in Congress have passed a bill he should therefore sanction it is to abrogate the power altogether and to render its insertion in the Constitution a work of absolute supererogation. The duty is to guard the fundamental will of the people themselves from (in this case; I admit, unintentional) change or infraction by a majority in Congress; and in that light alone do I regard the constitutional duty which I now most reluctantly discharge. Is this bill now presented for my approval or disapproval such a bill as I have already declared could not receive my sanction? Is it such a bill as calls for the exercise of the negative power under the Constitution? Does it violate the Constitution by creating a national bank to operate _per se_ over the Union? Its title, in the first place, describes its general character. It is "an act to provide for the better collection, safe-keeping, and disbursement of the _public_ revenue by means of a _corporation_ to be styled the _Fiscal Corporation_ of the _United States_." In style, then, it is plainly national in its character. Its powers, functions, and duties are those which pertain to the _collecting, keeping_, and _disbursing_ the _public_ revenue. The means by which these are to be exerted is a _corporation_ to be styled the _Fiscal_ Corporation of the United States. It is a corporation created by the Congress of the United States, in its character of a national legislature for the whole Union, to perform the _fiscal_ purposes, meet the _fiscal_ wants and exigencies, supply the _fiscal_ uses, and exert the _fiscal_ agencies of the Treasury of the United States. Such is its own description of itself. Do its provisions contradict its title? They do not. It is true that by its first section it provides that it shall be established in the District of Columbia; but the amount of its capital, the manner in which its stock is to be subscribed for and held, the persons and bodies, corporate and politic, by whom its stock may be held, the appointment of its directors and their powers and duties, its fundamental articles, especially that to establish agencies in any part of the Union, the corporate powers and business of such agencies, the prohibition of Congress to establish any other corporation with similar powers for twenty years, with express reservation in the same clause to modify or create any bank for the District of Columbia, so that the aggregate capital shall not exceed five millions, without enumerating other features which are equally distinctive and characteristic, clearly show that it can not be regarded as other than a bank of the United States, with powers seemingly more limited than have heretofore been granted to such an institution. It operates _per se_ over the Union by virtue of the unaided and, in my view, assumed authority of Congress as a national legislature, as distinguishable from a bank created by Congress for the District of Columbia as the local legislature of the District.