spots on his body-the Ethiopian had as at least one-third less than those of the dewell deny the color of his skin, as for this posite banks for an equal period of time; bank to deny its political character, its and if a comparison be instituted between anti-Republican nature, and its thirteen the amounts of service rendered by these years' warfare upon the people and their institutions on the broader basis which has form of Government.

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been used by the advocates of the United War upon the local banks is the next ac- States Bank, in estimating what they concusation upon Goneral Jackson and his suc- sider the domestic exchanges, the result ressor. After putting down the bank of will be still more favorable to the deposit of the United States, he went to work to de- banks!" * * * * * "It is believed sroy the State banks. So say the opposition that the law of the last session, regulating speakers, [Messrs. Tallmadge and Clay.] the deposite banks, operates onerously and Now let us examine into the truth of this unjustly upon them in many respects; and accusation. What was the conduct of Gen. it is hoped that Congress, on proper repreJackson to the local banks? In 1833 he re- sentations, will adopt the modifications moved the publie deposites to these banks, which are necessary to prevent this conseand gave them the benefit of the immense quence." accumulations of public money whech then This was the language of the last messtook place. At the same time, he released age, and this is called' war upon the banks." their notes from that s'ate of exclusion Certainly war should be made of sterner from the Federal Treasury to which they stuff! But, Mr. Van Buren! he carries on had been subjected during the whole time war against them also! so say the same of the Bank of the United States. For the opposition Senators. But, here again the first time, in near twenty years, their notes charge is met by proof which annihilates were received and paid out in the receipts it. Mr. Van Buren has spoken for himself and disbursements of the Federal revenue. on this point, and his whole conduct corAt the panic session, when the whole op- responds with! is declared sentiments. In position exerted themselves for so many his letter to Mr. Sherrod Williams, he months to excite a run upon the local banks, says: and to blow them up, who defended them, Although I have always been opposed here and elsewhere, but General Jackson to the increase of banks, I would, neverand his friends? Who defended the Safe- theless, pursue towards the existing instity Fund banks from the dead set which tutions a just and liberal course, protecting was then made at them? General Jackson them in the rightful enjoyment of the priand his friends! Who rejoiced in the ex- vileges which have been granted to them, plosions of the District hanks, and the Ma and extending to them the good will of the ryland banks, and announced the joyful community, so long as they discharge, with tidings on this floor? The opposition! fide'ity, the delicate and important public And who grieved over these failures? Gen. trusts with which they have been invested, Jackson and his friends! And when the time came for him to deliver his last annual message, what was his language in relation to these banks? Was it that of vengeance, or was it the larguage ef kindness, of confidence, and of support? Listen to it "Experience continues to realize the expectations entertained as to the capacity of the State banks to perform the duties of fiscal agents to the Government. At the time of the removal of the deposites, it Such has been the language and conduct was alleged by the advocates of the Bank of Gen. Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, toof the United States, that the State banks, wards these banks; a conduct and a lanwhatever might be the regulations of the guage utterly disproving the imputation of Treasury Department, could not make the making war upon them. But this is not all: transfers required by the Government, or other proofs of forbearance, of indulgence, negotiate the domestic exchanges of the and of benefits extended to them, remain country, It is now well ascertained that to be stated. When the deposite banks the real domestic exchanges, performed stopped payment last spring, the Governthrough discounts by the United States ment continued to receive their notes, at Bank and its twenty-five branches, were par, in payment of balances due, although

:

"But all experience having shown that there is no delegated power more liable to abuse than that which consists in chartered privileges of this description, I would be astute in watching the course of the banks, and vigilant and prompt in arresting the slightest aspiration on their part to follow a bad example, by seeking to become the masters, when they were designed to be the servants of the people."

B2

these notes were 5, 10, 15, and in some in- withhold specie from the Government! stances 18 per cent, below par. This was Such are the evidences of this war upon mera gain to them of that much, and an equal chants, of which we hear so much. So loss to the Government creditors, to whom far from making war upon them, General they were paid out, and an immense injury Jackson's administration has done more for to the character and popularity of the Ad- merchants than any one, or any two adminministration itself. Again, when Congress istrations, that ever preceded him. He met at the extra session, extended time was has been their beneficent benefactor; and given to all these institutions to pay up this is known to every citizen who knows their balances—a time which has not yet the history of his country, and is acknowexpired, and which has enabled them to ledged by every merchant whose heart is give time and indulgence to their own debt- American. The imputation of hostility to ors. Far from injuring them, the Republi- merchants is an old Federal accusation can Administrations have confided in them against Republicans. It was made against to their own cost, and to the great injury Mr. Jeflerson; and his "terrapin policy" of their own popularity. They had the was long the theme of the politician, the confidence of Government when the public press, the jester, and the caricaturist. money was put into their hands. In plac- No Mr. President, General Jackson made ing the public money with them, the fate no war either upon banks or merchants; of the Administration, in a large degree, not even upon the Bank of the United was committed to them. We wished them States, for he never attacked its existing well, upon the same principle that we charter; and his opposition to a new one wished ourselves well. Since our wishes can only be looked upon as aggressive, and have been disappointed, and the Adminis- as amounting to war, by those who consitration and the country have been the chief der the bank above the Government, and ensufferers, we make no war, but grant indul- titled, like a royal progeny, to a perpetuity gence, exercise forbearance, and ask for of existence. That great man made no peace. We want peace-that safe and per- war upon any institution; or upon any intermanent peace, which results from separa- est, but, sir, we have seen some wars made tion of interest, and absence of all the causes there are some still making-and I will of collision, True, General Jackson, and take the liberty to enumerate a few of Mr. Van Buren, and all their friends, wish them. to see the banking system of the United There was the war against the local States reformed. They wish to see great banks generally, during the whole panic reforms introduced into the system; and, if session, in which no term of reproach was it is not done, they believe that great mis. too odious to be lavished upon them, and chief must eventually result to the commu- no statements to discredit them, no assertion nity, and great injury to the banks them to destroy confidence in them, no attempts selves. They look for a great catastrophe, to excite runs upon them, and to blow them if great reforms are not effected. up, were too shameless or too unscrupulous to find authors, abetters, and aiders, in the ranks of their present most officious friends.

A war upon the merchants is another of the offences charged upon General Jackson; and what is the evidence of it? Next was the war upon the safety fund The commerce of the country nearly dou- system, and the safety fund banks, of the bled since he became President; nearly one State of New York, which, for two or three half of the whole amount of imports made sessions, raged with such violence on this free of duty; the duties greatly reduced on floor. During all that time, nothing so corall the remainder; indemnities obtained rupt as this system, nothing more certain from France, Spain, Denmark, and Naples, than its rottenness and explosion, and nothfor spoliations committed under former ad- ing so dreadful as the prospect of having ministrations, and which former adminis- it imposed upon the whole Union in the trations in vain solicited; ships of war sent event of an election of a certain citizen of into every sea for the protection of mercan- the State of New York to the Presidency tile interests; ministers and consuls sent of the United States. In this war I had to new points, and to further points than the honor to extend a feeble aid to the Sethey ever went to before; outrages punish- nator from New York, [Mr. Tallmadge,] ed on the opposite side of the globe, even in his patriotic defence of the institutions among the antipodes; time given to mer- of his State against the repeated and viochants for the payment of their bonds; de- lent assaults of his present coadjutor in. bentures paid to them in specie, while they politics from Kentucky, [Mr. Clay.]

Then came the war, which still continues, the British Constitution, with its king, upon the constitutional currency of the lords, and commons, was the most stupencountry a war in which gold and silver dous fabric of human invention, had its has received all the abuse which, in other open and public defenders. The second countries, would be lavished upon counter- election of Mr. Jefferson sunk Federalism feit money. First ridiculed as visionary too low. It drove it into a state of hiberand impracticable; then denounced and stig- nation, far north, from which it did not matized as a barbarism; then attempted to emerge for many years; and which left it be forced out of the country by deportation; without distinctive character, or object, unthen attempted to be imprisoned, and shut til the Congress election of the second Mr. out from the light of day, by shutting down Adams. Then the ancient principles of the all the banks upon it; then attempting to party revived, and the war recommenced drive it off by turning loose upon it a pes- upon the principles, and upon the form, of tiferious issue of shin-plasters and small our Government, in the attacks which were notes; and now straining might and main made upon the capacity of the people to to keep it down by keeping up irredeema- choose their own President. This war ble paper, preventing a resumption of spe- then recommenced, and has continued ever cie payments, and forcing a currency of since; for what is this eternal denunciation broken bank notes into the coffers of the of General Jackson, but a denunciation of Federal Government, that immense majority of the American people, who have three times preferred him for President, and a fourth time approved his policy in the election of his successor? What is this infinite accumulation of degrading epithets upon the mad, wicked, outlandish, and ruinous administration of General Jackson, but an application of the sane epithets to the people who elected him, and who have approved his Administra.ion? What is this cry for a change of the "experimenters," but a cry for a change of the voters who elect them? Beyond doubt, the capacity of the people to choose their representatives, is attacked in these incessant assaults upon their representatives; and the zeal and unanimity with which this war is carried on, make it high time to consider it in its true aspect, as a deliberate waging of hostility upon the principles of our Constitution, and the form of our Government.

Another war which we have seen going on ever since the veto session, six years ago and which we still see, is upon the general business of the country; turning off laborers, reducing wages, stopping work, shutting up factories, expanding and contracting the paper currency, so as to make money plenty one day and scarce the next; monopolizing bread and fuel, to double their price, while diminishing the capacity of the laborer to purchase; fabricating distress by every act of real oppression, and aggravating it by every art of fictitious exaggeration; looking forward to an "awful winter" as to a banquet of intellectual enjoyment; scarcely concealing their dissatisfaction with Providence for giving mildness instead of severity of weather, and insulting the victims of their oppression by doling out to them an ostentatious and contemptible charity.

Another of these wars, one which we have witnessed ever since the Presidential election in the House of Representatives, in February, 1825, is that which has been so appropriately denounced by the Senator from Ohio, who sits to the left, [Mr. Morris,] and which exceeds all others in enormity, because it is a war upon the fundamental principles of our Constitution, and upon the form of the Government under which we live. The revival of this war dates from the election of Mr. Adams by the House of Represntatives, in 1825, but its origin is coeval with the foundation of the Government. Up to the first election of Mr. Jefferson, in 1800, this war was carried on openly and furiously, and the sentiment contained in the elder Mr. Adams' book on the American Constitution, that

Finally, we see a war against an individual, against a retired citizen, an aged man, one that has done the State some service→ a war of which there are but few examples in the annals of Christendom, or within the boundaries of the civilized world. General Jackson is no longer on the stage of action; he is no longer in any man's way. Through the portals of everlasting fame he has made his exit from the stage of public life, and has goue into that retirement never more to be withdrawn from it, which he has always sought, and from which his country has so often recalled him. Repose is the only boon that he now asks of the world, and such a man has certainly a right to tranquility-a right to be free from invasion-in the evening of his days, and in the shelter of his own house. But he is

And this is the Senatorial description of 2. The exclusion of all bank notes_from Genera! Jackson's administration! that Ad the receipts and expenditures of the Fele ministration which has filled the country ral Treasury. These are the principles; with prosperity at home, and covered it all the rest is detail. Against these two with honor abroad, and which has revived principles a strong division of this House and restored the Republican spirit of our rises up; among them a few of our own poGovernment, and rallied the Republican litical friends, but the mass and body of party on the ground which it occupi d un- the division are the friends of the Bank of der the illustrious Administration of Pre- the United States. The justice of this opsident Jefferson. position, and especially in the quarter from Sir, it is not my intention to analyze this which it chiefly comes, can well be judged description, or to inquire into the truth of of by recollecting that both these princithe allegations it contains. I leave that ples have been in full force against all the work to the moral sense of the community! State banks for nearly forty years out of I leave it to those who have witnessed these forty-eight that our Government has been astounding measures-heard this appalling in existence. They were so enforced dur thunder-seen this volcanic mountain-and ing the whole time that the two Banks of beheld this frightful river of burning lava! the United States have existed. I have not I leave it even to those "voices hushed in got the by-laws of the first National Bank, eternal silence"-to the voices of the inha- but I have the charters of both, and the bybitants of the cities, towns, and villages, laws of the second. By these charters, buried, crusted over, and cold, under the the two Banks of the United States were volcanic eruptions vomited forth by this entitled to the custody of the public modesolating mountain ! neys, to the exclusion of the local banks; And what has Gen. Jackson done to draw and, by their by-laws, the notes of these upon him this relentless and undying per local banks were excluded from payments secution? Sir. he has done nothing but to and from the Federal Treasury. I have let the people elect him President, and then a copy of these laws, as passed by the seso administered the Government as to car cond Bank of the United States, and merery the star of his civil fame to the highest ly adopted from the code of the first one, point in the political firmament, there to in which this exclusion is enacted, and remain forever, seating the eyeballs of en- which runs in these words: vy, but cheering the heart, and guiding the [Here Mr. B. read the 24th and 25th arfootsteps of patriotism, and 8edding its ticles of the by-laws of the Bank of the benign influence on the freedom, happiness, United States, passed immediately afprosperity, and glory of his country. ter the establishment of the bank, and exMr. President, I-have answered some of cluding the notes of all State banks from the attacks on the Republican party which all payments to the United States, except have been brought forward in this debate. the notes of the specie-paying banks situThey are such attacks as we have been ated in the same place with the branch; accustomed to see for many years, and and directing the notes of those thus exceptwhich have given to this chamber more the ed to be presented to the bank that issued appearance of an electioneering hustings them for payment, at least once in every than a hall of legislation. We opened the week.]

debate on the merits of the bill; opposition This by law was enacted in the year gentlemen have converted 't into a canvass 1817,an was rigorously enforced unt'l the for the Presidency, and a contest for pow- removal of the deposites in October, 1833, er. We have been obliged to follow them it was therefore 17 years in force under in this unparliamentary course, so far at the second bank; and having been twenty least as to repel some of their attacks. Hav- years in force under the first bark, it reing done this, I take up the bill, and shall sults that this exclusion of State bank notes limit myself to a brief examination of its from the Federal Treasury, has atually principles, and to a defence of some of the been in force nearly forty years out of the points on which it is assailed; and shall forty-eight whien our Government has exconclude with some observations upon the isted. The slight exception in the non-reconduct of parties, and the political pros- cival ility of these notes was an exception pect ahead. to the prejudice of the local institutions; The bill contains two principles, and but the exception was limited to the few banks 1. The exclusion of all banks from located in the saine town which contained the use and custody of the public money. the branch bank, and was an injury to

two.