Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

Mr. B. said that certainly no more proof was necessary, on this head, to show that the designs of the bank were political and revolutionary, intended to put down General Jackson's administration, and to connect itself with the Senate; but he had more proof, that of a publication under the editorial head of the National Gazette, and which publication he assumed to say, was written by the president of the bank. It was a long article of four columns; but he would only read a paragraph. He read: "The great contest now waging in this country is between its free institutions and the violence of a vulgar despotism. The government is turned into a baneful faction, and the spirit of liberty contends against it throughout the country. On the one hand is this miserable cabal, with all the patronage of the Executive; on the other hand, the yet unbroken mind and heart of the country, with the Senate and the bank; – [in reading these words, in which the bank associated itself with the Senate, Mr. B. repeated the famous expression of Cardinal Wolsey, in associating himself with the king: 'Ego et rex meus;'] – the House of Representatives, hitherto the intuitive champion of freedom, shaken by the intrigues of the kitchen, hesitates for a time, but cannot fail before long to break its own fetters first, and then those of the country. In that quarrel, we predict, they who administer the bank will shrink from no proper share which the country may assign to them. Personally, they must be as indifferent as any of their fellow-citizens to the recharter of the bank. But they will not suffer themselves, nor the institution intrusted to them, to be the instruments of private wrong and public outrage; nor will they omit any effort to rescue the institutions of the country from being trodden under foot by a faction of interlopers. To these profligate adventurers, whether their power is displayed in the executive or legislative department, the directors of the bank will, we are satisfied, never yield the thousandth part of an inch of their own personal rights, or their own official duties; and will continue this resistance until the country, roused to a proper sense of its dangers and its wrongs, shall drive the usurpers out of the high places they dishonor." This letter, said Mr. B., discloses, in terms which admit of no explanation or denial, the design of the bank in creating the pressure which was got up and continued during the panic session. It was to rouse the people, by dint of suffering, against the President and the House of Representatives, and to overturn them both at the ensuing elections. To do this, now stands revealed as its avowed object. The Senate and the bank were to stand together against the President and the House; and each to act its part for the same common object: the bank to scourge the people for money, and charge its own scourging upon the President; the Senate to condemn him for a violation of the laws and constitution, and to brand him as the Cæsar, Cromwell, Bonaparte – the tyrant, despot, usurper, whose head would be cut off in any kingdom of Europe for such acts as he practised here. Mr. B. said, the contemplation of the conduct of the bank, during the panic session, was revolting and incredible. It combined every thing to revolt and shock the moral sense. Oppression, falsehood, calumny, revolution, the ruin of individuals, the fabrication of false pretences, the machinations for overturning the government, the imputation of its own crimes upon the head of the President; the enriching its favorites with the spoils of the country, insolence to the House of Representatives, and its affected guardianship of the liberties of the people and the free institutions of the country; such were the prominent features of its conduct. The parallel of its enormity was not to be found on this side of Asia; an example of such remorseless atrocity was only to be seen in the conduct of the Paul Benfields and the Debi Sings who ravaged India under the name of the Marquis of Hastings. Even what had been casually and imperfectly brought to light, disclosed a system of calculated enormity which required the genius of Burke to paint. What was behind would require labors of a committee, constituted upon parliamentary principles, not to plaster, but to probe the wounds and ulcers of the bank; and such a committee he should hope to see, not now, but hereafter, not in the vacation but in the session of Congress. For he had no idea of these peripatetic and recess committees, of which the panic session had been so prolific. He wanted a committee, unquestionable in the legality of its own appointment, duly qualified in a parliamentary sense for discovering the misconduct they are set to investigate; and sitting under the wing of the authority which can punish the insolent, compel the refractory, and enforce the obedience which is due to its mandates.

6. The distress of the country occasioned by the Bank of the United States and the Senate of the United States. – This, Mr. B. said, might be an unpleasant topic to discuss in the Senate; but this Senate, for four months of the last session, and during the whole debate on the resolution to condemn the President, had resounded with the cry that the President had created all the distress; and the huge and motley mass, throughout the Union, which marched under the oriflamme of the bank, had every where repeated and reiterated the same cry. If there was any thing unpleasant, then, in the discussion of this topic in this place, the blame must be laid on those who, by using that argument in support of their resolution against the President, devolved upon the defenders of the President the necessity of refuting it. Mr. B. would have recourse to facts to establish his position. The first fact he would recur to was the history of a reduction of deposits, made once before in this same bank, so nearly identical in every particular with the reduction which took place under the order for the late removal of deposits, that it would require exact references to documentary evidence to put its credibility beyond the incredulity of the senses. Not only the amount from which the reduction was made, its progress, and ultimate depression, corresponded so closely as each to seem to be the history of the same transaction, but they began in the same month, descended in the same ratio, except in the instances which operate to the disadvantage of the late reduction, and, at the end of fifteen months, had reached the same point. Mr. B. spoke of the reduction of deposits which took place in the years 1818 and 1819; and would exhibit a table to compare it with the reductions under the late order for the removal of the deposits.

Here, said Mr. B., is a similar and parallel redaction of deposits in this same bank, and that at a period of real pecuniary distress to itself; a period when great frauds were discovered in its management; when a committee examined it, and reported it guilty of violating its charter; when its stock fell in a few weeks from one hundred and eighty to ninety; when propositions to repeal its charter, without the formality of a scire facias, were discussed in Congress; when nearly all presses, and nearly all voices, condemned it; and when a real necessity compelled it to reduce its discounts and loans with more rapidity, and to a far greater comparative extent, than that which has attended the late reduction. Yet, what was the state of the country? Distressed, to be sure, but no panic; no convulsion in the community; no cry of revolution. And why this difference? If mere reduction of deposits was to be attended with these effects at one time, why not at the other? Sir, said Mr. B., addressing the Vice-President, the reason is plain and obvious. The bank was unconnected with politics, in 1819; it had no desire, at that time, to govern the elections, and to overturn an administration; it had no political confederates; it had no president of the bank then to make war upon the President of the United States, and to stimulate and aid a great political party in crushing the President, who would not sign a new charter, and in crushing the House of Representatives which stood by him. There was no resolution then to condemn the President for a violation of the laws and the constitution. And it was this fatal resolution, which we now propose to expunge, which did the principal part of the mischief. That resolution was the root of the evil; the signal for panic meetings, panic memorials, panic deputations, panic speeches, and panic jubilees. That resolution, exhibited in the Senate chamber, was the scarlet mantle of the consul, hung out from his tent; it was the signal for battle. That resolution, and the alarm speeches which attended it, was the tocsin which started a continent from its repose. And the condemnation which followed it, and which left this chamber just in time to reach the New-York, Virginia, and Connecticut elections, completed the effect upon the public mind, and upon the politics and commerce of the country, which the measures of the bank had been co-operating for three months to produce. And here he must express his especial and eternal wonder how all these movements of bank and Senate co-operating together, if not by arrangement, at least by a most miraculous system of accidents, to endanger the political rights, and to injure the pecuniary interests of the people of the United States, could so far escape the observation of the investigating committee of the Senate, as not to draw from them the expression of one solitary opinion, the suggestion of one single idea, the application of one single remark, to the prejudice of the bank. Surely they ought to have touched these scenes with something more than a few meagre, stinted, and starved lines of faint allusion to the "new measures understood to be in contemplation;" those new measures which were so falsely, so wickedly fabricated to cover the preconcerted and premeditated plot to upset the government by stimulating the people to revolution, through the combined operations of the pecuniary pressure and political alarms.

The table itself was entitled to the gravest recollection, not only for the comparison which it suggested, but the fact of showing the actual progress and history of the removal of the deposits, and blasting the whole story of the President's hostility to the bank. From this table it is seen that the deposits, in point of fact, have never been all taken from the bank; that the removal, so far as it went, was gradual and gentle; that an average of three millions has always been there; that nearly four millions was there on the 1st day of January last; and before these facts, the fabricated story of the President's hostility to the bank, his vindictiveness, and violent determination to prostrate, destroy, and ruin the institution, must fall back upon its authors, and recoil upon the heads of the inventors and propagators of such a groundless imputation.

Mr. B. could give another fact to prove that it was the Senate and the bank, and the Senate more than the bank, which produced the distress during the last winter. It was this: that although the curtailments of the bank were much larger both before and after the session of Congress, yet there was no distress in the country, except during the session, and while the alarm speeches were in a course of delivery on this floor. Thus, the curtailment from the 1st of August to the 1st of October, was $4,066,000; from the 1st of October to the meeting of Congress in December, the curtailment was $5,641,000 – making $9,707,000 in four months, and no distress in the country. During the session of Congress (seven months) there was a curtailment of $3,428,138; and during this time the distress raged. From the rise of Congress (last of June) to the 1st of November, a period of four months, the curtailment was $5,270,771, and the word distress was not heard in the country. Why? Because there were no panic speeches. Congress had adjourned; and the bank, being left to its own resources, could only injure individuals, but could not alarm and convulse the community.

Mr. B. would finish this view of the conduct of the bank in creating a wanton pressure, by giving two instances; one was the case of the deposit bank in this city; the other was the case of a senator opposed to the bank. He said that the branch bank at this place had made a steady run upon the Metropolis Bank from the beginning to the ending of the panic session. The amount of specie which it had taken was $605,000: evidently for the purpose of blowing up the pet bank in this district; and during all that time the branch refused to receive the notes, or branch drafts, of any other branch, or the notes of the mother bank; or checks upon any city north of Baltimore. On the pet bank in Baltimore it would take checks, because the design was to blow up that also. Here, said Mr. B., was a clear and flagrant case of pressure for specie for the mere purpose of mischief, and of adding the Metropolis Bank to the list of those who stopped payment at that time. And here Mr. B. felt himself bound to pay his respects to the Committee on Finance, that went to examine the bank last summer. That committee, at pages 16 and 22, of their report, brought forward an unfounded charge against the administration for making runs upon the branches of the United States Bank, to break them; while it had been silent with respect to a well-founded instance of the same nature from the Bank of the United States towards the deposit bank in this district. Their language is: "The administrative department of the government had manifested a spirit of decided hostility to the bank. It had no reason to expect any indulgence or clemency at its hands; and in this opinion, if entertained by the directors, about which there can be but little question, subsequent events very soon proved they were not mistaken. The President's address to his cabinet; the tone assumed by the Secretary (Mr. Taney) in his official communication to Congress, and the developments subsequently made by Mr. Duane in his address to the public, all confirm the correctness of this anticipation. The measure which the bank had cause to fear was the accumulation by government of large masses of notes, and the existence thereby of heavy demands against its offices" (p. 16). "In persevering in its policy of redeeming its notes whenever presented, and thereby continuing them as a universal medium of exchange, in opposition to complaints on that head from some of the branches (see copies of correspondence), the security of the institution and the good of the country were alike promoted. The accumulation of the notes of any one branch for the purpose of a run upon it by any agent of the government, when specie might be obtained at the very places of collection, in exchange for the notes of the most distant branches, would have been odious in the eyes of the public, and ascribed to no other feeling than a feeling of vindictiveness" (p. 22). Upon these extracts, Mr. B. said, it was clear that the committee had been so unfortunate as to commit a series of mistakes, and every mistake to the advantage of the bank, and to the prejudice of the government and the country. First, the government is charged, for the charge is clear, though slightly veiled, that the President of the United States in his vindictiveness against the bank, would cause the notes of the branches to be accumulated, and pressed upon them to break them. Next, the committee omit to notice the very thing actually done, in our very presence here, by the Bank of the United States against a deposit bank, which it charges without foundation upon the President. Then it credits the bank with the honor of paying its notes every where, and exchanging the notes of the most distant branches for specie, when the case of the Metropolis Bank, here in our presence, for the whole period of the panic session, proves the contrary; and when we have a printed document, positive testimony from many banks, and brokers, testifying that the branches in Baltimore and New-York, during the fall of 1833, positively refused to redeem the notes of other branches, or to accept them in exchange for the notes of the local banks, though taken in payment of revenue; and that, in consequence, the notes of distant branches fell below par, and were sold at a discount, or lent for short periods without interest, on condition of getting specie for them; and that this continued till Mr. Taney coerced the bank, by means of transfer drafts, to cause the notes of her branches to be received and honored at other branches as usual. In all this, Mr. B. said, the report of the committee was most unfortunate; and showed the necessity for a new committee to examine that institution; a committee constituted upon parliamentary principles – a majority in favor of inquiry – like that of the Post Office. The creation of such a committee, Mr. B. said, was the more necessary, as one of the main guards intended by the charter to be placed over the bank was not there during the period of the pressure and panic operations; he alluded to the government directors; the history of whose rejection, after such long delays in the Senate to act on their nomination, is known to the whole country.

The next instance of wanton pressure which Mr. B. would mention, was the case of an individual, then a member of the Senate from Pennsylvania, now minister to St. Petersburg (Mr. Wilkins). That gentleman had informed him (Mr. B.), towards the close of the last session, that the bank had caused a scire facias to be served in his house, to the alarm and distress of his wife, to revive a judgment against him, whilst he was here opposing the bank.

[Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, here rose, and wished to know of Mr. B. whether it was the Bank of the United States that had issued this scire facias against Mr. Wilkins.]

Mr. B. was very certain that it was. He recollected not only the information, but the time and the place when and where it was given; it was the last days of the last session, and at the window beyond that door (pointing to the door in the corner behind him); and he added, if there is any question to be raised, it can be settled without sending to Russia; the scire facias, if issued, will be on record in Pittsburg. Mr. B. then said, the cause of this conduct to Mr. Wilkins can be understood when it is recollected that he had denied on this floor the existence of the great distress which had been depicted at Pittsburg; and the necessity that the bank was under to push him at that time can be appreciated by seeing that two and fifty members of Congress, as reported by the Finance Committee, had received "accommodations" from the bank and its branches in the same year that a senator, and a citizen of Pennsylvania, opposed to the bank, was thus proceeded against.[10 - At pages 37 and 38 of the report, the Finance Committee fully acquits the bank of all injurious discriminations between borrowers and applicants, of different politics.]

Mr. B. returned to the resolution which it was proposed to expunge. He said it ought to go. It was the root of the evil, the father of the mischief, the source of the injury, the box of Pandora, which had filled the land with calamity and consternation for six long months. It was that resolution, far more than the conduct of the bank, which raised the panic, sunk the price of property, crushed many merchants, impressed the country with the terror of an impending revolution, and frightened so many good people out of the rational exercise of their elective franchise at the spring elections. All these evils have now passed away. The panic has subsided; the price of produce and property has recovered from its depression, and risen beyond its former bounds. The country is tranquil, prosperous, and happy. The States which had been frightened from their propriety at the spring elections, have regained their self-command. Now, with the total vanishing of its effects, let the cause vanish also. Let this resolution for the condemnation of President Jackson be expunged from the journals of the Senate! Let it be effaced, erased, blotted out, obliterated from the face of that page on which it should never have been written! Would to God it could be expunged from the page of all history, and from the memory of all mankind. Would that, so far as it is concerned, the minds of the whole existing generation should be dipped in the fabulous and oblivious waters of the river Lethe. But these wishes are vain. The resolution must survive and live. History will record it; memory will retain it; tradition will hand it down. In the very act of expurgation it lives; for what is taken from one page is placed on another. All atonement for the unfortunate calamitous act of the Senate is imperfect and inadequate. Expunge, if we can, still the only effect will be to express our solemn convictions, by that obliteration, that such a resolution ought never to have soiled the pages of our journal. This is all that we can do; and this much we are bound to do, by every obligation of justice to the President, whose name has been attainted; by every consideration of duty to the country, whose voice demands this reparation; by our regard to the constitution, which has been trampled under foot; by respect to the House of Representatives, whose function has been usurped; by self-respect, which requires the Senate to vindicate its justice, to correct its errors, and re-establish its high name for equity, dignity, and moderation. To err is human; not to err is divine; to correct error is the work of supereminent and also superhuman moral excellence, and this exalted work now remains for the Senate to perform.

CHAPTER CXXIV.

EXPUNGING RESOLUTION: REJECTED, AND RENEWED

The speech which had been delivered by Mr. Benton, was intended for effect upon the country – to influence the forthcoming elections – and not with any view to act upon the Senate, still consisting of the same members who had passed the condemnatory resolution, and not expected to condemn their own act. The expunging resolution was laid upon the table, without any intention to move it again during the present session; but, on the last day of the session, when the Senate was crowded with business, and when there was hardly time to finish up the indispensable legislation, the motion was called up, and by one of its opponents – Mr. Clayton, of Delaware – the author of the motion being under the necessity to vote for the taking up, though expecting no good from it. The moment it was taken up, Mr. White, of Tennessee, moved to strike out the word "expunge," and insert "rescind, reverse, and make null and void." This motion astonished Mr. Benton. Mr. White, besides opposing all the proceedings against President Jackson, had been his personal and political friend from early youth – for the more than forty years which each of them had resided in Tennessee. He expected his aid, and felt the danger of such a defection. Mr. Benton defended his word as being strictly parliamentary, and the only one which was proper to be used when an unauthorized act is to be condemned – all other phrases admitting the legality of the act which is to be invalidated. Mr. White justified his motion on the ground that an expurgation of the journal would be its obliteration, which he deemed inconsistent with the constitutional injunction to "keep" a journal – the word "keep" being taken in its primary sense of "holding," "preserving," instead of "writing," a journal: but the mover of the resolution soon saw that Mr. White was not the only one of his friends who had yielded at that point – that others had given way – and, came about him importuning him to give up the obnoxious word. Seeing himself almost deserted, he yielded a mortifying and reluctant assent; and voted with others of his friends to emasculate his own motion – to reduce it from its high tone of reprobation, to the legal formula which applied to the reversal of a mere error in a legal proceeding. The moment the vote was taken, Mr. Webster rose and exulted in the victory over the hated phrase. He proclaimed the accomplishment of every thing that he desired in relation to the expunging resolution: the word was itself expunged; and he went on to triumph in the victory which had been achieved, saying:

"That which made this resolution, which we have now amended, particularly offensive, was this: it proposed to expunge our journal. It called on us to violate, to obliterate, to erase, our own records. It was calculated to fix a particular stigma, a peculiar mark of reproach or disgrace, on the resolution of March last. It was designed to distinguish it, and reprobate it, in some especial manner. Now, sir, all this most happily, is completely defeated by the almost unanimous vote of the Senate which has just now been taken. The Senate has declared, in the most emphatic manner, that its journal shall not be tampered with. I rejoice most heartily, sir, in this decisive result. It is now settled, by authority not likely to be shaken, that our records are sacred. Men may change, opinions may change, power may change, but, thanks to the firmness of the Senate, the records of this body do not change. No instructions from without, no dictates from principalities or powers, nothing – nothing can be allowed to induce the Senate to falsify its own records, to disgrace its own proceedings, or violate the rights of its members. For one, sir, I feel that we have fully and completely accomplished all that could be desired in relation to this matter. The attempt to induce the Senate to expunge its journal has failed, signally and effectually failed. The record remains, neither blurred, blotted, nor disgraced."

And then, to secure the victory which he had gained, Mr. Webster immediately moved to lay the amended resolution on the table, with the peremptory declaration that he would not withdraw his motion for friend or foe. The resolve was laid upon the table by a vote of 27 to 20. The exulting speech of Mr. Webster restored me to my courage – made a man of me again; and the moment the vote was over, I rose and submitted the original resolution over again, with the detested word in it – to stand for the second week of the next session – with the peremptory declaration that I would never yield it again to the solicitations of friend or foe.

CHAPTER CXXV.

BRANCH MINTS AT NEW ORLEANS, AND IN THE GOLD REGIONS OF GEORGIA AND NORTH CAROLINA

The bill had been reported upon the proposition of Mr. Waggaman, senator from Louisiana, and was earnestly and perseveringly opposed by Mr. Clay. He moved its indefinite postponement, and contended that the mint at Philadelphia was fully competent to do all the coinage which the country required. He denied the correctness of the argument, that the mint at New Orleans was necessary to prevent the transportation of the bullion to Philadelphia. It would find its way to the great commercial marts of the country whether coined or not. He considered it unwise and injudicious to establish these branches. He supposed it would gratify the pride of the States of North Carolina and Georgia to have them there; but when the objections to the measure were so strong, he could not consent to yield his opposition to it. He moved the indefinite postponement of the bill, and asked the yeas and nays on his motion; which were ordered. – Mr. Mangum regretted the opposition of the senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), and thought it necessary to multiply the number of American coins, and bring the mints to the places of production. There was an actual loss of near four per cent. in transporting the gold bullion from the Georgia and North Carolina mines to Philadelphia for coinage. With respect to gratifying the pride of the Southern States, it was a misconception; for those States had no pride to gratify. He saw no evil in the multiplication of these mints. It was well shown by the senator from Missouri, when the bill was up before, that, in the commentaries on the constitution it was understood that branches might be multiplied. – Mr. Frelinghuysen thought that the object of having a mint was mistaken. The mint was established for the accommodation of the government, and he thought the present one sufficient. Why put an additional burden upon the government because the people in the South have been so fortunate as to find gold? – Mr. Bedford Brown of North Carolina, said the senator from New Jersey, asked why we apply to Congress to relieve us from the burden of transporting our bullion to be coined, when the manufacturers of the North did not ask to be paid for transporting their material. He said it was true the manufacturers had not asked for this transportation assistance, but they asked for what was much more valuable, and got it – protection. The people of the South ask no protection; they rely on their own exertions; they ask but a simple act of justice – for their rights, under the power granted by the States to Congress to regulate the value of coin, and to make the coin itself. It has the exclusive privilege of Congress, and he wished to see it exercised in the spirit in which it was granted; and which was to make the coinage general for the benefit of all the sections of the Union, and not local to one section. The remark of the gentlemen is founded in mistake. What are the facts? Can the gold bullion of North Carolina be circulated as currency? We all know it cannot; it is only used as bullion, and carried to Philadelphia at a great loss. Another reason for the passage of the bill, and one which Mr. Brown hoped would not be less regarded by senators on the other side of the House, was that the measure would be auxiliary to the restoration of the metallic currency, and bring the government back to that currency which was the only one contemplated by the constitution.

Mr. Benton took the high ground of constitutional right to the establishment of these branches, and as many more as the interests of the States required. He referred to the Federalist, No. 44, written by Mr. Madison, that in surrendering the coining power to the federal government, the States did not surrender their right to have local mints. He read the passage from the number which he mentioned, and which was the exposition of the clause in the constitution relative to the coining power. It was express, and clear in the assertion, that the States were not to be put to the expense and trouble of sending their bullion and foreign coins to a central mint to be recoined; but that, as many local mints would be established under the authority of the general government as should be necessary. Upon this exposition of the meaning of the constitution, Mr. B. said, the States accepted the constitution; and it would be a fraud on them now to deny branches where they were needed. He referred to the gold mines in North Carolina, and the delay with which that State accepted the constitution, and inquired whether she would have accepted it at all, without an amendment to secure her rights, if she could have foreseen the great discoveries of gold within her limits, and the present opposition to granting her a local mint. That State, through her legislature, had applied for a branch of the mint years ago, and all that was said in her favor was equally applicable to Georgia. Mr. B. said, the reasons in the Federalist for branch mints were infinitely stronger now than when Mr. Madison wrote in 1788. Then, the Southern gold region was unknown, and the acquisition of Louisiana not dreamed of. New Orleans, and the South, now require branch mints, and claim the execution of the constitution as expounded by Mr. Madison.

Mr. B. claimed the right to the establishment of these branches as an act of justice to the people of the South and the West. Philadelphia could coin, but not diffuse the coin among them. Money was attracted to Philadelphia from the South and West, but not returned back again to those regions. Local mints alone could supply them. France had ten branch mints; Mexico had eight; the United States not one. The establishment of branches was indispensable to the diffusion of a hard-money currency, especially gold; and every friend to that currency should promote the establishment of branches.

Mr. B. said, there were six hundred machines at work coining paper money – he alluded to the six hundred banks in the United States; and only one machine at work coining gold and silver. He believed there ought to be five or six branch mints in the United States; that is, two or three more than provided for in this bill; one at Charleston, South Carolina, one at Norfolk or Richmond, Virginia, and one at New-York or Boston. The United States Bank had twenty-four branches; give the United States Mint five or six branches; and the name of that bank would cease to be urged upon us. Nobody would want her paper when they could get gold.

Mr. B. scouted the idea of expense on such an object as this. The expense was but inconsiderable in itself, and was nothing compared to its object. For the object was to supply the country with a safe currency, – with a constitutional currency; and currency was a thing which concerned every citizen. It was a point at which the action of government reached every human being, and bore directly upon his property, upon his labor, and upon his daily bread. The States had a good currency when this federal government was formed; it was gold and silver for common use, and large bank notes for large operations. Now the whole land is infested with a vile currency of small paper: and every citizen was more or less cheated. He himself had but two bank notes in the world, and they were both counterfeits, on the United States Bank, with St. Andrew's cross drawn through their faces. He used nothing but gold and silver since the gold bill passed.

In reply to Mr. Frelinghuysen, who asked where was the gold currency? He would answer, far the greatest part of it was in the vaults of the Bank of the United States, and its branches, to be sold or shipped to Europe; or at all events, to be kept out of circulation, to enable the friends of the bank to ask, where is the gold currency? and then call the gold bill a humbug. But he would tell the gentleman where a part of the gold was; it was in the Metropolis Bank in this city, and subject to his check to the full amount of his pay and mileage. Yes, said Mr. B., now, for the first time, Congress is paid in gold, and it is every member's own fault if he does not draw it and use it.

Mr. B. said this question concerned the South and West, and he would hope to see the representatives from these two sections united in support of the bill. He saw with pleasure, that several gentlemen from the north of the Potomac, and from New England were disposed to support it. Their help was most acceptable on a subject so near and so dear to the South and West. Every inhabitant of the South and West was personally interested in the success of the bill. From New Orleans, the new coin would ascend the Mississippi River, scatter itself all along its banks, fill all its towns, cities, and villages, branch off into the interior of the country, ascend all the tributary streams, and replenish and refresh the whole face of the land. From the Southern mints, the new gold would come into the West, and especially into Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, by the stock drivers, being to them a safe and easy remittance, and to the country a noble accession to their currency; enabling them quickly to dispense with their small notes.

It was asked, Mr. B. said, what loss has the Western People now sustained for want of gold? He would answer that the whole West was full of counterfeit paper; that counterfeit paper formed a large part of the actual circulation, especially of the United States branch drafts; that sooner or later all these counterfeits must stop in somebody's hands; and they would be sure to stop in the hands of those who were least able to bear the loss. Every trader down the Mississippi, Mr. B. said, was more or less imposed upon with counterfeit paper; some lost nearly their whole cargoes. Now if there was a branch mint in New Orleans every one would get new gold. He could get it direct from the mint; or have his gold examined there before he received it. Mr. B. said that one great object of establishing branch mints was to prevent and detect counterfeiting. Such establishments would detect every counterfeit piece, and enable every body to have recourse to a prompt and safe standard for ascertaining what was genuine and what not. This was a great reason for the ten branches in France.

Mr. B. was against the paper system. He was against all small notes. He was against all paper currency for common use; and being against it he was in favor of the measures that would put down small paper and put up gold and silver. The branching of the mint was one of the indispensable measures for accomplishing that object, and therefore he was for it. He was in favor of practical measures. Speeches alone would not do. A gentleman might make a fine speech in favor of hard money; but unless he gave votes in favor of measures to accomplish it, the speech would be inoperative. Mr. B. held the French currency to be the best in the world, where there was no bank note under 500 francs (near $100), and where, in consequence, there was a gold and silver circulation of upwards of five hundred millions of dollars; a currency which had lately stood two revolutions and one conquest, without the least fluctuation in its quantity or value.

New Orleans, he said, occupied the most felicitous point in America for a mint. It was at the point of reception and diffusion. The specie of Mexico came there; and when there, it ascended the river into the whole West. It was the market city – the emporium of the Great Valley; and from that point every exporter of produce could receive his supply and bring it home. Mr. B. reiterated that this was a question of currency; of hard money against paper; of gold against United States Bank notes. It was a struggle with the paper system. He said the gold bill was one step; the branching the mint would be the second step; the suppression of all notes under twenty dollars would be the third step towards getting a gold and silver currency. The States could do much towards putting down small notes; the federal government could put them down, by putting the banks which issued them under the ban; or, what was better, and best of all, returning to the act of 1789, which enacted that the revenues of the federal government should be received in gold and silver coin only.

The question was then put on Mr. Clay's motion for indefinite postponement – and failed – 16 yeas to 27 nays. Further strenuous exertion was made to defeat the bill. Mr. Clay moved to postpone it to the ensuing week – which, being near the end of the session, would be a delay which might be fatal to it; but it came near passing – 20 yeas to 22 nays. A motion was made by Mr. Clay to recommit the bill to the Committee of Finance – a motion equivalent to its abandonment for the session, which failed. Mr. Calhoun gave the bill an earnest support. He said it was a question of magnitude, and of vital importance to the South, and deserved the most serious consideration. Yet, he was sorry to say, he had seen more persevering opposition made to it than to any other measure for the last two years. It was a sectional question, but one intended to extend equal benefits to all the States – Mr. Clay said, if there had been resistance on one side, there had also been a most unparalleled, and he must say, unbounded perseverance on the other. He would repeat that in whatever light he had received the proposed measure, he had been unable to come to any other conclusion than this, that it was, in his humble judgment, delusive, uncalled for, calculated to deceive the people – to hold out ideas which would never be realized; – and as utterly unworthy of the consideration of the Senate. – Mr. Calhoun was astonished at the warmth of Mr. Clay on this question – a question as much sectional in one point of view, as a measure could be, but national in another. Let senators say what they would, this government was bound, in his opinion, to establish the mints which had been asked for. Finally, the question was taken, and carried – 24 to 19 – the yeas being: Messrs. Benton, Bibb, Brown, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Hendricks, Kane, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Leigh, Linn, Mangum, Morris, Porter, Preston, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tyler, Waggaman, Webster, White, Wright. The nays were: Messrs. Bell of New Hampshire, Black of Mississippi, Buchanan, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Frelinghuysen, Goldsborough, Isaac Hill, Knight, McKean, Naudain, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Southard, Swift, Tipton, Tomlinson. The bill was immediately carried to the House of Representatives; and there being a large majority there in favor of the hard money policy of the administration, it was taken up and acted upon, although so near the end of the session; and easily passed.

CHAPTER CXXVI.

REGULATION DEPOSIT BILL

The President had recommended to Congress the passage of an act to regulate the custody of the public moneys in the local banks, intrusted with their keeping. It was a renewal of the same recommendation made at the time of their removal, and in conformity to which the House of Representatives had passed the bill which had been defeated in the Senate. The same bill was sent up to the Senate again, and passed by a large majority: twenty-eight to twelve. The yeas were: Messrs. Benton, Black of Mississippi, Calhoun, Clayton of Delaware, Cuthbert of Georgia, Ewing of Ohio, Frelinghuysen, Goldsborough, Kent, Knight, Leigh, Linn, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Alexander Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Robinson, Smith, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Tyler, Waggaman, Webster, Wright. The nays were: Messrs. Bibb, Brown, Buchanan, Hendricks, Hill, Kane, King of Alabama, Morris of Ohio, Poindexter, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge. And thus, the complaint ceased which had so long prevailed against the President, on the alleged illegality of the State bank custody of the public moneys. These banks were taken as a necessity, and as a half-way house between the Bank of the United States and an Independent treasury. After a brief sojourn in the intermediate abode, they passed on to the Independent treasury – there, it is hoped, to remain for ever.

CHAPTER CXXVII.

DEFEAT OF THE DEFENCE APPROPRIATION, AND LOSS OF THE FORTIFICATION BILL

The President in his annual message at the commencement had communicated to Congress the state of our relations with France, and especially the continued failure to pay the indemnities stipulated by the treaty of 1831; and had recommended to Congress measures of reprisal against the commerce of France. The recommendation, in the House of Representatives, was referred to the committee of foreign relations, which through their chairman, Mr. Cambreling, made a report adverse to immediate resort to reprisals, and recommending contingent preparation to meet any emergency which should grow out of a continued refusal on the part of France to comply with her treaty, and make the stipulated payment. In conformity with this last recommendation, and at the suggestion of Mr. John Quincy Adams, it was resolved unanimously upon yeas and nays, or rather upon yeas, their being no nays, and 212 members voting – "That in the opinion of this House, the treaty of the 4th of July 1831 with France be maintained, and its execution insisted upon: " and, with the like unanimity it was resolved – "That preparations ought to be made to meet any emergency growing out of our relations with France." These two resolutions showed the temper of the House, and that it intended to vindicate the rights of our citizens, if necessary at the expense of war. Accordingly an appropriation of three millions of dollars was inserted by the House in the general fortification bill to enable the President to make such military and naval preparations during the recess of Congress as the state of our relations with France might require. This appropriation was zealously voted by the House: in the Senate it met with no favor; and was rejected. The House insisted on its appropriation: the Senate "adhered" to its vote: and that brought the disagreement to a committee of conference, proposed by the House. In the mean time Congress was in the expiring moments of its session; and eventually the whole appropriation for contingent preparation, and the whole fortification bill, was lost by the termination of the Congress. It was a most serious loss; and it became a question which House was responsible for such a misfortune – regrettable at all times, but particularly so in the face of our relations with France. The starting point in the road which led to this loss was the motion made by Mr. Webster to "adhere" – a harsh motion, and more calculated to estrange than to unite the two Houses. Mr. King, of Alabama, immediately took up the motion in that sense; and said:

"He very much regretted that the senator from Massachusetts should have made such a motion; it had seldom or never been resorted to until other and more gentle means had failed to produce a unity of action between the two Houses. At this stage of the proceeding it would be considered (and justly) harsh in its character; and, he had no doubt, if sanctioned by the Senate, would greatly exasperate the other House, and probably endanger the passage of the bill altogether. Are gentlemen, said Mr. K., prepared for this? Will they, at this particular juncture, in the present condition of things, take upon themselves such a fearful responsibility as the rejection of this bill might involve? For himself, if your forts are to be left unarmed, your ships unrepaired and out of commission, and your whole sea-coast exposed without defences of any kind, the responsibility should not rest upon his shoulders. It is as well, said Mr. K., to speak plainly on this subject. Our position with regard to France was known to all who heard him to be of such a character as would not, in his opinion, justify prudent men, men who look to the preservation of the rights and the honor of the nation, in withholding the means, the most ample means, to maintain those rights and preserve unimpaired that honor.

"Mr. K. said, while he was free to confess that the proposed appropriation was not in its terms altogether as specific as he could have wished it, he could not view it in the light which had, or seemed to have, so much alarmed the senator from Massachusetts, and others who had spoken on the subject. We are told, said Mr. K., that the adoption of the amendment made by the House will prostrate the fortress of the constitution and bury under its ruins the liberties of the people. He had too long been accustomed to the course of debate here, particularly in times of high party excitement, to pay much attention to bold assertion or violent denunciation. In what, he asked, does it violate the constitution? Does it give to the President the power of declaring war? You have been told, and told truly, by my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan], that this power alone belongs to Congress; nor does this bill in the slightest degree impair it. Does it authorize the raising of armies? No, not one man can be enlisted beyond the number required to fill up the ranks of your little army; and whether you pass this amendment or not, that power is already possessed under existing laws. Is it, said Mr. K., even unprecedented and unusual? A little attention to the history of our government must satisfy all who heard him, that it is neither the one nor the other.

"During the whole period of the administrations of General Washington and the elder Adams, all appropriations were general, applying a gross sum for the expenditure of the different departments of the government, under the direction of the President; and it was not till Mr. Jefferson came into office, that, at his recommendation, specific appropriations were adopted. Was the constitution violated, broken down, and destroyed, under the administration of the father of his country? Or did the fortress to which the senator from Massachusetts, on this occasion, clings so fondly, tumble into ruin, when millions were placed in the hands of Mr. Jefferson himself, to be disposed of for a designated object, but, in every thing else, subject to his unlimited discretion? No, said Mr. K., our liberties remained unimpaired; and, he trusted in God, would so remain for centuries yet to come. He would not urge his confidence in the distinguished individual at the head of the government as a reason why this amendment should pass; he was in favor of limiting executive discretion as far as practicable; but circumstances may present themselves, causes may exist, which would place it out of the power of Congress promptly to meet the emergency. To whom, then, should they look? Surely to the head of the government – to the man selected by the people to guard their rights and protect their interests. He put it to senators to say whether, in a possible contingency, which all would understand, our forts should not be armed, or ships put in commission? None will venture to gainsay it. Yet the extent to which such armament should be carried must, from the very necessity of the case, be left to the sound discretion of the President. From the position he occupies, no one can be so competent to form a correct judgment, and he could not, if he would, apply the money to other objects than the defences of the country. Mr. K. said he would not, at this last moment of the session, when time was so very precious, further detain the Senate than to express his deep apprehension, his alarm, lest this most important bill should be lost by this conflict between the two Houses. He would beg of senators to reflect on the disastrous consequences which might ensue. He would again entreat the senator from Massachusetts to withdraw his motion, and ask a conference, and thus leave some reasonable ground for hope of ultimate agreement on this most important subject."

The motion was persisted in, and the "adherence" carried by a vote of twenty-nine to seventeen. The yeas and nays were:

Yeas. – Messrs. Bell, Bibb, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Frelinghuysen, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Kent, Knight, Leigh, Mangum, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Tyler, Waggaman, Webster, White. – 29.

Nays. – Messrs. Benton, Brown, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Grundy, Hill, Kane, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Linn, McKean, Ruggles, Robinson, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tipton, Wright. – 17.

Upon being notified of this vote, the House took the conciliatory step of "insisting;" and asked a "conference." The Senate agreed to the request – appointed a committee on its part, which was met by another on the part of the House, which could not agree about the three millions; and while engaged in these attempts at concord, the existence of the Congress terminated. It was after midnight; the morning of the fourth of March had commenced; many members said their power was at an end – others that it would continue till twelve o'clock, noon; for it was that hour, on the 3d of March, 1789, that the first Congress commenced its existence, and that day should only be counted half, and the half of the next day taken to make out two complete years for each Congress. To this it was answered that, in law, there are no fractions of a day; that the whole day counted in a legal transaction: in the birth of a measure or of a man. The first day that the first Congress sat was the day of its birth, without looking to the hour at which it formed a quorum; the day a man was born was the day of his birth, and he counted from the beginning of the day, and the whole day, and not from the hour and minute at which he entered the world – a rule which would rob all the afternoon-born children of more or less of the day on which they were born, and postpone their majority until the day after their birthday. While these disquisitions were going on, many members were going off; and the Senate hearing nothing from the House, dispatched a message to it, on the motion of Mr. Webster, "respectfully to remind it" of the disagreement on the fortification bill; on receiving which message, Mr. Cambreleng, chairman of conference, on the part of the House, stood up and said:

"That the committee of conference of the two Houses had met, and had concurred in an amendment which was very unsatisfactory to him. It proposed an unconditional appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars for arming the fortifications, and five hundred thousand dollars for repairs of and equipping our vessels of war – an amount totally inadequate, if it should be required, and more than was necessary, if it should not be. When he came into the House from the conference, they were calling the ayes and noes on the resolution to pay the compensation due the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Letcher). He voted on that resolution, but there was no quorum voting. On a subsequent proposition to adjourn, the ayes and noes were called, and again there was no quorum voting. Under such circumstances, and at two o'clock in the morning, he did not feel authorized to present to the House an appropriation of eight hundred thousand dollars. He regretted the loss, not only of the appropriation for the defence of the country, but of the whole fortification bill; but let the responsibility fall where it ought – on the Senate of the United States. The House had discharged its duty to the country. It had sent the fortification bill to the Senate, with an additional appropriation, entirely for the defence of the country. The Senate had rejected that appropriation, without even deigning to propose any amendment whatever, either in form or amount. The House sent it a second time; and a second time no amendment was proposed, but the reverse; the Senate adhered, without condescending to ask even a conference. Had that body asked a conference, in the first instance, some provision would have been made for defence, and the fortification bill would have been saved before the hour arrived which terminated the existence of the present House of Representatives. As it was, the committees did not concur till this House had ceased to exist – the ayes and noes had been twice taken without a quorum – the bill was evidently lost, and the Senate must take the responsibility of leaving the country defenceless. He could not feel authorized to report the bill to the House, situated as it was, and at this hour in the morning; but if any other member of the committee of conference proposed to do it, he should make no objection, though he believed such a proposition utterly ineffectual at this hour; for no member could, at this hour in the morning, be compelled to vote."

Many members said the time was out, and that there had been no quorum for two hours. A count was had, and a quorum not found. The members were requested to pass through tellers, and did so: only eight-two present. Mr. John Y. Mason informed the House that the Senate had adjourned; then the House did the same – making the adjournment in due form, after a vote of thanks to the speaker, and hearing his parting address in return.

CHAPTER CXXVIII.

DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUE

Propositions for distributing the public land revenue among the States, had become common, to be succeeded by others to distribute the lands themselves, and finally the Custom House revenue, as well as that of the lands. The progress of distribution was natural and inevitable in that direction, when once begun. Mr. Calhoun and his friends had opposed these proposed distributions as unconstitutional, as well as demoralizing but after his junction with Mr. Clay, he began to favor them; but still with the salvo of an amendment to the constitution. With this view, in the latter part of the session of 1835, he moved a resolution of inquiry into the extent of executive patronage, the increase of public expenditure, and the increase of the number of persons employed or fed by the federal government; and he asked for a select committee of six to report upon his resolution. Both motions were granted by the Senate; and, according to parliamentary law, and the principles of fair legislation (which always accord a committee favorable to the object proposed), the members of the committee were appointed upon the selection of the six which he wished. They were: Messrs. Webster, Southard, Bibb, King of Georgia, and Benton – which, with himself, would make six. Mr. Webster declined, and Mr. Poindexter was appointed in his place; Mr. Southard did not act; and the committee, consisting of five, stood, politically, three against the administration – two for it; and was thus a frustration of Mr. Calhoun's plan of having an impartial committee, taken equally from the three political parties. He had proposed the committee upon the basis of three political parties in the Senate, desiring to have two members from each party; giving as a reason for that desire, that he wished to go into the examination of the important inquiry proposed, with a committee free from all prejudice, and calculated to give it an impartial consideration. This division into three parties was not to the taste of all the members; and hence the refusal of some to serve upon it. It was the first time that the existence of three parties was proposed to be made the basis of senatorial action, and did not succeed. The actual committee classed democratically, but with the majority opposed to the administration.

At the first meeting a sub-committee of three was formed – Mr. Calhoun of course at its head – to draw up a report for the consideration of the full committee: and of this sub-committee a majority was against the administration. Very soon the committee was assembled to hear the report read. I was surprised at it – both at the quickness of the preparation and the character of the paper. It was an elaborate, ingenious and plausible attack upon the administration, accusing it of having doubled the expenses of the government – of having doubled the number of persons employed or supported by it – of holding the public moneys in illegal custody – of exercising a patronage tending to corruption – the whole the result of an over full treasury, which there was no way to deplete but by a distribution of the surplus revenue among the States; for which purpose an amendment of the constitution would be necessary; and was proposed. Mr. Benton heard the reading in silence; and when finished declared his dissent to it: said he should make no minority report – a kind of reports which he always disliked; but when read in the Senate he should rise in his place and oppose it. Mr. King, of Georgia, sided with Mr. Benton; and thus the report went in. Mr. Calhoun read it himself at the secretary's table, and moved its printing. Mr. Poindexter moved an extra number of 30,000 copies; and spoke at length in support of his motion, and in favor of the report. Mr. King, of Georgia, followed him against the report: and Mr. Benton followed Mr. King on the same side. On the subject of the increase of expenditures doubled within the time mentioned, he showed that it came from extraordinary objects, not belonging to the expenses of the government, but temporary in their nature and transient in their existence; namely, the expenses of removing the Indians, the Indian war upon the Mississippi, and the pension act of 1832; which carried up the revolutionary pensions from $355,000 per annum to $3,500,000 – just tenfold – and by an act which the friends of the administration opposed. He showed also that the increase in the number of persons employed, or supported by the government, came in a great degree from the same measure which carried up the number of pensioners from 17,000 to 40,000. On the subject of the illegal custody of the public moneys, it was shown, in the first place, that the custody was not illegal; and, in the second, that the deposit regulation bill had been defeated in the Senate by the opponents of the administration. Having vindicated the administration from the charge of extravagance, and the illegal custody of the public moneys, Mr. Benton came to the main part of the report – the surplus in the treasury, its distribution for eight years among the States (just the period to cover two presidential elections); and the proposed amendment to the constitution to permit that distribution to be made: and here it is right that the report should be allowed to speak for itself. Having assumed the annual surplus to be nine millions for eight years – until the compromise of 1833 worked out its problem; – that this surplus was inevitable, and that there was no legitimate object of federal care on which it could be expended, the report brought out distribution as the only practical depletion of the treasury, and the only remedy for the corruptions which an exuberant treasury engendered. It proceeded thus:

"But if no subject of expenditure can be selected on which the surplus can be safely expended, and if neither the revenue nor expenditure can, under existing circumstances, be reduced, the next inquiry is, what is to be done with the surplus, which, as has been shown, will probably equal, on an average, for the next eight years, the sum of $9,000,000 beyond the just wants of the government? A surplus of which, unless some safe disposition can be made, all other means of reducing the patronage of the Executive must prove ineffectual.

"Your committee are deeply sensible of the great difficulty of finding any satisfactory solution of this question; but believing that the very existence of our institutions, and with them the liberty of the country, may depend on the success of their investigation, they have carefully explored the whole ground, and the result of their inquiry is, that but one means has occurred to them holding out any reasonable prospect of success. A few preliminary remarks will be necessary to explain their views.

"Amidst all the difficulties of our situation, there is one consolation: that the danger from Executive patronage, as far as it depends on excess of revenue, must be temporary. Assuming that the act of 2d of March, 1833, will be left undisturbed, by its provisions the income, after the year 1842, is to be reduced to the economical wants of the government. The government, then, is in a state of passage from one where the revenue is excessive, to another in which, at a fixed and no distant period, it will be reduced to its proper limits. The difficulty in the intermediate time is, that the revenue cannot be brought down to the expenditure, nor the expenditure, without great danger, raised to the revenue, for reasons already explained. How is this difficulty to be overcome? It might seem that the simple and natural means would be, to vest the surplus in some safe and profitable stock, to accumulate for future use; but the difficulty in such a course will, on examination, be found insuperable.