Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Besides the two years given to the institution after the expiration of its charter, it was perfectly well known, and has since been done in its own case, and was done by the first national bank, and may be by any expiring corporation, that the directors may appoint trustees to wind up their concerns; and who will not be subject to any limited time. The first national bank – that which was created in 1791, and expired in 1811 – had no two years, or any time whatever, allowed for winding up its affairs after the expiration of its charter – and the question of the renewal was not decided until within the last days of the existence of its charter – yet there was no distress, and no pressure upon its debtors. A trust was created; and the collection of debts conducted so gently that it is not yet finished. The trustees are still at work: and within this year, and while this application for a renewed charter to the second bank is going on, they announce a dividend of some cents on the share out of the last annual collections; and intimate no time within which they will finish; so that this menace of distress from the second bank, if denied a renewal four years before the expiration of its charter, and four years before the commencement of the two years to which it is entitled, was entirely gratuitous, and would have been wicked if executed.

Mr. Clay concluded the debate on the side of the bank application, and spoke with great ardor and vehemence, and with much latitude of style and topic – though as a rival candidate for the Presidency, it was considered by some, that a greater degree of reserve might have been commendable. The veto, and its imputed undue exercise, was the theme of his vehement declamation. Besides discrediting its use, and denouncing it as of monarchial origin, he alluded to the popular odium brought upon Louis the 16th by its exercise, and the nickname which it caused to be fastened upon him. He said:

"The veto is hardly reconcilable with the genius of representative government. It is totally irreconcilable with it, if it is to be frequently employed in respect to the expediency of measures, as well as their constitutionality. It is a feature of our government borrowed from a prerogative of the British King. And it is remarkable that in England it has grown obsolete, not having been used for upwards of a century. At the commencement of the French Revolution, in discussing the principles of their constitution, in the national convention, the veto held a conspicuous figure. The gay, laughing population of Paris bestowed on the King the appellation of Monsieur Veto, and on the Queen that of Madame Veto."

Mr. Benton saw the advantage which this denunciation and allusion presented, and made relentless use of it. He first vindicated the use and origin of the veto, as derived from the institution of the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and its exercise always intended for the benefit of the people; and, under our constitution, its only effect to refer a measure to the people, for their consideration, and to stay its execution until the people could pass upon it, and to adopt or reject it at an ensuing Congress. It was a power eminently just and proper in a representative government, and intended for the benefit of the whole people; and, therefore, placed in the hands of the magistrate elected by the whole. On the allusion to the nickname on the King and Queen of France, he said:

"He not only recollected the historical incident to which the senator from Kentucky had alluded, but also the character of the decrees to which the unfortunate Louis the 16th had affixed his vetoes. One was the decree against the emigrants, dooming to death and confiscation of estate every man, woman, and child who should attempt to save their lives by flying from the pike, the guillotine, and the lamp-post. The other was a decree exposing to death the ministers of religion who could not take an oath which their consciences repulsed. To save tottering age, trembling mothers, and affrighted children from massacre – to save the temples and altars of God from being stained by the blood of his ministers – were the sacred objects of those vetoes; and was there any thing to justify a light or reproachful allusion to them in the American Senate? The King put his constitutional vetoes to these decrees; and the canaille of Saint Antoine and Marceau – not the gay and laughing Parisians, but the bloody canaille, instigated by leaders more ferocious than themselves – began to salute the King as Monsieur Veto, and demand his head for the guillotine. And the Queen, when seen at the windows of her prison, her locks pale with premature white, the effect of an agonized mind at the ruin she witnessed, the poissardes saluted her also as Madame Veto; and the Dauphin came in for the epithet of the Little Veto. All this was terrible in France, and in the disorders of a revolution; but why revive their remembrance in this Congress, successor to those which were accustomed to call this king our great ally? and to compliment him on the birth of that child, stigmatized le petit veto, and perishing prematurely under the inhumanities of the convention inflicted by the hand of Simon, the jailer? The two elder vetoes, Monsieur and Madame, came to the guillotine in Paris, and the young one to a death, compared to which the guillotine was mercy. And now, why this allusion? what application of its moral? Surely it is not pointless; not devoid of meaning and practical application. We have no bloody guillotines here, but we have political ones: sharp axes falling from high, and cutting off political heads! Is the service of that axe invoked here upon 'General Andrew Veto?' If so, and the invocation should be successful, then Andrew Jackson, like Louis 16th, will cease to be in any body's way in their march to power."

Mr. Clay also introduced a fable, not taken from Æsop – that of the cat and the eagle – the moral of which was attempted to be turned against him. It was in allusion to the President's message in relation to the bank, and the conduct of his friends since in "attacking" the institution; and said:

"They have done so; and their condition now reminds mo of the fable invented by Dr. Franklin, of the Eagle and the Cat, to demonstrate that Æsop had not exhausted invention, in the construction of his memorable fables. The eagle, you know, Mr. President, pounced, from his lofty flight in the air, upon a cat, taking it to be a pig. Having borne off his prize, he quickly felt most painfully the claws of the cat thrust deeply into his sides and body. Whilst flying, he held a parley with the supposed pig, and proposed to let go his hold, if the other would let him alone. No, says puss, you brought me from yonder earth below, and I will hold fast to you until you carry me back; a condition to which the eagle readily assented."

Mr. Benton gave a poetical commencement to this fable; and said:

"An eagle towering in his pride of height was – not by a mousing owl, but by a pig under a jimpson weed – not hawked and killed, but caught and whipt. The opening he thought grand; the conclusion rather bathotic. The mistake of the sharp-eyed bird of Jove, he thought might be attributed to old age dimming the sight, and to his neglect of his spectacles that morning. He was rather surprised at the whim of the cat in not choosing to fall, seeing that a cat (unlike a politician sometimes), always falls on its legs; but concluded it was a piece of pride in puss, and a wish to assimilate itself still closer to an æronaut; and having gone up pendant to a balloon, it would come down artistically, with a parachute spread over its head. It was a pretty fable, and well told; but the moral – the application? Æsop always had a moral to his fable; and Dr. Franklin, his imputed continuator in this particular, though not yet the rival of his master in fabulous reputation, yet had a large sprinkling of practical sense; and never wrote or spoke without a point and an application. And now, what is the point here? And the senator from Kentucky has not left that to be inferred; he has told it himself. General Jackson is the eagle; the bank is the cat; the parley is the proposition of the bank to the President to sign its charter, and it will support him for the presidency – if not, will keep his claws stuck in his sides. But, Jackson, different from the eagle with his cat, will have no compromise, or bargain with the bank. One or the other shall fall! and be dashed into atoms!

"Having disposed of these preliminary topics Mr. B. came to the matter in hand – the debate on the bank, which had only commenced on the side of the friends of that institution since the return of the veto message. Why debate the bank question now, he exclaimed, and not debate it before? Then was the time to make converts; now, none can be expected. Why are lips unsealed now, which were silent as the grave when this act was on its passage through the Senate? The senator from Kentucky himself, at the end of one of his numerous perorations, declared that he expected to make no converts. Then, why speak three hours? and other gentlemen speak a whole day? Why this post facto—post mortem– this posthumous– debate? – The deed is done. The bank bill is finished. Speaking cannot change the minds of senators, and make them reverse their votes; still less can it change the President, and make him recall his veto. Then why speak? To whom do they speak? With what object do they speak? Sir! exclaimed Mr. B., this post facto debate is not for the Senate, nor the President, nor to alter the fate of the bank bill. It is to rouse the officers of the bank – to direct the efforts of its mercenaries in their designs upon the people – to bring out its stream of corrupting influence, by inspiring hope, and to embody all its recruits at the polls to vote against President Jackson. Without an avowal we would all know this; but we have not been left without an avowal. The senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), who opened yesterday, commenced his speech with showing that Jackson must be put down; that he stood as an impassable barrier between the bank and a new charter; and that the road to success was through the ballot boxes at the presidential election. The object of this debate is then known, confessed, declared, avowed; the bank is in the field; enlisted for the war; a battering ram – the catapulta, not of the Romans, but of the National Republicans; not to beat down the walls of hostile cities, but to beat down the citadel of American liberty; to batter down the rights of the people; to destroy a hero and patriot; to command the elections, and to elect a Bank President by dint of bank power.

"The bank is in the field (said Mr. B.), a combatant, and a fearful and tremendous one, in the presidential election. If she succeeds, there is an end of American liberty – an end of the republic. The forms of election may be permitted for a while, as the forms of the consular elections were permitted in Rome, during the last years of the republic; but it will be for a while only. The President of the bank, and the President of the United States, will be cousins, and cousins in the royal sense of the word. They will elect each other. They will elect their successors; they will transmit their thrones to their descendants, and that by legislative construction. The great Napoleon was decreed to be hereditary emperor by virtue of the 22d article of the constitution of the republic. The conservative Senate and the Tribunitial Assembly made him emperor by construction; and the same construction which was put upon the 22d article of the French constitution of the year VIII. may be as easily placed upon the 'general welfare' clause in the constitution of these United States.

"The Bank is in the field, and the West, – the Great West, is the selected theatre of her operations. There her terrors, her seductions, her energies, her rewards and her punishments, are to be directed. The senator from Massachusetts opened yesterday with a picture of the ruin in the West, if the bank were not rechartered; and the senator from Kentucky, Mr. Clay, wound up with a retouch of the same picture to day, with a closeness of coincidence which showed that this part of the battle ground had been reviewed in company by the associate generals and duplicate senators. Both agree that the West is to be ruined if the bank be not rechartered; and rechartered it cannot be, unless the veto President is himself vetoed. This is certainly candid. But the gentlemen's candor did not stop there. They went on to show the modus operandi; to show how the ruin would be worked, how the country would be devastated, – if Jackson was not put down, and the bank rechartered. The way was this: The West owes thirty millions of dollars to the bank; the bank will sue every debtor within two years after its charter expires; there will be no money in the country to pay the judgments, all property will be sold at auction; the price of all property will fall; even the growing crops, quite up to Boon's Lick, will sink in value and lose half their price! This is the picture of ruin now drawn by the senator from Massachusetts; these the words of a voice now pleading the cause of the West against Jackson, the sound of which voice never happened to be heard in favor of the West during the late war, when her sons were bleeding under the British and the Indians, and Jackson was perilling life and fortune to save and redeem her.

"This is to be the punishment of the West if she votes for Jackson; and by a plain and natural inference, she is to have her reward for putting him down and putting up another. Thirty millions is the bank debt in the West; and these thirty millions they threaten to collect by writs of execution if Jackson is re-elected; but if he be not elected, and somebody else be elected, then they promise no forced payments shall be exacted, – hardly any payment at all! The thirty millions it is pretended will almost be forgiven; and thus a bribe of thirty millions is deceitfully offered for the Western vote, with a threat of punishment, if it be not taken! But the West, and especially the State of Ohio, is aware that Mr. Clay does not use the bank power, in extending charities – coercion is his mode of appeal – and when President Clay and President Biddle have obtained their double sway, all these fair promises will be forgotten. Mr. B. had read in the Roman history of the empire being put up to sale; he had read of victorious generals, returning from Asiatic conquests, and loaded with oriental spoil, bidding in the market for the consulship, and purchasing their elections with the wealth of conquered kingdoms; but he had never expected to witness a bid for the presidency in this young and free republic. He thought he lived too early, – too near the birth of the republic, – while every thing was yet too young and innocent, – to see the American presidency put up at auction. But he affirmed this to be the case now; and called upon every senator, and every auditor, who had heard the senator from Massachusetts the day before, or the senator from Kentucky on that day, to put any other construction, if they could, upon this seductive offer to the West, of indefinite accommodation for thirty millions of debt, if she would vote for one gentleman, and the threat of a merciless exaction of that debt, if she voted for another?

"Mr. B. demanded how the West came to be selected by these two senators as the theatre for the operation of all the terrors and seductions of the bank debt? Did no other part of the country owe money to the bank? Yes! certainly, fifteen millions in the South, and twenty-five millions north of the Potomac. Why then were not the North and the South included in the fancied fate of the West? Simply because the presidential election could not be affected by the bank debt in those quarters. The South was irrevocably fixed; and the terror, or seduction, of the payment, or non-payment, of her bank debt, would operate nothing there. The North owed but little, compared to its means of payment, and the presidential election would turn upon other points in that region. The bank debt was the argument for the West; and the bank and the orators had worked hand in hand, to produce, and to use, this argument. Mr. B. then affirmed, that the debt had been created for the very purpose to which it was now applied; an electioneering, political purpose; and this he proved by a reference to authentic documents.

"First: He took the total bank debt, as it existed when President Jackson first brought the bank charter before the view of Congress in December, 1829, and showed it to be $40,216,000; then he took the total debt as it stood at present, being $70,428,000; and thus showed an increase of thirty millions in the short space of two years and four months. This great increase had occurred since the President had delivered opinions against the bank, and when as a prudent, and law abiding institution, it ought to have been reducing and curtailing its business, or at all events, keeping it stationary. He then showed the annual progress of this increase, to demonstrate that the increase was faster and faster, as the charter drew nearer and nearer to its termination, and the question of its renewal pressed closer and closer upon the people. He showed that the increase the first year after the message of 1829 was four millions and a quarter; in the second year, which was last year, about nineteen millions, to wit, from $44,052,000, to $63,026,452; and the increase in the four first mouths of the present year was nearly five millions, being at the rate of about one million and a quarter a month since the bank had applied for a renewal of her charter! After having shown this enormous increase in the sum total of the debt, Mr. B. went on to show where it had taken place; and this he proved to be chiefly in the West, and not merely in the West, but principally in those parts of the West in which the presidential election was held to be most doubtful and critical.

"He began with the State of Louisiana, and showed that the increase there, since the delivery of the message of 1829, was $5,061,161; in Kentucky, that the increase was $3,009,838; that in Ohio, it was $2,079,207. Here was an increase of ten millions in three critical and doubtful States. And so on, in others. Having shown this enormous increase of debt in the West, Mr. B. went on to show, from the time and circumstances and subsequent events, that they were created for a political purpose, and had already been used by the bank with that view. He then recurred to the two-and-twenty circulars, or writs of execution, as he called them, issued against the South and West, in January and February last, ordering curtailments of all debts, and the supply of reinforcements to the Northeast. He showed that the reasons assigned by the bank for issuing the orders of curtailments were false; that she was not deprived of public deposits, as she asserted; for she then had twelve millions, and now has twelve millions of these deposits; that she was not in distress for money, as she asserted, for she was then increasing her loans in other quarters, at the rate of a million and a quarter a month, and had actually increased them ten millions and a half from the date of the first order of curtailment, in October, 1831, to the end of May, 1832! Her reasons then assigned for curtailing at the Western branches, were false, infamously false, and were proved to be so by her own returns. The true reasons were political: a foretaste and prelude to what is now threatened. It was a manœuvre to press the debtors – a turn of the screw upon the borrowers – to make them all cry out and join in the clamors and petitions for a renewed charter! This was the reason, this the object; and a most wanton and cruel sporting it was with the property and feelings of the unfortunate debtors. The overflowing of the river at Louisville and Cincinnati, gave the bank an opportunity of showing its gracious condescension in the temporary and slight relaxation of her orders at those places; but there, and every where else in the West, the screw was turned far enough to make the screams of the victims reach their representatives in Congress. In Mobile, alone, half a million was curtailed out of a million and a half; at every other branch, curtailments are going on; and all this for political effect, and to be followed up by the electioneering fabrication that it is the effect of the veto message. Yes! the veto message and President, are to be held up as the cause of these curtailments, which have been going on for half a year past!

"Connected with the creation of this new debt, was the establishment of several new branches, and the promise of many more. Instead of remaining stationary, and awaiting the action of Congress, the bank showed itself determined to spread and extend its business, not only in debts, but in new branches. Nashville, Natchez, St. Louis, were favored with branches at the eleventh hour. New-York had the same favor done her; and, at one of these (the branch at Utica), the Senate could judge of the necessity to the federal government which occasioned it to be established, and which necessity, in the opinion of the Supreme Court, is sufficient to overturn the laws and constitution of a State: the Senate could judge of this necessity, from the fact that twenty-five dollars is rather a large deposit to the credit of the United States Treasurer, and that, at the last returns, the federal deposit was precisely two dollars and fifty cents! This extension of branches and increase of debt, at the approaching termination of the charter, was evidence of the determination of the bank to be rechartered at all hazards. It was done to create an interest to carry her through, in spite of the will of the people. Numerous promises for new branches, is another trick of the same kind. Thirty new branches are said to be in contemplation, and about three hundred villages have been induced each to believe that itself was the favored spot of location; but, always upon the condition, well understood, that Jackson should not be re-elected, and that they should elect a representative to vote for the re-charter.

"Mr. B., having shown when and why this Western debt was created, examined next into the alleged necessity for its prompt and rigorous collection, if the charter was not renewed; he denied the existence of any such necessity in point of law. He affirmed that the bank could take as much time as she pleased to collect her debts, and could be just as gentle with her debtors as she chose. All that she had to do was to convert a few of her directors into trustees, as the old Bank of the United States had done, the affairs of which were wound up so gently that the country did not know when it ended. Mr. B. appealed to what would be admitted to be bank authority on this point: it was the opinion of the senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), not in his speech against renewing the bank charter, in 1811, but in his report of that year against allowing it time to wind up its affairs. The bank then asked time to wind up its affairs; a cry was raised that the country would be ruined, if time was not allowed; but the senator from Kentucky then answered that cry, by referring the bank to its common law right to constitute trustees to wind up its affairs. The Congress acted upon the suggestion by refusing the time; the bank acted upon the suggestion by appointing trustees; the debtors hushed their cries, and the public never heard of the subject afterwards. The pretext of an unrenewed charter is not necessary to stimulate the bank to the pressure of Western debtors. Look at Cincinnati! what but a determination to make its power felt and feared occasioned the pressure at that place? And will that disposition ever be wanting to such an institution as that of the Bank of the United States?

"The senator from Kentucky has changed his opinion about the constitutionality of the bank; but has he changed it about the legality of the trust? If he has not, he must surrender his alarms for the ruin of the West; if he has, the law itself is unchanged. The bank may act under it; and if she does not, it is because she will not; and because she chooses to punish the West for refusing to support her candidate for the presidency. What then becomes of all this cry about ruined fortunes, fallen prices, and the loss of growing crops? All imagination or cruel tyranny! The bank debt of the West is thirty millions. She has six years to pay it in; and, at all events, he that cannot pay in six years, can hardly do it at all. Ten millions are in bills of exchange; and, if they are real bills, they will be payable at maturity, in ninety or one hundred and twenty days; if not real hills, but disguised loans, drawing interest as a debt, and premium as a bill of exchange, they are usurious and void, and may be vacated in any upright court.

"But, the great point for the West to fix its attention upon is the fact that, once in every ten years, the capital of this debt is paid in annual interest; and that, after paying the capital many times over in interest, the principal will have to be paid at last. The sooner, then, the capital is paid and interest stopped, the better for the country.

"Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had dilated largely upon the withdrawal of bank capital from the West. Mr. B. showed, from the bank documents, that they had sent but 938,000 dollars of capital there; that the operation was the other way, a ruinous drain of capital, and that in hard money, from the West. He went over the tables which showed the annual amount of these drains, and demonstrated its ruinous nature upon the South and West. He showed the tendency of all branch bank paper to flow to the Northeast; the necessity to redeem it annually with gold and silver, and bills of exchange, and the inevitable result, that the West would eventually be left without either hard money, or branch bank paper.

"Mr. Clay had attributed all the disasters of the late war, especially the surrender of Detroit, and the Bladensburg rout, to the want of this bank. Mr. B. asked if bank credits, or bank advances, could have inspired courage into the bosom of the unhappy old man who had been the cause of the surrender of Detroit? or, could have made those fight who could not be inspired by the view of their capitol, the presence of their President, and the near proximity of their families and firesides? Andrew Jackson conquered at New Orleans, without money, without arms, without credit – aye, without a bank. He got even his flints from the pirates. He scouted the idea of brave men being produced by the bank. If it had existed, it would have been a burthen upon the hands of the government. It was now, at this hour, a burthen upon the hands of the government, and an obstacle to the payment of the public debt. It had procured a payment of six millions of the public debt to be delayed, from July to October, under the pretext that the merchants could not pay their bonds, when these bonds were now paid, and twelve millions of dollars – twice the amount intended to have been paid – lies in the vaults of the bank to be used by her in beating down the veto message, the author of the message, and all who share his opinions. The bank was not only a burthen upon the hands of the government now, but had been a burthen upon it in three years after it started – when it would have stopped payment, as all America knows, in April 1819, had it not been for the use of eight millions of public deposits, and the seasonable arrival of wagons loaded with specie from Kentucky and Ohio.

"Mr. B. defended the old banks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, from the aspersions which had been cast upon them. They had aided the government when the Northern bankers, who now scoff at them, refused to advance a dollar. They had advanced the money which enabled the warriors of the West to go forth to battle. They had crippled themselves to aid their government. After the war they resumed specie payments, which had been suspended with the consent of the legislatures, to enable them to extend all their means in aid of the national struggle. This resumption was made practicable by the Treasury deposit, in the State institutions. They were withdrawn to give capital to the branches of the great monopoly, when first extended to the West. These branches, then, produced again the draining of the local banks, which they had voluntarily suffered for the sake of government during the war. They had sacrificed their interests and credit to sustain the credit of the national treasury – and the treasury surrendered them, as a sacrifice to the national bank. They stopped payment under the pressure and extortion of the new establishments, introduced against the consent of the people and legislatures of the Western States. The paper of the Western banks depreciated – the stock of the States and of individual stockholders was sacrificed – the country was filled with a spurious currency, by the course of an institution which, it was pretended, was established to prevent such a calamity. The Bank of the United States was thus established on the ruins of the banks, and foreigners and non-residents were fattened on their spoils. They were stripped of their specie to pamper the imperial bank. They fell victims to their patriotism, and to the establishment of the United States bank; and it was unjust and unkind to reproach them with a fate which their patriotism, and the establishment of the federal bank brought upon them.

"Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had rebuked the President for his allusion to the manner in which the bank charter had been pushed through Congress, pending an unfinished investigation, reluctantly conceded. Mr. B. demanded if that was not true? He asked if it was not wrong to push the charter through in that manner, and if the President had not done right to stop it, to balk this hurried process, and to give the people time for consideration and enable them to act? He had only brought the subject to the notice of the Congress and the people, but had not recommended immediate legislation, before the subject had been canvassed before the nation. It was a gross perversion of his messages to quote them in favor of immediate decision without previous investigation. He was not evading the question. The veto message proved that. He sought time for the people, not for himself, and in that he coincided with a sentiment lately expressed by the senator himself (from Kentucky) at Cincinnati; he was coinciding with the example of the British parliament, which had not yet decided the question of rechartering the Bank of England, and which had just raised an extraordinary committee of thirty-one members to examine the bank through all her departments; and, what was much more material, he had coincided with the spirit of our constitution, and the rights of the people, in preventing an expiring minority Congress from usurping the powers and rights of their successors. The President had not evaded the question. He had met it fully. He might have said nothing about it in his messages of 1829, '30, and '31. He might have remained silent, and had the support of both parties; but the safety and interest of the country required the people to be awakened to the consideration of the subject. He had waked them up; and now that they are awake, he has secured them time for consideration. Is this evasion?

"Messrs. C. and W. had attacked the President for objecting to foreign stockholders in the Bank of the United States. Mr. B. maintained the solidity of the objection, and exposed the futility of the argument urged by the duplicate senators. They had asked if foreigners did not hold stock in road and canal companies? Mr. B. said, yes! but these road and canal companies did not happen to be the bankers of the United States! The foreign stockholders in this bank were the bankers of the United States. They held its moneys; they collected its revenues; they almost controlled its finances; they were to give or withhold aid in war as well as peace, and, it might be, against their own government. Was the United States to depend upon foreigners in a point so material to our existence? The bank was a national institution. Ought a national institution to be the private property of aliens? It was called the Bank of the United States, and ought it to be the bank of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain? The senator from Kentucky had once objected to foreign stockholders himself. He did this in his speech against the bank in 1811; and although he had revoked the constitutional doctrines of that speech, he [Mr. B.] never understood that he had revoked the sentiments then expressed of the danger of corruption in our councils and elections, if foreigners wielded the moneyed power of our country. He told us then that the power of the purse commanded that of the sword – and would he commit both to the hands of foreigners? All the lessons of history, said Mr. B., admonish us to keep clear of foreign influence. The most dangerous influence from foreigners is through money. The corruption of orators and statesmen, is the ready way to poison the councils, and to betray the interest of a country. Foreigners now own one fourth of this bank; they may own the whole of it! What a temptation to them to engage in our elections! By carrying a President, and a majority of Congress, to suit themselves, they not only become masters of the moneyed power, but also of the political power, of this republic. And can it be supposed that the British stockholders are indifferent to the issue of this election? that they, and their agents, can see with indifference, the re-election of a man who may disappoint their hopes of fortune, and whose achievement at New Orleans is a continued memento of the most signal defeat the arms of England ever sustained?

"The President, in his message, had characterized the exclusive privilege of the bank as 'a monopoly.' To this Mr. Webster had taken exception, and ascended to the Greek root of the word to demonstrate its true signification, and the incorrectness of the President's application. Mr. B. defended the President's use of the term, and said that he would give authority too, but not Greek authority. He would ascend, not to the Greek root, but to the English test of the word, and show that a whig baronet had applied the term to the Bank of England with still more offensive epithets than any the President had used. Mr. B. then read, and commented upon several passages of a speech of Sir William Pulteney, in the British House of Commons, against renewing the charter of the Bank of England, in which the term monopoly was repeatedly applied to that bank; and other terms to display its dangerous and odious charter. In one of the passages the whig baronet said: 'The bank has been supported, and is still supported, by the fear and terror which, by the means of its monopoly, it has had the power to inspire.' In another, he said: '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!' In a third passage he said: 'Whatever language the private bankers may feel themselves bound to hold, he could not believe they had any satisfaction in remaining subject to a power which might destroy them at any moment.' In a fourth: 'No man in France was heard to complain of the Bastile while it existed; yet when it fell, it came down amidst the universal acclamations of the nation!'

"Here, continued Mr. B., is authority, English authority, for calling the British bank in England a monopoly; and the British bank in America is copied from it. Sir Wm. Pulteney goes further than President Jackson. He says, that the Bank of England rules by fear and terror. He calls it a despot, and a corrupt despot. He speaks of the slaves corrupted by the bank; by whom he doubtless means the nominal debtors who have received ostensible loans, real douceurs – never to be repaid, except in dishonorable services. He considers the praises of the country bankers as the unwilling homage of the weak and helpless to the corrupt and powerful. He assimilates the Bank of England, by the terrors which it inspires, to the old Bastile in France, and anticipates the same burst of emancipated joy on the fall of the bank, which was heard in France on the fall of the Bastile. And is he not right? And may not every word of his invective be applied to the British bank in America, and find its appropriate application in well-known, and incontestable facts here? Well has he likened it to the Bastile; well will the term apply in our own country. Great is the fear and terror now inspired by this bank. Silent are millions of tongues, under its terrors which are impatient for the downfall of the monument of despotism, that they may break forth into joy and thanksgiving. The real Bastile was terrible to all France; the figurative Bastile is terrible to all America; but above all to the West, where the duplicate senators of Kentucky and Massachusetts, have pointed to the reign of terror that is approaching, and drawn up the victims for an anticipated immolation. But, exclaimed Mr. B., this is the month of July; a month auspicious to liberty, and fatal to Bastiles. Our dependence on the crown of Great Britain ceased in the month of July; the Bastile in France fell in the month of July; Charles X. was chased from France by the three glorious days of July; and the veto message, which is the Declaration of Independence against the British bank, originated on the fourth of July, and is the signal for the downfall of the American Bastile, and the end of despotism. The time is auspicious; the work will go on; down with the British bank; down with the Bastile; away with the tyrant, will be the patriotic cry of Americans; and down it will go.

"The duplicate senators, said Mr. B., have occupied themselves with criticising the President's idea of the obligation of his oath in construing the constitution for himself. They also think that the President ought to be bound, the Congress ought to be bound, to take the constitution which the Supreme Court may deal out to them! If so, why take an oath? The oath is to bind the conscience, not to enlighten the head. Every officer takes the oath for himself; the President took the oath for himself; administered by the Chief Justice, but not to the Chief Justice. He bound himself to observe the constitution, not the Chief Justice's interpretation of the constitution; and his message is in conformity to his oath. This is the oath of duty and of right. It is the path of Jefferson, also, who has laid it down in his writings, that each department judges the constitution for itself, and that the President is as independent of the Supreme Court as the Supreme Court is of the President.

"The senators from Kentucky and Massachusetts have not only attacked the President's idea of his own independence in construing the constitution, but also the construction he has put upon it in reference to this bank. They deny its correctness, and enter into arguments to disprove it, and have even quoted authorities which may be quoted on both sides. One of the senators, the gentleman from Kentucky, might have spared his objection to the President on this point. He happened to think the same way once himself; and while all will accord to him the right of changing for himself, few will allow him the privilege of rebuking others for not keeping up with him in the rigadoon dance of changeable opinions.

"The President is assailed for showing the drain upon the resources of the West, which is made by this bank. How assailed? With any documents to show that he is in error? No! not at all! no such document exists. The President is right, and the fact goes to a far greater extent than is stated in his message. He took the dividend profits of the bank, – the net, and not the gross profits; the latter is the true measure of the burthen upon the people. The annual drain for net dividends from the West, is $1,600,000. This is an enormous tax. But the gross profits are still larger. Then there is the specie drain, which now exceeds three millions of dollars per annum. Then there is the annual mortgage of the growing crop to redeem the fictitious and usurious bills of exchange which are now substituted for ordinary loans, and which sweeps off the staple products of the South and West to the Northeastern cities. – The West is ravaged by this bank. New Orleans, especially, is ravaged by it; and in her impoverishment, the whole West suffers; for she is thereby disabled from giving adequate prices for Western produce. Mr. B. declared that this British bank, in his opinion, had done, and would do, more pecuniary damage to New Orleans, than the British army would have done if they had conquered it in 1815. He verified this opinion by referring to the immense dividend, upwards of half a million a year, drawn from the branch there; the immense amounts of specie drawn from it; the produce carried off to meet the domestic bills of exchange; and the eight and a half millions of debt existing there, of which five millions were created in the last two years to answer electioneering purposes, and the collection of which must paralyze, for years, the growth of the city. From further damage to New Orleans, the veto message would save that great city. Jackson would be her saviour a second time. He would save her from the British bank as he had done from the British army; and if any federal bank must be there, let it be an independent one; a separate and distinct bank, which would save to that city, and to the Valley of the Mississippi, of which it was the great and cherished emporium, the command of their own moneyed system, the regulation of their own commerce and finances, and the accommodation of their own citizens.

"Mr. B. addressed himself to the Jackson bank men, present and absent. They might continue to be for a bank and for Jackson; but they could not be for this bank, and for Jackson. This bank is now the open, as it long has been the secret, enemy of Jackson. It is now in the hands of his enemies, wielding all its own money – wielding even the revenues and the credit of the Union – wielding twelve millions of dollars, half of which were intended to be paid to the public creditors on the first day of July, but which the bank has retained to itself by a false representation in the pretended behalf of the merchants. All this moneyed power, with an organization which pervades the continent, working every where with unseen hands, is now operating against the President; and it is impossible to be in favor of this power and also in favor of him at the same time. Choose ye between them! To those who think a bank to be indispensable, other alternatives present themselves. They are not bound nor wedded to this. New American banks may be created. Read, sir, Henry Parnell. See his invincible reasoning, and indisputable facts, to show that the Bank of England is too powerful for the monarchy of Great Britain! Study his plan for breaking up that gigantic institution, and establishing three or four independent banks in its place, which would be so much less dangerous to liberty, and so much safer and better for the people. In these alternatives, the friends of Jackson, who are in favor of national banks, may find the accomplishment of their wishes without a sacrifice of their principles, and without committing the suicidal solecism of fighting against him while professing to be for him.

"Mr. B. addressed himself to the West – the great, the generous, the brave, the patriotic, the devoted West. It was the selected field of battle. There the combined forces, the national republicans, and the national republican bank, were to work together, and to fight together. The holy allies understand each other. They are able to speak in each other's names, and to promise and threaten in each other's behalf. For this campaign the bank created its debt of thirty millions in the West; in this campaign the associate leaders use that debt for their own purposes. Vote for Jackson! and suits, judgments, and executions shall sweep, like the besom of destruction, throughout the vast region of the West! Vote against him! and indefinite indulgence is basely promised! The debt itself, it is pretended, will, perhaps, be forgiven; or, at all events, hardly ever collected! Thus, an open bribe of thirty millions is virtually offered to the West; and, lest the seductions of the bribe may not be sufficient on one hand, the terrors of destruction are brandished on the other! Wretched, infatuated men, cried Mr. B. Do they think the West is to be bought? Little do they know of the generous sons of that magnificent region! poor, indeed, in point of money, but rich in all the treasures of the heart! rich in all the qualities of freemen and republicans! rich in all the noble feelings which look with equal scorn upon a bribe or a threat. The hunter of the West, with moccasins on his feet, and a hunting shirt drawn around him, would repel with indignation the highest bribe that the bank could offer him. The wretch (said Mr. Benton, with a significant gesture) who dared to offer it, would expiate the insult with his blood.

"Mr. B. rapidly summed up with a view of the dangerous power of the bank, and the present audacity of her conduct. She wielded a debt of seventy millions of dollars, with an organization which extended to every part of the Union, and she was sole mistress of the moneyed power of the republic. She had thrown herself into the political arena, to control and govern the presidential election. If she succeeded in that election, she would wish to consolidate her power by getting control of all other elections. Governors of States, judges of the courts, representatives and senators in Congress, all must belong to her. The Senate especially must belong to her; for, there lay the power to confirm nominations and to try impeachments; and, to get possession of the Senate, the legislatures of a majority of the States would have to be acquired. The war is now upon Jackson, and if he is defeated, all the rest will fall an easy prey. What individual could stand in the States against the power of the bank, and that bank flushed with a victory over the conqueror of the conquerors of Bonaparte? The whole government would fall into the hands of this moneyed power. An oligarchy would be immediately established; and that oligarchy, in a few generations, would ripen into a monarchy. All governments must have their end; in the lapse of time, this republic must perish; but that time, he now trusted, was far distant; and when it comes, it should come in glory, and not in shame. Rome had her Pharsalia, and Greece her Chæronea; and this republic, more illustrious in her birth than Greece or Rome, was entitled to a death as glorious as theirs. She would not die by poison – perish in corruption – no! A field of arms, and of glory, should be her end. She had a right to a battle – a great, immortal battle – where heroes and patriots could die with the liberty which they scorned to survive, and consecrate, with their blood, the spot which marked a nation's fall.

"After Mr. B. had concluded his remarks, Mr. Clay rose and said: —

"The senator from Missouri expresses dissatisfaction that the speeches of some senators should fill the galleries. He has no ground for uneasiness on this score. For if it be the fortune of some senators to fill the galleries when they speak, it is the fortune of others to empty them, with whatever else they fill the chamber. The senator from Missouri has every reason to be well satisfied with the effect of his performance to-day; for among his auditors is a lady of great literary eminence. [Pointing to Mrs. Royal.] The senator intimates, that in my remarks on the message of the President, I was deficient in a proper degree of courtesy towards that officer. Whether my deportment here be decorous or not, I should not choose to be decided upon by the gentleman from Missouri. I answered the President's arguments, and gave my own views of the facts and inferences introduced by him into his message. The President states that the bank has an injurious operation on the interests of the West, and dwells upon its exhausting effects, its stripping the country of its currency, &c., and upon these views and statements I commented in a manner which the occasion called for. But, if I am to be indoctrinated in the rules of decorum, I shall not look to the gentleman for instruction. I shall not strip him of his Indian blankets to go to Boon's Lick for lessons in deportment, nor yet to the Court of Versailles, which he eulogizes. There are some peculiar reasons why I should not go to that senator for my views of decorum, in regard to my bearing towards the chief magistrate, and why he is not a fit instructor. I never had any personal rencontre with the President of the United States. I never complained of any outrages on my person committed by him. I never published any bulletins respecting his private brawls. The gentleman will understand my allusion. [Mr. B. said: He will understand you, sir, and so will you him.] I never complained, that while a brother of mine was down on the ground, senseless or dead, he received another blow. I have never made any declaration like these relative to the individual who is President. There is also a singular prophecy as to the consequences of the election of this individual, which far surpasses, in evil foreboding, whatever I may have ever said in regard to his election. I never made any prediction so sinister, nor made any declaration so harsh, as that which is contained in the prediction to which I allude. I never declared my apprehension and belief, that if he were elected, we should be obliged to legislate with pistols and dirks by our side. At this last stage of the session I do not rise to renew the discussion of this question. I only rose to give the senator from Missouri a full acquittance, and I trust there will be no further occasion for opening a new account with him.

"Mr. B. replied. It is true, sir, that I had an affray with General Jackson, and that I did complain of his conduct. We fought, sir; and we fought, I hope, like men. When the explosion was over, there remained no ill will, on either side. No vituperation or system of petty persecution was kept up between us. Yes, sir, it is true, that I had the personal difficulty, which the senator from Kentucky has had the delicacy to bring before the Senate. But let me tell the senator from Kentucky there is no 'adjourned question of veracity' between me and General Jackson. All difficulty between us ended with the conflict; and a few months after it, I believe that either party would cheerfully have relieved the other from any peril; and now we shake hands and are friendly when we meet. I repeat, sir, that there is no 'adjourned question of veracity' between me and General Jackson, standing over for settlement. If there had been, a gulf would have separated us as deep as hell.

"Mr. B. then referred to the prediction alleged by Mr. Clay, to have been made by him. I have seen, he said, a placard, first issued in Missouri, and republished lately. It first appeared in 1825; and stated that I had said, in a public address, that if General Jackson should be elected, we must be guarded with pistols and dirks to defend ourselves while legislating here. This went the rounds of the papers at the time. A gentleman, well acquainted in the State of Missouri (Col. Lawless), published a handbill denying the truth of the statement, and calling upon any person in the State to name the time and place, when and where, any such address had been heard from me, or any such declaration made. Colonel Lawless was perfectly familiar with the campaign, but he could never meet with a single individual, man, woman, or child, in the State, who could recollect to have ever heard any such remarks from me. No one came forward to reply to the call. No one had ever heard me make the declaration which was charged upon me. The same thing has lately been printed here, and, in the night, stuck up in a placard upon the posts and walls of this city. While its author remained concealed, it was impossible for me to hold him to account, nor could I make him responsible, who, in the dark, sticks it to the posts and walls: but since it is in open day introduced into this chamber I am enabled to meet it as it deserves to be met. I see who it is that uses it here, and to his face [pointing to Mr. Clay] I am enabled to pronounce it, as I now do, an atrocious calumny.

"Mr. Clay. – The assertion that there is 'an adjourned question of veracity' between me and Gen. Jackson, is, whether made by man or master absolutely false. The President made a certain charge against me, and he referred to witnesses to prove it. I denied the truth of the charge. He called upon his witness to prove it. I leave it to the country to say, whether that witness sustained the truth of the President's allegation. That witness is now on his passage to St. Petersburg, with a commission in his pocket. [Mr. B. here said aloud, in his place, the Mississippi and the fisheries – Mr. Adams and the fisheries – every body understands it.] Mr. C. said, I do not yet understand the senator. He then remarked upon the 'prediction' which the senator from Missouri had disclaimed. Can he, said Mr. C, look to me, and say that he never used the language attributed to him in the placard which he refers to? He says, Col. Lawless denies that he used the words in the State of Missouri. Can you look me in the face, sir [addressing Mr. B.], and say that you never used that language out of the State of Missouri?

"Mr. B. I look, sir, and repeat that it is an atrocious calumny; and I will pin it to him who repeats it here.

"Mr. Clay. Then I declare before the Senate that you said to me the very words —

"[Mr. B. in his place, while Mr. Clay was yet speaking, several times loudly repeated the word 'false, false, false.']

Mr. Clay said, I fling back the charge of atrocious calumny upon the senator from Missouri.

A call to order was here heard from several senators.

"The President, pro tem., said, the senator from Kentucky is not in order, and must take his seat.

"Mr. Clay. Will the Chair state the point of order?

"The Chair, said Mr. Tazewell (the President pro tem.), can enter in no explanations with the senator.

"Mr. Clay. I shall be heard. I demand to know what point of order can be taken against me, which was not equally applicable to the senator from Missouri.

"The President, pro tem., stated, that he considered the whole discussion as out of order. He would not have permitted it, had he been in the chair at its commencement.

"Mr. Poindexter said, he was in the chair at the commencement of the discussion, and did not then see fit to check it. But he was now of the opinion that it was not in order.

"Mr. B. I apologize to the Senate for the manner in which I have spoken; but not to the senator from Kentucky.