At first sight, it would appear to be a paradox, that any individual State can be allowed to grant charters to banks, or to frame laws that protect pecuniary fraud, while a section of the constitution of the United States prohibits such procedure by the following words:--“No state shall coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in paying of debts; pass any ex post facto law; or law impairing the obligation of contracts.” The western States cannot avoid being brought to issue with the above very distinct clauses, as every charter granted by them, is an act tolerating the substitution of paper, instead of gold and silver; and their replevy laws, and property {196} laws, are in reality, making paper a legal tender. Besides, several establishments are chartered under the appellations of State Banks; and that in Kentucky, for example, consists partly of stock owned by the State. The conduct of Congress is not marked by any known act of partiality towards the makers of unconstitutional money. On the contrary, the collectors of the United States’ revenue are not allowed to accept of depreciated bills. Their receiving the money of inferior banks while at par, though apparently countenancing them, has been, in effect, the best means hitherto adopted for effecting their ruin. The receivers of revenue lodge the money received in the United States’ Bank, whose officers almost immediately present the money to the Banks that issued it, and demand payment in specie, or bills of the United States’ Bank. It has been in this way that many of the paper manufacturers were obliged to suspend specie payments; and it was partly on account of this mode of operating on local banks, that several State Assemblies voted an enormous tax to be levied on the branches of the United States’ Bank situated in the respective States.--That tax was mentioned in a former letter, with a notice that the supreme court had given judgment in favour of the National Bank; and the reasonings on which the decision was founded, were published in a most luminous style. The supreme court being the arbitrator in all questions rising out of the constitution, Congress have the power of making the United States a party in defending against encroachments in the prerogative of the general government. In the present banking concern, they prudently decline interference, seeing that experience will soon open the eyes of a people who can, at any time, counteract the {197} abuse by excluding bankers, and their adherents, from State legislatures. On this occasion, there can be no necessity for forcing the interests of the people down their throats, nor can there be any danger that this infraction of the constitution will be perpetuated. That the present disorders in banking are not extended over the whole of the United States is manifested by the tables of exchange periodically published at New York. These show that