, as they have to grant it to a company of bankers, as a consideration for their keeping and disbursing the revenues.

But suppose that Congress should enact that the private property of all officers and agents of the government, and all persons having contracts to furnish supplies to the government, should be exempt from liability for debt. Would there not be one universal outcry that such a law was unconstitutional? Certainly there would. But it would be no more unconstitutional than a law exempting the private property of a company of bankers, on account of their being the agents of the government for keeping and disbursing its revenues.

In this particular, then, the charter of the old bank was unconstitutional. And if that charter was unconstitutional, still more, if possible, are the charters of the present banks unconstitutional, inasmuch as these banks perform no services at all for the government. They entirely lack the only element that was supposed, by the court, to make the charter of the old bank constitutional.

If the Constitution itself gives Congress no power to incorporate banks, their law, for that purpose, cannot be made constitutional by the consent of the State legislatures. The constitutional powers of Congress, within a State, cannot be increased by the consent of the State legislature. If they could, the general government might have much greater powers in one State than in another. It might increase its powers in each State just according as it could make bargains with the legislature of the State. In fact, a State legislature might, by a simple vote, surrender all the constitutional powers of the State to the general government.

If the Bank Act be unconstitutional, the banks can have no corporate existence under it; and can neither sue, nor be sued, by their corporate names. The bankers can sue and be sued, if at all, only as partners; and they will be liable as partners for all debts of the banks.

If the act be unconstitutional, then all its provisions for preventing frauds on the part of the bankers, are void, and the directors can commit all manner of frauds against both bill holders and stockholders, and no redress can be had, unless under the laws of the States relative to swindling; and even that redress would most likely prove of no practical value.

The directors, having obtained their bills of the United States Treasurer, by a deposit of bonds, would loan the bills to themselves, or to men confederated with them. They would then demand the bonds of the Treasurer, on the grounds that the Act was unconstitutional; that the United States were not holden for the bills, and had no lien upon the bonds, and were not even responsible for the safe keeping of the bonds. The Treasurer, unless he wished to embezzle the bonds himself, would give them up. If he should not give them up willingly, suit would be brought to compel him.

Having got the bonds, the directors would dispose of them, and put the proceeds in their pockets.

Having thus embezzled the capital and assets of a bank, if they should be indicted under the bank act itself, they would plead that the act was unconstitutional, and that there was, in law, no corporation. After one, two, or three years delay, that plea would be sustained, unless the court should overrule the opinion in McCulloch vs. Maryland, which is not to be expected.

On the other hand, if they should be indicted under the State laws, they would plead that the bank act was constitutional; and that they were liable only under that act. In this way they would tie up the case with law questions for as long a period as possible.

And whether indicted in the United States or in the State courts, they would make all possible delay, under pretence of procuring testimony as to their having made loans in good faith, but on securities which unexpectedly proved worthless. And before a decision should be reached, the funds would have all gone to the four winds.

The result would be that neither the stockholders nor the bill holders would ever obtain any redress of any practical value. If the bill holders should ever obtain any redress, they would obtain it only by suing those innocent stockholders, who would have already been swindled out of their capital.

Nobody but dupes and swindlers would ever think either of investing in such banks, or of taking their bills.

6. Even if the Act in general were constitutional, the sixty-first section, declaring that any bank, incorporated under State laws, may “become an association under the provisions of this act,” provided “the owners of two thirds of the capital stock of such banking corporation or association” shall consent to the change, would be unconstitutional.

When a body of men form themselves into a banking company, under a State charter, they legally enter into a contract with each other, that the capital, thus invested, shall be held and managed under that charter; and of course under that charter alone. For “the owners of two thirds the capital stock” of such a bank to divert that capital from the uses agreed upon, and invest it in banking under a charter granted by Congress, to which all the stockholders have not agreed, is a breach of contract, and a breach of trust, as against all non-concurring stockholders. And Congress have no more authority to authorize such a breach of contract, or trust, and such a diversion of the capital from the objects agreed upon, than they have to authorize “the owners of two thirds the capital stock” of a manufacturing company, an insurance company, or a church, to divert the whole capital from the objects for which it was contributed, and appropriate it to the establishment of a race course, a theatre, or a distillery.

And if the directors of a State bank should thus divert its funds, they would be liable, possibly to indictment, and certainly in civil actions for damages, on the part of the non-concurring stockholders.

There are some other provisions in the act, richly worthy of notice, as exhibiting the legal acumen, and the business sagacity, of the Congress that passed it. But space cannot here be spared to present them.

The bill now before Congress,* (and which is likely to pass, as being necessary to force the National Bank Act upon the country,) prohibiting, after one year, all banking, (issuing bills for circulation,) except by bankers, “authorized thereto by act of Congress,” is not merely unconstitutional; it is villainous. The Constitution does not require the people of this country to get permits from Congress for carrying on any innocent and lawful business. Nor does it give Congress any power to suspend all industry and commerce, except by persons “authorized thereto by act of Congress.” If the Constitution did this, then, instead of spending so much blood and treasure to sustain it, we ought, (if it could not be otherwise abolished,) to spend the same blood and treasure to overthrow it. Congress have just as much constitutional power to say that no person shall breathe in this country, “unless authorized thereto by act of Congress,” as they have to say that no man shall carry on the business of a banker, or any other innocent and lawful business, without being first licensed by act of Congress.

Congress have no more constitutional power to prohibit banking, than they have to prohibit farming, manufacturing, or commerce. They have no more power to prohibit banking, than they have to prohibit all the industry and commerce that are carried on by means of bank credits and currency. They have no more constitutional power to say that the people shall have no currency, except such as Congress shall have specially licensed, than they have to say that they shall have no farming utensils, no cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, or poultry, that they shall raise no crops, build no houses, eat no food, wear no clothing, except such as Congress shall have specially licensed. This proposition is so obviously and self-evidently true, that it would be wasting words and paper to expend any argument upon it.

But even if this bill should be considered constitutional, it would have no effect to prohibit the author’s system of banking; because that has been already licensed by act of Congress—that is, by the copyright act. And that act is unquestionably constitutional; for it is expressly authorized by the Constitution. That license, therefore, must stand good, unless Congress commit a deliberate breach of faith. And even if Congress were to commit a deliberate breach of faith, by prohibiting the author’s system, it would still be a question whether rights once vested and guaranteed, by a law that was unquestionably constitutional, could be destroyed by an act of wanton perfidy and spoliation? Whether that would not be “depriving a person of property without due process of law?” And whether it were not therefore expressly forbidden by the Constitution?

The other section of the same bill, imposing a discriminating tax of one-fourth of one per cent. a month upon all bills in circulation, issued by banks or bankers not “thereto authorized by act of Congress,” is equally unconstitutional and villainous with the section that is to prohibit all banking after one year. Inasmuch as Congress have no power to require the people to get permits from Congress for carrying on any innocent and lawful business, they have no power to impose a discriminating tax upon those who do not get such permits.

If Congress can impose a discriminating tax upon all who do not get permits from Congress to carry on their business, all the industry and commerce of the country may be brought under the arbitrary control of Congress; and permits to carry them on may be given out as privileges only to Congressional favorites.

There is no reason why bankers should be singled out for all this unconstitutional, absurd, tyrannical, and villainous legislation. By furnishing credit and currency to keep industry and commerce in motion, they do more for the wealth of the country than any other equal number of men, unless it be inventors. Their business is intrinsically as innocent and lawful as that of any other class of persons. The only complaints that can be made against them, are, that there are not half enough of them, and that their systems of banking are not good ones. But these faults are not the faults of the bankers themselves, but of the laws that limit the number of bankers, and prohibit the adoption of other and better systems.

All the laws that are necessary in regard to banking, are such as are applicable to all other business, viz.: laws giving inventors the benefit of their inventions, and laws compelling the bankers to fulfil their contracts, and punishing their frauds and crimes. Such laws as these will give us the benefit of the best systems of banking that men can invent; and those are the best that, in the nature of things, we can have.

[* ] Section 15 of the charter is in these words:—“That during the continuance of this Act, and whenever required by the Secretary of the Treasury, the said corporation shall give the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place, within the United States, or the Territories thereof, and for distributing the same in payment of the public creditors, without charging commissions or claiming allowance on account of difference of exchange, and shall also do and perform the several and respective duties of the Commissioners of loans for the several States, or any one or more of them, whenever required by law.”

[* ] Introduced April 12.