On The Constitutionality Of A National Bank

Alexander Hamilton was an American revolutionary, statesman, and Founding Father of the United States. In this report of 1791, he advocated a national bank called the Bank of the United States, modeled after the Bank of England. Hamilton believed that a national bank was required to stabilize and improve the nation's credit and to improve the financial order, clarity, and precedence of the United States government under the newly legislated Constitution.

In 1791, The First Bank of the United States was a financial innovation proposed and supported by Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. Establishment of the bank was part of a three-part expansion of federal fiscal and monetary power, along with a federal mint and excise taxes. Hamilton believed that a national bank was necessary to stabilize and improve the nation's credit, and to improve financial order, clarity, and precedence of the United States government under the newly enacted Constitution. Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was a founding father of the United States, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the Constitution, the founder of the American financial system, and the founder of the Federalist Party. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies for George Washington's administration. Hamilton took the lead in the funding of the states' debts by the federal government, the establishment of a national bank, and forming friendly trade relations with Britain. Hamilton led the Federalist Party, created largely in support of his views; he was opposed by the Democratic Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which despised Britain and feared that Hamilton's policies of a strong central government would weaken the American commitment to Republicanism.

Unfortunately, one of the best known aspects of Alexander Hamilton's (1755-1804) life is the manner in which he died, being shot and killed in a famous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804. But Hamilton became one of the most instrumental Founding Fathers of the United States in that time, not only in helping draft and gain support for the U.S. Constitution but in also leading the Federalist party and building the institutions of the young federal government as Washington's Secretary of Treasury. Hamilton is also well remembered for his authorship, along with John Jay and James Madison, of the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers sought to rally support for the Constitution's approval when those three anonymously wrote them, but for readers and scholars today they also help us get into the mindset of the Founding Fathers, including the "Father of the Constitution" himself. They also help demonstrate how men of vastly different political ideologies came to accept the same Constitution. One of the biggest battles was over the chartering of a national bank, a topic that seems trivial today given the size and scope of the federal government. At the founding, however, the Southern states and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Party were skeptical of the necessity of a national bank, while Hamilton's Federalists insisted that it would help the nation pay off its debts and manage its finances. Eventually Hamilton won out, but the First U.S. Bank, located in Philadelphia, was nonetheless run by a private company, ensuring limits on government control. Before the First U.S. Bank was chartered, Hamilton wrote a defense of the chartering of a national bank by asserting it was constitutional.

The Bank of the United States sparked several rounds of intense debate over the meaning of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause, which authorizes the federal government to make laws that are “necessary” for exercising its other powers. Our standard account of the national bank controversy, however, is incomplete. The controversy was much more dynamic than a two-sided debate over a single constitutional provision and was shaped as much by politics as by law. With Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy, Eric Lomazoff offers a far more robust account of the constitutional politics of national banking between 1791 and 1832. During that time, three forces—changes within the Bank itself, growing tension over federal power within the Republican coalition, and the endurance of monetary turmoil beyond the War of 1812 —drove the development of our first major debate over the scope of federal power at least as much as the formal dimensions of the Constitution or the absence of a shared legal definition for the word “necessary.” These three forces—sometimes alone, sometimes in combination—repeatedly reshaped the terms on which the Bank’s constitutionality was contested. Lomazoff documents how these three dimensions of the polity changed over time and traces the manner in which they periodically led federal officials to adjust their claims about the Bank’s constitutionality. This includes the emergence of the Coinage Clause—which gives Congress power to “coin money, regulate the value thereof”—as a novel justification for the institution. He concludes the book by explaining why a more robust account of the national bank controversy can help us understand the constitutional basis for modern American monetary politics.

A wonderful piece in which Hamilton defends the constitutionality of the National Bank of America. Written in 1791, it is addressed to the then American president George Washington. It stresses the economic benefits emerging from establishment of the bank. He wrote it in response to the questions raised by Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, regarding the legality of the issue. Informative!