Considering the Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913

Epochs of American History: Division and Reunion, 1829-1889 By Woodrow Wilson:
I was just reading this section of Division and Reunion, which Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1892. I was researching for an article I'm writing for Suite101.com about some of the early legislation of the Wilson Administration, and what gets me is that, 115 years later, the complaints about central banking are exactly the same.

Don't believe me? Go ahead and see what Ron Paul has to say about the subject.

I think it's kind of funny, though, that most of his arguments are those that Wilson successfully debates in his book - chief among them, the constitutionality (is that a word, or did I just totally make that up?) of the Federal Reserve.

What should be noted when considering whether or not the Federal Reserve is constitutional is that George Washington himself weighed the matter, and consulted both Jefferson and Madison on the legality of it. Ultimately, he and Madison decided that the Constitution's wording that "all laws which should be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers;" allowed Congress sufficient room to grant a charter, thus creating a central bank.

In furtherance of that, the Supreme Court then ruled in 1819, in McCulloch vs. Maryland, that Congress chartering a national bank was constitutional.

I think Ron Paul also fails to consider that maybe the Federal Reserve isn't actually the problem - maybe the problem is in the specifics of it...or maybe the problem is in the business sector and how they handle their investing, or perhaps in non-centralized banks that don't know how to handle themselves.

When Andrew Jackson refused to grant the national banks' charters again and we returned to the period of no central banking, financial disaster after financial disaster occurred, which is what led Wilson back to the concept of central banking and the Federal Reserve.

Wilson's formative years were spent living in the post-Civil War South under a corrupt Federal government (Grant's Administration), with a nation where States printed their own money - money which might (or might not) be of use from one place to the next. Is it any wonder that he sought to standardize and centralize the currency, as he'd spent so much ink writing about, and that he sought to limit the powers of Congress while expanding the Executive powers?

This last is not necessarily an argument that the expansion of Executive powers is the way to go, merely a psychological insight into a complex man, who made lasting changes to our government.