Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Mr. B. then proceeded to the argument of his motion. He moved to expunge the resolution of March 28, 1834, from the journals of the Senate, because it was illegal and unjust; vague and indefinite; a criminal charge without specification; unwarranted by the constitution and laws; subversive of the rights of defence which belong to an accused and impeachable officer; of evil example; and adopted at a time and under circumstances to involve the political rights and the pecuniary interests of the people of the United States in peculiar danger and serious injury.

These reasons for expunging the criminating resolution from the journals, Mr. B. said, were not phrases collected and paraded for effect, or strung together for harmony of sound. They were each, separately and individually, substantive reasons; every word an allegation of fact, or of law. Without going fully into the argument now, he would make an exposition which would lay open his meaning, and enable each allegation, whether of law or of fact, to be fully understood, and replied to in the sense intended.

1. Illegal and unjust.– These were the first heads under which Mr. B. would develope his objections, he would say the outline of his objections, to the resolution proposed to be expunged. He held it to be illegal, because it contained a criminal charge, on which the President might be impeached, and for which he might be tried by the Senate. The resolution adopted by the Senate is precisely the first step taken in the House of Representatives to bring on an impeachment. It was a resolution offered by a member in his place, containing a criminal charge against an impeachable officer, debated for a hundred days; and then voted upon by the Senate, and the officer voted to be guilty. This is the precise mode of bringing on an impeachment in the House of Representatives; and, to prove it, Mr. B. would read from a work of approved authority on parliamentary practice; it was from Mr. Jefferson's Manual. Mr. B. then read from the Manual, under the section entitled Impeachment, and from that head of the section entitled accusation. The writer was giving the British Parliamentary practice, to which our own constitution is conformable. "The Commons, as the grand inquest of the nation, became suitors for penal justice. The general course is to pass a resolution containing a criminal charge against the supposed delinquent; and then to direct some member to impeach him by oral accusation at the bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the Commons."

Repeating a clause of what he had read, Mr. B. said the general course is to pass a criminal charge against the supposed delinquent. This is exactly what the Senate did; and what did it do next? Nothing. And why nothing? Because there was nothing to be done by them but to execute the sentence they had passed; and that they could not do. Penal justice was the consequence of the resolution; and a judgment of penalties could not be attempted on such an irregular proceeding. The only kind of penal justice which the Senate could inflict was that of public opinion; it was to ostracize the President, and to expose him to public odium, as a violator of the laws and constitution of his country. Having shown the resolution to be illegal, Mr. B. would pronounce it to be unjust; for he affirmed the resolution to be untrue; he maintained that the President had violated no law, no part of the constitution, in dismissing Mr. Duane from the Treasury, appointing Mr. Taney, or causing the deposits to be removed; for these were the specifications contained in the original resolution, also in the second modification of the resolution, and intended in the third modification, when stripped of specifications, and reduced to a vague and general charge. It was in this shape of a general charge that the resolution passed. No new specifications were even suggested in debate. The alterations were made voluntarily, by the friends of the resolution, at the last moment of the debate, and just when the vote was to be taken. And why were the specifications then dropped? Because no majority could be found to agree in them? or because it was thought prudent to drop the name of the Bank of the United States? or for both these reasons together? Be that as it may, said Mr. B., the condemnation of the President, and the support of the bank, were connected in the resolution, and will be indissolubly connected in the public mind; and the President was unjustly condemned in the same resolution that befriended and sustained the cause of the bank. He held the condemnation to be untrue in point of fact, and therefore unjust; for he maintained that there was no breach of the laws and constitution in any thing that President Jackson did, in removing Mr. Duane, or in appointing Mr. Taney, or in causing the deposits to be removed. There was no violation of law, or constitution, in any part of these proceedings; on the contrary, the whole country, and the government itself, was redeemed from the dominion of a great and daring moneyed corporation, by the wisdom and energy of these very proceedings.

2. Vague and indefinite; a criminal charge without specification. Such was the resolution, Mr. B. said, when it passed the Senate; but such it was not when first introduced, nor even when first altered; in its first and second forms it contained specifications, and these specifications identified the condemnation of the President with the defence of the bank; in its third form, these specifications were omitted, and no others were substituted; the bank and the resolution stood disconnected on the record, but as much connected, in fact, as ever. The resolution was reduced to a vague and indefinite form, on purpose, and in that circumstance, acquired a new character of injustice to President Jackson. His accusers should have specified the law, and the clause in the constitution, which was violated; they should have specified the acts which constituted the violation. This was due to the accused, that he might know on what points to defend himself; it was due to the public, that they might know on what points to hold the accusers to their responsibility, and to make them accountable for an unjust accusation. To sustain this position, Mr. B. had recourse to history and example, and produced the case of Mr. Giles's accusation of General Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1793. Mr. Giles, he said, proceeded in a manly, responsible manner. He specified the law and the alleged violations of the law, so that the friends of General Hamilton could see what to defend, and so as to make himself accountable for the accusation. He specified the law, which he believed to be violated, by its date and its title; and he specified the two instances in which he held that law to have been infringed.

Mr. B. said he had a double object in quoting this resolution of Mr. Giles, which was intended to lay the foundation for an impeachment against General Hamilton; it was to show, first, the speciality with which these criminating resolutions should be drawn; next, to show the absence of any allegations of corrupt or wicked intention. The mere violation of law was charged as the offence, as it was in three of the articles of impeachment against Judge Chase; and thus, the absence of an allegation of corrupt intention in the resolution adopted against President Jackson, was no argument against its impeachment character, especially as exhibited in its first and second form, with the criminal averment, "dangerous to the liberties of the people."

For the purpose of exposing the studied vagueness of the resolution as passed, detecting its connection with the Bank of the United States, demonstrating its criminal character in twice retaining the criminal averment, "dangerous to the liberties of the people," and showing the progressive changes it had to undergo before it could conciliate a majority of the votes, Mr. B. would exhibit all three of the resolutions, and read them side by side of each other, as they appeared before the Senate, in the first, second, and third forms which they were made to wear. They appeared first in the embryo, or primordial form; then they assumed their aurelia, or chrysalis state; in the third stage, they reached the ultimate perfection of their imperfect nature.

First Form. —December 26, 1833

"Resolved, That by dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury, because he would not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, remove the money of the United States, in deposit with the Bank of the United States and its branches, in conformity with the President's opinion, and by appointing his successor to make such removal, which has been done, the President has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Second Form. —March 28, 1834

"Resolved, That, in taking upon himself the responsibility of removing the deposit of the public money from the Bank of the United States, the President of the United States has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Third Form. —March 28, 1834

"Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings, in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."

Having exhibited the original resolution, with its variations, Mr. B. would leave it to others to explain the reasons of such extraordinary metamorphoses. Whether to get rid of the bank association, or to get rid of the impeachment clause, or to conciliate the votes of all who were willing to condemn the President, but could not tell for what, it was not for him to say; but one thing he would venture to say, that the majority who agreed in passing a general resolution, containing a criminal charge against President Jackson, for violating the laws and the constitution, cannot now agree in naming the law or the clause in the constitution violated, or in specifying any act constituting such violation. And here Mr. B. paused, and offered to give way to the gentlemen of the opposition, if they would now undertake to specify any act which President Jackson had done in violation of law or constitution.

3. Unwarranted by the constitution and laws.– Mr. B. said this head explained itself. It needed no development to be understood by the Senate or the country. The President was condemned without the form of a trial; and, therefore, his condemnation was unwarranted by the constitution and laws.

4. Subversive of the rights of defence, which belong to an accused and impeachable officer.– This head, also (Mr. B. said), explained itself. An accused person had a right to be heard before he was condemned; an impeachable officer could not be condemned unheard by the Senate, without subverting all the rights of defence which belong to him, and disqualifying the Senate to act as impartial judges in the event of his being regularly impeached for the same offence. In this case, the House of Representatives, if they confided in the Senate's condemnation, would send up an impeachment; that they had not done so, was proof that they had no confidence in the correctness of our decision.

5. Of evil example.– Nothing, said Mr. B., could he more unjust and illegal in itself, and therefore more evil in example, than to try people without a hearing, and condemn them without defence. In this case, such a trial and such a condemnation was aggravated by the refusal of the Senate, after their sentence was pronounced, to receive the defence of the President, and let it be printed for the inspection of posterity! So that, if this criminating resolution is not expunged, the singular spectacle will go down to posterity, of a condemnation, and a refusal to permit an answer from the condemned person standing recorded on the pages of the same journal! Mr. B. said the Senate must look forward to the time – far ahead, perhaps, but a time which may come – when this body may be filled with disappointed competitors, or personal enemies of the President, or of aspirants to the very office which he holds, and who may not scruple to undertake to cripple him by senatorial condemnations; to attaint him by convictions; to ostracise him by vote; and lest this should happen, and the present condemnation of President Jackson should become the precedent for such an odious proceeding, the evil example should be arrested, should be removed, by expunging the present sentence from the journals of the Senate. And here Mr. B. would avail himself of a voice which had often been heard in the two Houses of Congress, and always with respect and veneration. It was the voice of a wise man, an honest man, a good man, a patriot; one who knew no cause but the cause of his country; and who, a quarter of a century ago, foresaw and described the scenes of this day, and foretold the consequences which must have happened to any other President, under the circumstances in which President Jackson has been placed. He spoke of Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, and of the sentiments which he expressed, in the year 1810, when called upon to give a vote in approbation of Mr. Madison's conduct in dismissing Mr. Jackson, the then British minister to the United States. He opposed the resolution of approbation, because the House had nothing to do with the President in their legislative character, except the passing of laws, calling for information or impeaching; and, looking into the evil consequences of undertaking to judge of the President's conduct, he foretold the exact predicament in which the Senate is now involved, with respect to President Jackson. Mr. B. then read extracts from the speech of Mr. Macon, on the occasion referred to:

"I am opposed to the resolution, not for the reasons which have been offered against it, nor for any which can be drawn from the documents before us, but because I am opposed to addressing the President of the United States upon any subject whatever. We have nothing to do with him, in our legislative character, except the passing of laws, calling on him for information, or to impeach. On the day of the presidential election, we, in common with our fellow-citizens, are to pass on his conduct, and resolutions of this sort will have no weight on that day. It is on this ground solely that I am opposed to adopting any resolution whatever in relation to the Executive conduct. If the national legislature can pass resolutions to approve the conduct of the President, may they not also pass resolutions to censure? And what would be the situation of the country, if we were now discussing a motion to request the President to recall Mr. Jackson, and again to endeavor to negotiate with him?"

6. At a time, and under circumstances, to involve the political rights and pecuniary interests of the people of the United States in serious injury and peculiar danger.– This head of his argument, Mr. B. said, would require a development and detail which he had not deemed necessary at this time, considering what had been said by him at the last session, and what would now be said by others, to give the reasons which he had so briefly touched. But at this point he approached new ground; he entered a new field; he saw an extended horizon of argument and fact expand before him, and it became necessary for him to expand with his subject. The condemnation of the President is indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank! The first form of the resolution exhibited the connection; the second form did also; every speech did the same; for every speech in condemnation of the President was in justification of the bank; every speech in justification of the President was in condemnation of the bank; and thus the two objects were identical and reciprocal. The attack of one was a defence of the other; the defence of one was the attack of the other. And thus it continued for the long protracted period of nearly one hundred days – from December 26th, 1833, to March 28th, 1834 – when, for reasons not explained to the Senate, upon a private consultation among the friends of the resolution, the mover of it came forward to the Secretary's table, and voluntarily made the alterations which cut the connection between the bank and the resolution! but it stood upon the record, by striking out every thing relative to the dismissal of Mr. Duane, the appointment of Mr. Taney, and the removal of the deposits. But the alteration was made in the record only. The connection still subsisted in fact, now lives in memory, and shall live in history. Yes, sir, said Mr. B., addressing himself to the President of the Senate; yes, sir, the condemnation of the President was in indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank, with the removal of the deposits, the renewal of the charter, the restoration of the deposits, the vindication of Mr. Duane, the rejection of Mr. Taney, the fate of elections, the overthrow of Jackson's administration, the fall of prices, the distress meetings, the distress memorials, the distress committees, the distress speeches; and all the long list of hapless measures which astonished, terrified, afflicted, and deeply injured the country during the long and agonized protraction of the famous panic session. All these things are connected, said Mr. B.; and it became his duty to place a part of the proof which established the connection before the Senate and the people.

Mr. B. then took up the appendix to the report made by the Senate's Committee of Finance on the bank, commonly called Mr. Tyler's report, and read extracts from instructions sent to two-and-twenty tranches of the bank, contemporaneously with the progress of the debate on the criminating resolutions; the object and effect of which, and their connection with the debate in the Senate, would be quickly seen. Premising that the bank had dispatched orders to the same branches, in the month of August, and had curtailed $4,066,000, and again, in the month of October, to curtail $5,825,000, and to increase the rates of their exchange, and had expressly stated in a circular, on the 17th of that month, that this reduction would place the branches in a position of entire security, Mr. B. invoked attention to the shower of orders, and their dates, which he was about to read. He read passages from page 77 to 82, inclusive. They were all extracts of letters from the president of the bank in person, to the presidents of the branches; for Mr. B. said it must be remembered, as one of the peculiar features of the bank attack upon the country last winter, that the whole business of conducting this curtailment, and raising exchanges, and doing whatever it pleased with the commerce, currency, and business of the country, was withdrawn from the board of directors, and confided to one of those convenient committees of which the president is ex officio member and creator; and which, in this case, was expressly absolved from reporting to the board of directors! The letters, then, are all from Nicholas Biddle, president, and not from Samuel Jaudon, cashier, and are addressed direct to the presidents of the branch banks.

When Mr. B. had finished reading these extracts, he turned to the report made by the senator from Virginia, who sat on his right [Mr. Tyler], where all that was said about these new measures of hostility, and the propriety of the bank's conduct in this third curtailment, and in its increase upon rates of exchange, was compressed into twenty lines, and the wisdom or necessity of them were left to be pronounced upon by the judgment of the Senate. Mr. B. would read those twenty lines of that report:

"The whole amount of reduction ordered by the above proceedings (curtailment ordered on 8th and 17th of October) was $5,825,906. The same table, No. 4, exhibits the fact, that on the 23d of January a further reduction was ordered to the amount of $3,320,000. This was communicated to the offices in letters from the president, stating 'that the present situation of the bank, and the new measures of hostility which are understood to be in contemplation, make it expedient to place the institution beyond the reach of all danger; for this purpose, I am directed to instruct your office to conduct its business on the following footing' (appendix, No. 9, copies of letters). The offices of Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, St. Louis, Nashville, and Natchez, were further directed to confine themselves to ninety days' bills on Baltimore, and the cities north of it, of which they were allowed to purchase any amount their means would justify: and to bills on New Orleans, which they were to take only in payment of pre-existing debts to the bank and its offices; while the office at New Orleans was directed to abstain from drawing on the Western offices, and to make its purchases mainly on the North Atlantic cities. The committee has thus given a full, and somewhat elaborate detail of the various measures resorted to by the bank, from the 13th of August, 1833; of their wisdom and necessity the Senate will best be able to pronounce a correct judgment."

This, Mr. B. said, was the meagre and stinted manner in which the report treated a transaction which he would show to be the most cold-blooded, calculating, and diabolical, which the annals of any country on this side of Asia could exhibit.

[Mr. Tyler here said there were two pages on this subject to be found at another part of the report, and opened the report at the place for Mr. B.]

Mr. B. said the two pages contained but few allusions to this subject, and nothing to add to or vary what was contained in the twenty lines he had read. He looked upon it as a great omission in the report; the more so as the committee had been expressly commanded to report upon the curtailments and the conduct of the bank in the business of internal exchange. He had hoped to have had searching inquiries and detailed statements of facts on these vital points. He looked to the senator from Virginia [Mr. Tyler] for these inquiries and statements. He wished him to show, by the manner in which he would drag to light, and expose to view, the vast crimes of the bank, that the Old Dominion was still the mother of the Gracchi; that the Old lady was not yet forty-five; that she could breed sons! Sons to emulate the fame of the Scipios. But he was disappointed. The report was dumb, silent, speechless, upon the operations of the bank during its terrible campaign of panic and pressure upon the American people. And now he would pay one instalment of the speech which had been promised some time ago on the subject of this report; for there was part of that speech which was strictly applicable and appropriate to the head he was now discussing.

Mr. B. then addressed himself to the senator from Virginia, who sat on his right [Mr. Tyler], and requested him to supply an omission in his report, and to inform what were those new measures of hostility alluded to in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction of the bank, and repeated in the report, and which were made the pretext for this third curtailment, and these new and extraordinary restrictions and impositions upon the purchase of bills of exchange.

[Mr. Tyler answered that it was the expected prohibition upon the receivability of the branch bank drafts in payment of the federal revenue.]

Mr. B. resumed: The senator is right. These drafts are mentioned in one of the circular letters, and but one of them, as the new measure understood to be in contemplation, and which understanding had been made the pretext for scourging the country. He (Mr. B.) was incapable of a theatrical artifice – a stage trick – in a grave debate. He had no question but that the senator could answer his question, and he knew that he had answered it truly; but he wanted his testimony, his evidence, against the bank; he wanted proof to tie the bank down to this answer, to this pretext, to this thin disguise for her conduct in scourging the country. The answer is now given; the proof is adduced; and the apprehended prohibition of the receivability of the branch drafts stands both as the pretext and the sole pretext for the pressure commenced in January, the doubling the rates of exchange, breaking up exchanges between the five Western branch banks, and concentrating the collection of bills of exchange upon four great commercial cities.

Mr. B. then took six positions, which he enumerated, and undertook to demonstrate to be true. They were:

1. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there were any new measures in contemplation, or action, to destroy the bank.

2. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that the President harbored hostile and revengeful designs against the existence of the bank.

3. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there was any necessity for this third curtailment, which was ordered the last of January.

4. That there was no excuse, justification, or apology for the conduct of the bank in relation to domestic exchange, in doubling its rates, breaking it up between the five Western branches turning the collection of bills upon the principal commercial cities, and forbidding the branch at New Orleans to purchase bills on any part of the West.

5. That this curtailment and these exchange regulations in January were political and revolutionary, and connected themselves with the resolution in the Senate for the condemnation of President Jackson.

6. That the distress of the country was occasioned by the Bank of the United States and the Senate of the United States, and not by the removal of the deposits.

Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded to demonstrate them.

1. As to the new measures to destroy the bank, Mr. B. said there were no such measures. The one indicated, that of stopping the receipt of the branch bank drafts in payments to the United States, existed nowhere but in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction of the president of the bank. There is not even an allegation that the measure existed; the language is "in contemplation" – "understood to be in contemplation," and upon this flimsy pretext of an understanding of something in contemplation, and which something never took place, a set of ruthless orders are sent out to every quarter of the Union to make a pressure for money, and to embarrass the domestic exchanges of the Union. Three days would have brought an answer from Washington to Philadelphia – from the Treasury to the bank; and let it be known that there was no intention to stop the receipt of these drafts at that time. But it would seem that the bank did not recognize the legitimacy of Mr. Taney's appointment! and therefore would not condescend to correspond with him as Secretary of the Treasury! But time gave the answer, even if the bank would not inquire at the Treasury. Day after day, week after week, month after month passed off, and these redoubtable new measures never made their appearance. Why not then stop the curtailment, and restore the exchanges to their former footing? February, March, April, May, June, five months, one hundred and fifty days, all passed away; the new measures never came; and yet the pressure upon the country was kept up; the two-and-twenty orders were continued in force. What can be thought of an institution which, being armed by law with power over the moneyed system of the whole country, should proceed to exercise that power to distress that country for money upon an understanding that something was in contemplation; and never inquire if its understanding was correct, nor cease its operations, when each successive day, for one hundred and fifty days, proved to it that no such thing was in contemplation? At last, on the 27th of June, when the pressure is to be relaxed, it is done upon another ground; not upon the ground that the new measures had never taken effect, but because Congress was about to rise without having done any thing for the bank. Here is a clear confession that the allegation of new measures was a mere pretext; and that the motive was to operate upon Congress, and force a restoration of the deposits, and renewal of the charter.

Mr. B. said he knew all about these drafts. The President always condemned their legality, and was for stopping the receipt of them. Mr. Taney, when Attorney General, condemned them in 1831. Mr. B. had applied to Mr. McLane, in 1832, to stop them; but he came to no decision. He applied to Mr. Duane, by letter, as soon as he came into the Treasury; but got no answer. He applied to Mr. Taney as soon as he arrived at Washington in the fall of 1833; and Mr. Taney decided that he would not stop them until the moneyed concerns of the country had recovered their tranquillity and prosperity, lest the bank should make it the pretext of new attempts to distress the country; and thus the very thing which Mr. Taney refused to do, lest it should be made a pretext for oppression, was falsely converted into a pretext to do what he was determined they should have no pretext for doing.

But Mr. B. took higher ground still; it was this: that, even if the receipt for the drafts had been stopped in January or February, there would have been no necessity on that account for curtailing debts and embarrassing exchanges. This ground he sustained by showing – 1st. That the bank had at that time two millions of dollars in Europe, lying idle, as a fund to draw bills of exchange upon; and the mere sale of bills on this sum would have met every demand which the rejection of the drafts could have thrown upon it. 2. That it sent the money it raised by this curtailment to Europe, to the amount of three and a half millions; and thereby showed that it was not collected to meet any demand at home. 3d. That the bank had at that time (January, 1834) the sum of $4,230,509 of public money in hand, and therefore had United States money enough in possession to balance any injury from rejection of drafts. 4th. That the bank had notes enough on hand to supply the place of all the drafts, even if they were all driven in. 5th. That it had stopped the receipt of these branch drafts itself at the branches, except each for its own in November, 1833, and was compelled to resume their receipt by the energetic and just conduct of Mr. Taney, in giving transfer drafts to be used against the branches which would not honour the notes and drafts of the other branches. Here Mr. B. turned upon Mr. Tyler's report, and severely arraigned it for alleging that the bank always honored its paper at every point, and furnishing a supply of negative testimony to prove that assertion, when there was a large mass of positive testimony, the disinterested evidence of numerous respectable persons, to prove the contrary, and which the committee had not noticed.

Finally, M. B. had recourse to Mr. Biddle's own testimony to annihilate his (Mr. Biddle's) affected alarm for the destruction of the bank, and the injury to the country from the repulse of these famous branch drafts from revenue payments. It was in a letter of Mr. Biddle to Mr. Woodbury in the fall of 1834, when the receipt of these drafts was actually stopped, and in the order which was issued to the branches to continue to issue them as usual. Mr. B. read a passage from this letter to show that the receipt of these drafts was always a mere Treasury arrangement, in which the bank felt no interest; that the refusal to receive them was an object at all times of perfect indifference to the bank, and would not have been even noticed by it, if Mr. Woodbury had not sent him a copy of his circular.

Mr. B. invoked the attention of the Senate upon the fatal contradictions which this letter of November, and these instructions of January, 1834, exhibit. In January, the mere understanding of a design in contemplation to exclude these drafts from revenue payments, is a danger of such alarming magnitude, an invasion of the rights of the bank in such a flagrant manner, a proof of such vindictive determination to prostrate, sacrifice, and ruin the institution, that the entire continent must be laid under contribution to raise money to enable the institution to stand the shock! November of the same year when the order for the rejection actually comes, then the same measure is declared to be one of the utmost indifference to the bank; in which it never felt any interest; which the Treasury adopted for its own convenience; which was always under the exclusive control of the Treasury; about which the bank had never expressed a wish; of which it would have taken no notice if the Secretary had not sent them a circular; and the expediency of which it was not intended to question in the remotest degree! Having pointed out these fatal contradictions, Mr. B. said it was a case in which the emphatic ejaculation might well be repeated: Oh! that mine enemy would write a book!

To put the seal of the bank's contempt on the order prohibiting the receipt of these drafts, to show its disregard of law, and its ability to sustain its drafts upon its own resources, and without the advantage of government receivability, Mr. B. read the order which the president of the bank addressed to all the branches on the receipt of the circular which gave him information of the rejection of these drafts. It was in these words: "This will make no alteration whatever in your practice, with regard to issuing or paying these drafts, which you will continue as heretofore." What a pity, said Mr. B., that the president of the bank could not have thought of issuing such an order as this in January, instead of sending forth the mandate for curtailing debts, embarrassing exchange, levying three millions and a half, alarming the country with the cry of danger, and exhibiting President Jackson as a vindictive tyrant, intent upon the ruin of the bank!

2. The hostility of the President to the bank. This assertion, said Mr. B., so incontinently reiterated by the president of the bank, is taken up and repeated by our Finance Committee, to whose report he was now paying an instalment of those respects which he had promised them. This assertion, so far as the bank and the committee are concerned in making it is an assertion without evidence, and, so far as the facts are concerned, is an assertion against evidence. If there is any evidence of the bank or the committee to support this assertion, in the forty pages of the report, or the three hundred pages of the appendix, the four members of the Finance Committee can produce it when they come to reply. That there was evidence to contradict it, he was now ready to show. This evidence consisted in four or five public and prominent facts, which he would now mention, and in other circumstances, which he would show hereafter. The first was the fact which he mentioned when this report was first read on the 18th of December last, namely, that President Jackson had nominated Mr. Biddle at the head of the government directors, and thereby indicated him for the presidency of the bank, for three successive years after this hostility was supposed to have commenced. The second was, that the President had never ordered a scire facias to issue against the bank to vacate its charter, which he has the right, under the twenty-third section of the charter, to do, whenever he believed the charter to be violated. The third, that during many years, he has never required his Secretaries of the Treasury to stop the governmental receipt of the branch bank drafts, although his own mind upon their illegality had been made up for several years past. The fourth, that after all the clamor – all the invocations upon heaven and earth against the tyranny of removing the deposits – those deposits have never happened to be quite entirely removed! An average of near four millions of dollars of public money has remained in the hands of the bank for each month, from the 1st of October, 1833, to the 1st of January, 1835, inclusively! embracing the entire period from the time the order was to take effect against depositing in the Bank of the United States down to the commencement of the present year! So far are the deposits from being quite entirely removed, as the public are led to believe, that, at the distance of fifteen months from the time the order for the removal began to take effect, there remained in the hands of the bank the large sum of three millions eight hundred and seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-one dollars and ninety-seven cents, according to her own showing in her monthly statements. That President Jackson is, and always has been, opposed to the existence of the bank, is a fact as true as it is honorable to him; that he is hostile to it, in the vindictive and revengeful sense of the phrase, is an assertion, Mr. B. would take the liberty to repeat, without evidence, so far as he could see into the proofs of the committee, and against evidence, to the full extent of all the testimony within his view. Far from indulging in revengeful resentment against the bank, he has been patient, indulgent, and forebearing towards it, to a degree hardly compatible with his duty to his country, and with his constitutional supervision over the faithful execution of the laws; to a degree which has drawn upon him, as a deduction from his own conduct, an argument in favor of the legality of this very branch bank currency, on the part of this very committee, as may be seen in their report. Again, the very circumstance on which this charge of hostility rests in the two-and-twenty letters of Mr. Biddle, proves it to be untrue: for the stoppage of the drafts, understood to be in contemplation, was not in contemplation, and did not take place until the pecuniary concerns of the country were tranquil and prosperous; and when it did thus take place, the president of the bank declared it to have been always the exclusive right of the government to do it, in which the bank had no interest, and for which it cared nothing. No, said Mr. B., the President has opposed the recharter of the bank; he has not attacked its present charter; he has opposed its future, not its present existence; and those who characterize this opposition to a future charter as attacking the bank, and destroying the bank, must admit that they advocate the hereditary right of the bank to a new charter after the old one is out; and that they deny to a public man the right of opposing that hereditary claim.

3. That there was no necessity for this third curtailment ordered in January. Mr. B. said, to have a full conception of the truth of this position, it was proper to recollect that the bank made its first curtailment in August, when the appointment of an agent to arrange with the deposit banks announced the fact that the Bank of the United States was soon to cease to be the depository of public moneys. The reduction under that first curtailment was $4,066,000. The second was in October, and under that order for curtailment the reduction was $5,825,000. The whole reduction, then, consequent upon the expected and actual removal of deposits, was $9,891,000. At the same time the whole amount of deposits on the first day of October, the day for the removal, or rather for the cessation to deposit in the United States Bank to take effect, was $9,868,435; and on the first day of February, 1834, when the third curtailment was ordered, there were still $3,066,561 of these deposits on hand, and have remained on hand to near that amount ever since; so that the bank in the two first curtailments, accomplished between August and January, had actually curtailed to the whole amount, and to the exact amount, upon precise calculation, of the amount of deposits on hand on the first of October; and still had, on the first of January, a fraction over three millions of the deposits in its possession. This simple statement of sums and dates shows that there was no necessity for ordering a further reduction of $3,320,000 in January, as the bank had already curtailed to the whole amount of the deposits, and $22,500 over. Nor did the bank put the third curtailment upon that ground, but upon the new measures in contemplation; thus leaving her advocates every where still to attribute the pressure created by the third curtailment to the old cause of the removal of the deposits. This simple statement of facts is sufficient to show that this third curtailment was unnecessary. What confirms that view, is that the bank remitted to Europe, as fast as it was collected, the whole amount of the curtailment, and $105,000 over; there to lie idle until she could raise the foreign exchange to eight per cent. above par; which she had sunk to five per cent. below par, and thus make two sets of profits out of one operation in distressing and pressing the country.

4. No excuse for doubling the rates of exchange, breaking up the exchange business in the West, forbidding the branch at New Orleans to purchase a single bill on the West, and concentrating the collection of exchange on the four great commercial cities. For this, Mr. B. said, no apology, no excuse, no justification, was offered by the bank. The act stood unjustified and unjustifiable. The bank itself has shrunk from the attempt to justify it; our committee, in that report of which the bank proclaims itself to be proud, gives no opinion in its brief notice of a few lines upon this transaction; but leaves it to the Senate to pronounce upon its wisdom and necessity! The committee, Mr. B. said, had failed in their duty to their country by the manner in which they had veiled this affair of the exchanges in a few lines; and then blinked the question of its enormity, by referring it to the judgment of the Senate. He made the same remark upon the contemporaneous measure of the third curtailment; and called on the author of the report [Mr. Tyler] to defend his report, and to defend the conduct of the bank now, if he could; and requested him to receive all this part of his speech as a further instalment paid of what was due to that report on the bank.

5. That the curtailment and exchange regulations of January were political and revolutionary, and connect themselves with the contemporaneous proceedings of the Senate for the condemnation of the President. That this curtailment, and these regulations were wanton and wicked, was a proposition, Mr. B. said, which resulted as a logical conclusion from what had been already shown, namely, that they were causeless and unnecessary, and done upon pretexts which have been demonstrated to be false. That they were political and revolutionary, and connected with the proceedings in the Senate for the condemnation of the President, he would now prove. In the exhibition of this proof, the first thing to be looked to is the chronology of the events – the time at which the bank made this third curtailment, and sent forth these exchange regulations – and the time at which the Senate carried on the proceeding against the President. Viewed under this aspect, the two movements are not only connected, but identical and inseparable. The time for the condemnation of the President covers the period from the 25th of December, 1833, to the 28th of March, 1834; the bank movement is included in the same period; the orders for the pressure were issued from the 21st of January to the 1st of February, and were to accomplish their effect in the month of March, and by the first of April; except in one place, where, for a reason which will be shown at a proper time, the accomplishment of the effect was protracted till the 10th day of April. These, Mr. B. said, were the dates of issuing the orders and accomplishing their effect; the date of the adoption of the resolution in the bank for this movement is not given in the report, but must have been, in the nature of things, anterior to the issue of the orders; it must have been some days before the issue of the orders; and was, in all probability, a few days after the commencement of the movement in the Senate against the President. The next point of connection, Mr. B. said, was in the subject matter; and here it was necessary to recur to the original form, and to the second form, of the resolution for the condemnation of the President. In the first, or primordial form, the resolution was expressly connected with the cause of the bank. It was, for dismissing Mr. Duane because he would not remove the deposits, and appointing Mr. Taney because he would remove them. In the second form of the resolution – that form which naturalists would call its aurelia, or chrysalis state – the phraseology of the connection was varied, but still the connection was retained and expressed. The names of Mr. Duane and Mr. Taney were dropped; and the removal of the deposits upon his own responsibility, was the alleged offence of the President. In its third and ultimate transformation, all allusion to the bank was dropped, and the vague term "revenue" was substituted; but it was a substitution of phrase only, without any alteration of sense or meaning. The resolution is the same under all its phases. It is still the bank, and Mr. Taney, and Mr. Duane, and the removal of the deposits, which are the things to be understood, though no longer prudent to express. All these substantial objects are veiled, and substituted by the empty phrase "revenue;" which might signify the force bill in South Carolina, and the bank question in Philadelphia! The vagueness of the expression left every gentleman to fight upon his own hook, and to hang his vote upon any mental reservation which could be found in his own mind! and Mr. B. would go before the intelligence of any rational man with the declaration that the connection between the condemnation of the President and the cause of the bank was doubly proved; first by the words of the resolution, and next by the omission of those words. The next point of connection, Mr. B. said, was detected in the times, varied to suit each State, at which the pressure under the curtailment was to reach its maximum; and the manner in which the restrictions upon the sale and purchase of bills of exchange was made to fall exclusively and heavily upon the principal commercial cities, at the moment when most deeply engaged in the purchase and shipment of produce. Thus, in New-York, where the great charter elections were to take place during the first week in April, the curtailment was to reach its maximum pressure on the first day of that month. In Virginia, where the elections are continued throughout the whole month of April, the pressure was not to reach its climax until the tenth day of that month. In Connecticut, where the elections occurred about the first of April, the pressure was to have its last turn of the screw in the month of March. And in these three instances, the only ones in which the elections were depending, the political bearing of the pressure was clear and undeniable. The sympathy in the Senate in the results of those political calculations, was displayed in the exultation which broke out on receiving the news of the elections in Virginia, New-York, and Connecticut – an exultation which broke out into the most extravagant rejoicings over the supposed downfall of the administration. The careful calculation to make the pressure and the exchange regulations fall upon the commercial cities at the moment to injure commerce most, was also visible in the times fixed for each. Thus, in all the western cities, Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, Nashville, Pittsburg, Saint Louis, the pressure was to reach its maximum by the first day of March; the shipments of western produce to New Orleans being mostly over by that time; but in New Orleans the pressure was to be continued till the first of April, because the shipping season is protracted there till that month, and thus the produce which left the upper States under the depression of the pressure, was to meet the same pressure upon its arrival in New Orleans; and thus enable the friends of the bank to read their ruined prices of western produce on the floor of this Senate. In Baltimore, the first of March was fixed, which would cover the active business season there. So much, said Mr. B., for the pressure by curtailment; now for the pressure by bills of exchange, and he would take the case of New Orleans first. All the branches in the West, and every where else in the Union, were authorized to purchase bills of exchange at short dates, not exceeding ninety days, on that emporium of the West; so as to increase the demand for money there; at the same time the branch in New Orleans was forbid to purchase a single bill in any part of the valley of the Mississippi. This prohibition was for two purposes; first, to break up exchange; and next, to make money scarce in New Orleans; as, in default of bills of exchange, silver would be shipped, and the shipping of silver would make a pressure upon all the local banks. To help out this operation, Mr. B. said, it must be well and continually remembered that the Bank of the United States itself abducted about one million and a quarter of hard dollars from New Orleans during the period of the pressure there; thus proving that all her affected necessity for curtailment was a false and wicked pretext for the cover of her own political and revolutionary views.

The case of the western branches was next adverted to by Mr. B. Among these, he said, the business of exchange was broken up in toto. The five western branches were forbid to purchase exchange at all; and this tyrannical order was not even veiled with the pretext of an excuse. Upon the North Atlantic cities, Mr. B. said, unlimited authority to all the branches was given to purchase bills, all at short dates, under ninety days; and all intended to become due during the shipping season, and to increase the demand for money while the curtailment was going on, and the screw turning from day to day to lessen the capacity of getting money, and make it more scarce as the demand for it became urgent. Thus were the great commercial cities, New Orleans, New-York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, subject to a double process of oppression; and that at the precise season of purchasing and shipping crops, so as to make their distress recoil upon the planters and farmers; and all this upon the pretext of new measures understood to be in contemplation. Time again becomes material, said Mr. B. The bank pressure was arranged in January, to reach its climax in March and the first of April; the debate in the Senate for the condemnation of President Jackson, which commenced in the last days of December, was protracted over the whole period of the bank pressure, and reached its consummation at the same time; namely, the 28th day of March. The two movements covered the same period of time, reached their conclusions together, and co-operated in the effect to be produced; and during the three months of this double movement, the Senate chamber resounded daily with the cry that the tyranny and vengeance of the President, and his violation of laws and constitution, had created the whole distress, and struck the nation from a state of Arcadian felicity – from a condition of unparalleled prosperity – to the lowest depth of misery and ruin. And here Mr. B. obtested and besought the Senate to consider the indifference with which the bank treated its friends in the Senate, and the sorrowful contradiction in which they were left to be caught. In the Senate, and all over the country, the friends of the bank were allowed to go on with the old tune, and run upon the wrong scent, of removal of the deposits creating all the distress; while, in the two-and-twenty circular letters dispatched to create this distress, it was not the old measure alone, but the new measures contemplated, which constituted the pretext for this very same distress. Thus, the bank stood upon one pretext, and its friends stood upon another; and for this mortifying contradiction, in which all its friends have become exposed to see their mournful speeches exploded by the bank itself, a just indignation ought now to be felt by all the friends of the bank, who were laying the distress to the removal of the deposits, and daily crying out that nothing could relieve the country but the restoration of the deposits, or the recharter of the bank; while the bank itself was writing to its branches that it was the new measures understood to be in contemplation that was occasioning all the mischief. Mr. B. would close this head with a remark which ought to excite reflections which should never die away; which should be remembered as long as national banks existed, or asked for existence. It was this: That here was a proved case of a national bank availing itself of its organization, and of its power, to send secret orders, upon a false pretext, to every part of the Union, to create distress and panic for the purpose of accomplishing an object of its own; and then publicly and calumniously charging all this mischief on the act of the President for the removal of the deposits. This recollection should warn the country against ever permitting another national bank to repeat a crime of such frightful immorality, and such enormous injury to the business and property of the people. Mr. B. expressed his profound regret that the report of the bank committee was silent upon these dreadful enormities, while so elaborate upon trifles in favor of the bank. He was indignant at the mischief done to private property; the fall in the price of staples, of stocks, and of all real and personal estate; at the ruin of many merchants, and the injury of many citizens, which took place during this hideous season of panic and pressure. He was indignant at the bank for creating it, and still more for its criminal audacity in charging its own conduct upon the President; and he was mortified, profoundly mortified, that all this should have escaped the attention of the Finance Committee, and enabled them to make a report of which the bank, in its official organ, declares itself to be justly proud; which it now has undergoing the usual process of diffusion through the publication of supplemental gazettes; which it openly avers would have insured the recharter if it had come out in time; and to which it now looks for such recharter as soon as President Jackson retires, and the country can be thrown into confusion by the distractions of a presidential election.

Mr. B. now took up another head of evidence to prove the fact that the curtailment and exchange regulations of January were political and revolutionary, and connected with the proceedings of the Senate for the condemnation of the President; and here he would proceed upon evidence drawn from the bank itself. Mr. B. then read extracts from Mr. Biddle's letters of instructions (January 30, 1834) to Joseph Johnson, Esquire, president of the branch bank at Charleston, South Carolina. They were as follows: "With a view to meet the coming crisis in the banking concerns of the country, and especially to provide against new measures of hostility understood to be in contemplation by the executive officers at Washington, a general reduction has been ordered at the several offices, and I have now to ask your particular attention to accomplish it." * * * * "It is as disagreeable to us as it can be to yourselves to impose any restrictions upon the business of the office. But you are perfectly aware of the effort which has been making for some time to prostrate the bank, to which this new measure to which I have alluded will soon be added, unless the projectors become alarmed at it. On the defeat of these attempts to destroy the bank depends, in our deliberate judgment, not merely the pecuniary interests, but the whole free institutions of our country; and our determination is, by even a temporary sacrifice of profit, to place the bank entirety beyond the reach of those who meditate its destruction."

Mr. B. would invoke the deepest attention to this letter. The passages which he had read were not in the circulars addressed at the same time to the other branches. It was confined to this letter, with something similar in one more which he would presently read. The coming crisis in the banking concerns of the country is here shadowed forth, and secretly foretold, three months before it happened; and with good reason, for the prophet of the evil was to assist in fulfilling his prophecy. With this secret prediction, made in January, is to be connected the public predictions contemporaneously made on this floor, and continued till April, when the explosion of some banks in this district was proclaimed as the commencement of the general ruin which was to involve all local banks, and especially the whole safety-fund list of banks, in one universal catastrophe. The Senate would remember all this, and spare him repetitions which must now be heard with pain, though uttered with satisfaction a few months ago. The whole free institutions of our country was the next phrase in the letter to which Mr. B. called attention. He said that in this phrase the political designs of the bank stood revealed; and he averred that this language was identical with that used upon this floor. Here, then, is the secret order of the bank, avowing that the whole free institutions of the country are taken into its holy keeping; and that it was determined to submit to a temporary sacrifice of profit in sustaining the bank, which itself sustains the whole free institutions of the country! What insolence! What audacity! But, said Mr. B., what is here meant by free institutions, was the elections! and the true meaning of Mr. Biddle's letter is, that the bank meant to submit to temporary sacrifices of money to carry the elections, and put down the Jackson administration. No other meaning can be put upon the words; and if there could, there is further proof in reserve to nail the infamous and wicked design upon the bank. Another passage in this letter, Mr. B. would point out, and then proceed to a new piece of evidence. It was the passage which said this new measure will soon be added, unless the projectors become alarmed at it. Now, said Mr. B., take this as you please; either that the projectors did, or did not, become alarmed at their new measure; the fact is clear that no new measure was put in force, and that the bank, in proceeding to act upon that assumption, was inventing and fabricating a pretext to justify the scourge which it was meditating against the country. Dates are here material, said Mr. B. The first letters, founded on these new measures, were dated the 21st of January; and spoke of them as being understood to be in contemplation. This letter to Mr. Johnson, which speaks hypothetically, is dated the 30th of January, being eight days later; in which time the bank had doubtless heard that its understanding about what was in contemplation was all false; and to cover its retreat from having sent a falsehood to two-and-twenty branches, it gives notice that the new measures which were the alleged pretext of panic and pressure upon the country were not to take place, because the projectors had got alarmed. The beautiful idea of the projectors – that is to say, General Jackson, for he is the person intended – becoming alarmed at interdicting the reception of illegal drafts at the treasury, is conjured up as a salvo for the honor of the bank, in making two-and-twenty instances of false assertion. But the panic and pressure orders are not countermanded. They are to go on, although the projectors do become alarmed, and although the new measure be dropped.

Mr. B. had an extract from a second letter to read upon this subject. It was to the president of the New Orleans branch, Mr. W. W. Montgomery, and dated Bank of the United States the 24th of January. He read the extract: "The state of things here is very gloomy; and, unless Congress takes some decided step to prevent the progress of the troubles, they may soon outgrow our control. Thus circumstanced, our first duty is, to the institution, to preserve it from all danger; and we are therefore anxious, for a short time at least, to keep our business within manageable limits, and to make some sacrifice of property to entire security. It is a moment of great interest, and exposed to sudden changes in public affairs, which may induce the bank to conform its policy to them; of these dangers, should any occur, you will have early advice." When he had read this extract, Mr. B. proceeded to comment upon it; almost every word of it being pregnant with political and revolutionary meaning of the plainest import. The whole extract, he said, was the language of a politician, not of a banker, and looked to political events to which the bank intended to conform its policy. In this way, he commented successively upon the gloomy state of things at the bank (for the letter is dated in the bank), and the troubles which were to outgrow their control, unless Congress took some decided step. These troubles, Mr. B. said, could not be the dangers to the bank; for the bank had taken entire care of itself in the two-and-twenty orders which it had sent out to curtail loans and break up exchanges. Every one of these orders announced the power of the bank, and the determination of the bank, to take care of itself. Troubles outgrow our control! What insolence! When the bank itself, and its confederates, were the creators and fomenters of all these troubles, the progress of which it affected to deplore. The next words – moment of great interest, exposed to sudden changes in public affairs, induce the bank to conform its policy to them – Mr. B. said, were too flagrant and too barefaced for comment. They were equivalent to an open declaration that a revolution was momently expected, in which Jackson's administration would be overthrown, and the friends of the bank brought into power; and, as soon as that happened, the bank would inform its branches of it; and would then conform its policy to this revolution, and relieve the country from the distress which it was then inflicting upon it. Sir, said Mr. B., addressing the Vice-President, thirty years ago, the prophetic vision of Mr. Jefferson foresaw this crisis; thirty years ago, he said that this bank was an enemy to our form of government; that, by its ramification and power, and by seizing on a critical moment in our affairs, it could upset the government! And this is what it would have done last winter, had it not been for one man! one man! one single man! with whom God had vouchsafed to favor our America in that hour of her greatest trial. That one man stood a sole obstacle to the dread career of the bank; stood for six months as the rampart which defended the country, the citadel upon which the bank artillery incessantly thundered! And what was the conduct of the Senate all this time? It was trying and condemning that man, killing him off with a senatorial condemnation, removing the obstacle which stood between the bank and its prey; and, in so doing, establishing the indissoluble connection between the movement of the bank in distressing the country, and the movement of the Senate in condemning the President.