Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

I will mention two instances coming within my own knowledge, to illustrate the difficulty of obtaining a commission for a citizen in the regular regiments – one the case of the late Capt. Hermann Thorn, son of Col. Thorn, of New-York. The young man had applied for the place of cadet at West Point; and not being able to obtain it, and having a strong military turn, he sought service in Europe, and found it in Austria; and admitted into a hussar regiment on the confines of Turkey, without commission, but with the pay, clothing, and ration of a corporal; with the privilege of associating with officers, and a right to expect a commission if he proved himself worthy. These are the exact terms, substituting sergeant for corporal, on which cadets were received into the army, and attached to companies, in Washington's time. Young Thorn proved himself to be worthy; received the commission; rose in five years to the rank of first lieutenant; when, the war breaking out between the United States and Mexico, he asked leave to resign, was permitted to do so, and came home to ask service in the regular army of the United States. His application was made through Senator Cass and others, he only asking for the lowest place in the gradation of officers, so as not to interfere with the right of promotion in any one. The application was refused on the ground of illegality, he not having graduated at West Point. Afterwards I took up the case of the young man, got President Polk to nominate him, sustained the nomination before the Senate; and thus got a start for a young officer who soon advanced himself, receiving two brevets for gallant conduct and several wounds in the great battles of Mexico; and was afterwards drowned, conducting a detachment to California, in crossing his men over the great Colorado of the West.

Thus Thorn was with difficulty saved. The other case was that of the famous Kit Carson also nominated by President Polk. I was not present to argue his case when he was rejected, and might have done no good if I had been, the place being held to belong to a cadet that was waiting for it. Carson was rejected because he did not come through the West Point gate. Being a patriotic man, he has since led many expeditions of his countrymen, and acted as guide to the United States officers, in New Mexico, where he lives. He was a guide to the detachment that undertook to rescue the unfortunate Mrs. White, whose fate excited so much commiseration at the time; and I have the evidence that if he had been commander, the rescue would have been effected, and the unhappy woman saved from massacre.

This rule of appointment (the graduates of the academy to take all) may now be considered the law of the land, so settled by construction and senatorial acquiescence; and consequently that no American citizen is to enter the regular army except through the gate of the United States Military Academy; and few can reach that gate except through the weight of a family connection, a political influence, or the instrumentality of a friend at court. Genius in obscurity has no chance; and the whole tendency of the institution is to make a governmental, and not a national army. Appointed cadet by the President, nominated officer by him, promoted upon his nomination, holding commission at his pleasure, receiving his orders as law, looking to him as the fountain of honor, the source of preferment, and the dispenser of agreeable and profitable employment – these cadet officers must naturally feel themselves independent of the people, and dependent upon the President; and be irresistibly led to acquire the habits and feelings which, in all ages, have rendered regular armies obnoxious to popular governments.

The instinctive sagacity of the people has long since comprehended all this, and conceived an aversion to the institution which has manifested itself in many demonstrations against it – sometimes in Congress, sometimes in the State legislatures, always to be met, and triumphantly met, by adducing Washington as the father and founder of the institution. – No adduction could be more fallacious. Washington is no more the father of the present West Point than he is of the present Mount Vernon. The West Point of his day was a school of engineering and artillery, and nothing more; the cadet of his day was a young soldier, attached to a company, and serving with it in the field and in the camp, "with the pay, clothing, and ration of sergeant" (act of 1794); and in the intervals of active service, if he had shown an inclination for the profession, and a capacity for its higher branches, then he was sent, in the "discretion" of the President, to West Point, to take instruction in those higher branches, namely, artillery and engineering, and nothing more. All the drills both of officer and private – all the camp duty – all the trainings in the infantry, the cavalry, and the rifle – were then left to be taught in the field and the camp – a better school than any academy; and under officers who were to lead them into action – better teachers than any school-room professors. And all without any additional expense to the United States.

All was right in the time of Washington, and afterwards, up to the act of 1812. None became cadets then but those who had a stomach for the hardships, as well as taste for the pleasures of a soldier's life – who, like the Young Norval on the Grampian Hills, had felt the soldier's blood stir in their veins, and longed to be off to the scene of war's alarms, instead of standing guard over flocks and herds. Cadets were not then sent to a superb school, with the emoluments of officers, to remain four years at public expense, receiving educations for civil as well as military life, with the right to have commissions and be provided for by the government; or with the secret intent to quit the service as soon as they could do better – which most of them soon do. The act of 1812 did the mischief and that insidiously and by construction, while ostensibly keeping up the old idea of cadets serving with their companies, and only detached when the President pleased, to get instruction at the academy. It runs thus: "The cadets heretofore appointed in the service of the United States, whether of artillery, cavalry, riflemen, or infantry, or may be in future appointed or hereinafter provided, shall at no time exceed 250; that they may be attached, at the discretion of the President of the United States as students to the Military Academy; and be subject to the established regulations thereof."

The deception of this clause is in keeping up the old idea of these cadets being with their companies, and by the judgment of the President detached from their companies, and attached, as students, to the Military Academy. The President is to exercise a "discretion," by which the cadet is transferred for a while from his company to the school, to be there as a student; that is to say, like a student, but still retaining his original character of quasi officer in his company. This change from camp to school, upon the face of the act, was to be, as formerly, a question for the President to decide, dependent for its solution upon the military indications of the young man's character, and his capacity for the higher branches of the service; and this only permissive in the President. He "may" attach, &c. Now, all this is illusion. Cadets are not sent to companies, whether of artillery, infantry, cavalry, or riflemen. The President exercises no "discretion" about detaching them from their company and attaching them as students. They are appointed as students, and go right off to school, and get four years' education at the public expense, whether they have any taste for military life, or not. That is the first large deception under the act: others follow, until it is all deception. Another clause says, the cadet shall "sign articles, with the consent of his parent or guardian, to serve five years, unless sooner discharged." This is deceptive, suggesting a service which has no existence, and taking a bond for what is not to be performed. It is the language of a soldier's enlistment, where there is no enlistment; and was a fiction invented to constitutionalize the act. The language makes the cadet an enlisted soldier, bound to serve the United States the usual soldier's term, when this paper soldier – this apparent private in the ranks – is in reality a gentleman student, with the emoluments of an officer, obtaining education at public expense, instead of carrying a musket in the ranks. The whole clause is an illusion, to use no stronger term, and put in for a purpose which the legislative history of the day well explains; and that was, to make the act constitutional on its face, and enable it to get through the forms, and become a law. There were members who denied the constitutional right of Congress to establish this national eleemosynary university; and others who doubted the policy and expediency of officering the army in this manner. To get over these objections, the selection of the students took the form, in the statute, of a soldier's enlistment; and in fact they sign articles of enlistment, like recruits, but only to appease the constitution and satisfy scruples; and I have myself, in the early periods of my service in the Senate, seen the original articles brought into secret session and exhibited, to prove that the student was an enlisted soldier, and not a student, and therefore constitutionally in service. The term of five years being found to be no term of service at all, as the student might quit the service within a year after his education, which many of them did, it was extended to eight; but still without effect, except in procuring a few years of unwilling service from those who mean to quit; as the greater part do. I was told by an officer in the time of the Mexican war that, of thirty-six cadets who had graduated and been commissioned at the same time with himself, there were only about half a dozen then in service; so that this great national establishment is mainly a school for the gratuitous education of those who have influence to get there. The act provides that these students are to be instructed in the lower as well as the higher branches of the military art; they are to be "trained and taught all the duties incident to a regular camp." Now, all this training and teaching, and regular camp duty, was done in Washington's time in the regular camp itself, and about as much better done as substance is better than form, and reality better than imitation, with the advantage of training each officer to the particular arm of the service to which he was to belong, and in which he would be expected to excel.

Gratuitous instruction to the children of the living is a vicious principle, which has no foundation in reason or precedent. Such instruction, to the children of those who have died for their country, is as old as the first ages of the Grecian republics, as we learn from the oration which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles at the funeral of the first slain of the Peloponnesian war: and as modern as the present British Military Royal Academy; which, although royal, makes the sons of the living nobility and gentry pay; and only gives gratuitous instruction and support to the sons of those who have died in the public service. And so, I believe, of other European military schools.

These are vital objections to the institution; but they do not include the high practical evil which the wisdom of Mr. Macon discerned, and with which this chapter opened – namely, a monopoly of the appointments. That is effected in the fourth section, not openly and in direct terms (for that would have rendered the act unconstitutional on its face), but by the use of words which admit the construction and the practice, and therefore make the law, which now is, the legal right of the cadet to receive a commission who has received the academical diploma for going through all the classes. This gives to these cadets a monopoly of the offices, to the exclusion of citizens and non-commissioned officers; and it deprives the Senate of its constitutional share in making these appointments. By a "regulation," the academic professors are to recommend at each annual examination, five cadets in each class, on account of their particular merit, whom the President is to attach to companies. This expunges the Senate, opens the door to that favoritism which natural parents find it hard to repress among their own children, and which is proverbial among teachers. By the constitution, and for a great public purpose, and not as a privilege of the body, the Senate is to have an advising and consenting power over the army appointments: by practice and construction it is not the President and Senate, but the President and the academy who appoint the officers. The President sends the student to the academy: the academy gives a diploma, and that gives him a right to the commission – the Senate's consent being an obligatory form. The President and the academy are the real appointing power, and the Senate nothing but an office for the registration of their appointments. And thus the Senate, by construction of a statute and its own acquiescence, has ceased to have control over these appointments: and the whole body of army officers is fast becoming the mere creation of the President and of the military academy. The effect of this mode of appointment will be to create a governmental, instead of a national army; and the effect of this exclusion of non-commissioned officers and privates from promotion, will be to degrade the regular soldier into a mercenary, serving for pay without affection for a country which dishonors him. Hence the desertions and the correlative evil of diminished enlistments on the part of native-born Americans.

Courts of law have invented many fictions to facilitate trials, but none to give jurisdiction. The jurisdiction must rest upon fact, and so should the constitutionality of an act of Congress; but this act of 1812 rests its constitutionality upon fictions. It is a fiction to suppose that the cadet is an enlisted soldier – a fiction to suppose that he is attached to a company and thence transferred, in the "discretion" of the President, to the academy – a fiction to suppose that he is constitutionally appointed in the army by the President and Senate. The very title of the act is fictitious, giving not the least hint, not even in the convenient formula of "other purposes" of the great school it was about to create.

It is entitled, "An act making further provision for the corps of engineers;" when five out of the six sections which it contains go to make further provision for two hundred and fifty students at a national military and civil university. As now constituted, our academy is an imitation of the European military schools, which create governmental and not national officers – which make routine officers, but cannot create military genius – and which block up the way against genius – especially barefooted genius – such as this country abounds in, and which the field alone can develope. "My children," – the French generals were accustomed to say to the young conscripts during the Revolution – "My children, there are some captains among you, and the first campaign will show who they are, and they shall have their places." And such expressions, and the system in which they are founded, have brought out the military genius of the country in every age and nation, and produced such officers as the schools can never make.

The adequate remedy for these evils is to repeal the act of 1812, and remit the academy to condition in Washington's time, and as enlarged by several acts up to 1812. Then no one would wish to become a cadet but he that had the soldier in him, and meant to stick to his profession, and work his way up from the "pay, ration, and clothing of a sergeant," to the rank of field-officer or general. Struggles for West Point appointments would then cease, and the boys on the "Grampian Hills" would have their chance. This is the adequate remedy. If that repeal cannot be had, then a subordinate and half-way remedy may be found in giving to citizens and non-commissioned officers a share of the commissions, equal to what they get in the British service, and restoring the Senate to its constitutional right of rejecting as well as confirming cadet nominations.

These are no new views with me. I have kept aloof from the institution. During the almost twenty years that I was at the head of the Senate's Committee on Military Affairs, and would have been appropriately a "visitor" at West Point at some of the annual examinations, I never accepted the function, and have never even seen the place. I have been always against the institution as now established, and have long intended to bring my views of it before the country; and now fulfil that intention.

CHAPTER LVI.

BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. – NON-RENEWAL OF CHARTER

From the time of President Jackson's intimations against the recharter of the Bank, in the annual message of 1829, there had been a ceaseless and pervading activity in behalf of the Bank in all parts of the Union, and in all forms – in the newspapers, in the halls of Congress, in State legislatures, even in much of the periodical literature, in the elections, and in the conciliation of presses and individuals – all conducted in a way to operate most strongly upon the public mind, and to conclude the question in the forum of the people before it was brought forward in the national legislature. At the same time but little was done, or could be done on the other side. The current was all setting one way. I determined to raise a voice against it in the Senate, and made several efforts before I succeeded – the thick array of the Bank friends throwing every obstacle in my way, and even friends holding me back for the regular course, which was to wait until the application for the renewed charter to be presented; and then to oppose it. I foresaw that, if this course was followed, the Bank would triumph without a contest – that she would wait until a majority was installed in both Houses of Congress – then present her application – hear a few barren speeches in opposition; – and then gallop the renewed charter through. In the session of 1830, '31, I succeeded in creating the first opportunity of delivering a speech against it; it was done a little irregularly by submitting a negative resolution against the renewal of the charter, and taking the opportunity while asking leave to introduce the resolution, to speak fully against the re-charter. My mind was fixed upon the character of the speech which I should make – one which should avoid the beaten tracks of objection, avoid all settled points, avoid the problem of constitutionality – and take up the institution in a practical sense, as having too much power over the people and the government, – over business and politics – and too much disposed to exercise that power to the prejudice of the freedom and equality which should prevail in a republic, to be allowed to exist in our country. But I knew it was not sufficient to pull down: we must build up also. The men of 1811 had committed a fatal error, when most wisely refusing to re-charter the institution of that day, they failed to provide a substitute for its currency, and fell back upon the local banks, whose inadequacy speedily made a call for the re-establishment of a national bank. I felt that error must be avoided – that another currency of general circulation must be provided to replace its notes; and I saw that currency in the gold coin of the constitution, then an ideal currency in the United States, having been totally banished for many years by the erroneous valuation adopted in the time of Gen. Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury. I proposed to revive that currency, and brought it forward at the conclusion of my first speech (February, 1831) against the Bank, thus:

"I am willing to see the charter expire, without providing any substitute for the present bank. I am willing to see the currency of the federal government left to the hard money mentioned and intended in the constitution; I am willing to have a hard money government, as that of France has been since the time of assignats and mandats. Every species of paper might be left to the State authorities, unrecognized by the federal government, and only touched by it for its own convenience when equivalent to gold and silver. Such a currency filled France with the precious metals, when England, with her overgrown bank, was a prey to all the evils of unconvertible paper. It furnished money enough for the imperial government when the population of the empire was three times more numerous, and the expense of government twelve times greater, than the population and expenses of the United States; and, when France possessed no mines of gold or silver, and was destitute of the exports which command the specie of other countries. The United States possess gold mines, now yielding half a million per annum, with every prospect of equalling those of Peru. But this is not the best dependence. We have what is superior to mines, namely, the exports which command the money of the world; that is to say, the food which sustains life and the raw materials which sustain manufactures. Gold and silver is the best currency for a republic; it suits the men of middle property and the working people best; and if I was going to establish a working man's party, it should be on the basis of hard money: – a hard money party, against a paper party."

In the speech which I delivered, I quoted copiously from British speakers – not the brilliant rhetoricians, but the practical, sensible, upright business men, to whom countries are usually indebted for all beneficial legislation: the Sir Henry Parnells, the Mr. Joseph Humes, the Mr. Edward Ellices, the Sir William Pulteneys; and men of that class, legislating for the practical concerns of life, and merging the orator in the man of business.

THE SPEECH – EXTRACTS

"Mr. Benton commenced his speech in support of the application for the leave he was about to ask, with a justification of himself for bringing forward the question of renewal at this time, when the charter had still five years to run; and bottomed his vindication chiefly on the right he possessed, and the necessity he was under to answer certain reports of one of the committee of the Senate, made in opposition to certain resolutions relative to the bank, which he had submitted to the Senate at former sessions, and which reports he had not had an opportunity of answering. He said it had been his fortune, or chance, some three years ago, to submit a resolution in relation to the undrawn balances of public money in the hands of the bank, and to accompany it with some poor remarks of unfavorable implication to the future existence of that institution. My resolution [said Mr. B.] was referred to the Committee on Finance, who made a report decidedly adverse to all my views, and eminently favorable to the bank, both as a present and future institution. This report came on the 13th of May, just fourteen days before the conclusion of a six months' session, when all was hurry and precipitation to terminate the business on hand, and when there was not the least chance to engage the attention of the Senate in the consideration of any new subject. The report was, therefore, laid upon the table unanswered, but was printed by order of the Senate, and that in extra numbers, and widely diffused over the country by means of the newspaper press. At the commencement of the next session, it being irregular to call for the consideration of the past report, I was under the necessity to begin anew, and accordingly submitted my resolution a second time, and that quite early in the session; say on the first day of January. It was my wish and request that this resolution might be discussed in the Senate, but the sentiment of the majority was different, and a second reference of it was made to the Finance Committee. A second report of the same purport with the first was a matter of course; but what did not seem to me to be a matter of course was this; that this second report should not come in until the 20th day of February, just fourteen days again before the end of the session, for it was then the short session, and the Senate as much pinched as before for time to finish the business on hand. No answer could be made to it, but the report was printed, with the former report appended to it; and thus, united like the Siamese twins, and with the apparent, but not real sanction of the Senate, they went forth together to make the tour of the Union in the columns of the newspaper press. Thus, I was a second time out of court; a second time nonsuited for want of a replication, when there was no time to file one. I had intended to begin de novo, and for the third time, at the opening of the ensuing session; but, happily, was anticipated and prevented by the annual message of the new President [General Jackson], which brought this question of renewing the bank charter directly before Congress. A reference of this part of the message was made, of course, to the Finance Committee: the committee, of course, again reported, and with increased ardor, in favor of the bank. Unhappily this third report, which was an amplification and reiteration of the two former, did not come in until the session was four months advanced, and when the time of the Senate had become engrossed, and its attention absorbed, by the numerous and important subjects which had accumulated upon the calendar. Printing in extra numbers, general circulation through the newspaper press, and no answer, was the catastrophe of this third reference to the Finance Committee. Thus was I nonsuited for the third time. The fourth session has now come round; the same subject is again before the same committee on the reference of the part of the President's second annual message which relates to the bank; and, doubtless, a fourth report of the same import with the three preceding ones, may be expected. But when? is the question. And, as I cannot answer that question, and the session is now two thirds advanced, and as I have no disposition to be cut off for the fourth time, I have thought proper to create an occasion to deliver my own sentiments, by asking leave to introduce a joint resolution, adverse to the tenor of all the reports, and to give my reasons against them, while supporting my application for the leave demanded; a course of proceeding which is just to myself and unjust to no one, since all are at liberty to answer me. These are my personal reasons for this step, and a part of my answer to the objection that I have begun too soon. The conduct of the bank, and its friends, constitutes the second branch of my justification. It is certainly not 'too soon' for them, judging by their conduct, to engage in the question of renewing the bank charter. In and out of Congress, they all seem to be of one accord on this point. Three reports of committees in the Senate, and one from a committee of the House of Representatives, have been made in favor of the renewal; and all these reports, instead of being laid away for future use – instead of being stuck in pigeon holes, and labelled for future attention, as things coming forth prematurely, and not wanted for present service – have, on the contrary, been universally received by the bank and its friends, in one great tempest of applause; greeted with every species of acclamation; reprinted in most of the papers, and every effort made to give the widest diffusion, and the highest effect, to the arguments they contain. In addition to this, and at the present session, within a few days past, three thousand copies of the exposition of the affairs of the Bank have been printed by order of the two Houses, a thing never before done, and now intended to blazon the merits of the bank. [Mr. Smith, of Maryland, here expressed some dissent to this statement; but Mr. B. affirmed its correctness in substance if not to the letter, and continued.] This does not look as if the bank advocates thought it was too soon to discuss the question of renewing the charter; and, upon this exhibition of their sentiments, I shall rest the assertion and the proof, that they do not think so. The third branch of my justification rests upon a sense of public duty; upon a sense of what is just and advantageous to the people in general, and to the debtors and stockholders of the bank in particular. The renewal of the charter is a question which concerns the people at large; and if they are to have any hand in the decision of this question – if they are even to know what is done before it is done, it is high time that they and their representatives in Congress should understand each other's mind upon it. The charter has but five years to run; and if renewed at all, will probably be at some short period, say two or three years, before the time is out, and at any time sooner that a chance can be seen to gallop the renewal through Congress. The people, therefore, have no time to lose, if they mean to have any hand in the decision of this great question. To the bank itself, it must be advantageous, at least, if not desirable, to know its fate at once, that it may avoid (if there is to be no renewal) the trouble and expense of multiplying branches upon the eve of dissolution, and the risk and inconvenience of extending loans beyond the term of its existence. To the debtors upon mortgages, and indefinite accommodations, it must be also advantageous, if not desirable, to be notified in advance of the end of their indulgences: so that, to every interest, public and private, political and pecuniary, general and particular, full discussion, and seasonable decision, is just and proper.

"I hold myself justified, Mr. President, upon the reasons given, for proceeding in my present application; but, as example is sometimes more authoritative than reason, I will take the liberty to produce one, which is as high in point of authority as it is appropriate in point of application, and which happens to fit the case before the Senate as completely as if it had been made for it. I speak of what has lately been done in the Parliament of Great Britain. It so happens, that the charter of the Bank of England is to expire, upon its own limitation, nearly about the same time with the charter of the Bank of the United States, namely, in the year 1833; and as far back as 1824, no less than nine years before its expiration, the question of its renewal was debated, and that with great freedom, in the British House of Commons. I will read some extracts from that debate, as the fairest way of presenting the example to the Senate, and the most effectual mode of securing to myself the advantage of the sentiments expressed by British statesman.

The Extracts

"'Sir Henry Parnell. – The House should no longer delay to turn its attention to the expediency of renewing the charter of the Bank of England. Heretofore, it had been the regular custom to renew the charter several years before the existing charter had expired. The last renewal was made when the existing charter had eleven years to run: the present charter had nine years only to continue, and he felt very anxious to prevent the making of any agreement between the government and the bank for a renewal, without a full examination of the policy of again conferring upon the Bank of England any exclusive privilege. The practice had been for government to make a secret arrangement with the bank; to submit it immediately to the proprietors of the bank for their approbation, and to call upon the House the next day to confirm it, without affording any opportunity of fair deliberation. So much information had been obtained upon the banking trade, and upon the nature of currency in the last fifteen years, that it was particularly necessary to enter upon a full investigation of the policy of renewing the bank charter before any negotiation should be entered upon between the government and the bank; and he trusted the government would not commence any such negotiation until the sense of Parliament had been taken on this important subject.'

"'Mr. Hume said it was of very great importance that his majesty's ministers should take immediate steps to free themselves from the trammels in which they had long been held by the bank. As the interest of money was now nearly on a level with what it was when the bank lent a large sum to government, he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not listen to any application for a renewal of the bank charter, but would pay off every shilling that had been borrowed from the bank. * * * * * Let the country gentlemen recollect that the bank was now acting as pawn-broker on a large scale, and lending money on estates, a system entirely contrary to the original intention of that institution. * * * * * * He hoped, before the expiration of the charter, that a regular inquiry would be made into the whole subject.'

"'Mr. Edward Ellice. It (the Bank of England) is a great monopolizing body, enjoying privileges which belonged to no other corporation, and no other class of his majesty's subjects. * * * * * * * He hoped that the exclusive charter would never again be granted; and that the conduct of the bank during the last ten or twelve years would make government very cautious how they entertained any such propositions. The right honorable Chancellor of the Exchequer [Mr. Robinson] had protested against the idea of straining any point to the prejudice of the bank; he thought, however, that the bank had very little to complain of, when their stock, after all their past profits, was at 238.'

"'The Chancellor of the Exchequer deprecated the discussion, as leading to no practical result.'

"'Mr. Alexander Baring objected to it as premature and unnecessary.'

"'Sir William Pulteney (in another debate). The prejudices in favor of the present bank have proceeded from the long habit of considering it as a sort of pillar which nothing can shake. * * * * * * * The bank has been supported, and is still supported, by the fear and terror which, by means of its monopoly, it has had the power to inspire. It is well known, that there is hardly an extensive trader, a manufacturer, or a banker, either in London, or at a distance from it, to whom the bank could not do a serious injury, and could often bring on even insolvency. * * * * * I consider the power given by the monopoly to be of the nature of all other despotic power, which corrupts the despot as much as it corrupts the slave. * * * * * * It is in the nature of man, that a monopoly must necessarily be ill-conducted. * * * * * * * Whatever language the [private] bankers may feel themselves obliged to hold, yet no one can believe that they have any satisfaction in being, and continuing, under a dominion which has proved so grievous and so disastrous. * * * * * * I can never believe that the merchants and bankers of this country will prove unwilling to emancipate themselves, if they can do it without risking the resentment of the bank. No man in France was heard to complain, openly, of the Bastile while it existed. The merchants and bankers of this country have the blood of Englishmen, and will be happy to relieve themselves from a situation of perpetual terror, if they could do it consistently with a due regard to their own interest.'

"Here is authority added to reason – the force of a great example added to the weight of unanswerable reasons, in favor of early discussion; so that, I trust, I have effectually put aside that old and convenient objection to the 'time,' that most flexible and accommodating objection, which applies to all seasons, and all subjects, and is just as available for cutting off a late debate, because it is too late, as it is for stifling an early one, because it is too early.

"But, it is said that the debate will injure the stockholders; that it depreciates the value of their property, and that it is wrong to sport with the vested rights of individuals. This complaint, supposing it to come from the stockholders themselves, is both absurd and ungrateful. It is absurd, because the stockholders, at least so many of them as are not foreigners, must have known when they accepted a charter of limited duration, that the approach of its expiration would renew the debate upon the propriety of its existence; that every citizen had a right, and every public man was under an obligation, to declare his sentiments freely; that there was nothing in the charter, numerous as its peculiar privileges were, to exempt the bank from that freedom of speech and writing, which extends to all our public affairs; and that the charter was not to be renewed here, as the Bank of England charter had formerly been renewed, by a private arrangement among its friends, suddenly produced in Congress, and galloped through without the knowledge of the country. The American part of the stockholders (for I would not reply to the complaints of the foreigners) must have known all this; and known it when they accepted the charter. They adapted it, subject to this known consequence; and, therefore, the complaint about injuring their property is absurd. That it is ungrateful, must be apparent to all who will reflect upon the great privileges which these stockholders will have enjoyed for twenty years, and the large profits they have already derived from their charter. They have been dividing seven per cent. per annum, unless when prevented by their own mismanagement; and have laid up a real estate of three millions of dollars for future division; and the money which has done these handsome things, instead of being diminished or impaired in the process, is still worth largely upwards of one hundred cents to the dollar: say, one hundred and twenty-five cents. For the peculiar privileges which enabled them to make these profits, the stockholders ought to be grateful: but, like all persons who have been highly favored with undue benefits, they mistake a privilege for a right – a favor for a duty – and resent, as an attack upon their property, a refusal to prolong their undue advantages. There is no ground for these complaints, but for thanks and benedictions rather, for permitting the bank to live out its numbered days! That institution has forfeited its charter. It may be shut up at any hour. It lives from day to day by the indulgence of those whom it daily attacks; and, if any one is ignorant of this fact, let him look at the case of the Bank of the United States against Owens and others, decided in the Supreme Court, and reported in the 2d Peters.

"[Here Mr. B. read a part of this case, showing that it was a case of usury at the rate of forty-six per cent. and that Mr. Sergeant, counsel for the bank, resisted the decision of the Supreme Court, upon the ground that it would expose the charter of the bank to forfeiture; and that the decision was, nevertheless, given upon that ground; so that the bank, being convicted of taking usury, in violation of its charter, was liable to be deprived of its charter, at any time that a scire facias should issue against it.]

"Mr. B. resumed. Before I proceed to the consideration of the resolution, I wish to be indulged in adverting to a rule or principle of parliamentary practice, which it is only necessary to read now in order to avoid the possibility of any necessity for recurring to it hereafter. It is the rule which forbids any member to be present – which, in fact, requires him to withdraw – during the discussion of any question in which his private interest may be concerned; and authorizes the expurgation from the Journal of any vote which may have been given under the predicament of an interested motive. I demand that the Secretary of the Senate may read the rule to which I allude.

"[The Secretary read the following rule:]

"'Where the private interests of a member are concerned in a bill or question, he is to withdraw. And where such an interest has appeared, his voice has been disallowed, even after a division. In a case so contrary, not only to the laws of decency, but to the fundamental principles of the social compact, which denies to any man to be a judge in his own cause, it is for the honor of the House that this rule, of immemorial observance, should be strictly adhered to.'

"First: Mr. President, I object to the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, because I look upon the bank as an institution too great and powerful to be tolerated in a government of free and equal laws. Its power is that of the purse; a power more potent than that of the sword; and this power it possesses to a degree and extent that will enable this bank to draw to itself too much of the political power of this Union; and too much of the individual property of the citizens of these States. The money power of the bank is both direct and indirect.

"[The Vice-President here intimated to Mr. Benton that he was out of order, and had not a right to go into the merits of the bank upon the motion which he had made. Mr. Benton begged pardon of the Vice-President, and respectfully insisted that he was in order, and had a right to proceed. He said he was proceeding upon the parliamentary rule of asking leave to bring in a joint resolution, and, in doing which, he had a right to state his reasons, which reasons constituted his speech; that the motion was debatable, and the whole Senate might answer him. The Vice-President then directed Mr. Benton to proceed.]

"Mr. B. resumed. The direct power of the bank is now prodigious, and in the event of the renewal of the charter, must speedily become boundless and uncontrollable. The bank is now authorized to own effects, lands inclusive, to the amount of fifty-five millions of dollars, and to issue notes to the amount of thirty-five millions more. This makes ninety millions; and, in addition to this vast sum, there is an opening for an unlimited increase: for there is a dispensation in the charter to issue as many more notes as Congress, by law, may permit. This opens the door to boundless emissions; for what can be more unbounded than the will and pleasure of successive Congresses? The indirect power of the bank cannot be stated in figures; but it can be shown to be immense. In the first place, it has the keeping of the public moneys, now amounting to twenty-six millions per annum (the Post Office Department included), and the gratuitous use of the undrawn balances, large enough to constitute, in themselves, the capital of a great State bank. In the next place, its promissory notes are receivable, by law, in purchase of all property owned by the United States, and in payment of all debts due them; and this may increase its power to the amount of the annual revenue, by creating a demand for its notes to that amount. In the third place, it wears the name of the United States, and has the federal government for a partner; and this name, and this partnership, identifies the credit of the bank with the credit of the Union. In the fourth place, it is armed with authority to disparage and discredit the notes of other banks, by excluding them from all payments to the United States; and this, added to all its other powers, direct and indirect, makes this institution the uncontrollable monarch of the moneyed system of the Union. To whom is all this power granted? To a company of private individuals, many of them foreigners, and the mass of them residing in a remote and narrow corner of the Union, unconnected by any sympathy with the fertile regions of the Great Valley, in which the natural power of this Union – the power of numbers – will be found to reside long before the renewed term of a second charter would expire. By whom is all this power to be exercised? By a directory of seven (it may be), governed by a majority, of four (it may be); and none of these elected by the people, or responsible to them. Where is it to be exercised? At a single city, distant a thousand miles from some of the States, receiving the produce of none of them (except one); no interest in the welfare of any of them (except one); no commerce with the people; with branches in every State; and every branch subject to the secret and absolute orders of the supreme central head: thus constituting a system of centralism, hostile to the federative principle of our Union, encroaching upon the wealth and power of the States, and organized upon a principle to give the highest effect to the greatest power. This mass of power, thus concentrated, thus ramified, and thus directed, must necessarily become, under a prolonged existence, the absolute monopolist of American money, the sole manufacturer of paper currency, and the sole authority (for authority it will be) to which the federal government, the State governments, the great cities, corporate bodies, merchants, traders, and every private citizen, must, of necessity apply, for every loan which their exigencies may demand. 'The rich ruleth the poor, and the borrower is the servant of the lender.' Such are the words of Holy Writ; and if the authority of the Bible admitted of corroboration, the history of the world is at hand to give it. But I will not cite the history of the world, but one eminent example only, and that of a nature so high and commanding, as to include all others; and so near and recent, as to be directly applicable to our own situation. I speak of what happened in Great Britain, in the year 1795, when the Bank of England, by a brief and unceremonious letter to Mr. Pitt, such as a miser would write to a prodigal in a pinch, gave the proof of what a great moneyed power could do, and would do, to promote its own interest, in a crisis of national alarm and difficulty. I will read the letter. It is exceedingly short; for after the compliments are omitted, there are but three lines of it. It is, in fact, about as long as a sentence of execution, leaving out the prayer of the judge. It runs thus:

"'It is the wish of the Court of Directors that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would settle his arrangements of finances for the present year, in such manner as not to depend upon any further assistance from them, beyond what is already agreed for.'

"Such were the words of this memorable note, sufficiently explicit and intelligible; but to appreciate it fully, we must know what was the condition of Great Britain at that time? Remember it was the year 1795, and the beginning of that year, than which a more portentous one never opened upon the British empire. The war with the French republic had been raging for two years; Spain had just declared war against Great Britain; Ireland was bursting into rebellion; the fleet in the Nore was in open mutiny; and a cry for the reform of abuses, and the reduction of taxes, resounded through the land. It was a season of alarm and consternation, and of imminent actual danger to Great Britain; and this was the moment which the Bank selected to notify the minister that no more loans were to be expected! What was the effect of this notification? It was to paralyze the government, and to subdue the minister to the purposes of the bank. From that day forth Mr. Pitt became the minister of the bank; and, before two years were out, he had succeeded in bringing all the departments of government, King, Lords, and Commons, and the Privy Council, to his own slavish condition. He stopped the specie payments of the bank, and made its notes the lawful currency of the land. In 1797 he obtained an order in council for this purpose; in the same year an act of parliament to confirm the order for a month, and afterwards a series of acts to continue it for twenty years. This was the reign of the bank. For twenty years it was a dominant power in England; and, during that disastrous period, the public debt was increased about £400,000,000 sterling, equal nearly to two thousand millions of dollars, and that by paper loans from a bank which, according to its own declarations, had not a shilling to lend at the commencement of the period! I omit the rest. I say nothing of the general subjugation of the country banks, the rise in the price of food, the decline in wages, the increase of crimes and taxes, the multiplication of lords and beggars, and the frightful demoralization of society. I omit all this. I only seize the prominent figure in the picture, that of a government arrested in the midst of war and danger by the veto of a moneyed corporation; and only permitted to go on upon condition of assuming the odium of stopping specie payments, and sustaining the promissory notes of an insolvent bank, as the lawful currency of the land. This single feature suffices to fix the character of the times; for when the government becomes the 'servant of the lender,' the people themselves become its slaves. Cannot the Bank of the United States, if re-chartered, act in the same way? It certainly can, and just as certainly will, when time and opportunity shall serve, and interest may prompt. It is to no purpose that gentlemen may come forward, and vaunt the character of the United States Bank, and proclaim it too just and merciful to oppress the state. I must be permitted to repudiate both the pledge and the praise. The security is insufficient, and the encomium belongs to Constantinople. There were enough such in the British Parliament the year before, nay, the day before the bank stopped; yet their pledges and praises neither prevented the stoppage, nor made good the damage that ensued. There were gentlemen in our Congress to pledge themselves in 1810 for the then expiring bank, of which the one now existing is a second and deteriorated edition; and if their securityship had been accepted, and the old bank re-chartered, we should have seen this government greeted with a note, about August, 1814 – about the time the British were burning this capitol – of the same tenor with the one received by the younger Pitt in the year 1795; for, it is incontestable, that that bank was owned by men who would have glorified in arresting the government, and the war itself, for want of money. Happily, the wisdom and patriotism of Jefferson, under the providence of God, prevented that infamy and ruin, by preventing the renewal of the old bank charter.

"Secondly. I object to the continuance of this bank, because its tendencies are dangerous and pernicious to the government and the people.

"What are the tendencies of a great moneyed power, connected with the government, and controlling its fiscal operations? Are they not dangerous to every interest, public and private – political as well as pecuniary? I say they are; and briefly enumerate the heads of each mischief.

"1. Such a bank tends to subjugate the government, as I have already shown in the history of what happened to the British minister in the year 1795.

"2. It tends to collusions between the government and the bank in the terms of the loans, as has been fully experienced in England in those frauds upon the people, and insults upon the understating, called three per cent. loans, in which the government, for about £50 borrowed, became liable to pay £100.

"3. It tends to create public debt, by facilitating public loans, and substituting unlimited supplies of paper, for limited supplies of coin. The British debt is born of the Bank of England. That bank was chartered in 1694, and was nothing more nor less in the beginning, than an act of Parliament for the incorporation of a company of subscribers to a government loan. The loan was £1,200,000; the interest £80,000; and the expenses of management £4,000. And this is the birth and origin, the germ and nucleus of that debt, which is now £900,000,000 (the unfunded items included), which bears an interest of £30,000,000, and costs £260,000 for annual management.

"4. It tends to beget and prolong unnecessary wars, by furnishing the means of carrying them on without recurrence to the people. England is the ready example for this calamity. Her wars for the restoration of the Capet Bourbons were kept up by loans and subsidies created out of bank paper. The people of England had no interest in these wars, which cost them about £600,000,000 of debt in twenty-five years, in addition to the supplies raised within the year. The kings she put back upon the French throne were not able to sit on it. Twice she put them on; twice they tumbled off in the mud; and all that now remains of so much sacrifice of life and money is, the debt, which is eternal, the taxes, which are intolerable, the pensions and titles of some warriors, and the keeping of the Capet Bourbons, who are returned upon their hands.

"5. It tends to aggravate the inequality of fortunes; to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer; to multiply nabobs and paupers; and to deepen and widen the gulf which separates Dives from Lazarus. A great moneyed power is favorable to great capitalists; for it is the principle of money to favor money. It is unfavorable to small capitalists; for it is the principle of money to eschew the needy and unfortunate. It is injurious to the laboring classes; because they receive no favors, and have the price of the property they wish to acquire raised to the paper maximum, while wages remain at the silver minimum.

"6. It tends to make and to break fortunes, by the flux and reflux of paper. Profuse issues, and sudden contractions, perform this operation, which can be repeated, like planetary and pestilential visitations, in every cycle of so many years; at every periodical return, transferring millions from the actual possessors of property to the Neptunes who preside over the flux and reflux of paper. The last operation of this kind performed by the Bank of England, about five years ago, was described by Mr. Alexander Baring, in the House of Commons, in terms which are entitled to the knowledge and remembrance of American citizens. I will read his description, which is brief, but impressive. After describing the profuse issues of 1823-24, he painted the reaction in the following terms:

"'They, therefore, all at once, gave a sudden jerk to the horse on whose neck they had before suffered the reins to hang loose. They contracted their issues to a considerable extent. The change was at once felt throughout the country. A few days before that, no one knew what to do with his money; now, no one knew where to get it. * * * * The London bankers found it necessary to follow the same course towards their country correspondents, and these again towards their customers, and each individual towards his debtor. The consequence was obvious in the late panic. Every one, desirous to obtain what was due to him, ran to his banker, or to any other on whom he had a claim; and even those who had no immediate use for their money, took it back, and let it lie unemployed in their pockets, thinking it unsafe in others' hands. The effect of this alarm was, that houses which were weak went immediately. Then went second rate houses; and, lastly, houses which were solvent went, because their securities were unavailable. The daily calls to which each individual was subject put it out of his power to assist his neighbor. Men were known to seek for assistance, and that, too, without finding it, who, on examination of their affairs, were proved to be worth 200,000 pounds, – men, too, who held themselves so secure, that, if asked six months before whether they could contemplate such an event, they would have said it would be impossible, unless the sky should fall, or some other event equally improbable should occur.'

"This is what was done in England five years ago, it is what may be done here in every five years to come, if the bank charter is renewed. Sole dispenser of money, it cannot omit the oldest and most obvious means of amassing wealth by the flux and reflux of paper. The game will be in its own hands, and the only answer to be given is that to which I have alluded: 'The Sultan is too just and merciful to abuse his power.'

"Thirdly. I object to the renewal of the charter, on account of the exclusive privileges, and anti-republican monopoly, which it gives to the stockholders. It gives, and that by an act of Congress, to a company of individuals, the exclusive legal privileges:

"1. To carry on the trade of banking upon the revenue and credit, and in the name, of the United States of America.