"Now, Mr. President, it is certainly true that the constitution authorizes Congress to establish uniform rules on the subject of bankruptcies; but it is equally true, and abundantly manifest that this power was not granted with any reference to currency questions. It is a general power--a power to make uniform rules on the subject. How is it possible that such a power can be fairly exercised by seizing on corporations and bankers, but excluding all the other usual subjects of bankrupt laws! Besides, do such laws ordinarily extend to corporations at all? But suppose they might be so extended, by a bankrupt law enacted for the usual purposes contemplated by such laws; how can a law be defended, which embraces them and bankers alone? I should like to hear what the learned gentleman at the head of the Judiciary Committee, to whom the subject is referred, has to say upon it. How does the President's suggestion conform to his notions of the constitution? The object of bankrupt laws, sir, has no relation to currency. It is simply to distribute the effects of insolvent debtors among their creditors; and I must say, it strikes me that it would be a great perversion of the power conferred on Congress to exercise it upon corporations and bankers, with the leading and primary object of remedying a depreciated paper currency. "And this appears the more extraordinary, inasmuch as the President is of opinion that the general subject of the currency is not within our province. Bankruptcy, in its common and just meaning, is within our province. Currency, says the message, is not. But we have a bankruptcy power in the constitution, and we will use this power, not for bankruptcy, indeed, but for currency. This, I confess, sir, appears to me to be the short statement of the matter. I would not do the message, or its author, any intentional injustice, nor create any apparent, where there was not a real inconsistency; but I declare, in all sincerity, that I cannot reconcile the proposed use of the bankrupt power with those opinions of the message which respect the authority of Congress over the currency of the country."