[Sidenote: Passage of the Bank Bill by the House of Representatives.]
The eloquence and the influence of Mr. Clay counted heavily in favor of the measure, and it was passed by a substantial majority of votes. In fact, the privileges of the proposed Bank had been increased by amendment during the progress of the bill through the House. The Bank and its branches were made the depositories of the funds of the Government. This great advantage was, at least, a substantial offset to the other modifications of the original bill, whereby the clauses requiring that the president of { 8} the Bank should always be chosen from among the Government directors, and reserving to Congress the power to permit a temporary suspension of specie payment by the Bank, were stricken out.
[Sidenote: The passage of the Bank Bill through the Senate.]
During the passage of the bill through the Senate only a single Senator expressed any doubts of its constitutionality, Mr. Wells, of Delaware. Mr. Wells did not deny the power of Congress to charter a national bank, but simply contended that the particular Bank proposed in the bill exceeded what was "necessary and proper" for carrying into effect the powers of Congress, and was therefore unconstitutional. On the other hand, Senators Barbour, of Virginia, Taylor, of South Carolina, and Bibb, of Georgia, supported the measure, both in principle and in details, and carried it with a larger relative majority through the Senate than it had received in the House.
[Sidenote: The United States Bank of 1816 a Southern measure.]
The United States Bank of 1816 was thus a Southern measure, and Calhoun was its chief author. It was in principle a great national measure, and its creation by Congress is strong evidence of the great growth in national opinion and sentiment throughout the country, away from the national indifference of the Jeffersonian metapolitics of 1800.
A review of the Tariff Act of 1816 will bring us to the same conclusions concerning the great nationalizing influence of the War.
The rate of duty upon the principal articles of imported goods was, before the War, twelve and one-half per centum ad valorem. From a rate of five per centum upon these articles, imposed by the first Customs Act, that of July, 1789, the duty had been increased by about a dozen acts, passed by both Federal and Republican Congresses, until, in 1812, it had reached the { 9} above-mentioned per centum. Twelve and one-half per centum was, as a fact, nothing more than a revenue duty, and was intended for nothing more by the party in power at that date.