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THE Editors present to the public the following pages, with the hope that they may impart useful knowledge in regard to the past legislation of Congress, upon the highly important subject of which they treat. It has been their design to collect and embody, in as brief compass as possible, the entire proceedings, debates, and resolutions, of Congress, upon the various bills and projects for a National Bank, which, at any time during the existence of the Federal Government, have been brought forward or discussed. In their proper connexion, they have also embraced such reports of committees and public officers, as had relation to the establishment, constitutionality, or public uses of a bank. The Debates, which form the great body of the collection, will be found to contain the opinions and elaborate arguments of the most distinguished men of our country, both for, and against, the establishment of such an institution. For current reference, or preservation of speeches, in convenient form, this part of the work is calculated to be permanently useful. In the statement of the decision of important questions, the journals of Congress have, as far as possible, been relied on; it will occur, however, to those familiar with the proceedings of Congress, that very much of the action of that body, on all bills of public interest, finds no place in their daily record. All proceedings in Committee of the Whole are excluded from the journals of the House; and, if they become matter of record at all, it is in the pages of the gazettes of the day.

For the history of the proceedings and the debates in Committee of the Whole, the files of the National Intelligencer have been consulted: these furnish, during a considerable period of our legislative history, the most correct sources of information. It has been a leading object with the editors, to collect with accuracy, and state with fidelity, the acts that have been done, and the opinions which have been uttered in Congress, and the Executive Departments, on the establishment and perpetuation of a National Bank. Errors and unimportant omissions may, perhaps, be detected; but none, it is hoped, which can detract from the merit, which the editors claim, of general accuracy.

CONTENTS.

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