What I shall say upon this head I design
exclusively for the law-loving and law-abiding part of the House. To
those who claim omnipotence for the Legislature, and who in the plenitude
of their assumed powers are disposed to disregard the Constitution, law,
good faith, moral right, and everything else, I have not a word to say.
But to the law-abiding part I say, examine the Bank charter, go examine
the Constitution, go examine the acts that the General Assembly of this
State has passed, and you will find just as much authority given in each
and every of them to compel the Bank to bring its coffers to this hall
and to pour their contents upon this floor, as to compel it to submit to
this examination which this resolution proposes. Why, Sir, the gentleman
from Coles, the mover of this resolution, very lately denied on this
floor that the Legislature had any right to repeal or otherwise meddle
with its own acts, when those acts were made in the nature of contracts,
and had been accepted and acted on by other parties. Now I ask if this
resolution does not propose, for this House alone, to do what he, but the
other day, denied the right of the whole Legislature to do? He must
either abandon the position he then took, or he must now vote against his
own resolution.
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