The emitting of paper money by the authority of government is wisely prohibited to the individual states by the national constitution, and the spirit of that prohibition ought not to be disregarded by the Government of the United States. Though paper emissions, under a general authority, might have some advantage not applicable to the states, and be free of some disadvantages to the like emissions of the States, separately, they are of a nature so liable to abuse---and it may even be affirmed, so certain of being abused, that the wisdom of the Government will be shown in never trusting itself with the use of so seducing and dangerous an expedient. In times of tranquility, it might have no ill consequence; it might even be productive of good; but, in great and trying emergencies, there is almost a moral certainty of its becoming mischievous. The stamping of paper is an operation so much easier that the laying of taxes, that a Government, in the practice of paper emissions, would rarely fail, in any such emergency, to indulge itself too far in the employment of that resource, to avoid, as much as possible, one less auspicious to present popularity. If it should not even be carried so far as to be rendered an absolute bubble, it would at leasat be likely to be extended to a degree which would occasion an inflated and artificial state of things, incompatible with the regular and prosperous course of political economy.
AH goes on to distinguish between paper emissions by government and those, payable in coin, by a bank. He argues, disingenuously, that fractional reserve banks can, if necessary, liquidate assets in order to honor its promise of redemption in coin. He disingenuously disguises that banking enterprises, particularly those bestowed with government monopoly, will act to benefit the bankers and their clients at the expense of general interest and will respond to whatever sums its most important client, the government, wishes to borrow. He disingenuously invents the implied power of Congress to incorporate. He, then, disingenuously argues that such corporation would not be a monopoly when it quite clearly would be. He then argues, disingenuously that if there were not a national bank the government could, itself, emit bills redeemable on demand in specie when he was well aware that the power to “emit bills” was stricken from an early draft of Article I, Section 8, Clause 2. He, then, disingenuously argues that the bank would facilitate borrowing by the government and could, therefore, be incorporated under the power “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” He, then, disingenuously argues interstate commerce, Congress’ power to make rules and regulations concerning the personal as well as real property of the United States. He, then, disingenuously argues that all of the expressed financial powers taxation, borrowing, coining, all combined to create an implied power to create the bank.
Snake oil, anyone? Totalitarianism, anyone?