Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

"I do not approve even of this, but I hold it up in contrast with your own principles and practice. If the patience of the committee would warrant me, Mr. Chairman, I could show, by reference to Executive communications, and the concurrent legislation of Congress in 1794, 1796, 1802, and 1808, that prior to the last mentioned date, such an institution as we now have was neither recommended nor contemplated. Upon this point I will not detain you longer; but when hereafter confronted by the authority of great names, I trust we shall be told where the expressions of approbation are to be found. We may then judge of their applicability to the Military Academy as at present organized. I am far from desiring to see this country destitute of a Military Academy; but I would have it a school of practice, and instruction, for officers actually in the service of the United States: not an institution for educating gratuitously, young gentlemen, who, on the completion of their term, or after a few months' leave of absence, resign their commissions and return to the pursuits of civil life. If any one doubts that this is the practical operation of your present system, I refer him to the annual list of resignations, to be found in the Adjutant General's office.

"Firmly as I am convinced of the necessity of a reorganization, I would take no step to create an unjust prejudice against the institution. All that I ask, and, so far as I know, all that any of the opponents of the institution ask, is, that after a full and impartial investigation, it shall stand or fall upon its merits. I know there are graduates of the institution who are ornaments to the army, and an honor to their country; but they, and not the seminary, are entitled to the credit. Here I would remark, once for all, that I do not reflect upon the officers or pupils of the Academy; it is to the principles of the institution itself, as at present organized, that I object. It is often said that the graduates leave the institution with sentiments that but ill accord with the feelings and opinions of the great mass of the people of that government from which they derive the means of education, and that many who take commissions possess few qualifications for the command of men, either in war or in peace. Most of the members of this House have had more or less intercourse with these young gentlemen, and I leave it for each individual to form his own opinion of the correctness of the charges. Thus much I will say for myself, that I believe that these, and greater evils, are the natural, if not the inevitable, result of the principles in which this institution is founded; and any system of education, established upon similar principles, on government patronage alone, will produce like results, now and for ever. Sir, what are some of these results? By the report of the Secretary of War, dated January, 1831, we are informed that, "by an estimate of the last five years (preceding that date), it appears that the supply of the army from the corps of graduated cadets, has averaged about twenty-two annually, while those who graduated are about forty, making in each year an excess of eighteen. The number received annually into the Academy averages one hundred, of which only the number stated, to wit, forty, pass through the prescribed course of education at schools, and become supernumerary lieutenants in the army." By the report of the Secretary of War, December, 1830, we are informed, that "the number of promotions to the army from this corps, for the last five years, has averaged about twenty-two annually while the number of graduates has been at an average of forty. This excess, which is annually increasing, has placed eighty-seven in waiting until vacancies shall take place, and show that in the next year, probably, and in the succeeding one, certainly, there will be an excess beyond what the existing law authorizes to be commissioned. There will then be 106 supernumerary brevet second lieutenants appurtenant to the army, at an average annual expense of $80,000. Sir, that results here disclosed were not anticipated by Mr. Madison, is apparent from a recurrence to his messages of 1810 and 1811.

"In passing the law of 1812, both Congress and the President acted for the occasion, and they expected those who should succeed them to act in a similar manner. Their feelings of patriotism and resentment were aroused, by beholding the privileges of freemen wantonly invaded, our glorious stars and stripes disregarded, and national and individual rights trampled in the dust. The war was pending. The necessity for increasing the military force of the country was obvious and pressing, and the urgent occasion for increased facilities for military instruction, equally apparent. Sir, it was under circumstances like these, when we had not only enemies abroad, but, I blush to say, enemies at home, that the institution, as at present organized, had its origin. It will hardly be pretended that it was the original design of the law to augment the number of persons instructed, beyond the wants of the public service. Well, the report of the Secretary shows, that for five years prior to 1831, the Academy had furnished eighteen supernumeraries annually. A practical operation of this character has no sanction in the recommendation of Mr. Madison. The report demonstrates, further, the fruitfulness and utility of this institution, by showing the fact, that but two-fifths of those who enter the Academy graduate, and that but a fraction more than one-fifth enter the public service. This is not the fault of the administration of the Academy; it is not the fault of the young gentlemen who are sent there; on your present peace establishment there can be but little to stimulate them, particularly in the acquisition of military science. There can hardly be but one object in the mind of the student, and that would be to obtain an education for the purposes of civil life. The difficulty is, that the institution has outlived both the occasion that called it into existence, and its original design. I have before remarked, that the Academy was manifestly enlarged to correspond with the army and militia actually to be called into service. Look then for a moment at facts, and observe with how much wisdom, justice, and sound policy, you retain the provisions of the law of 1812. The total authorized force of 1813, after the declaration of war, was 58,254; and in October, 1814, the military establishment amounted to 62,428. By the act of March, 1815, the peace establishment was limited to 10,000, and now hardly exceeds that number. Thus you make a reduction of more than 50,000 in your actual military force, to accommodate the expenses of the government to its wants. And why do you refuse to do the same with your grand system of public education? Why does that remain unchanged? Why not reduce it at once, at least to the actual wants of the service, and dispense with your corps of supernumerary lieutenants? Sir, there is, there can be but one answer to the question, and that may be found in the war report of 1819, to which I have before had occasion to allude. The Secretary says, 'the cadets who cannot be provided for in the army will return to private life, but in the event of a war their knowledge will not be lost to the country.' Indeed, sir, these young gentlemen, if they could be induced to take the field, would, after a lapse of ten or fifteen years, come up from the bar, or it may be the pulpit, fresh in military science, and admirably qualified for command in the face of an enemy. The magazine of facts, to prove at the same glance the extravagance and unfruitfulness of this institution, is not easily exhausted: but I am admonished by the lateness of the hour to omit many considerations which I regard as both interesting and important. I will only detain the committee to make a single statement, placing side by side some aggregate results. There has already been expended upon the institution more than three millions three hundred thousand dollars. Between 1815, and 1821, thirteen hundred and eighteen students were admitted into the Academy; and of all the cadets who were ever there, only two hundred and sixty-five remained in the service at the end of 1830. Here are the expenses you have incurred, and the products you have realized.

"I leave them to be balanced by the people. But for myself, believing as I do, that the Academy stands forth as an anomaly among the institutions of this country; that it is at variance with the spirit, if not the letter of the constitution under which we live; so long as this House shall deny investigation into its principles and practical operation, I, as an individual member, will refuse to appropriate the first dollar for its support."

CHAPTER CXLI.

EXPUNGING RESOLUTION – PERORATION OF SENATOR BENTON'S SECOND SPEECH

"The condemnation of the President, combining as it did all that illegality and injustice could inflict, had the further misfortune to be co-operative in its effect with the conspiracy of the Bank of the United States to effect the most wicked and universal scheme of mischief which the annals of modern times exhibit. It was a plot against the government, and against the property of the country. The government was to be upset, and property revolutionized. Six hundred banks were to be broken – the general currency ruined – myriads bankrupted – all business stopped – all property sunk in value – all confidence destroyed! that out of this wide spread ruin and pervading distress, the vengeful institution might glut its avarice and ambition, trample upon the President, take possession of the government, reclaim its lost deposits, and perpetuate its charter. These crimes, revolting and frightful in themselves, were to be accomplished by the perpetration of a whole system of subordinate and subsidiary crime! the people to be deceived and excited; the President to be calumniated; the effects of the bank's own conduct to be charged upon him; meetings got up; business suspended; distress deputations organized; and the Senate chamber converted into a theatre for the dramatic exhibition of all this fictitious woe. That it was the deep and sad misfortune of the Senate so to act, as to be co-operative in all this scene of mischief, is too fully proved by the facts known, to admit of denial. I speak of acts, not of motives. The effect of the Senate's conduct in trying the President and uttering alarm speeches; was to co-operate with the bank, and that secondarily, and as a subordinate performer; for it is incontestable that the bank began the whole affair; the little book of fifty pages proves that. The bank began it; the bank followed it up; the bank attends to it now. It is a case which might well be entered on our journal as a State is entered against a criminal in the docket of a court: the Bank of the United States versus President Jackson: on impeachment for removing the deposits. The entry would be justified by the facts, for these are the indubitable facts. The bank started the accusation; the Senate took it up. The bank furnished arguments; the Senate used them. The bank excited meetings; the Senate extolled them. The bank sent deputations; the senators received them with honor. The deputations reported answers for the President which he never gave; the Senate repeated and enforced these answers. Hand in hand throughout the whole process, the bank and the Senate acted together, and succeeded in getting up the most serious and afflicting panic ever known in this country. The whole country was agitated. Cities, towns, and villages, the entire country and the whole earth seemed to be in commotion against one man. A revolution was proclaimed! the overthrow of all law was announced! the substitution of one man's will for the voice of the whole government, was daily asserted! the public sense was astounded and bewildered with dire and portentous annunciations! In the midst of all this machinery of alarm and distress, many good citizens lost their reckoning; sensible heads went wrong; stout hearts quailed; old friends gave way; temporizing counsels came in; and the solitary defender of his country was urged to yield! Oh, how much depended upon that one man at that dread and awful point of time! If he had given way, then all was gone! An insolent, rapacious, and revengeful institution would have been installed in sovereign power. The federal and State governments, the Congress, the Presidency, the State legislatures, all would have fallen under the dominion of the bank; and all departments of the government would have been filled and administered by the debtors, pensioners, and attorneys of that institution. He did not yield, and the country was saved. The heroic patriotism of one man prevented all this calamity, and saved the Republic from becoming the appendage and fief of a moneyed corporation. And what has been his reward? So far as the people are concerned, honor, gratitude, blessings, everlasting benedictions; so far as the Senate is concerned, dishonor, denunciation, stigma, infamy. And shall these two verdicts stand? Shall our journal bear the verdict of infamy, while the hearts of the people glow and palpitate with the verdict of honor?

"President Jackson has done more for the human race than the whole tribe of politicians put together; and shall he remain stigmatized and condemned for the most glorious action of his life? The bare attempt to stigmatize Mr. Jefferson was not merely expunged, but cut out from the journal; so that no trace of it remains upon the Senate records. The designs are the same in both cases; but the aggravations are inexpressibly greater in the case of President Jackson. Referring to the journals of the House of Representatives for the character of the attempt against President Jefferson, and the reasons for repulsing it, and it is seen that the attempt was made to criminate Mr. Jefferson, and to charge him upon the journals with a violation of the laws; and that this attempt was made at a time, and under circumstances insidiously calculated to excite unjust suspicion in the minds of the people against the Chief Magistrate. Such was precisely the character of the charge; and the effect of the charge against President Jackson, with the difference only that the proceeding against President Jackson, was many ten thousand times more revolting and aggravated; commencing as it did in the Bank, carried on by a violent political party, prosecuted to sentence and condemnation; and calculated, if believed, to destroy the President, to change the administration, and to put an end to popular representative government. Yes, sir, to put an end to elective and representative government! For what are all the attacks upon President Jackson's administration but attacks upon the people who elect and re-elect him, who approve his administration, and by approving, make it their own? To condemn such a President, thus supported, is to condemn the people, to condemn the elective principle, to condemn the fundamental principle of our government; and to establish the favorite dogma of the monarchists, that the people are incapable of self-government, and will surrender themselves as collared slaves into the hands of military chieftains.

"Great are the services which President Jackson has rendered his country. As a General he has extended her frontiers, saved a city, and carried her renown to the highest pitch of glory. His civil administration has rivalled and transcended his warlike exploits. Indemnities procured from the great powers of Europe for spoliations committed on our citizens under former administrations, and which, by former administrations were reclaimed in vain; peace and friendship with the whole world, and, what is more, the respect of the whole world; the character of our America exalted in Europe; so exalted that the American citizen, treading the continent of Europe, and contemplating the sudden and great elevation of the national character, might feel as if he himself was an hundred feet high. Such is the picture abroad! At home we behold a brilliant and grateful scene; the public debt paid, – taxes reduced, – the gold currency restored, – the Southern States released from a useless and dangerous population, – all disturbing questions settled, – a gigantic moneyed institution repulsed in its march to the conquest of the government, – the highest prosperity attained, – and the Hero Patriot now crowning the list of his glorious services by covering his country with the panoply of defence, and consummating his measures for the restoration and preservation of the currency of the constitution. We have had brilliant and prosperous administrations; but that of President Jackson eclipses, surpasses, and casts into the shade, all that have preceded it. And is he to be branded, stigmatized, condemned, unjustly and untruly condemned; and the records of the Senate to bear the evidence of this outrage to the latest posterity? Shall this President, so glorious in peace and in war, so successful at home and abroad, whose administration, now, hailed with applause and gratitude by the people, and destined to shine for unnumbered ages in the political firmament of our history: shall this President, whose name is to live for ever, whose retirement from life and services will be through the gate that leads to the temple of everlasting fame; shall he go down to posterity with this condemnation upon him; and that for the most glorious action of his life?

"Mr. President, I have some knowledge of history, and some acquaintance with the dangers which nations have encountered, and from which heroes and statesmen have saved them. I have read much of ancient and modern history, and nowhere have I found a parallel to the services rendered by President Jackson in crushing the conspiracy of the Bank, but in the labors of the Roman Consul in crushing the conspiracy of Catiline. The two conspiracies were identical in their objects; both directed against the government, and the property of the country. Cicero extinguished the Catilinarean conspiracy, and saved Rome; President Jackson defeated the conspiracy of the Bank, and saved our America. Their heroic service was the same, and their fates have been strangely alike. Cicero was condemned for violating the laws and the constitution; so has been President Jackson. The consul was refused a hearing in his own defence: so has been President Jackson. The life of Cicero was attempted by two assassins; twice was the murderous pistol levelled at our President. All Italy, the whole Roman world, bore Cicero to the Capitol, and tore the sentence of the consul's condemnation from the fasti of the republic: a million of Americans, fathers and heads of families, now demand the expurgation of the sentence against the President. Cicero, followed by all that was virtuous in Rome, repaired to the temple of the tutelary gods, and swore upon the altar that he had saved his country: President Jackson, in the temple of the living God, might take the same oath, and find its response in the hearts of millions. Nor shall the parallel stop here; but after times, and remote posterities shall render the same honors to each. Two thousand years have passed, and the great actions of the consul are fresh and green in history. The school-boy learns them; the patriot studies them; the statesman applies them: so shall it be with our patriot President. Two thousand years hence, – ten thousand, – nay, while time itself shall last, for who can contemplate the time when the memory of this republic shall be lost? while time itself shall last, the name and fame of Jackson shall remain and flourish; and this last great act by which he saved the government from subversion, and property from revolution, shall stand forth as the seal and crown of his heroic services. And if any thing that I myself may do or say, shall survive the brief hour in which I live, it will be the part which I have taken, and the efforts which I have made, to sustain and defend the great defender of his country.

"Mr. President, I have now finished the view which an imperious sense of duty has required me to take of this subject. I trust that I have proceeded upon proofs and facts, and have left nothing unsustained which I feel it to be my duty to advance. It is not my design to repeat, or to recapitulate; but there is one further and vital consideration which demands the notice of a remark, and which I should be faithless to the genius of our government, if I should pretermit. It is known, sir, that ambition for office is the bane of free States, and the contentions of rivals the destruction of their country. These contentions lead to every species of injustice, and to every variety of violence, and all cloaked with the pretext of the public good. Civil wars and banishment at Rome; civil wars, and the ostracism at Athens; bills of attainder, star-chamber prosecutions, and impeachments In England; all to get rid of some envied, or hated rival, and all pretexted with the public good: such has been the history of free States for two thousand years. The wise men who framed our constitution were well aware of all this danger and all this mischief, and took effectual care, as they thought, to guard against it. Banishment, the ostracism, the star-chamber prosecutions, bills of attainder, all those summary and violent modes of hunting down a rival, which deprive the victim of defence by depriving him of the intervention of an accusing body to stand between the accuser and the trying body; all these are proscribed by the genius of our constitution. Impeachments alone are permitted; and these would most usually occur for political offences, and be of a character to enlist the passions of many, and to agitate the country. An effectual guard, it was supposed, was provided against the abuse of the impeachment power, first, by requiring a charge to be preferred by the House of Representatives, as the grand Inquest of the nation; and next, in confining the trial to the Senate, and requiring a majority of two-thirds to convict. The gravity, the dignity, the age of the senators, and the great and various powers with which they were invested – greater and more various than are united in the same persons under any other constitutional government upon earth – these were supposed to make the Senate a safe depository for the impeachment power; and if the plan of the constitution is followed out it must be admitted to be so. But if a public officer can be arraigned by his rivals before the Senate for impeachable offences without the intervention of the House of Representatives, and if he can be pronounced guilty by a simple majority, instead of a majority of two-thirds, then has the whole frame of our government miscarried, and the door left wide open to the greatest mischief which has ever afflicted the people of free States. Then can rivals and competitors go on to do what it was intended they should never do; accuse, denounce, condemn, and hunt down each other! Great has been the weight of the American Senate. Time was when its rejections for office were fatal to character; time is when its rejections are rather passports to public favor. Why this sad and ominous decline? Let no one deceive himself. Public opinion is the arbiter of character in our enlightened day; it is the Areopagus from which there is no appeal! That arbiter has pronounced against the Senate. It has sustained the President, and condemned the Senate. If it had sustained the Senate, the President must have been ruined! as it has not, the Senate must be ruined, if it perseveres in its course, and goes on to brave public opinion! – as an institution, it must be ruined!"

CHAPTER CXLII.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND REVENUE

"The great loss of the bank has been in the depreciation of the securities; and the only way to regain a capital is to restore their value. A large portion of them consists of State stocks, which are so far below their intrinsic worth that the present prices could not have been anticipated by any reasonable man. No doubt can be entertained of their ultimate payment. The States themselves, unaided, can satisfy every claim against them; they will do it speedily, if Congress adopt the measures contemplated for their relief. A division of the public lands among the States, which would enable them all to pay their debts – or a pledge of the proceeds of sales for that purpose – would be abundant security. Either of these acts would inspire confidence, and enhance the value of all kinds of property." This paragraph appeared in the Philadelphia National Gazette, was attributed to Mr. Biddle, President of the Bank of the United States; and connects that institution with all the plans for distributing the public land money among the States, either in the shape of a direct distribution, or in the disguise of a deposit of the surplus revenue; and this for the purpose of enhancing the value of the State stocks held by it. That institution was known to have interfered in the federal legislation, to promote or to baffle the passage of laws, as deemed to be favorable or otherwise to her interests; and this resort to the land revenue through an act of Congress was an eminent instance of the spirit of interference. This distribution had become, very nearly, a party measure; and of the party of which the bank was a member, and Mr. Clay the chief. He was the author of the scheme – had introduced it at several sessions – and now renewed it. Mr. Webster also made a proposition to the same effect at this session. It was the summer of the presidential election; and great calculations were made by the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in adding to their popularity. Mr. Clay limited his plan of distribution to five years; but the limitation was justly considered as nothing – as a mere means of beginning the system of these distributions – which once began, would go on of themselves, while our presidential elections continued, and any thing to divide could be found in the treasury. Mr. Benton opposed the whole scheme, and confronted it with a proposition to devote the surplus revenue to the purposes of national defence; thereby making an issue, as he declared, between the plunder of the country and the defence of the country. He introduced an antagonistic bill, as he termed it, devoting the surplus moneys to the public defences; and showing by reports from the war and navy departments that seven millions a year for fifteen years would be required for the completion of the naval defences, and thirty millions to complete the military defences; of which nine millions per annum could be beneficially expended; and then went on to say:

"That the reports from which he had read, taken together, presented a complete system of preparation for the national defence; every arm and branch of defence was to be provided for; an increase of the navy, including steamships; appropriate fortifications, including steam batteries; armories, foundries, arsenals, with ample supplies of arms and munitions of war; an increase of troops for the West and Northwest; a line of posts and a military road from the Red River to the Wisconsin, in the rear of the settlements, and mounted dragoons to scour the country; every thing was considered; all was reduced to system, and a general, adequate, and appropriate plan of national defence was presented, sufficient to absorb all the surplus revenue, and wanting nothing but the vote of Congress to carry it into effect. In this great system of national defence the whole Union was equally interested; for the country, in all that concerned its defences, was but a unit, and every section was interested in the defence of every other section, and every individual citizen was interested in the defence of the whole population. It was in vain to say that the navy was on the sea, and the fortifications on the seaboard, and that the citizens in the interior States, or in the valley of the Mississippi, had no interest in these remote defences. Such an idea was mistaken and delusive. The inhabitant of Missouri and of Indiana had a direct interest in keeping open the mouths of the rivers, defending the seaport towns, and preserving a naval force that would protect the produce of his labor in crossing the ocean, and arriving safely in foreign markets. All the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi were just as much for the benefit of the western States, as if those States were down at the mouth of that river. So of all the forts on the Gulf of Mexico. Five forts are completed in the delta of the Mississippi; two are completed on the Florida or Alabama coast; and seven or eight more are projected; all calculated to give security to western commerce in passing through the Gulf of Mexico. Much had been done for that frontier, but more remained to be done; and among the great works contemplated in that quarter were large establishments at Pensacola, Key West, or the Dry Tortugas. Large military and naval stations were contemplated at these points, and no expenditure or preparations could exceed in amount the magnitude of the interests to be protected. On the Atlantic board the commerce of the States found its way to the ocean through many outlets, from Maine to Florida; in the West, on the contrary, the whole commerce of the valley of the Mississippi, all that of the Alabama, of western Florida, and some part of Georgia, passes through a single outlet, and reaches the ocean by passing between Key West and Cuba. Here, then, is an immense commerce collected into one channel, compressed into one line, and passing, as it were, through one gate. This gives to Key West and the Dry Tortugas an importance hardly possessed by any point on the globe; for, besides commanding the commerce of the entire West, it will also command that of Mexico, of the West Indies, of the Caribbean sea, and of South America down to the middle of that continent at its most eastern projection, Cape Roque. To understand the cause of all this (Mr. B. said), it was necessary to look to the trade winds, which, blowing across the Atlantic between the tropics, strike the South American continent at Cape Roque, follow the retreating coast of that continent up to the Caribbean sea, and to the Gulf of Mexico, creating the gulf stream as they go, and by the combined effect of a current in the air and in the water, sweeping all vessels from this side Cape Roque into its stream, carrying them round west of Cuba and bringing them out between Key West and the Havana. These two positions, then, constitute the gate through which every thing must pass that comes from the valley of the Mississippi, from Mexico, and from South America as low down as Cape Roque. As the masters of the Mississippi, we should be able to predominate in the Gulf of Mexico; and, to do so, we must have great establishments at Key West and Pensacola. Such establishments are now proposed; and every citizen of the West should look upon them as the guardians of his own immediate interests, the indispensable safeguard to his own commerce; and to him the highest, most sacred, and most beneficial object to which surplus revenue could be applied. The Gulf of Mexico should be considered as the estuary of the Mississippi. A naval and military supremacy should be established in that gulf, cost what it might; for without that supremacy the commerce of the entire West would lie at the mercy of the fleets and privateers of inimical powers.

"Mr. B. returned to the immediate object of his remarks – to the object of showing that the defences of the country would absorb every surplus dollar that would ever be found in the treasury. He recapitulated the aggregates of those heads of expenditure; for the navy, about forty millions of dollars, embracing the increase of the navy, navy yards, ordnance, and repairs of vessels for a series of years; for fortifications, about thirty millions, reported by the engineer department; and which sum, after reducing the size of some of the largest class of forts, not yet commenced, would still be large enough, with the sum reported by the ordnance department, amounting to near thirty millions, to make a totality not much less than one hundred millions; and far more than sufficient to swallow up all the surpluses which will ever be found to exist in the treasury. Even after deducting much from these estimates, the remainder will still go beyond any surplus that will actually be found. Every person knows that the present year is no criterion for estimating the revenue; excess of paper issues has inflated all business, and led to excess in all branches of the revenue; next year it will be down, and soon fall as much below the usual level as it now is above it. More than that; what is now called a surplus in the treasury is no surplus, but a mere accumulation for want of passing the appropriation bills. The whole of it is pledged to the bills which are piled upon our tables, and which we cannot get passed; for the opposition is strong enough to arrest the appropriations, to dam up the money in the treasury; and then call that a surplus which would now be in a course of expenditure, if the necessary appropriation bills could be passed.

"The public defences will require near one hundred millions of dollars; the annual amount required for these defences alone amount to thirteen or fourteen millions. The engineer department answers explicitly that it can beneficially expend six millions of dollars annually; the ordnance that it can beneficially expend three millions; the navy that it can beneficially expend several millions; and all this for a series of years. This distribution bill has five years to run, and in that time, if the money is applied to defence instead of distribution, the great work of national defence will be so far completed as to place the United States in condition to cause her rights and her interests, her flag and her soil, to be honored and respected by the whole world."

The bill was passed in the Senate, though by a vote somewhat close – 25 to 20. The yeas were:

Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Kent, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Naudain, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Webster White.

Nays. – Messrs. Benton, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Ewing of Illinois, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Linn, Moore, Morris, Niles, Rives, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, Walker, Wright.

Being sent to the House for concurrence it became evident that it could not pass that body; and then the friends of distribution in the Senate fell upon a new mode to effect their object, and in a form to gain the votes of many members who held distribution to be a violation of the constitution – among them Mr. Calhoun; – who took the lead in the movement. There was a bill before the Senate to regulate the keeping of the public moneys in the deposit banks; and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it: and this was called a deposit with the States; and the faith of the States pledged for returning the money. The deposit was defended on the same argument on which Mr. Calhoun had proposed to amend the constitution two years before; namely that there was no other way to get rid of the surplus. And to a suggestion from Mr. Wright that the moneys, when once so deposited might never be got back again, Mr. Calhoun answered:

"But the senator from New-York objects to the measure, that it would, in effect, amount to a distribution, on the ground, as he conceives, that the States would never refund. He does not doubt but that they would, if called on to refund by the government; but he says that Congress will in fact never make the call. He rests this conclusion on the supposition that there would be a majority of the States opposed to it. He admits, in case the revenue should become deficient, that the southern or staple States would prefer to refund their quota, rather than to raise the imposts to meet the deficit; but he insists that the contrary would be the case with the manufacturing States, which would prefer to increase the imposts to refunding their quota, on the ground that the increase of the duties would promote the interests of manufactures. I cannot agree with the senator that those States would assume a position so utterly untenable as to refuse to refund a deposit which their faith would be plighted to return, and rest the refusal on the ground of preferring to lay a tax, because it would be a bounty to them, and would consequently throw the whole burden of the tax on the other States. But, be this as it may, I can tell the senator that, if they should take a course so unjust and monstrous, he may be assured that the other States would most unquestionably resist the increase of the imposts; so that the government would have to take its choice, either to go without the money, or call on the States to refund the deposits."

Mr. Benton took an objection to this scheme of deposit, that it was a distribution under a false name, making a double disposition of the same money; that the land money was to be distributed under the bill already passed by the Senate: and he moved an amendment to except that money from the operation of the deposit to be made with the States. He said it was hardly to be supposed that, in the nineteenth century, a grave legislative body would pass two bills for dividing the same money; and it was to save the Senate from the ridicule of such a blunder that he called their attention to it, and proposed the amendment. Mr. Calhoun said there was a remedy for it in a few words, by adding a proviso of exception, if the land distribution bill became a law. Mr. Benton was utterly opposed to such a proviso – a proviso to take effect if the same thing did not become law in another bill. Mr. Morris also wished to know if the Senate was about to make a double distribution of the same money? As far it respected the action of the Senate the land bill was, to all intents and purposes, a law. It had passed the Senate, and they were done with it. It had changed its title from "bill" to "act." It was now the act of the Senate, and they could not know what disposition the House would make of it. Mr. Webster believed the land bill could not pass the House; that it was put to rest there; and therefore he had no objection to voting for the second one: thus admitting that, under the name of "distribution" the act could not pass the House, and that a change of name was indispensable. Mr. Wright made a speech of statements and facts to show that there would be no surplus; and taking up that idea, Mr. Benton spoke thus:

"About this time two years ago, the Senate was engaged in proclaiming the danger of a bankrupt Treasury, and in proving to the people that utter ruin must ensue from the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States. The same Senate, nothing abated in confidence from the failure of former predictions, is now engaged in celebrating the prosperity of the country, and proclaiming a surplus of forty, and fifty, and sixty millions of dollars in that same Treasury, which so short a time since they thought was going to be bankrupt. Both occupations are equally unfortunate. Our Treasury is in no more danger of bursting from distension now, than it was of collapsing from depletion then. The ghost of the panic was driven from this chamber in May, 1834, by the report of Mr. Taney, showing that all the sources of the national revenue were in their usual rich and bountiful condition; and that there was no danger of bankruptcy. The speech and statement, so brief and perspicuous, just delivered by the senator from New York [Mr. Wright], will perform the same office upon the distribution spirit, by showing that the appropriations of the session will require nearly as much money as the public Treasury will be found to contain. The present exaggerations about the surplus will have their day, as the panic about an empty Treasury had its day; and time, which corrects all things, will show the enormity of these errors which excite the public mind, and stimulate the public appetite, for a division of forty, fifty, and sixty millions of surplus treasure."

The bill being ordered to a third reading, with only six dissenting votes, the author of this View could not consent to let it pass without an attempt to stigmatize it, and render it odious to the people, as a distribution in disguise – as a deposit never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the constitution; as an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering instead of defending the country; as a cheat that would only last till the presidential election was over; for there would be no money to deposit after the first or second quarter; – and as having the inevitable effect, if not the intention, to break the deposit banks; and, finally, as disappointing its authors in their schemes of popularity: in which he was prophetic; as, out of half a dozen aspirants to the presidency, who voted for it, no one of them ever attained that place. The following are parts of his speech:

"I now come, Mr. President (continued Mr. B.), to the second subject in the bill – the distribution feature – and to which the objections are, not of detail, but of principle; but which objections are so strong, in the mind of myself and some friends, that, far from shrinking from the contest, and sneaking away in our little minority of six, where we were left last evening, we come forward with unabated resolution to renew our opposition, and to signalize our dissent; anxious to have it known that we contended to the last against the seductions of a measure, specious to the view, and tempting to the taste, but fraught with mischief and fearful consequences to the character of this government, and to the stability and harmony of this confederacy.

"Stripping this enactment of statutory verbiage, and collecting the provisions of the section into a single view, they seem to be these: 1. The public moneys, above a specific sum, are to be deposited with the States, in a specified ratio; 2. The States are to give certificates of deposit, payable to the United States; but no time, or contingency, is fixed for the payment; 3. The Secretary of the Treasury is to sell and assign the certificates, limited to a ratable proportion of each, when necessary to meet appropriations made by Congress; 4. The certificates so assigned are to bear an interest of five per cent., payable half yearly; 5. To bear no interest before assignment; 6. The principal to be payable at the pleasure of the State.

"This, Mr. President, is the enactment; and what is such an enactment? Sir, I will tell you what it is. It is, in name, a deposit; in form, a loan; in essence and design, a distribution. Names cannot alter things; and it is as idle to call a gift a deposit, as it would be to call a stab of the dagger a kiss of the lips. It is a distribution of the revenues, under the name of a deposit, and under the form of a loan. It is known to be so, and is intended to be so; and all this verbiage about a deposit is nothing but the device and contrivance of those who have been for years endeavoring to distribute the revenues, sometimes by the land bill, sometimes by direct propositions, and sometimes by proposed amendments to the constitution. Finding all these modes of accomplishing the object met and frustrated by the constitution, they fall upon this invention of a deposit, and exult in the success of an old scheme under a new name. That it is no deposit, but a free gift, and a regular distribution, is clear and demonstrable, not only from the avowed principles, declared intentions, and systematic purposes of those who conduct the bill, but also from the means devised to effect their object. Names are nothing. The thing done gives character to the transaction; and the imposition of an erroneous name cannot change that character. This is no deposit. It has no feature, no attribute, no characteristic no quality of a deposit. A deposit is a trust requiring the consent of two parties, leaving to one the rights of ownership, and imposing on the other the duties of trustee. The depositor retains the right of property, and reserves the privilege of resumption; the depositary is bound to restore. But here the right of property is parted with; the privilege of resumption is surrendered; the obligation to render back is not imposed. On the contrary, our money is put where we cannot reach it. Our treasury warrant cannot pursue it. The States are to keep the money, free of interest, until it is needed to meet appropriations; and then the Secretary of the Treasury is – to do what? – call upon the State? No! but to sell and assign the certificate; and the State is to pay the assignee an interest half yearly, and the principal when it pleases. Now, these appropriations will never be made. The members of Congress are not yet born – the race of representatives is not yet known – who will vote appropriations for national objects, to be paid out of their own State treasuries. Sooner will the tariff be revived, or the price of public land be raised. Sooner will the assignability of the certificate be repealed by law. The contingency will never arrive, on which the Secretary is to assign: so the deposit will stand as a loan for ever, without interest. At the end of some years, the nominal transaction will be rescinded; the certificates will all be cancelled by one general, unanimous, harmonious vote in Congress. The disguise of a deposit, like the mask after a play, will be thrown aside; and the delivery of the money will turn out to be, what it is now intended to be, a gift from the beginning. This will be the end of the first chapter. And now, how unbecoming in the Senate to practise this indirection, and to do by a false name what cannot be done by its true one. The constitution, by the acknowledgment of many who conduct this bill, will not admit of a distribution of the revenues. Not further back than the last session, and again at the commencement of the present session, a proposition was made to amend the constitution, to permit this identical distribution to be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar, for the action of Congress. All at once, it is discovered that a change of names will do as well as a change of the constitution. Strike out the word 'distribute,' and insert the word 'deposit;' and, incontinently, the impediment is removed: the constitution difficulty is surmounted; the division of the money can be made. This, at least, is quick work. It looks magical, though not the exploit of the magician. It commits nobody, though not the invention of the non-committal school. After all, it must be admitted to be a very compendious mode of amending the constitution, and such a one as the framers of that instrument never happened to think of. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Are we legislating, or amusing ourselves with phantasmagoria? Can we forget that we now have upon the calendar a proposition to amend the constitution, to effect this very distribution, and that the only difference between that resolution and this thirteenth section, is in substituting the word 'deposit' for the word 'distribute?'

"Having shown this pretended deposit to be a distribution in disguise, and to be a mere evasion of the constitution, Mr. B. proceeded to examine its effects, and to trace its ruinous consequences upon the federal government and the States. It is brought forward as a temporary measure, as a single operation, as a thing to be done but once; but what career, either for good or for evil, ever stopped with the first step? It is the first step which costs the difficulty; that taken, the second becomes easy, and repetition habitual. Let this distribution, in this disguise, take effect; and future distribution will be common and regular. Every presidential election will bring them, and larger each time; as the consular elections in Rome, commencing with distributions of grain from the public granaries, went on to the exhibitions of games and shows, the remission of debts, largesses in money, lands, and provisions; until the rival candidates openly bid against each other, and the diadem of empire was put up at auction, and knocked down to the last and highest bidder. The purity of elections may not yet be affected in our young and vigorous country; but how long will it be before voters will look to the candidates for the magnitude of their distributions, instead of looking to them for the qualifications which the presidential office requires?

"The bad consequences of this distribution of money to the States are palpable and frightful. It is complicating the federal and State systems, and multiplying their points of contact and hazards of collision. Take it as ostensibly presented; that of a deposit or loan, to be repaid at some future time; then it is establishing the relation of debtor and creditor between them: a relation critical between friends, embarrassing between a State and its citizens; and eminently dangerous between confederate States and their common head. It is a relation always deprecated in our federal system. The land credit system was abolished by Congress, fifteen years ago, to get rid of the relation of debtor and creditor between the federal government and the citizens of the States; and seven or eight millions of debt, principal and interest, was then surrendered. The collection of a large debt from numerous individual debtors, was found to he almost impossible. How much worse if the State itself becomes the debtor! and more, if all the States become indebted together! Any attempt to collect the debt would be attended, first with ill blood, then with cancellation. It must be the representatives of the States who are to enforce the collection of the debt. This they would not do. They would stand together against the creditor. No member of Congress could vote to tax his State to raise money for the general purposes of the confederacy. No one could vote an appropriation which was to become a charge on his own State treasury. Taxation would first be resorted to, and the tariff and the public lands would become the fountain of supply to the federal government. Taken as a real transaction – as a deposit with the States, or a loan to the States – as this measure professes to be, and it is fraught with consequences adverse to the harmony of the federal system, and fraught with new burdens upon the customs, and upon the lands; taken as a fiction to avoid the constitution, as a John Doe and Richard Roe invention to convey a gift under the name of a deposit, and to effect a distribution under the disguise of a loan, and it is an artifice which makes derision of the constitution, lets down the Senate from its lofty station; and provides a facile way for doing any thing that any Congress may choose to do in all time to come. It is only to depose one word and instal another – it is merely to change a name – and the frowning constitution immediately smiles on the late forbidden attempt.

"To the federal government the consequences of these distributions must be deplorable and destructive. It must be remitted to the helpless condition of the old confederacy, depending for its supplies upon the voluntary contributions of the States. Worse than depending upon the voluntary contributions, it will be left to the gratuitous leavings, to the eleemosynary crumbs, which remain upon the table after the feast of the States is over. God grant they may not prove to be the feasts of the Lapithæ and Centaurs! But the States will be served first; and what remains may go to the objects of common defence and national concern for which the confederacy was framed, and for which the power of raising money was confided to Congress. The distribution bills will be passed first, and the appropriation bills afterwards; and every appropriation will be cut down to the lowest point, and kept off to the last moment. To stave off as long as possible, to reduce as low as possible, to defeat whenever possible, will be the tactics of federal legislation; and when at last some object of national expenditure has miraculously run the gauntlet of all these assaults, and escaped the perils of these multiplied dangers, behold the enemy still ahead, and the recapture which awaits the devoted appropriation, in the shape of an unexpended balance, on the first day of January then next ensuing. Thus it is already; distribution has occupied us all the session. A proposition to amend the constitution, to enable us to make the division, was brought in in the first month of the session. The land bill followed, and engrossed months, to the exclusion of national defence. Then came the deposit scheme, which absorbs the remainder of the session. For nearly seven months we have been occupied with distribution, and the Senate has actually passed two bills to effect the same object, and to divide the same identical money. Two bills to divide money, while one bill cannot be got through for the great objects of national defence named in the constitution. We are now near the end of the seventh month of the session. The day named by the Senate for the termination of the session is long passed by; the day fixed by the two Houses is close at hand. The year is half gone, and the season for labor largely lost; yet what is the state of the general, national, and most essential appropriations? Not a shilling is yet voted for fortifications; not a shilling for the ordnance; nothing for filling the empty ranks of the skeleton army; nothing for the new Indian treaties; nothing for the continuation of the Cumberland road; nothing for rebuilding the burnt-down Treasury; nothing for the custom-house in New Orleans; nothing for extinguishing the rights of private corporators in the Louisville canal, and making that great thoroughfare free to the commerce of the West; nothing for the western armory, and arsenals in the States which have none; nothing for the extension of the circuit court system to the new States of the West and Southwest; nothing for improving the mint machinery; nothing for keeping the mints regularly supplied with metals for coining; nothing for the new marine hospitals; nothing for the expenses of the visitors now gone to the Military Academy; nothing for the chain of posts and the military road along the Western and Northwestern frontier. All these, and a long list of other objects, remain without a cent to this day; and those who have kept them off now coolly turn upon us, and say the money cannot be expended if appropriated, and that, on the first of January, it must fall into the surplus fund to be divided. Of the bills passed, many of the most essential character have been delayed for months, to the great injury of individuals and of the public service. Clerks and salaried officers have been borrowing money at usury to support their families, while we, wholly absorbed with dividing surpluses, were withholding from them their stipulated wages. Laborers at Harper's Ferry Armory have been without money to go to market for their families, and some have lived three weeks without meat, because we must attend to the distribution bills before we can attend to the pay bills. Disbursing officers have raised money on their own account, to supply the want of appropriations. Even the annual Indian Annuity Bill has but just got through; the Indians even – the poor Indians, as they were wont to be called – even they have had to wait, in want and misery, for the annual stipends solemnly guarantied by treaties. All this has already taken place under the deplorable influence of the distribution spirit.

"The progress which the distribution spirit has made in advancing beyond its own pretensions, is a striking feature in the history of the case, and ominous of what may be expected from its future exactions. Originally the proposition was to divide the surplus. It was the surplus, and nothing but the surplus, which was to be taken; that bona fide and inevitable surplus which remained after all the defences were provided for, and all needed appropriations fully made. Now the defences are postponed and decried; the needful appropriations are rejected, stinted, and deferred, till they cannot be used; and, instead of the surplus, it is the integral revenue, it is the money in the Treasury, it is the money appropriated by law, which is to be seized upon and divided out. It is the unexpended balances which are now the object of all desire and the prize of meditated distribution. The word surplus is not in the bill! that word, which has figured in so many speeches, which has been the subject of so much speculation, which has been the cause of so much delusion in the public mind, and of so much excited hope; that word is not in the bill! It is carefully, studiously, systematically excluded, and a form of expression is adopted to cover all the money in the Treasury, a small sum excepted, although appropriated by law to the most sacred and necessary objects. A recapture of the appropriated money is intended; and thus the very identical money which we appropriate at this session is to be seized upon on the first day of January, torn away from the objects to which it was dedicated, and absorbed in the fund for general distribution. And why? because the cormorant appetite of distribution grows as it feeds, and becomes more ravenous as it gorges. It set out for the surplus; now it takes the unexpended balances, save five millions; next year it will take all. But it is sufficient to contemplate the thing as it is; it is sufficient to contemplate this bill as seizing upon the unexpended balances on the first day of January, regardless of the objects to which they are appropriated; and to witness its effect upon the laws, the policy, and the existence of the federal government.

"Such, then, is the progress of the distribution spirit; a cormorant appetite, growing as it feeds, ravening as it gorges; seizing the appropriated moneys, and leaving the federal government to starve upon crumbs, and to die of inanition. But this appetite is not the sole cause for this seizure. There is another reason for it, connected with the movements in this chamber, and founded in the deep-seated law of self-preservation. For six months the public mind has been stimulated with the story of sixty millions of surplus money in the Treasury; and two months ago, the grave Senate of the United States carried the rash joke of that illusory asseveration so far as to pass a bill to commence the distribution of that vast sum. It was the land bill which was to do it, commencing its swelling dividends on the 1st day of July, dealing them out every ninety days, and completing the splendid distribution of prizes, in the sixty-four million lottery, in eighteen months from the commencement of the drawing. It was two months ago that we passed this bill; and all attempts then made to convince the people that they were deluded, were vain and useless. Sixty-four millions they were promised, sixty-four millions they were to have, sixty-four millions they began to want; and slates and pencils were just as busy then in figuring out the dividends of the sixty-four millions, to begin on the 1st of July, as they now are in figuring out the dividends under the forty, fifty, and sixty millions, which are to begin on the 1st of January next. And now behold the end of the first chapter. The 1st of July is come, but the sixty-four millions are not in the Treasury! It is not there; and any attempt to commence the distribution of that sum, according to the terms of the land bill, would bankrupt the Treasury, stop the government, and cause Congress to be called together, to levy taxes or make loans. So much for the land bill, which two months ago received all the praises which are now bestowed upon the deposit bill. So the drawing had to be postponed, the performance had to be adjourned, and the 1st of January was substituted for the 1st of July. This gives six months to go upon, and defers the catastrophe of the mountain in labor until the presidential election is over. Still the first of January must come; and the ridicule would be too great, if there was nothing, or next to nothing, to divide. And nothing, or next to nothing, there would be, if the appropriations were fairly made, and made in time, and if nothing but a surplus was left to divide. There would be no more in the deposit bank, in that event, than has usually been in the Bank of the United States – say ten, or twelve, or fourteen, or sixteen millions; and from which, in the hands of a single bank, none of those dangers to the country were then seen which are now discovered in like sums in three dozen unconnected and independent banks. Even after all the delays and reductions in the appropriations, the surplus will now be but a trifle – such a trifle as must expose to ridicule, or something worse, all those who have tantalized the public with the expectation of forty, fifty, or sixty millions to divide. To avoid this fate, and to make up something for distribution, then, the unexpended balances have been fallen upon; the law of 1795 is nullified; the fiscal year is changed; the policy of the government subverted; reason, justice, propriety outraged; all contracts, labor, service, salaries cut off, interrupted, or reduced; appropriations recaptured, and the government paralyzed. Sir, the people are deceived; they are made to believe that a surplus only, an unavoidable surplus, is to be divided, when the fact is that appropriated moneys are to be seized.

"Sir, I am opposed to the whole policy of this measure. I am opposed to it as going to sap the foundations of the Federal Government, and to undo the constitution, and that by evasion, in the very point for which the constitution was made. What is that point? A Treasury! a Treasury! a Treasury of its own, unconnected with, and independent of the States. It was for this that wise and patriotic men wrote, and spoke, and prayed for the fourteen years that intervened from the declaration of independence, in 1776, to the formation of the constitution in 1789. It was for this that so many appeals were made, so many efforts exerted, so many fruitless attempts so long repeated, to obtain from the States the power of raising revenue from imports. It was for this that the convention of 1787 met, and but for this they never would have met. The formation of a federal treasury, unconnected with the States, and independent of the States, was the cause of the meeting of that convention; it was the great object of its labors; it was the point to which all its exertions tended, and it was the point at which failure would have been the failure of the whole object of the meeting, of the whole frame of the general government, and of the whole design of the constitution. With infinite labor, pains, and difficulty, they succeeded in erecting the edifice of the federal treasury; we, not builders, but destroyers, "architects of ruin," undo in a night what they accomplished in many years. We expunge the federal treasury; we throw the federal government back upon States for supplies; we unhinge and undo the constitution; and we effect our purpose by an artifice which derides, mocks, ridicules that sacred instrument, and opens the way to its perpetual evasion by every paltry performer that is able to dethrone one word, and exalt another in its place.

"I object to the time for another reason. There is no necessity to act at all upon this subject, at this session of Congress. The distribution is not to take effect until after we are in session again, and when the true state of the treasury shall be known. Its true state cannot be known now; but enough is known to make it questionable whether there will be any surplus, requiring a specific disposition, over and beyond the wants of the country. Many appropriations are yet behind; two Indian wars are yet to be finished; when the wars are over, the vanquished Indians are to be removed to the West; and when there, either the Federal Government or the States must raise a force to protect the people from them. Twenty-five thousand Creeks, seven thousand Seminoles, eighteen thousand Cherokees, and others, making a totality of seventy-two thousand, are to be removed; and the expenses of removal, and the year's subsistence afterwards, is close upon seventy dollars per head. It is a problem whether there will be any surplus worth disposing of. The surplus party themselves admit there will be a disappointment unless they go beyond the surplus, and seize the appropriated moneys. The Senator from New-York [Mr. Wright], has made an exposition, as candid and perspicuous as it is patriotic and unanswerable, showing that there will be an excess of appropriations over the money in the treasury on the day that we adjourn; and that we shall have to depend upon the accruing revenue of the remainder of the year to meet the demands which we authorize. This is the state of the surplus question: problematical, debatable; the weight of the evidence and the strength of the argument entirely against it; time enough to ascertain the truth, and yet a determination to reject all evidence, refuse all time, rush on to the object, and divide the money, cost what it may to the constitution, the government, the good of the States, and the purity of elections. The catastrophe of the land bill project ought certainly to be a warning to us. Two months ago it was pushed through, as the only means of saving the country, as the blessed act which was to save the republic. It was to commence on the first day of July its magnificent operations of distributing sixty four millions; now it lies a corpse in the House of Representatives, a monument of haste and folly, its very authors endeavoring to supersede it by another measure, because it could not take effect without ruining the country; and, what is equally important to them, ruining themselves.

"Admitting that the year produces more revenue than is wanting, is it wise, is it statesmanlike, is it consonant with our experience, to take fright at the event, and throw the money away? Did we not have forty millions of income in the year 1817? and did we not have an empty treasury in 1819? Instead of taking fright and throwing the money away, the statesman should look into the cause of things; he should take for his motto the prayer of Virgil: Cognoscere causa rerum. Let me know the cause of things; and, learning this cause, act accordingly. If the redundant supply is accidental and transient, it will quickly correct itself; if founded in laws, alter them. This is the part not merely of wisdom, but of common sense: it was the conduct of 1817, when the excessive supply was seen to be the effect of transient causes – termination of the war and efflorescence of the paper system – and left to correct itself, which it did in two years. It should be the conduct now, when the excessive income is seen to be the effect of the laws and the paper system combined, and when legislation or regulation is necessary to correct it. Reduction of the tariff; reduction of the price of land to actual settlers; rejection of bank paper from universal receivability for public dues; these are the remedies. After all, the whole evil may be found in a single cause, and the whole remedy may be seen in a single measure. The public lands are exchangeable for paper. Seven hundred and fifty machines are at work striking off paper; that paper is performing the grand rounds, from the banks to the public lands, and from the lands to the banks. Every body, especially a public man, may take as much as his trunks can carry. The public domain is changing into paper; the public treasury is filling up with paper; the new States are deluged with paper; the currency is ruining with paper; farmers, settlers, cultivators, are outbid, deprived of their selected homes, or made to pay double for them, by public men loaded, not like Philip's ass, with bags of gold, but like bank advocates, with bales of paper. Sir, the evil is in the unbridled state of the paper system, and in the unchecked receivability of paper for federal dues. Here is the evil. Banks are our masters; not one, but seven hundred and fifty! and this splendid federal Congress, like a chained and chastised slave, lies helpless and powerless at their feet.

"Sir, I can see nothing but evil, turn on which side I may, from this fatal scheme of dividing money; not surplus money, but appropriated funds; not by an amendment, but by a derisory evasion of the constitution. Where is it to end? History shows us that those who begin revolutions never end them; that those who commence innovations never limit them. Here is a great innovation, constituting in reality – not in figure of speech, but in reality – a revolution in the form of our government. We set out to divide the surplus; we are now dividing the appropriated funds. To prevent all appropriations except to the powerful States, will be the next step; and the small States, in self-defence, must oppose all appropriations, and go for a division of the whole. They will have to stand together in the Senate, and oppose all appropriations. It will not do for the large States to take all the appropriations first, and the bulk of the distribution afterwards; and there will be no way to prevent it but to refuse all appropriations, divide out the money among the States, and let each State lay it out for itself. A new surplus party will supersede the present surplus party, as successive factions supersede each other in chaotic revolutions. They will make Congress the quæstor of provinces, to collect money for the States to administer. This will be their argument: the States know best what they need, and can lay out the money to the best advantage, and to suit themselves. One State will want roads and no canals; another canals and no roads; one will want forts, another troops; one wants ships, another steam-cars; one wants high schools, another low schools; one is for the useful arts, another is for the fine arts, for lyceums, athenæums, museums, arts, statuary, painting, music; and the paper State will want all for banks. Thus will things go on, and Congress will have no appropriation to make, except to the President, and his head clerks, and their under clerks. Even our own pay, like it was under the confederation, may be remitted to our own States. The eight dollars a day may be voted to them, and supported by the argument that they can get better men for four dollars a day; and so save half the money, and have the work better done. Such is the progress in this road to ruin. Sir, I say of this measure, as I said of its progenitor, the land bill: if I could be willing to let evil pass, that good might come of it, I should be willing to let this bill pass. A recoil, a reaction, a revulsion must take place. This confederacy cannot go to ruin. This Union has a place in the hearts of the people which will save it from nullification in disguise, as well as from nullification in arms. One word of myself. It is now ten years since schemes of distribution were broached upon this floor. They began with a senator from New Jersey, now Secretary of the navy (Mr. Dickerson). They were denounced by many, for their unconstitutionality, their corrupting tendencies, and their fatal effects upon the federal and State governments. I took my position then, have stood upon it during all the modifications of the original scheme; and continue standing upon it now. My answer then was, pay the public debt and reduce the taxes; my answer now is, provide for the public defences, reduce the taxes, and bridle the paper system. On this ground I have stood – on this I stand; and never did I feel more satisfaction and more exultation in my vote, when triumphant in numbers, than I now do in a minority of six."

The bill went to the House, and was concurred in by a large majority – one hundred and fifty-five to thirty-eight – although, under the name of distribution, there was no chance for it to pass that House. Deeming the opposition of this small minority courageous as well as meritorious, and deserving to be held in honorable remembrance, their names are here set down; to wit:

Messrs. Michael W. Ash, James M. H. Beale, Benning M. Bean, Andrew Beaumont, John W. Brown, Robert Burns, John F. H. Claiborne, Walter Coles, Samuel Cushman, George C. Dromgoole, John Fairfield, William K. Fuller, Ransom H. Gillet, Joseph Hall, Thomas L. Hamer, Leonard Jarvis, Cave Johnson, Gerrit Y. Lansing, Gideon Lee, George Loyall, Abijah Mann, jr., John Y. Mason, James J. McKay, John McKeon, Isaac McKim, Gorham Parks, Franklin Pierce, Henry L. Pinckney, John Roane, James Rogers, Nicholas Sickles, William Taylor, Francis Thomas, Joel Turrill, Aaron Vanderpoel, Aaron Ward, Daniel Wardwell, Henry A. Wise.

The bill passed the House, and was approved by the President, but with a repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required great efforts of friends to overcome; and with a regret for it afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. It was a grief that his name was seen to such an act. It was a most unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the constitution for a bad purpose – soon gave a sad overthrow to the democracy – and disappointed every calculation made upon it. Politically, it was no advantage to its numerous and emulous supporters – of no disservice to its few determined opponents – only four in number, in the Senate, the two senators from Mississippi voting against it, for reasons found in the constitution of their State. To the States, it was of no advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon which many of them acted as realities, and commenced enterprises to which they were inadequate. It was understood that some of Mr. Van Buren's friends favored the President's approval, and recommended him to sign it – induced by the supposed effect which its rejection might have on the democratic party in the election. The opponents of the bill did not visit the President to give him their opinions, nor had he heard their arguments. If they had seen him, their opinions concurring with his own feelings and judgment, his conduct might have been different, and the approval of the act withheld. It might not have prevented the act from becoming a law, as two thirds in each House might have been found to support it; but it would have deprived the bill of the odor of his name, and saved himself from subsequent regrets. In a party point of view, it was the commencement of calamities, being an efficient cause in that general suspension of specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought so much embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the great democratic defeat of 1840. But of this hereafter.

CHAPTER CXLIII.

RECHARTER OF THE DISTRICT BANKS – SPEECH OF MR. BENTON: THE PARTS OF LOCAL AND TEMPORARY INTEREST OMITTED

"Mr. Benton rose to oppose the passage of the bill, notwithstanding it was at the third reading, and that it was not usual to continue opposition, which seemed to be useless, at that late stage. But there were occasions when he never took such things into calculation, and when he continued to resist pernicious measures, regardless of common usages, as long as the forms of parliamentary proceeding would allow him to go on. Thus he had acted at the passing of the United States Bank charter, in 1832; thus he did at the passing of the resolution against President Jackson, in 1834; and thus he did at the passing of the famous land bill, at the present session. He had continued to speak against all these measures, long after speaking seemed to be of any avail; and, far from regretting, he had reason to rejoice at the course that he had pursued. The event proved him to be right; for all these measures, though floated through this chamber upon the swelling wave of a resistless and impatient majority, had quickly run their brief career. Their day of triumph had been short. The bank charter perished at the first general election; the condemnatory resolution was received by the continent in a tempest of execration; and the land bill, that last hope of expiring party, has dropped an abortion from the Senate. It is dead even here, in this chamber, where it originated – where it was once so omnipotent that, to speak against it, was deemed by some to be an idle consumption of time, and by others to be an unparliamentary demonstration against the ascertained will of the House. Yet, that land bill is finished. That brief candle is out. The Senate has revoked that bill; has retracted, recanted, and sung its palinode over that unfortunate conception. It has sent out a committee – an extraordinary committee of nine – to devise some other scheme for dividing that same money which the land bill divides! and, in doing so, the Senate has authentically declared a change of opinion, and a revocation of its sentiments in favor of that bill. Thus it has happened, in recent and signal cases, that, by continuing the contest after the battle seemed to be lost, the battle was in fact gained; and so it may be again. These charters may yet be defeated; and whether they will be or not, is nothing to me. I believe them to be wrong – greatly, immeasurably wrong! – and shall continue to oppose them without regard to calculations, or consequences, until the rules of parliamentary proceeding shall put an end to the contest. Mr. B. said he had moved for a select committee, at the commencement of the session, to examine into the condition of these banks, and he had done so with no other object than to endeavor to provide some checks and guards for the security of the country against the abuses and excesses of the paper system. The select committee had not been raised. The standing Committee on the District of Columbia had been charged with the subject; and, seeing that they had made a report adverse to his opinions, and brought in a bill which he could not sanction, it would be his part to act upon the meagre materials which had been placed before the Senate and endeavor to accomplish as a member of that body, what could have been attempted, with better prospects of success, as a member of a committee which had had the management of the subject.

"Mr. B. said he had wished to have been on a select committee for the charter of these banks; he wished to have revived the idea of a bank without circulation, and to have disconnected the government from the banking of the district. He had failed in his attempt to raise such a committee; and, as an individual member of the Senate, he could now do no more than mention in debate the ideas which he would have wished to have ripened into legislation through the instrumentality of a committee.

"Mr. B. said he had demonstrated that no bank of circulation ought to be authorized in this district; and, he would add, that none to furnish currency, except of large notes, ought to be authorized any where; yet what are we doing? We are breeding six little corporations at a birth, to issue $2,250,000 of paper currency: and on what terms? No bonus; no tax on the capital; none on the circulation; no reduction of interest in lieu of bonus or tax; no specie but what the stockholders please to put in; and no liability on the part of the stockholders for a failure of these corporations to redeem their notes and pay their debts. This is what we are doing; and now let us see what burdens and taxes these six corporations will impose upon the business part of the community – the productive classes among which they are to be perpetuated. First, there is the support of these six corporation governments; for every bank must have a government, like a State or kingdom; and the persons who administer these corporation governments must be paid, and paid by the people, and that according to the rates fixed by themselves and not by the people. Each of these six banks must have its president, cashier, clerks, and messengers; its notary public to protest notes; and its attorney to bring suits. The aggregate salaries, fees, and perquisites, of all these officers of the six banks will be the first tax on the people. Next comes the profits to the stockholders. The nett profits of banks are usually eight to ten per cent. at present; the gross profits are several per cent. more; and the gross profits are what the people pay. Assuming the gross profits to be twelve per cent., and the annual levy upon the community will be about $270,000. The third loss to the community will be on the fluctuations of prices of labor and property, and the rise and fall of stocks, from the expansions and contractions of currency, produced by making money plenty or scarce, as it suits the interest of the bank managers. This item cannot be calculated and depends entirely upon the moderation and consciences of the Neptunes who preside over the flux and reflux of the paper ocean; and to whom all tides, whether of ebb or flow, and all conditions of the sea, whether of calm or storm, are equally welcome, equally auspicious, and equally productive. Then come three other heads of loss to the community, and of profit to the bank: loss of notes from wear and tear, counterfeits imposed upon the people for good notes, and good notes rejected by the banks for counterfeits; and then the loss to the holders from the stoppage and failure of banks, and the shaving in of notes and stocks. Such are the burdens and taxes to be imposed upon the people to give them a paper currency, when, if the paper currency were kept away, and only large notes used, as in France, they would have a gold and silver currency without paying a tax to any body for it, and without being subject to any of the frightful evils resulting from the paper system.

"Objecting to all banks of circulation, but not able to suppress them entirely, Mr. B. suggested some ameliorations in the charters proposed to be granted to render them less dangerous to the community. 1. The liability of the stockholders for all the debts of the institution, as in the Scottish banks. 2. The bank stock to be subject to taxation, like other property. 3. To issue or receive no note of less than twenty dollars. 4. The charters to be repealable at the will of Congress: and he gave reasons for each of these improvements; and first for the liability of the stockholders. He said:

"Reasons for this liability were strong and palpable. A man that owes should pay while he has property to pay with; and it is iniquitous and unjustifiable that a bank director, or stockholder, should riot in wealth while the business part of the community should hold the bank notes which they have put into circulation, and be able to get nothing for them after the bank had closed its doors. Such exemptions are contrary to the rights of this community, and one of the great causes of the failure of banks. A liability in the stockbrokers is one of the best securities which the public can have for the correct management and solvency of the institution. The famous Scottish banks, which, in upwards of one hundred years' operations, had neither once convulsed the country with contractions and expansions, nor once stopped payment, were constituted upon this principle. All the country banks in England, and all the bankers on the continent of Europe, were liable to a still greater degree; for in them each stockholder, or partner, was liable, individually, for the whole amount of the debts of the bank. The principle proposed to be incorporated in these charters strikes the just medium between the common law principle, which makes each partner liable for the whole debts of the firm; and the corporation principle in the United States, which absolves each from all liability, and leaves the penniless and soulless carcase of a defunct and eviscerated bank alone responsible to the community. Liability to the amount of the stock was an equitable principle, and with summary process for the recovery of the amounts of notes and deposits, and the invalidity of transfers of stock to avoid this liability, would be found a good remedy for a great evil. If the stockholders in the three banks which stopped payment in this city during the panic session had been thus liable, the notes would not have been shaved out of the hands of the holders; if the bank which stopped in Baltimore at the same time, had been subject to this principle, the riots, which have afflicted that city in consequence of that stoppage, would not have taken place. Instead of these losses and riots, law and remedy would have prevailed; every stockholder would have been summoned before a justice of the peace – judgment granted against him on motion – for the amount held by the complainant; and so on, until all were paid, or he could plead that he had paid up the whole amount of his stock."

The evil of small notes he classed under three general heads: 1. The banishment of gold and silver. 2. Encouragement to counterfeiting. 3. Throwing the burthens and losses of the paper system upon the laboring and small-dealing part of the community, who have no share in the profits of banking, and should not be made to bear its losses. On these points, he said:

"The instinct of banks to sink their circulation to the lowest denomination of notes which can be forced upon the community, is a trait in the system universally proved to exist wherever banks of circulation have been permitted to give a currency to a country; and the effect of that instinct has always been to banish gold and silver. When the Bank of England was chartered, in the year 1694, it could issue no note less than £100 sterling; that amount was gradually reduced by the persevering efforts of the bank, to £50; then to £20; then to £15; then to £10; at last to £5; and finally to £2 and £1. Those last denominations were not reached until the year 1797, or until one hundred and three years after the institution of the bank; and as the several reductions in the size of the notes, and the consequent increase of paper currency took place, gold became more and more scarce; and with the issue of the one and two pound notes, it totally disappeared from the country.

"This effect was foretold by all political economists, and especially by Mr. Burke, then aged and retired from public life, who wrote from his retreat, to Mr. Canning, to say to Mr. Pitt, the Prime Minister, these prophetic words: 'If this bill for the one and two pounds is permitted to pass, we shall never see another guinea in England.' The bill did pass, and the prediction was fulfilled; for not another guinea, half guinea, or sovereign, was seen in England, for circulation, until the bill was repealed two and twenty years afterwards! After remaining nearly a quarter of a century without a gold circulation, England abolished her one and two pound notes, limited her paper currency to £5 sterling, required all Bank of England notes to be paid in gold, and allowed four years for the act to take effect. Before the four years were out, the Bank of England reported to Parliament that it was ready to begin gold payments; and commenced accordingly, and has continued them ever since.