two countries--to ascend to first principles--to know the causes of events--and to judge how far what was suitable and beneficial to one might be prejudicial and inapplicable to the other. We stand here as legislators and statesmen, not as lawyers and judges; we have a grant of power to execute not a statute to interpret; and our first duty is to look to that grant, and see what it is; and our next duty is to look over our country, and see whether there is any thing in it which requires the exercise of that grant of power. This is what our President has done, and what we ought to do. He has looked into the constitution, and seen there an unlimited grant of power to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies; and he has looked over the United States, and seen what he believes to be fit subjects for the exercise of that power, namely, about a thousand banks in a state of bankruptcy, and no State possessed of authority to act beyond its own limits in remedying the evils of a mischief so vast and so frightful. Seeing these two things--a power to act, and a subject matter requiring action--the President has recommended the action which the constitution permits, and which the subject requires; but the senator from Massachusetts has risen in his place, and called upon us to shift our view; to transfer our contemplation--from the constitution of the United States to the British statute book--from actual bankruptcy among ourselves to historical bankruptcy in England; and to confine our legislation to the characteristics of the English model.