Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

But, sir, I am not yet done with my answer to this question; do such laws ordinarily extend to corporations at all? I answer, most decidedly, that they do! that they apply in England to all the corporations, except those specially excepted by the act of George IV.; and these are few in number, though great in power – powerful, but few – nothing but units to myriads, compared to those which are not excepted. The words of that act are: "Members of, or subscribers to, any incorporated commercial or trading companies, established by charter act of Parliament." These words cut off at once the many ten thousand corporations in the British empire existing by prescription, or incorporated by letters patent from the king; and then they cut off all those even chartered by act of Parliament which are not commercial or trading in their nature. This saves but a few out of the hundreds of thousands of corporations which abound in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. It saves, or rather confirms, the exemption of the Bank of England, which is a trader in money; and it confirms, also, the exemption of the East India Company which is, in contemplation of law at least, a commercial company; and it saves or exempts a few others deriving charters of incorporation from Parliament; but it leaves subject to the law the whole wilderness of corporations, of which there are thousands in London alone, which derive from prescription or letters patent; and it also leaves subject to the same laws all the corporations created by charter act of Parliament, which are not commercial or trading. The words of the act are very peculiar – "charter act of Parliament;" so that corporations by a general law, without a special charter act, are not included in the exemption. This answer, added to what has been previously said, must be a sufficient reply to the senator's question, whether bankrupt laws ordinarily extend to corporations? Sir, out of the myriad of corporations in Great Britain, the bankrupt law extends to the whole, except some half dozen or dozen.

So much for the exemption of these corporations in England; now for our America. We never had but one bankrupt law in the United States, and that for the short period of three or four years. It was passed under the administration of the elder Mr. Adams, and repealed under Mr. Jefferson. It copied the English acts including among the subjects of bankruptcy, bankers, brokers, and factors. Corporations were not included; and it is probable that no question was raised about them, as, up to that time, their number was few, and their conduct generally good. But, at a later date, the enactment of a bankrupt law was again attempted in our Congress; and, at that period, the multiplication and the misconduct of banks presented them to the minds of many as proper subjects for the application of the law; I speak of the bill of 1827, brought into the Senate, and lost. That bill, like all previous laws since the time of George II., was made applicable to bankers, brokers, and factors. A senator from North Carolina [Mr. Branch] moved to include banking corporations. The motion was lost, there being but twelve votes for it; but in this twelve there were some whose names must carry weight to any cause to which they are attached. The twelve were, Messrs. Barton, Benton, Branch, Cobb, Dickerson, Hendricks, Macon, Noble, Randolph, Reed, Smith of South Carolina, and White. The whole of the friends of the bill, twenty-one in number, voted against the proposition, (the present Chief Magistrate in the number,) and for the obvious reason, with some, of not encumbering the measure they were so anxious to carry, by putting into it a new and untried provision. And thus stands our own legislation on this subject. In point of fact, then, chartered corporations have thus far escaped bankrupt penalties, both in England, and in our America; but ought they to continue to escape? This is the question – this the true and important inquiry, which is now to occupy the public mind.

The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] says the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to currency; that their object is simply to distribute the effects of insolvent debtors among their creditors. So says the senator, but what says history? What says the practice of Great Britain? I will show you what it says, and for that purpose will read a passage from McCulloch's notes on Smith's Wealth of Nations. He says:

"In 1814-'15, and '16, no fewer than 240 country banks stopped payment, and ninety-two commissions of bankruptcy were issued against these establishments, being at the rate of one commission against every seven and a half of the total number of country banks existing in 1813."

Two hundred and forty stopped payment at one dash, and ninety-two subjected to commissions of bankruptcy. They were not indeed chartered banks, for there are none such in England, except the Bank of England; but they were legalized establishments, existing under the first joint-stock bank act of 1708; and they were banks of issue. Yet they were subjected to the bankrupt laws, ninety-two of them in a single season of bank catalepsy; their broken "promises to pay" were taken out of circulation; their doors closed; their directors and officers turned out; their whole effects, real and personal, their money, debts, books, paper, and every thing, put into the hands of assignees; and to these assignees, the holders of their notes forwarded their demands, and were paid, every one in equal proportion – as the debts of the bank were collected, and its effects converted into money; and this without expense or trouble to any one of them. Ninety-two banks in England shared this fate in a single season of bank mortality; five hundred more could be enumerated in other seasons, many of them superior in real capital, credit, and circulation, to our famous chartered banks, most of which are banks of moonshine, built upon each other's paper; and the whole ready to fly sky-high the moment any one of the concern becomes sufficiently inflated to burst. The immediate effect of this application of the bankrupt laws to banks in England, is two-fold: first, to save the general currency from depreciation, by stopping the issue and circulation of irredeemable notes; secondly, to do equal justice to all creditors, high and low, rich and poor, present and absent, the widow and the orphan, as well as the cunning and the powerful, by distributing their effects in proportionate amounts to all who hold demands. This is the operation of bankrupt laws upon banks in England, and all over the British empire; and it happens to be the precise check upon the issue of broken bank paper, and the precise remedy for the injured holders of their dishonored paper which the President recommends. Here is his recommendation, listen to it:

"In the mean time, it is our duty to provide all the remedies against a depreciated paper currency which the constitution enables us to afford. The Treasury Department, on several former occasions, has suggested the propriety and importance of a uniform law concerning bankruptcies of corporations and other bankers. Through the instrumentality of such a law, a salutary check may doubtless be imposed on the issues of paper money, and an effectual remedy given to the citizen, in a way at once equal in all parts of the Union, and fully authorized by the constitution."

The senator from Massachusetts says he would not, intentionally, do injustice to the message or its author; and doubtless he is not conscious of violating that benevolent determination; but here is injustice, both to the message and to its author; injustice in not quoting the message as it is, and showing that it proposes a remedy to the citizen, as well as a check upon insolvent issues; injustice to the author in denying that the object of bankrupt laws has any relation to currency, when history shows that these laws are the actual instrument for regulating and purifying the whole local paper currency of the entire British empire, and saving that country from the frauds, losses, impositions, and demoralization of an irredeemable paper money.

The senator from Massachusetts says the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to currency. If he means hard-money currency, I agree with him; but if he means bank notes, as I am sure he does, then I point him to the British bankrupt code, which applies to every bank of issue in the British empire, except the Bank of England itself, and the few others, four or five in number, which are incorporated by charter acts. All the joint-stock banks, all the private banks, all the bankers of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, are subject to the law of bankruptcy. Many of these establishments are of great capital and credit; some having hundreds, or even thousands of partners; and many of them having ten, or twenty, or thirty, and some even forty branches. They are almost the exclusive furnishers of the local and common bank note currency; the Bank of England notes being chiefly used in the great cities for large mercantile and Government payments. These joint-stock banks, private companies, and individual bankers are, practically, in the British empire what the local banks are in the United States. They perform the same functions, and differ in name only; not in substance nor in conduct. They have no charters, but they have a legalized existence; they are not corporations, but they are allowed by law to act in a body; they furnish the actual paper currency of the great body of the people of the British empire, as much so as our local banks furnish the mass of paper currency to the people of the United States. They have had twenty-four millions sterling (one hundred and twenty millions of dollars) in circulation at one time; a sum nearly equal to the greatest issue ever known in the United States; and more than equal to the whole bank-note circulation of the present day. They are all subject to the law of bankruptcy, and their twenty-four millions sterling of currency along with them; and five hundred of them have been shut up and wound up under commissions of bankruptcy in the last forty years; and yet the senator from Massachusetts informs us that the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to currency!

But it is not necessary to go all the way to England to find bankrupt laws having relation to currency. The act passed in our own country, about forty years ago, applied to bankers; the bill brought into the House of Representatives, about fifteen years ago, by a gentleman then, and now, a representative from the city of Philadelphia, [Mr. Sergeant,] also applied to bankers; and the bill brought into this Senate, ten years ago, by a senator from South Carolina, not now a member of this body, [General Hayne,] still applied to bankers. These bankers, of whom there were many in the United States, and of whom Girard, in the East, and Yeatman and Woods, in the West, were the most considerable – these bankers all issued paper money; they all issued currency. The act, then, of 1798, if it had continued in force, or the two bills just referred to, if they had become law, would have operated upon these bankers and their banks – would have stopped their issues, and put their establishments into the hands of assignees, and distributed their effects among their creditors. This, certainly, would have been having some relation to currency: so that, even with our limited essays towards a bankrupt system, we have scaled the outworks of the banking empire; we have laid hold of bankers, but not of banks; we have reached the bank of Girard, but not the Girard Bank; we have applied our law to the bank of Yeatman and Woods, but not to the rabble of petty corporations which have not the tithe of their capital and credit. We have gone as far as bankers, but not as far as banks; and now give me a reason for the difference. Give me a reason why the act of 1798, the bill of Mr. Sergeant, in 1821, and the bill of General Hayne, in 1827, should not include banks as well as bankers. They both perform the same function – that of issuing paper currency. They both involve the same mischief when they stop payment – that of afflicting the country with a circulation of irredeemable and depreciated paper money. They are both culpable in the same mode, and in the same degree; for they are both violators of their "promises to pay." They both exact a general credit from the community, and they both abuse that credit. They both have creditors, and they both have effects; and these creditors have as much right to a pro rata distribution of the effects in one case as in the other. Why, then, a distinction in favor of the bank? Is it because corporate bodies are superior to natural bodies? because artificial beings are superior to natural beings? or, rather, is it not because corporations are assemblages of men; and assemblages are more powerful than single men; and, therefore, these corporations, in addition to all their vast privileges, are also to have the privilege of being bankrupt, and afflicting the country with the evils of bankruptcy, without themselves being subjected to the laws of bankruptcy? Be this as it may – be the cause what it will – the decree has gone forth for the decision of the question – for the trial of the issue – for the verdict and judgment upon the claim of the banks. They have many privileges and exemptions now, and they have the benefit of all laws against the community. They pay no taxes; the property of the stockholders is not liable for their debts; they sue their debtors, sell their property, and put their bodies in jail. They have the privilege of stamping paper money; the privilege of taking interest upon double, treble, and quadruple their actual money. They put up and put down the price of property, labor, and produce, as they please. They have the monopoly of making the actual currency. They are strong enough to suppress the constitutional money, and to force their own paper upon the community, and then to redeem it or not, as they please. And is it to be tolerated, that, in addition to all these privileges, and all these powers, they are to be exempted from the law of bankruptcy? the only law of which they are afraid, and the only one which can protect the country against their insolvent issues, and give a fair chance for payment to the numerous holders of their violated "promises to pay!"

I have discussed, Mr. President, the right of Congress to apply a bankrupt law to banking corporations; I have discussed it on the words of our own constitution, on the practice of England, and on the general authority of Parliament; and on each and every ground, as I fully believe, vindicated our right to pass the law. The right is clear; the expediency is manifest and glaring. Of all the objects upon the earth, banks of circulation are the fittest subjects of bankrupt laws. They act in secret, and they exact a general credit. Nobody knows their means, yet every body must trust them. They send their "promises to pay" far and near. They push them into every body's hands; they make them small to go into small hands – into the hands of the laborer, the widow, the helpless, the ignorant. Suddenly the bank stops payment; all these helpless holders of their notes are without pay, and without remedy. A few on the spot get a little; those at a distance get nothing. For each to sue, is a vexatious and a losing business. The only adequate remedy – the only one that promises any justice to the body of the community, and the helpless holders of small notes – is the bankrupt remedy of assignees to distribute the effects. This makes the real effects available. When a bank stops, it has little or no specie; but it has, or ought to have, a good mass of solvent debts. At present, all these debts are unavailable to the community – they go to a few large and favored creditors; and those who are most in need get nothing. But a stronger view remains to be taken of these debts: the mass of them are due from the owners and managers of the banks – from the presidents, directors, cashiers, stockholders, attorneys; and these people do not make themselves pay. They do not sue themselves, nor protest themselves. They sue and protest others, and sell out their property, and put their bodies in jail; but, as for themselves, who are the main debtors, it is another affair! They take their time, and usually wait till the notes are heavily depreciated, and then square off with a few cents in the dollar! A commission of bankruptcy is the remedy for this evil; assignees of the effects of the bank are the persons to make these owners, and managers, and chief debtors to the institutions, pay up. Under the bankrupt law, every holder of a note, no matter how small in amount, nor how distant the holder may reside, on forwarding the note to the assignees, will receive his ratable proportion of the bank's effects, without expense, and without trouble to himself. It is a most potent, a most proper, and most constitutional remedy against delinquent banks. It is an equitable and a brave remedy. It does honor to the President who recommended it, and is worthy of the successor of Jackson.

Senators upon this floor have ventured the expression of an opinion that there can be no resumption of specie payments in this country until a national bank shall be established, meaning, all the while, until the present miscalled Bank of the United States shall be rechartered. Such an opinion is humiliating to this government, and a reproach upon the memory of its founders. It is tantamount to a declaration that the government, framed by the heroes and sages of the Revolution, is incapable of self-preservation; that it is a miserable image of imbecility, and must take refuge in the embraces of a moneyed corporation, to enable it to survive its infirmities. The humiliation of such a thought should expel it from the imagination of every patriotic mind. Nothing but a dire necessity – a last, a sole, an only alternative – should bring this government to the thought of leaning upon any extraneous aid. But here is no necessity, no reason, no pretext, no excuse, no apology, for resorting to collateral aid; and, above all, to the aid of a master in the shape of a national bank. The granted powers of the government are adequate to the coercion of all the banks. As banks, the federal government has no direct authority over them; but as bankrupts, it has them in its own hands. It can pass bankrupt laws for these delinquent institutions. It can pass such laws either with or without including merchants and traders; and the day for such law to take effect, will be the day for the resumption of specie payments by every solvent bank, and the day for the extinction of the abused privileges of every insolvent one. So far from requiring the impotent aid of the miscalled Bank of the United States to effect a resumption, that institution will be unable to prevent a resumption. Its veto power over other banks will cease; and it will itself be compelled to resume specie payment, or die!

Besides these great objects to be attained by the application of a bankrupt law to banking corporations, there are other great purposes to be accomplished, and some most sacred duties to be fulfilled, by the same means. Our constitution contains three most vital prohibitions, of which the federal government is the guardian and the guarantee, and which are now publicly trodden under foot. No State shall emit bills of credit; no State shall make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. No State shall do these things. So says the constitution under which we live, and which it is the duty of every citizen to protect, preserve, and defend. But a new power has sprung up among us, and has annulled the whole of these prohibitions. That new power is the oligarchy of banks. It has filled the whole land with bills of credit; for it is admitted on all hands that bank notes, not convertible into specie, are bills of credit. It has suppressed the constitutional currency, and made depreciated paper money a forced tender in payment of every debt. It has violated all its own contracts, and compelled all individuals, and the federal government and State governments, to violate theirs; and has obtained from sovereign States an express sanction, or a silent acquiescence, in this double violation of sacred obligations, and in this triple annulment of constitutional prohibitions. It is our duty to bring, or to try to bring, this new power under subordination to the laws and the government. It is our duty to go to the succor of the constitution – to rescue, if possible, these prohibitions from daily, and public and permanent infraction. The application of the bankrupt law to this new power, is the way to effect this rescue – the way to cause these vital prohibitions to be respected and observed, and to do it in a way to prevent collisions between the States and the federal government. The prohibitions are upon the States; it is they who are not to do these things, and, of course, are not to authorize others to do what they cannot do themselves. The banks are their delegates in this three-fold violation of the constitution; and, in proceeding against these delegates, we avoid collision with the States.

Mr. President, every form of government has something in it to excite the pride, and to rouse the devotion, of its citizens. In monarchies, it is the authority of the king; in republics, it is the sanctity of the laws. The loyal subject makes it the point of honor to obey the king; the patriot republican makes it his glory to obey the laws. We are a republic. We have had illustrious citizens, conquering generals, and victorious armies; but no citizen, no general, no army, has undertaken to dethrone the laws and to reign in their stead. This parricidal work has been reserved for an oligarchy of banks! Three times, in thrice seven years, this oligarchy has dethroned the law, and reigned in its place. Since May last, it has held the sovereign sway, and has not yet vouchsafed to indicate the day of its voluntary abdication. The Roman military dictators usually fixed a term to their dictatorships. I speak of the usurpers, not of the constitutional dictators for ten days. These usurpers usually indicated a time at which usurpation should cease, and law and order again prevail. Not so with this new power which now lords it over our America. They fix no day; they limit no time; they indicate no period for their voluntary descent from power, and for their voluntary return to submission to the laws. They could agree in the twinkling of an eye – at the drop of a hat – at the crook of a finger – to usurp the sovereign power; they cannot agree, in four months, to relinquish it. They profess to be willing, but cannot agree upon the time. Let us perform that service for them. Let us name a day. Let us fix it in a bankrupt law. Let us pass that law, and fix a day for it to take effect; and that day will be the day for the resumption of specie payments, or for the trial of the question of permanent supremacy between the oligarchy of banks, and the constitutional government of the people.

We are called upon to have mercy upon the banks; the prayer should rather be to them, to have mercy upon the government and the people. Since May last the ex-deposit banks alone have forced twenty-five millions of depreciated paper through the federal government upon its debtors and the States, at a loss of at least two and a half millions to the receivers, and a gain of an equal amount to the payers. The thousand banks have the country and the government under their feet at this moment, owing to the community upwards of an hundred millions of dollars, of which they will pay nothing, not even ninepences, picayunes, and coppers. Metaphorically, if not literally, they give their creditors more kicks than coppers. It is for them to have mercy on us. But what is the conduct of government towards these banks? Even at this session, with all their past conduct unatoned for, we have passed a relief bill for their benefit – a bill to defer the collection of the large balance which they still owe the government. But there is mercy due in another quarter – upon the people, suffering from the use of irredeemable and depreciated paper – upon the government, reduced to bankruptcy – upon the character of the country, suffering in the eyes of Europe – upon the character of republican government, brought into question by the successful usurpation of these institutions. This last point is the sorest. Gentlemen speak of the failure of experiments – the failure of the specie experiment, as it is called by those who believe that paper is the ancient and universal money of the world; and that the use of a little specie for the first time is not to be attempted. They dwell upon the supposed failure of "the experiment;" while all the monarchists of Europe are rejoicing in the failure of the experiment of republican government, at seeing this government, the last hope of the liberal world, struck and paralyzed by an oligarchy of banks – seized by the throat, throttled and held as a tiger would hold a babe – stripped of its revenues, bankrupted, and subjected to the degradation of becoming their engine to force their depreciated paper upon helpless creditors. Here is the place for mercy – upon the people – upon the government – upon the character of the country – upon the character of republican government.

The apostle of republicanism, Mr. Jefferson, has left it as a political legacy to the people of the United States, never to suffer their government to fall under the control of any unauthorized, irresponsible, or self-created institutions of bodies whatsoever. His allusion was to the Bank of the United States, and its notorious machinations to govern the elections, and get command of the government; but his admonition applies with equal force to all other similar or affiliated institutions; and, since May last, it applies to the whole league of banks which then "shut up the Treasury," and reduced the government to helpless dependence.

It is said that bankruptcy is a severe remedy to apply to banks. It may be answered that it is not more severe here than in England, where it applies to all banks of issue, except the Bank of England, and a few others; and it is not more severe to them than it is to merchants and traders, and to bankers and brokers, and all unincorporated banks. Personally, I was disposed to make large allowances for the conduct of the banks. Our own improvidence tempted them into an expansion of near forty millions, in 1835 and 1836, by giving them the national domain to bank upon; a temptation which they had not the fortitude to resist, and which expanded them to near the bursting point. Then they were driven almost to a choice of bankruptcy between themselves and their debtors, by the act which required near forty millions to be distributed in masses, and at brief intervals, among the States. Some failures were inevitable under these circumstances, and I was disposed to make liberal allowances for them; but there are three things for which the banks have no excuse, and which should forever weigh against their claims to favor and confidence. These things are, first, the political aspect which the general suspension of payment was permitted to assume, and which it still wears; secondly, the issue and use of shinplasters, and refusal to pay silver change, when there are eighty millions of specie in the country; thirdly, the refusal, by the deposit banks to pay out the sums which had been severed from the Treasury, and stood in the names of disbursing officers, and was actually due to those who were performing work and labor, and rendering daily services to the government. For these three things there is no excuse; and, while memory retains their recollection, there can be no confidence in those who have done them.

CHAPTER XV.

DIVORCE OF BANK AND STATE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH

The bill is to divorce the government from the banks, or rather is to declare the divorce, for the separation has already taken place by the operation of law and by the delinquency of the banks. The bill is to declare the divorce; the amendment is to exclude their notes from revenue payments, not all at once, but gradually, and to be accomplished by the 1st day of January, 1841. Until then the notes of specie-paying banks may be received, diminishing one-fourth annually; and after that day, all payments to and from the federal government are to be made in hard money. Until that day, payments from the United States will be governed by existing laws. The amendment does not affect the Post Office department until January, 1841; until then, the fiscal operations of that Department remain under the present laws; after that day they fall under the principle of the bill, and all payments to and from that department will be made in hard money. The effect of the whole amendment will be to restore the currency of the constitution to the federal government – to re-establish the great acts of 1789 and of 1800 – declaring that the revenues should be collected in gold and silver coin only; those early statutes which were enacted by the hard money men who made the constitution, who had seen and felt the evils of that paper money, and intended to guard against these evils in future by creating, not a paper, but a hard-money government.

I am for this restoration. I am for restoring to the federal treasury the currency of the constitution. I am for carrying back this government to the solidity projected by its founders. This is a great object in itself – a reform of the first magnitude – a reformation with healing on its wings, bringing safety to the government and blessings to the people. The currency is a thing which reaches every individual, and every institution. From the government to the washer-woman, all are reached by it, and all concerned in it; and, what seems parodoxical, all are concerned to the same degree; for all are concerned to the whole extent of their property and dealings; and all is all, whether it be much or little. The government with its many ten millions of revenue, suffers no more in proportion than the humble and meritorious laborer who works from sun to sun for the shillings which give food and raiment to his family. The federal government has deteriorated the currency, and carried mischief to the whole community, and lost its own revenues, and subjected itself to be trampled upon by corporations, by departing from the constitution, and converting this government from a hard-money to a paper money government. The object of the amendment and the bill is to reform these abuses, and it is a reform worthy to be called a reformation – worthy to engage the labor of patriots – worthy to unite the exertions of different parties – worthy to fix the attention of the age – worthy to excite the hopes of the people, and to invoke upon its success the blessings of heaven.

Great are the evils, – political, pecuniary, and moral, – which have flowed from this departure from our constitution. Through the federal government alone – through it, not by it – two millions and a half of money have been lost in the last four months. Thirty-two millions of public money was the amount in the deposit banks when they stopped payment; of this sum twenty-five millions have been paid over to government creditors, or transferred to the States. But how paid, and how transferred? In what? In real money, or its equivalent? Not at all! But in the notes of suspended banks – in notes depreciated, on an average, ten per cent. Here then were two and a half millions lost. Who bore the loss? The public creditors and the States. Who gained it? for where there is a loss to one, there must be a gain to another. Who gained the two and a half millions, thus sunk upon the hands of the creditors and the States? The banks were the gainers; they gained it; the public creditors and the States lost it; and to the creditors it was a forced loss. It is in vain to say that they consented to take it. They had no alternative. It was that or nothing. The banks forced it upon the government; the government forced it upon the creditor. Consent was out of the question. Power ruled, and that power was in the banks; and they gained the two and a half millions which the States and the public creditors lost.

I do not pretend to estimate the moneyed losses, direct and indirect, to the government alone, from the use of local bank notes in the last twenty-five years, including the war, and covering three general suspensions. Leaving the people out of view, as a field of losses beyond calculation, I confine myself to the federal government, and say, its losses have been enormous, prodigious, and incalculable. We have had three general stoppages of the local banks in the short space of twenty-two years. It is at the average rate of one in seven years; and who is to guaranty us from another, and from the consequent losses, if we continue to receive their bills in payment of public dues? Another stoppage must come, and that, reasoning from all analogies, in less than seven years after the resumption. Many must perish in the attempt to resume, and would do better to wind up at once, without attempting to go on, without adequate means, and against appalling obstacles. Another revulsion must come. Thus it was after the last resumption. The banks recommenced payments in 1817 – in two years, the failures were more disastrous than ever. Thus it was in England after the long suspension of twenty-six years. Payments recommenced in 1823 – in 1825 the most desolating crash of banks took place which had ever been known in the kingdom, although the Bank of England had imported, in less than four years, twenty millions sterling in gold, – about one hundred millions of dollars, to recommence upon. Its effects reached this country, crushed the cotton houses in New Orleans, depressed the money market, and injured all business.

The senators from New York and Virginia (Messrs. Tallmadge and Rives) push this point of confidence a little further; they address a question to me, and ask if I would lose confidence in all steamboats, and have them all discarded, if one or two blew up in the Mississippi? I answer the question in all frankness, and say, that I should not. But if, instead of one or two in the Mississippi, all the steamboats in the Union should blow up at once – in every creek, river and bay – while all the passengers were sleeping in confidence, and the pilots crying out all is well; if the whole should blow up from one end of the Union to the other just as fast as they could hear each other's explosions; then, indeed, I should lose confidence in them, and never again trust wife, or child, or my own foot, or any thing not intended for destruction, on board such sympathetic and contagious engines of death. I answer further, and tell the gentlemen, that if only one or two banks had stopped last May in New York, I should not have lost all confidence in the remaining nine hundred and ninety-nine; but when the whole thousand stopped at once; tumbled down together – fell in a lump – lie there – and when ONE of their number, by a sign with the little finger, can make the whole lie still, then, indeed, confidence is gone! And this is the case with the banks. They have not only stopped altogether, but in a season of profound peace, with eighty millions of specie in the country, and just after the annual examinations by commissioners and legislative committees, and when all was reported well. With eighty millions in the country, they stop even for change! It did not take a national calamity – a war – to stop them! They fell in time of peace and prosperity! We read of people in the West Indies, and in South America, who rebuild their cities on the same spot where earthquakes had overthrown them; we are astonished at their fatuity; we wonder that they will build again on the same perilous foundations. But these people have a reason for their conduct; it is, that their cities are only destroyed by earthquakes; it takes an earthquake to destroy them; and when there is no earthquake, they are safe. But suppose their cities fell down without any commotion in the earth, or the air – fell in a season of perfect calm and serenity – and after that the survivors should go to building again in the same place; would not all the world say that they were demented, and were doomed to destruction? So of the government of the United States by these banks. If it continues to use them, and to receive their notes for revenue, after what has happened, and in the face of what now exists, it argues fatuity, and a doom to destruction.

Resume when they will, or when they shall, and the longer it is delayed the worse for themselves, the epoch of resumption is to be a perilous crisis to many. This stopping and resuming by banks, is the realization of the poetical description of the descent into hell, and the return from it. Facilis descensus Averni – sed revocare gradum – hic opus, hic labor est. Easy is the descent into the regions below, but to return! this is work, this is labor indeed! Our banks have made the descent; they have gone down with ease; but to return – to ascend the rugged steps, and behold again the light above how many will falter, and fall back into the gloomy regions below.

Banks of circulation are banks of hazard and of failure. It is an incident of their nature. Those without circulation rarely fail. That of Venice has stood seven hundred years; those of Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and others, have stood for centuries. The Bank of England, the great mother of banks of circulation, besides an actual stoppage of a quarter of a century, has had her crisis and convulsion in average periods of seven or eight years, for the last half century – in 1783, '93, '97, 1814, '19, '25, '36 – and has only been saved from repeated failure by the powerful support of the British government, and profuse supplies of exchequer bills. Her numerous progeny of private and joint stock banks of circulation have had the same convulsions; and not being supported by the government, have sunk by hundreds at a time. All the banks of the United States are banks of circulation; they are all subject to the inherent dangers of that class of banks, and are, besides, subject to new dangers peculiar to themselves. From the quantity of their stock held by foreigners, the quantity of other stocks in their hands, and the current foreign balance against the United States, our paper system has become an appendage to that of England. As such, it suffers from sympathy when the English system suffers. In addition to this, a new doctrine is now broached – that our first duty is to foreigners! and, upon this principle, when the banks of the two countries are in peril, ours are to be sacrificed to save those of England!

The power of a few banks over the whole presents a new feature of danger in our system. It consolidates the banks of the whole Union into one mass, and subjects them to one fate, and that fate to be decided by a few, without even the knowledge of the rest. An unknown divan of bankers sends forth an edict which sweeps over the empire, crosses the lines of States with the facility of a Turkish firman, prostrating all State institutions, breaking up all engagements, and levelling all law before it. This is consolidation of a kind which the genius of Patrick Henry had not even conceived. But while this firman is thus potent and irresistible for prostration, it is impotent and powerless for resurrection. It goes out in vain, bidding the prostrate banks to rise. A veto power intervenes. One voice is sufficient to keep all down; and thus we have seen one word from Philadelphia annihilate the New York proposition for resumption, and condemn the many solvent banks to the continuation of a condition as mortifying to their feelings as it is injurious to their future interests.

Again, from the mode of doing business among our banks – using each other's paper to bank upon, instead of holding each other to weekly settlements, and liquidation of balances in specie, and from the fatal practice of issuing notes at one place, payable at another – our banks have all become links of one chain, the strength of the whole being dependent on the strength of each. A few govern all. Whether it is to fail, or to resume, the few govern; and not only the few, but the weak. A few weak banks fail; a panic ensues, and the rest shut up; many strong ones are ready to resume; the weak are not ready, and the strong must wait. Thus the principles of safety, and the rules of government, are reversed. The weak govern the strong; the bad govern the good; and the insolvent govern the solvent. This is our system, if system it can be called, which has no feature of consistency, no principle of safety, and which is nothing but the floating appendage of a foreign and overpowering system.

The federal government and its creditors have suffered great pecuniary losses from the use of these banks and their paper; they must continue to sustain such losses if they continue to use such depositories and to receive such paper. The pecuniary losses have been, now are, and must be hereafter great; but, great as they have been, now are, and may be hereafter, all that loss is nothing compared to the political dangers which flow from the same source. These dangers affect the life of the government. They go to its existence. They involve anarchy, confusion, violence, dissolution! They go to deprive the government of support – of the means of living; they strip it in an instant of every shilling of revenue, and leave it penniless, helpless, lifeless. The late stoppage might have broken up the government, had it not been for the fidelity and affection of the people to their institutions and the eighty millions of specie which General Jackson had accumulated in the country. That stoppage presented a peculiar feature of peril which has not been brought to the notice of the public; it was the stoppage of the sums standing in the names of disbursing officers, and wanted for daily payments in all the branches of the public service. – These sums amounted to about five millions of dollars. They had been drawn from the Treasury, they were no longer standing to the credit of the United States; they had gone into the hands of innumerable officers and agents, in all parts of the Union, and were temporarily, and for mere safe-keeping from day to day, lodged with these deposit banks, to be incessantly paid out to those who were doing work and labor, performing contracts, or rendering service, civil or military, to the country. These five millions were stopped with the rest! In an instant, as if by enchantment, every disbursing officer, in every part of the Union, was stripped of the money which he was going to pay out! All officers of the government, high and low, the whole army and navy, all the laborers and contractors, post offices and all, were suddenly, instantaneously, left without pay; and consequently without subsistence. It was tantamount to a disbandment of the entire government. It was like a decree for the dissolution of the body politic. It was celebrated as a victory – as a conquest – as a triumph, over the government. The least that was expected was an immediate civil revolution – the overthrow of the democratic party, the change of administration, the reascension of the federal party to power, and the re-establishment of the condemned Bank of the United States. These consequences were counted upon; and that they did not happen was solely owing to the eighty millions of hard money which kept up a standard of value in the country, and prevented the dishonored bank notes from sinking too low to be used by the community. But it is not merely stoppage of the banks that we have to fear: collisions with the States may ensue. State legislatures may sanction the stoppage, withhold the poor right of suing, and thus interpose their authority between the federal government and its revenues. This has already happened, not in hostility to the government, but in protection of themselves; and the consequence was the same as if the intention had been hostile. It was interposition between the federal government and its depositories; it was deprivation of revenue; it was an act the recurrence of which should be carefully guarded against in future.

This is what we have seen; this is a danger which we have just escaped; and if these banks shall be continued as depositories of public money, or, which is just the same thing, if the government shall continue to receive their "paper promises to pay," the same danger may be seen again, and under far more critical circumstances. A similar stoppage of the banks may take place again – will inevitably take place again – and it may be when there is little specie in the country, or when war prevails. All history is full of examples of armies and navies revolting for want of pay; all history is full of examples of military and naval operations miscarried for want of money; all history is full of instances of governments overturned from deficits of revenue and derangements of finances. And are we to expose ourselves recklessly, and with our eyes open, to such dangers? And are we to stake the life and death of this government upon the hazards and contingencies of banking – and of such banking as exists in these United States? Are we to subject the existence of this government to the stoppages of the banks, whether those stoppages result from misfortune, improvidence, or bad faith? Are we to subject this great and glorious political fabric, the work of so many wise and patriotic heads, to be demolished in an instant, and by an unseen hand? Are we to suffer the machinery and the working of our boasted constitution to be arrested by a spring-catch, applied in the dark? Are men, with pens sticking behind their ears, to be allowed to put an end to this republic? No, sir! never. If we are to perish prematurely, let us at least have a death worthy of a great nation; let us at least have a field covered with the bodies of heroes and of patriots, and consecrated forever to the memory of a subverted empire. Rome had her Pharsalia – Greece her Chæronca – and many barbarian kingdoms have given immortality to the spot on which they expired; and shall this great republic be subjected to extinction on the contingencies of trade and banking?

But what excuse, what apology, what justification have we for surrendering, abandoning, and losing the precise advantage for which the present constitution was formed? What was that advantage – what the leading and governing object, which led to the abandonment of the old confederation, and induced the adoption of the present form of government? It was revenue! independent revenue! a revenue under the absolute control of this government, and free from the action of the States. This was the motive – the leading and the governing motive – which led to the formation of this government. The reason was, that the old confederation, being dependent upon the States, was often left without money. This state of being was incompatible with its existence; it deprived it of all power; its imbecility was a proverb. To extricate it from that condition was the design – and the cardinal design – of the new constitution. An independent revenue was given to it – independent, even, of the States. Is it not suicidal to surrender that independence, and to surrender it, not to States, but to money corporations? What does history record of the penury and moneyed destitution of the old confederation, comparable to the annihilation of the revenues of this government in May last? when the banks shut down, in one night, upon a revenue, in hand, of thirty-two millions; even upon that which was in the names of disbursing officers, and refuse a nine-pence, or a picaillon in money, from that day to this? What is there in the history of the old confederation comparable to this? The old confederation was often reduced low – often near empty-handed – but never saw itself stripped in an instant, as if by enchantment, of tens of millions, and heard the shout of triumph thundered over its head, and the notes of exultation sung over its supposed destruction! Yet, this is what we have seen – what we now see – from having surrendered to corporations our moneyed independence, and unwisely abandoned the precise advantage which led to the formation of this federal government.

I do not go into the moral view of this question. It is too obvious, too impressive, too grave, to escape the observation of any one. Demoralization follows in the train of an unconvertible paper money. The whole community becomes exposed to a moral pestilence. Every individual becomes the victim of some imposition; and, in self-defence, imposes upon some one else. The weak, the ignorant, the uninformed, the necessitous, are the sufferers; the crafty and the opulent are the gainers. The evil augments until the moral sense of the community, revolting at the frightful accumulation of fraud and misery, applies the radical remedy of total reform.

Thus, pecuniary, political, and moral considerations require the government to retrace its steps, to return to first principles, and to restore its fiscal action to the safe and solid path of the constitution. Reform is demanded. It is called for by every public and by every private consideration. Now is the time to make it. The connection between Bank and State is actually dissolved. It is dissolved by operation of law, and by the delinquency of these institutions. They have forfeited the right to the deposits, and lost the privilege of paying the revenue in their notes, by ceasing to pay specie. The government is now going on without them, and all that is wanting is the appropriate legislation to perpetuate the divorce which, in point of fact, has already taken place. Now is the time to act; this the moment to restore the constitutional currency to the federal government; to restore the custody of the public moneys to national keepers; and to avoid, in time to come, the calamitous revulsions and perilous catastrophes of 1814, 1819, and 1837.

And what is the obstacle to the adoption of this course, so imperiously demanded by the safety of the republic and the welfare of the people, and so earnestly recommended to us by the chief magistrate? What is the obstacle – what the power that countervails the Executive recommendation, paralyzes the action of Congress, and stays the march of reform? The banks – the banks – the banks, are this obstacle, and this power. They set up the pretension to force their paper into the federal Treasury, and to force themselves to be constituted that Treasury. Though now bankrupt, their paper dishonored, their doors closed against creditors, every public and every private obligation violated, still they arrogate a supremacy over this federal government; they demand the guardianship of the public moneys, and the privilege of furnishing a federal currency; and, though too weak to pay their debts, they are strong enough to throttle this government, and to hold in doubtful suspense the issue of their vast pretensions.

The President, in his message, recommends four things: first, to discontinue the reception of local bank paper in payment of federal dues; secondly, to discontinue the same banks as depositories of the public moneys; thirdly, to make the future collection and disbursement of the public moneys in gold and silver; fourthly, to take the keeping of the public moneys into the hands of our own officers.

What is there in this but a return to the words and meaning of the constitution, and a conformity to the practice of the government in the first years of President Washington's administration? When this federal government was first formed, there was no Bank of the United States, and no local banks, except three north of the Potomac. By the act of 1789, the revenues were directed to be collected in gold and silver coin only; and it was usually drawn out of the hands of collectors by drafts drawn upon them, payable at sight. It was a most effectual way of drawing money out of their hands; far more so than an order to deposit in banks; for the drafts must be paid, or protested, at sight, while the order to deposit may be eluded under various pretexts.

The right and the obligation of the government to keep its own moneys in its own hands, results from first principles, and from the great law of self-preservation. Every thing else that belongs to her, she keeps herself; and why not keep that also, without which every thing else is nothing? Arms and ships – provisions, munitions, and supplies of every kind – are kept in the hands of government officers; money is the sinew of war, and why leave this sinew exposed to be cut by any careless or faithless hand? Money is the support and existence of the government – the breath of its nostrils, and why leave this support – this breath – to the custody of those over whom we have no control? How absurd to place our ships, our arms, our military and naval supplies in the hands of those who could refuse to deliver them when requested, and put the government to a suit at law to recover their possession! Every body sees the absurdity of this; but to place our money in the same condition, and, moreover, to subject it to the vicissitudes of trade and the perils of banking, is still more absurd; for it is the life blood, without which the government cannot live – the oil, without which no part of its machinery can move.

England, with all her banks, trusts none of them with the collection, keeping, and disbursement of her public moneys. The Bank of England is paid a specific sum to manage the public debt; but the revenue is collected and disbursed through subordinate collectors and receivers general; and these receivers general are not subject to the bankrupt laws, because the government will not suffer its revenue to be operated upon by any law except its own will. In France, subordinate collectors and receivers general collect, keep, and disburse the public moneys. If they deposit any thing in banks, it is at their own risk. It is the same thing in England. A bank deposit by an officer is at the risk of himself and his securities. Too much of the perils and vicissitudes of banking is known in these countries to permit the government ever to jeopard its revenues in their keeping. All this is shown, fully and at large, in a public document now on our tables. And who does not recognize in these collectors and receivers general of France and England, the ancient Roman officers of quæstors and proquæstors? These fiscal officers of France and England are derivations from the Roman institutions; and the same are found in all the modern kingdoms of Europe which were formerly, like France and Britain, provinces of the Roman empire. The measure before the Senate is to enable us to provide for our future safety, by complying with our own constitution, and conforming to the practice of all nations, great or small, ancient or modern.

Coming nearer home, and looking into our own early history, what were the "continental treasurers" of the confederation, and the "provincial treasurers and collectors," provided for as early as July, 1775, but an imitation of the French and English systems, and very near the plan which we propose now to re-establish! These continental treasurers, and there were two of them at first, though afterwards reduced to one, were the receivers general; the provincial treasurers and collectors were their subordinates. By these officers the public moneys were collected, kept, and disbursed; for there were no banks then! and all government drafts were drawn directly upon these officers. This simple plan worked well during the Revolution, and afterwards, until the new government was formed; and continued to work, with a mere change of names and forms, during the first years of Washington's administration, and until General Hamilton's bank machinery got into play. This bill only proposes to re-establish, in substance, the system of the Revolution, of the Congress of the confederation, and of the first years of Washington's administration.

The bill reported by the chairman of the Committee on Finance [Mr. Wright of New York] presents the details of the plan for accomplishing this great result. That bill has been printed and read. Its simplicity, economy, and efficiency strike the sense of all who hear it, and annihilate without argument, the most formidable arguments of expense and patronage, which had been conceived against it. The present officers, the present mints, and one or two more mints in the South, in the West, and in the North, complete the plan. There will be no necessity to carry masses of hard money from one quarter of the Union to another. Government drafts will make the transfer without moving a dollar. A government draft upon a national mint, will be the highest order of bills of exchange. Money wanted by the government in one place, will be exchanged, through merchants, for money in another place. Thus it has been for thousands of years, and will for ever be. We read in Cicero's letters that, when he was Governor of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, he directed his quæstor to deposit the tribute of the province in Antioch, and exchange it for money in Rome with merchants engaged in the Oriental trade, of which Antioch was one of the emporiums. This is the natural course of things, and is too obvious to require explanation, or to admit of comment.

We are taunted with these treasury notes; it seems to be matter of triumph that the government is reduced to the necessity of issuing them; but with what justice? And how soon can any government that wishes it, emerge from the wretchedness of depreciated paper, and stand erect on the solid foundations of gold and silver? How long will it take any respectable government, that so wills it, to accomplish this great change? Our own history, at the close of the Revolution, answers the question; and more recently, and more strikingly, the history of France answers it also. I speak of the French finances from 1800 to 1807; from the commencement of the consulate to the peace of Tilsit. This wonderful period is replete with instruction on the subject of finance and currency. The whole period is full of instruction; but I can only seize two views – the beginning and the end – and, for the sake of precision, will read what I propose to present. I read from Bignon, author of the civil and diplomatic history of France during the consulate and the first years of the empire; written at the testamentary request of the Emperor himself.

After stating that the expenditures of the republic were six hundred millions of francs – about one hundred and ten millions of dollars – when Bonaparte became First Consul, the historian proceeds:

"At his arrival at power, a sum of 160,000 francs in money [about $32,000] was all that the public chests contained. In the impossibility of meeting the current service by the ordinary receipts, the Directorial Government had resorted to ruinous expedients, and had thrown into circulation bills of various values, and which sunk upon the spot fifty to eighty per cent. A part of the arrearages had been discharged in bills two-thirds on credit, payable to the bearer, but which, in fact, the treasury was not able to pay when due. The remaining third had been inscribed in the great book, under the name of consolidated third. For the payment of the forced requisitions to which they had been obliged to have recourse, there had been issued bills receivable in payment of the revenues. Finally, the government, in order to satisfy the most imperious wants, gave orders upon the receivers general, delivered in advance to contractors, which they negotiated before they began to furnish the supplies for which they were the payment."

This, resumed Mr. B., was the condition of the French finances when Bonaparte became First Consul at the close of the year 1799. The currency was in the same condition – no specie – a degraded currency of assignats, ruinously depreciated, and issued as low as ten sous. That great man immediately began to restore order to the finances, and solidity to the currency. Happily a peace of three years enabled him to complete the great work, before he was called to celebrate the immortal campaigns ending at Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland. At the end of three years – before the rupture of the peace of Amiens – the finances and the currency were restored to order and to solidity; and, at the end of six years, when the vast establishments, and the internal ameliorations of the imperial government, had carried the annual expenses to eight hundred millions of francs, about one hundred and sixty millions of dollars; the same historian copying the words of the Minister of Finance, thus speaks of the treasury, and the currency:

"The resources of the State have increased beyond its wants; the public chests are full; all payments are made at the day named; the orders upon the public treasury have become the most approved bills of exchange. The finances are in the most happy condition; France alone, among all the States of Europe, has no paper money."

What a picture! how simply, how powerfully drawn! and what a change in six years! Public chests full – payments made to the day – orders on the treasury the best bills of exchange – France alone, of all Europe, having no paper money; meaning no government paper money, for there were bank notes of five hundred francs, and one thousand francs. A government revenue of one hundred and sixty millions of dollars was paid in gold and silver; a hard money currency, of five hundred and fifty millions of dollars, saturated all parts of France with specie, and made gold and silver the every day currency of every man, woman and child, in the empire. These great results were the work of six years, and were accomplished by the simple process of gradually requiring hard money payments – gradually calling in the assignats – increasing the branch mints to fourteen, and limiting the Bank of France to an issue of large notes – five hundred francs and upwards. This simple process produced these results, and thus stands the French currency at this day; for the nation has had the wisdom to leave untouched the financial system of Bonaparte.

I have repeatedly given it as my opinion – many of my speeches declare it – that the French currency is the best in the world. It has hard money for the government; hard money for the common dealings of the people; and large notes for large transactions. This currency has enabled France to stand two invasions, the ravaging of 300,000 men, two changes of dynasty, and the payment of a milliard of contributions; and all without any commotion or revulsion in trade. It has saved her from the revulsions which have afflicted England and our America for so many years. It has saved her from expansions, contractions, and ruinous fluctuations of price. It has saved her, for near forty years, from a debate on currency. It has saved her even from the knowledge of our sweet-scented phrases: "sound currency – unsound currency; plethoric, dropsical, inflated, bloated; the money market tight to-day – a little easier this morning;" and all such verbiage, which the haberdashers' boys repeat. It has saved France from even a discussion on currency; while in England, and with us, it is banks! banks! banks! – morning, noon, and night; breakfast, dinner, and supper; levant, and couchant; sitting, or standing; at home, or abroad; steamboat, or railroad car; in Congress, or out of Congress, it is all the same thing: banks – banks – banks; currency – currency – currency; meaning, all the while, paper money and shin-plasters; until our very brains seem as if they would be converted into lampblack and rags.

The bill before the Senate dispenses with the further use of banks as depositories of the public moneys. In that it has my hearty concurrence. Four times heretofore, and on four different occasions, I have made propositions to accomplish a part of the same purpose. First, in proposing an amendment to the deposit bill of 1836, by which the mint, and the branch mints, were to be included in the list of depositories; secondly, in proposing that the public moneys here, at the seat of Government, should be kept and paid out by the Treasurer; thirdly, by proposing that a preference, in receiving the deposits, should be given to such banks as should cease to be banks of circulation; fourthly, in opposing the establishment of a bank agency in Missouri, and proposing that the moneys there should be drawn direct from the hands of the receivers. Three of these propositions are now included in the bill before the Senate; and the whole object at which they partially aimed is fully embraced. I am for the measure – fully, cordially, earnestly for it.

Congress has a sacred duty to perform in reforming the finances, and the currency; for the ruin of both has resulted from federal legislation, and federal administration. The States at the formation of the constitution, delivered a solid currency – I will not say sound, for that word implies subject to unsoundness, to rottenness, and to death – but they delivered a solid currency, one not liable to disease, to this federal government. They started the new government fair upon gold and silver. The first act of Congress attested this great fact; for it made the revenues payable in gold and silver coin only. Thus the States delivered a solid currency to this government, and they reserved the same currency for themselves; and they provided constitutional sanctions to guard both. The thing to be saved, and the power to save it, was given to this government by the States; and in the hands of this government it became deteriorated. The first great error was General Hamilton's construction of the act of 1789, by which he nullified that act, and overturned the statute and the constitution together. The next great error was the establishment of a national bank of circulation, with authority to pay all the public dues in its own paper. This confirmed the overthrow of the constitution, and of the statute of 1789; and it set the fatal example to the States to make banks, and to receive their paper for public dues, as the United States had done. This was the origin of the evil – this the origin of the overthrow of the solid currency which the States had delivered to the federal government. It was the Hamiltonian policy that did the mischief; and the state of things in 1837, is the natural fruit of that policy. It is time for us to quit it – to return to the constitution and the statute of 1789, and to confine the federal Treasury to the hard money which was intended for it.

I repeat, this is a measure of reform, worthy to be called a reformation. It goes back to a fundamental abuse, nearly coeval with the foundation of the government. Two epochs have occurred for the reformation of this abuse; one was lost, the other is now in jeopardy. Mr. Madison's administration committed a great error at the expiration of the charter of the first Bank of the United States, in not reviving the currency of the constitution for the federal Treasury, and especially the gold currency. That error threw the Treasury back upon the local bank paper. This paper quickly failed, and out of that failure grew the second United States Bank. Those who put down the second United States Bank, warned by the calamity, determined to avoid the error of Mr. Madison's administration: they determined to increase the stock of specie, and to revive the gold circulation, which had been dead for thirty years. The accumulation of eighty millions in the brief space of five years, fifteen millions of it in gold, attest the sincerity of their design, and the facility of its execution. The country was going on at the rate of an average increase of twelve millions of specie per annum, when the general stoppages of the banks in May last, the exportation of specie, and the imposition of irredeemable paper upon the government and the people, seemed to announce the total failure of the plan. But it was a seeming only. The impetus given to the specie policy still prevails, and five millions are added to the stock during the present fiscal year. So far, then, as the counteraction of the government policy, and the suppression of the constitutional currency, might have been expected to result from that stoppage, the calculation seems to be in a fair way to be disappointed. The spirit of the people, and our hundred millions of exportable produce, are giving the victory to the glorious policy of our late illustrious President. The other great consequences expected to result from that stoppage, namely, the recharter of the Bank of the United States, the change of administration, the overthrow of the republican party, and the restoration of the federal dynasty, all seem to be in the same fair way to total miscarriage; but the objects are too dazzling to be abandoned by the party interested, and the destruction of the finances and the currency, is still the cherished road to success. The miscalled Bank of the United States, the soul of the federal dynasty, and the anchor of its hopes – believed by many to have been at the bottom of the stoppages in May, and known by all to be at the head of non-resumption – now displays her policy on this floor; it is to compel the repetition of the error of Mr. Madison's administration! Knowing that from the repetition of this error must come the repetition of the catastrophes of 1814, 1819, and 1837; and out of these catastrophes to extract a new clamor for the revivification of herself. This is her line of conduct; and to this line, the conduct of all her friends conforms. With one heart, one mind, one voice, they labor to cut off gold and silver from the federal government, and to impose paper upon it! they labor to deprive it of the keeping of its own revenues, and to place them again where they have been so often lost! This is the conduct of that bank and its friends. Let us imitate their zeal, their unanimity, and their perseverance. The amendment and the bill now before the Senate, embodies our policy. Let us carry them, and the republic is safe.

The extra session had been called to relieve the distress of the federal treasury, and had done so by authorizing an issue of treasury notes. That object being accomplished, and the great measures for the divorce of Bank and State, and for the sole use of gold and silver in federal payments, having been recommended, and commenced, the session adjourned.