In pleading that the Constitution should not be held down to a construction which would render it "wholly imbecile," he took as advanced ground on the implied powers as had any Federalist in the olden days. Ridiculing those who clung to the old restrictive theory, he cited numerous actions of the party during the ten years it had been in power which could be justified only by constitutional implication. Among these, he said, were laws for the punishment of counterfeiters, passed under the power to coin money; the erection of lighthouses under the power to regulate commerce; the prohibition of offences against the post-office department under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads; and the acceptance of sites for arsenals, forts, and dockyards under the power to control them. Even the acceptance of the District of Columbia depended upon the implied instead of the direct language of the Constitution. Nor did he fail to point out that in 1802, when removing the judges of the circuit courts established by the Federalists in their last hours, the party was proceeding entirely upon the assumption that the expressed power to create inferior courts contained the implied power to abolish them. Petitions both for and against a re-charter of the Hamilton bank poured in from merchants in various cities and from branches of the bank. Instructions against the bank came from the State Legislatures of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. So nearly was opinion divided that a new lease of life for the bank was prevented in the House by only one vote, and in the Senate by the deciding vote of Vice-President Gerry, of Massachusetts, who chose to abide by party principles rather than to listen to the voice of the majority of people in his own State. The predicted extension of State banks and the disorder in the finances of the country were alike experienced after the expiration of the United States Bank in 1811. More than two hundred of these private institutions were chartered in the various States to take the place of the branches of the old bank. They were to be found especially in the newer portions of the country, where banking facilities had been previously unknown. Flooding the land with their bank-notes, they speedily drove coin out of circulation. The latter was hoarded. When the war began, banks found it impossible to secure this hoarded coin to redeem their notes and were compelled to suspend specie payment completely. The National Government, having made these banks depositaries for the revenue collectors, according to the individualistic demands, suffered loss and disarrangement of its funds. The lesson was severe, especially in the face of an impending war.