The precedent for this exemption is complete. Already you exempt the public stocks and securities from local taxation. Pray, Sir, tell me what policy justifies such exemption which is not equally strong for the exemption of shares in the national banks. Clearly, it was to commend your national stocks that you established the exemption; and for the same reason I ask you now to establish this other exemption. It is strange that the vast sequestration of the national stocks from State taxation should have been made with so little doubt, when Senators question so pertinaciously this smaller sequestration. If it was proper in one case, it is in the other. If it was necessary in one case, it is in the other. If you allow the State to interfere with the proposed system by taxation in any way, may they not embarrass it? Where shall they stop? Where will you run a line? Undoubtedly, according to the Supreme Court, they cannot tax the bank directly. This would be unconstitutional. But it is said that they may tax the shares. Now I raise no constitutional question. It may be that a tax on shares is constitutional. But I shall not consider it on this ground. I am now arguing against the policy of such tax. It is a question of expediency which I raise, for the sake of the system we are about to establish. But here the rule seems clear. Every consideration urged against taxing the bank directly may be urged against taxing the shares. If it be bad policy in one case, it must be in the other. I suppose there is no judgment of our Supreme Court which has been more admired than that in the case of _M’Culloch_ v. _The State of Maryland_.[332] It was pronounced by Chief Justice Marshall, and is as good a specimen of that “pure reason” which belonged to this magistrate as any that can be named. In the course of this elaborate judgment all the topics were considered which enter so peculiarly into this debate. It was there insisted that the tax was unconstitutional. But the words of the Chief Justice seem intended for the present occasion. His object, from beginning to end, was to keep the bank safe from the hostile acts of the States. It was a great effort to uphold a national institution against State Rights. It was, permit me to say, an answer in advance to the Senator from Vermont. I do not like to trouble the Senate, but there are passages so pertinent that I will read them. Here, for instance, the Chief Justice considers the ground of exemption. Mr. Sumner then proceeded at some length to analyze the judgment of Chief Justice Marshall, reading important parts of it; and he then said:-- Now, Sir, every consideration, every argument, which goes to sustain this great judgment, may be employed against the proposed concession to the States of the power to tax this national institution in any particular, whether directly or indirectly. The reason of the judgment is as strong against an indirect tax as against a direct tax.