2. The establishment of the second national bank grew out of this war. The failure of the local banks was enough to prove the necessity of a national currency, and the re-establishment of a national bank was the accepted remedy. No one seemed to think of the currency of the constitution--especially of that gold currency upon which the business of the world had been carried on from the beginning of the world, and by empires whose expenses for a week were equal to those of the United States for a year, and which the framers of the constitution had so carefully secured and guarded for their country. A national bank was the only remedy thought of. Its constitutionality was believed by some to have been vindicated by the events of the war. Its expediency was generally admitted. The whole argument turned upon the word "necessary," as used in the grant of implied powers at the end of the enumeration of powers expressly granted to Congress; and this _necessity_ was affirmed and denied on each side at the time of the establishment of the first national bank, with a firmness and steadiness which showed that these fathers of the constitution knew that the whole field of argument lay there. Washington's queries to his cabinet went to that point; the close reasoning of Hamilton and Jefferson turned upon it. And it is worthy of note, in order to show how much war has to do with the working of government, and the trying of its powers, that the strongest illustration used by General Hamilton, and the one, perhaps, which turned the question in Washington's mind, was the state of the Indian war in the Northwest, then just become a charge upon the new federal government, and beginning to assume the serious character which it afterward attained. To carry on war at that time, with such Indians as were then, supported by the British traders, themselves countenanced by their government, at such a distance in the wilderness, and by the young federal government, was a severe trial upon the finances of the federal treasury, as well as upon the courage and discipline of the troops; and General Hamilton, the head of the treasury, argued that with the aid of a national bank, the war would be better and more successfully conducted: and, therefore, that it was "_necessary_," and might be established as a means of executing a granted power, to wit, the power of making war. That war terminated well; and the bank having been established in the mean time, got the credit of having furnished its "sinews." The war of 1812 languished under the state of the finances and the currency, no national bank existing; and this want seemed to all to be the cause of its difficulties, and to show the necessity for a bank. The second national bank was then established--many of its old, most able, and conscientious opponents giving in to it, Mr. Madison at their head. Thus the question of a national bank again grew up--grew up out of the events of the war--and was decided against