The United States Bank was a private
or particular corporation, and the present national banks are
only corporations of the same sort, though organized under a
general law. The pretence that they are established to supply a
national currency, does not save their constitutionality, for
the convention has not given the General government the power
nor imposed on it the duty of furnishing a national currency.
To coin money, and regulate the value thereof, is something very
different from authorizing private companies to issue bank
notes, on the basis of the public stocks held as private
property, or even on what is called a specie basis. To claim
the power under the general welfare clause would be a simple
mockery of good sense. It is no more for the general welfare
than any other successful private business. The private welfare
of each is, no doubt, for the welfare of all, but not therefore
is it the "general welfare," for what is private, particular in
its nature, is not and cannot be general. To understand by
general welfare that which is for the individual welfare of all
or the greater number, would be to claim for the General
government all the powers of government, and to deny that very
division of powers which is the crowning merit of the American
system. The general welfare, by the very force of the words
themselves, means the common as distinguished from the private
or individual welfare.
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