The withdrawal of
twenty-four million dollars from circulation would mean a national
panic, it was claimed. Arguments of expediency were heard where
constitutionality had held twenty years before.
The unionising process which the former individualists had undergone
in ten years of administration is illustrated by the speech of Crawford,
of Georgia, a lifelong adherent to the principles of Jefferson in the
main, but too liberal to be bound to a dead past. A rational analysis
of the Constitution, he thought, would show that it was not perfect
in language as commonly supposed, but that it occasionally gave a
general power followed by a specific power.
"This analysis," said he, "may excite unpleasant sensations, it may
assail honest prejudices; for there can be no doubt that honest
prejudices frequently exist and are many times perfectly innocent. But
when these prejudices tend to destroy even the object of their
affection, it is ostensibly necessary that they should be eradicated."
In pleading that the Constitution should not be held down to a
construction which would render it "wholly imbecile," he took as
advanced ground on the implied powers as had any Federalist in the
olden days.
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