fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

operation....The right to secede is deduced from the nature of theConstitution, which they say, is a compact between sovereignstates who have preserved their whole sovereignty and aresubject to no superior: that because they make the compactthey can break it when their opinion has been departed fromby other states....The Constitution forms a government, not a league.... Eachstate having expressly parted with so many powers as toconstitute jointly with other nations, a single nation, cannotfrom that period, posses any right to secede, because suchsuccession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of anation.... To say that any state may at pleasure secede from theunion is to say that the United States is not a nation.... Becausethe union was formed by a compact, it is said that the parties tothat compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, departfrom it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they maynot. A compact is a binding obligation....Andrew Jackson:Veto of the Bank Bill (1832)In 1832 Congress passed a law renewing the charter of the Bankof the United States. (The bank had been chartered for twentyyears and this was due to expire in 1836; if the bank were notrechartered it would cease to exist). President Jackson opposedthe bank for personal, practical and principled reasons, and hevetoed Congress’ bill rechartering the bank in 1832. PresidentJackson subsequently took steps to destroy the bank. In 1833he removed all federal funds from the bank and instead put themoney in state banks. Because it was not rechartered, in 1836the bank closed.As you read his “Veto of the Bank Bill” consider why Jacksonopposed the bank. And, think about how Jackson’s stance onthe bank is consistent with the ideology of the Democraticparty of the 1830s.The bill 1’to modify and continue” the act [to recharter theSecond Bank of the U.S.]... ought not to become a law.... Thepowers and privileges possessed by the existing bank areunauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights ofthe States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.... Thepresent corporate body... enjoys an exclusive privilege of bankingunder the authority of the General Government, a monopolyof its favor and support.... The powers, privileges, and favorsbestowed upon it in the original charter, by increasing thevalue of the stock far above its par value, operated as a gratuityof many millions to its stockholders.... Every monopoly andall exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public,which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millionswhich this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of theexisting bank must come directly or indirectly Out of theearnings of the American people.... It is not conceivable howthe present stockholders can have any claim to the specialfavor of Government. Should [the bank’s] influence becomeconcentrated, as it may under the operation of such an act asthis, in the hands of a self-elected directory...will there not because to tremble for the purity of our elections.It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that itsconstitutionality in all its features ought to be consideredas settled by precedent and by the decision of the SupremeCourt. To this conclusion I can not assent.... The Congress,the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided byits own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer whotakes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he willsupport it as he understands it, and not as it is understood byothers.... The opinion of the judges has no more authority overCongress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges,and on that point the president is independent of both....241