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 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 com

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 im-mittee, at pages 16 and 22, of their report, putation.

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

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 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

(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.]

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 Pennsylvania, now minister to St. Petersburg 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. * At pages 37 and 38 of the report, the Finance Committee In all this, Mr. B. said, the report of the com- fully acquits the bank of all injurious discriminations between mittee was most unfortunate; and showed the borrowers and applicants, of different politics.

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.*

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.

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 be- THE speech which had been delivered by Mr. yond its former bounds. The country is tran- Benton, was intended for effect upon the quil, prosperous, and happy. The States which country-to influence the forthcoming elections had been frightened from their propriety at-and not with any view to act upon the Senate, the spring elections, have regained their self- still consisting of the same members who had command. Now, with the total vanishing of its passed the condemnatory resolution, and not effects, let the cause vanish also. Let this re-expected to condemn their own act. The exsolution for the condemnation of President Jack-punging resolution was laid upon the table, son be expunged from the journals of the Sen- without any intention to move it again during ate! Let it be effaced, erased, blotted out, ob- the present session; but, on the last day of the literated from the face of that page on which it session, when the Senate was crowded with should never have been written! Would to God business, and when there was hardly time to it could be expunged from the page of all his- finish up the indispensable legislation, the motion tory, and from the memory of all mankind. was called up, and by one of its opponentsWould that, so far as it is concerned, the minds Mr. Clayton, of Delaware-the author of the of the whole existing generation should be motion being under the necessity to vote for the dipped in the fabulous and oblivious waters of taking up, though expecting no good from it. the river Lethe. But these wishes are vain. The moment it was taken up, Mr. White, of The resolution must survive and live. History Tennessee, moved to strike out the word "exwill record it; memory will retain it; tradition punge," and insert "rescind, reverse, and make will hand it down. In the very act of expurga- null and void." This motion astonished Mr. tion it lives; for what is taken from one page Benton. Mr. White, besides opposing all the is placed on another. All atonement for the un-proceedings against President Jackson, had been fortunate calamitous act of the Senate is imper- his personal and political friend from early fect and inadequate. Expunge, if we can, still youth-for the more than forty years which the only effect will be to express our solemn each of them had resided in Tennessee. He convictions, by that obliteration, that such a re-expected his aid, and felt the danger of such a solution ought never to have soiled the pages of defection. Mr. Benton defended his word as our journal. This is all that we can do; and being strictly parliamentary, and the only one this much we are bound to do, by every obliga- which was proper to be used when an unauthotion of justice to the President, whose name has rized act is to be condemned-all other phrases been attainted; by every consideration of duty admitting the legality of the act which is to be to the country, whose voice demands this repara- invalidated. Mr. White justified his motion on tion; by ur regard to the constitution, which the ground that an expurgation of the journal has been rampled under foot; by respect to the would be its obliteration, which he deemed inHouse of Representatives, whose function has consistent with the constitutional injunction to been usurped; by self-respect, which requires "keep" a journal-the word "keep" being

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.

taken in its primary sense of "holding,” “ pre- The exulting speech of Mr. Webster restored me serving," 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 BRANCH MINTS AT NEW ORLEANS, AND IN THE 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. called on us to violate, to obliterate, to erase, It

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 descisive 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.

CHAPTER

CXXV.

GOLD REGIONS OF GEORGIA AND NORTH CAR-
OLINA.

THE bill had been reported upon the proposi-
tion of Mr. Waggaman, senator from Louisiana,
and was earnestly and perseveringly opposed
by Mr. Clay. He moved its indefinite post-
ponement, and contended that the mint at Phil-
age which the country required. He denied
adelphia was fully competent to do all the coin-
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 es-
tablish these branches. He supposed it would
gratify the pride of the States of North Caroli-
na 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 Geor-
gia and North Carolina mines to Philadelphia
for coinage. With respect to gratifying the
pride of the Southern States, it was a miscon-
ception; for those States had no prie to grati-
fy. He saw no evil in the multi ication of
these mints. It was well shown the sena-
tor from Missouri, when the bill was up before,
that, in the commentaries on the constitution it

Mr. Benton took the high ground of constitutional right to the establishment of these Mr. B. said, there were six hundred machines branches, and as many more as the interests of at work coining paper money-he alluded to the the States required. He referred to the Fede- six hundred banks in the United States; and ralist, No. 44, written by Mr. Madison, that in only one machine at work coining gold and silver. surrendering the coining power to the federal He believed there ought to be five or six branch government, the States did not surrender their mints in the United States; that is, two or three right to have local mints. He read the passage more than provided for in this bill; one at from the number which he mentioned, and which Charleston, South Carolina, one at Norfolk or was the exposition of the clause in the constitu- | Richmond, Virginia, and one at New-York or tion relative to the coining power. It was ex-Boston. The United States Bank had twenty