66 The currency is not ruined! On the contrary, seventy-five millions of specie in the country is a spectacle never seen before, and is the barrier of the people against the designs of any banks which may attempt to suspend payments, and to force a dishonored paper currency upon the community. These seventy-five millions are the security of the people against the dangers of a depreciated and inconvertible paper money. Gold, after a disappearance of thirty years, is restored to our country. All Europe beholds with admiration the success of our efforts in three years, to supply ourselves with the currency which our constitution guarantees, and which the example of France and Holland shows to be so easily attainable, and of such incalculable value to industry, morals, economy, and solid wealth. The success of these efforts is styled in the best London papers, not merely a reformation, but a revolution in the currency! a revolution by which our America is now regaining from Europe the gold and silver which she has been sending to it for thirty years past. every expansion must be followed by its contraction. I know that a revulsion of the paper system is inevitable; but I know, also, that these seventy-five millions of gold and silver is the bulwark of the country, and will enable every honest bank to meet its liabilities, and every prudent citizen to take care of himself. Turning to some points in the civil administration of President Jackson, and how much do we not find to admire! The great cause of the constitution has been vindicated from an imputation of more than forty years' duration. He has demonstrated, by the fact itself, that a national bank is not 'necessary' to the fiscal operations of the federal government; and in that demonstration he has upset the argument of General Hamilton, and the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and all that ever has been said in favor of the constitutionality of a national bank. All this argument and decision rested on the single assumption of the 'necessity' of that institution to the federal government. He has shown it is not 'necessary;' that the currency of the constitution, and especially a gold currency, is all that the federal government wants, and that she can get that whenever she pleases. In this single act, he has vindicated the constitution from an unjust imputation, and knocked from under the decision of the Supreme Court the assumed fact for the reversal of that decision; and it is a question for lawyers to answer, whether the case is not ripe for the application of that writ of most remedial nature, as Lord Coke calls it, and which was invented, lest, in any case, there should be an oppressive defect of justice! the venerable writ of audita querela defendentis, to ascertain the truth of a fact happening since the judgment; and upon the due finding of which the judgment will be vacated. Let the lawyers bring their books, and answer us, if there is not a case here presented for the application of that ancient and most remedial writ? Domestic industry is not paralyzed; confidence is not destroyed; factories are not stop-on which it rested. He has prepared the way ped; workmen are not mendicants for bread and employment; credit is not extinguished; prices have not sunk; grass is not growing in the streets of populous cities; the wharves are not lumbered with decaying vessels; columns of curses, rising from the bosoms of a ruined and agonized people, are not ascending to heaven against the destroyer of a nation's felicity and prosperity. On the contrary, the reverse of all this is true! and true to a degree that astonishes and bewilders the senses. I know that all is not gold that glitters; that there is a difference between a specious and a solid prosperity. I know that a part of the present prosperity is apparent only-the effect of an increase of fifty millions of paper money, forced into circulation by one thousand banks; but, after making due allowance for this fictitious and delusive excess, the real prosperity of the country is still unprecedentedly and transcendently great. I know that every flow must be followed by its ebb, that From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory and practical intent of the constitution, in giving to the Executive a qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from being an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as vested in the President, is nothing but a qualified copy To detail specific acts which adorn the administration of President Jackson, and illustrate the intuitive sagacity of his intellect, the firmness of his mind, his disregard of personal popularity, and his entire devotion to the public good, would be inconsistent with this rapid sketch, intended merely to present general views, and not to detail single actions, howsoever worthy they may be of a splendid page in the volume of history. But how can we pass over the great measure of the removal of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States, in the autumn of 1833? that wise, heroic, and masterly measure of prevention, which has rescued an empire from the fangs of a merciless, revengeful, greedy, insatiate, implacable, moneyed power! It is a remark for which I am indebted to the philosophic observation of my most esteemed colleague and friend (pointing to Dr. Linn), that, while it requires far greater talent to foresee an evil before it happens, and to arrest it by precautionary measures, than it requires to apply an adequate remedy to the same evil after it has happened, yet the applause bestowed by the world is always greatest in the latter case. Of this, the removal of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States is an eminent instance. The veto of 1832, which arrested the charter which Con of the famous veto power vested in the tribunes Union would now have been in the condition of of the people among the Romans, and intended the people of Pennsylvania, bestrode by the to suspend the passage of a law until the people monster, in daily conflict with him, and mainthemselves should have time to consider it. The taining a doubtful contest for supremacy bequalified veto of the President destroys nothing; tween the government of a State and the direcit only delays the passage of a law, and refers tory of a moneyed corporation. it to the people for their consideration and decision. It is the reference of a law, not to a committee of the House, or of the whole House, but to the committee of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the bill to the people, for them to examine and consider; and if, upon this examination, they are content to pass it, it will pass at the next session. The delay of a few months is the only effect of a veto, in a case where the people shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not approve it, the interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption of a law, the repeal of which might afterwards be almost impossible. The qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent power, intended, as General Hamilton expressly declares in the 'Federalist,' to protect, first, the executive department from the encroachments of the legislative department; and, secondly, to preserve the people from hasty, dangerous, or criminal legislation on the part of their representatives. This is the design and intention of the veto power; and the fear expressed by General Hamilton was, that Presidents, so far from exercising it too often, would not exercise it as often as the safety of the people required; that they might lack the moral courage to stake themselves in opposition to a favorite measure of the majority of the two Houses of Congress; and thus deprive the peo-gress had granted, immediately received the apple, in many instances, of their right to pass upon a bill before it becomes a final law. The cases in which President Jackson has exercised the veto power has shown the soundness of these observations. No ordinary President would have staked himself against the Bank of the United States, and the two Houses of Congress, in 1832. It required President Jackson to confront that power-to stem that torrent-to stay the progress of that charter, and to refer it to the people for their decision. His moral courage was equal to the crisis. He arrested the charter until it could go to the people, and they have arrested it for ever. Had he not done so, the charter would have become law, and its repeal almost impossible. The people of the whole plause and approbation of a majority of the Union: the removal of the deposits, which prevented the bank from forcing a recharter, was disapproved by a large majority of the country, and even of his own friends; yet the veto would have been unavailing, and the bank would inevitably have been rechartered, if the deposits had not been removed. The immense sums of public money since accumulated would have enabled the bank, if she had retained the possession of it, to have coerced a recharter. Nothing but the removal could have prevented her from extorting a recharter from the sufferings and terrors of the people. If it had not been for that reasure, the previous veto would have been unavailing; the bank would have been again installed in power; and this entire federal government would have been held as an appendage to that bank, and administered according to her directions, and by her nominees. That great measure of prevention, the removal of the deposits, though feebly and faintly supported by friends at first, has expelled the bank from the field, and driven her into abeyance under a State charter. She is not dead, but, holding her capital and stockholders together under a State charter, she has taken a position to watch events, and to profit by them. The royal tiger has gone into the jungle; and, crouched on his belly, he awaits the favorable moment for emerging from his covert, and springing on the body of the unsuspicious traveller! The Treasury order for excluding paper money from the land offices is another wise measure, originating in enlightened forecast, and preventing great mischiefs. The President foresaw the evils of suffering a thousand streams of paper money, issuing from a thousand different banks, to discharge themselves on the national domain. He foresaw that if these currents were allowed to run their course, that the public lands would be swept away, the Treasury would be filled with irredeemable paper, a vast number of banks must be broken by their folly, and the cry set up that nothing but a national bank could regulate the currency. He stopped the course of these streams of paper; and, in so doing, has saved the country from a great calamity, and excited anew the machinations of those whose schemes of gain and mischief have been disappointed; and who had counted on a new edition of panic and pressure, and again saluting Congress with the old story of confidence destroyed, currency ruined, prosperity annihilated, and distress produced, by the tyranny of one man. They began their lugubrious song; but ridicule and contempt have proved too strong for money and insolence; and the panic letter of the ex-president of the denationalized bank, after limping about for a few days, has shrunk from the lash of public scorn, and disappeared from the forum of public debate. The difficulty with France: what an instance it presents of the superior sagacity of President Jackson over all the commonplace politicians who beset and impede his administration at home! That difficulty, inflamed and aggravated by domestic faction, wore, at one time, a por tentous aspect; the skill, firmness, elevation of purpose, and manly frankness of the President, avoided the danger, accomplished the object, commanded the admiration of Europe, and retained the friendship of France. He conducted the delicate affair to a successful and mutually honorable issue. All is amicably and happily terminated, leaving not a wound, nor even a scar, behind-leaving the Frenchman and American on the ground on which they have stood for fifty years, and should for ever stand; the ground of friendship, respect, good will, and mutual wishes for the honor, happiness, and prosperity, of each other. But why this specification? So beneficent and so glorious has been the administration of this President, that where to begin, and where to end, in the enumeration of great measures, would be the embarrassment of him who has his eulogy to make. He came into office the first of generals; he goes out the first of statesmen. His civil competitors have shared the fate of his military opponents; and Washington city has been to the American politicians who have assailed him, what New Orleans was to the British generals who attacked his lines. Repulsed! driven back! discomfited! crushed! has been the fate of all assailants, foreign and domestic, civil and military. At home and abroad, the impress of his genius and of his character is felt. He has impressed upon the age in which he lives the stamp of his arms, of his diplomacy, and of his domestic policy. In a word, so transcendent have been the merits of his administration, that they have operated a miracle upon the minds of his most inveterate opponents. He has expunged their objections to military chieftains! He has shown them that they were mistaken; that military men were not the dangerous rulers they had imagined, but safe and prosperous conductors of the vessel of state. He has changed their fear into love. With visible signs they admit their error, and, instead of deprecating, they now invoke the reign of chieftains. They labored hard to procure a military successor to the present incumbent; and if their love goes on increasing at the same rate, the republic may be put to the expense of periodical wars, to breed a perpetual succession of these chieftains to rule over them and their posterity for ever. To drop this irony, which the inconsistency tyrant, as he was called, from the high place to which the suffrages of millions of freemen had elevated him. Great is the confidence which he has always reposed in the discernment and equity of the American people. I have been accustomed to see him for many years, and under many discouraging trials; but never saw him doubt, for an instant, the ultimate support of the people. It was my privilege to see him often, and during the most gloomy period of the panic conspiracy, when the whole earth seemed to be in commotion against him, and when many friends were faltering, and stout hearts were quailing, before the raging storm which bank machination, and senatorial denunciation, had conjured up to overwhelm him. I saw him in the darkest moments of this gloomy period; and never did I see his confidence in the ultimate support of his fellowcitizens forsake him for an instant. He always said the people would stand by those who stand by them; and nobly have they justified that confidence! That verdict, the voice of millions, which now demands the expurgation of that sentence, which the Senate and the bank then pronounced upon him, is the magnificent response of the people's hearts to the implicit con of mad opponents has provoked, and to return to the plain delineations of historical painting, the mind instinctively dwells on the vast and unprecedented popularity of this President. Great is the influence, great the power, greater than any man ever before possessed in our America, which he has acquired over the public mind. And how has he acquired it? Not by the arts of intrigue, or the juggling tricks of diplomacy; not by undermining rivals, or sacrificing public interests for the gratification of classes or individuals. But he has acquired it, first, by the exercise of an intuitive sagacity which, leaving all book learning at an immeasurable distance behind, has always enabled him to adopt the right remedy, at the right time, and to conquer soonest when the men of forms and office thought him most near to ruin and despair. Next, by a moral courage which knew no fear when the public good beckoned him to go on. Last, and chiefest, he has acquired it by an open honesty of purpose, which knew no concealments; by a straightforwardness of action, which disdained the forms of office and the arts of intrigue; by a disinterestedness of motive, which knew no selfish or sordid calculation; a devotedness of patriotism, which staked every thing personal on the issue of every mea-fidence which he then reposed in them. But it sure which the public welfare required him to adopt. By these qualities, and these means, he has acquired his prodigious popularity, and his transcendent influence over the public mind; and if there are any who envy that influence and popularity, let them envy, also, and emulate, if they can, the qualities and means by which they were acquired. was not in the people only that he had confidence; there was another, and a far higher Power, to which he constantly looked to save the country, and its defenders, from every danger; and signal events prove that he did not look to that high Power in vain. Sir, I think it right, in approaching the termination of this great question, to present this Great has been the opposition to President faint and rapid sketch of the brilliant, beneficent, Jackson's administration; greater, perhaps, than and glorious administration of President Jackever has been exhibited against any government, son. It is not for me to attempt to do it jusshort of actual insurrection and forcible resist- tice; it is not for ordinary men to attempt its ance. Revolution has been proclaimed! and history. His military life, resplendent with every thing has been done that could be ex- dazzling events, will demand the pen of a nervpected to produce revolution. The country has ous writer; his civil administration, replete been alarmed, agitated, convulsed. From the with scenes which have called into action so Senate chamber to the village bar-room, from many and such various passions of the human one end of the continent to the other, denuncia- heart, and which has given to native sagacity tion, agitation, excitement, has been the order so many victories over practised politicians, will of the day. For eight years the President of require the profound, luminous, and philosophithis republic has stood upon a volcano, vomiting cal conceptions of a Livy, a Plutarch, or a Salfire and flames upon him, and threatening the lust. This history is not to be written in our country itself with ruin and desolation, if the day. The cotemporaries of such events are not people did not expel the usurper, despot, and the hands to describe them. Time must first do its office-must silence the passions, remove the actors, develope consequences, and canonize all that is sacred to honor, patriotism, and glory. In after ages the historic genius of our America shall produce the writers which the subject demands-men far removed from the contests of this day, who will know how to estimate this great epoch, and how to acquire an immortality for their own names by painting, with a master's hand, the immortal events of the patriot President's life. And now, sir, I finish the task which, three years ago, I imposed on myself. Solitary and alone, and amidst the jeers and taunts of my opponents, I put this ball in motion. The people have taken it up, and rolled it forward, and I am no longer any thing but a unit in the vast mass which now propels it. In the name of that mass I speak. I demand the execution of the edict of the people; I demand the expurgation of that sentence which the voice of a few senators, and the power of their confederate, the Bank of the United States, has caused to be placed on the journal of the Senate; and which the voice of millions of freemen has ordered to be expunged from it. CHAPTER CLXI. ure depended. The men of conciliation were to be the efficient men of that night; and all the winning resources of Wright, Allen of Ohio and Linn of Missouri, were put into requisition. There were serious differences upon the mode of expurgation, while agreed upon the thing; and finally obliteration, the favorite of the mover, was given up; and the mode of expurgation adopted which had been proposed in the resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia; namely, to inclose the obnoxious sentence in a square of black lines-an oblong square: a compromise of opinions to which the mover agreed upon condition of being allowed to compose the epitaph-" Expunged by the order of the Senate." The agreement which was to lead to victory was then adopted, each one severally pledging himself to it, that there should be no adjournment of the Senate after the resolution was called until it was passed; and that it should be called immediately after the morning business on the Monday ensuing. Expecting a protracted session, extending through the day and night, and knowing the difficulty of keeping men steady to their work and in good humor, when tired and hungry, the mover of the proceeding took care to provide, as far as possible, against such a state of things; and gave orders that night to have an ample supply of cold hams, turkeys, rounds of beef, pickles, wines and cups of hot coffee, ready in a certain committee room near the Senate chamber by four o'clock on the EXPUNGING RESOLUTION: MR. CLAY, MR. CAL- afternoon of Monday. HOUN, MR. WEBSTER: LAST SCENE: RESOLU- The motion to take up the subject was made at the appointed time, and immediately a debate SATURDAY, the 14th of January, the democratic of long speeches, chiefly on the other side, opensenators agreed to have a meeting, and to take ed itself upon the question. It was evident their final measures for passing the expunging that comsumption of time, delay and adjournresolution. They knew they had the numbers; ment, was their plan. The three great leaders but they also knew that they had adversaries did not join in the opening; but their place was to grapple with to whom might be applied the well supplied by many of their friends, able proud motto of Louis the Fourteenth: "Not an speakers-some effective, some eloquent: Presunequal match for numbers." They also knew ton of South Carolina; Richard H. Bayard and that members of the party were in the process of John M. Clayton of Delaware; Crittenden of separating from it, and would require concilia-Kentucky; Southard of New Jersey; White of ting. They met in the night at the then famous Tennessee; Ewing of Ohio. They were only the restaurant of Boulanger, giving to the assemblage half in number, but strong in zeal and ability, that the air of a convivial entertainment. It continu- commenced the contest three years before, reined till midnight, and required all the modera- forced by Mr. White of Tennessee. As the darktion, tact and skill of the prime movers to ob-ness of approaching night came on, and the great tain and maintain the union upon details, on chandelier was lit up, splendidly illuminating the the success of which the fate of the meas-chamber, then crowded with the members of the |