Chapter I: AM charged with the pleasing duty of presenting to the senate the (5)

But it has been contended on this occasion, as it was in the debate which preceded the adoption of the resolution of 1834, that the senate has no right to express the truth on any question which by possibility, may become a subject of impeachment. It is manifest, that if it may, there is no more usual or appropriate form in which it may be done than that of resolutions, joint or separate, orders, or bills. In no other mode can the collective sense of the body be expressed. But _senators_ maintain, that no matter what may be the executive encroachment upon the joint powers of the two houses, or the separate authority of the senate, it is bound to stand mute, and not breathe one word of complaint or remonstrance. According to the argument, the greater the violation of the constitution or the law, the greater the incompetency of the senate to express any opinion upon it! Further, that this incompetency is not confined to the acts of the president only, but extends to those of every officer who is liable to impeachment under the constitution. Is this possible? Can it be true? Contrary to all the laws of nature, is the senate the only being which has no power of self-preservation; no right to complain or to remonstrate against attacks upon its very existence?

The argument is, that the senate, being the constitutional tribunal to try all impeachments, is thereby precluded from the exercise of the right to express any opinion upon any official malfeasance, except when acting in its judicial character.

If this disqualification exist, it applies to all impeachable officers, and ought to have protected the late postmaster-general against the resolution, unanimously adopted by the senate, declaring that he had borrowed money contrary to law. And it would disable the senate from considering that treasury order, which has formed such a prominent subject of its deliberations during the present session.

And how do senators maintain this obligation of the senate to remain silent, and behold itself stripped, one by one, of all constitutional powers, without resistance, and without murmur? Is it imposed by the language of the constitution? Has any part of that instrument been pointed to which expressly enjoins it? No, no, not a syllable. But attempts are made to deduce it by another far-fetched implication. Because the senate is the body which is to try impeachments, therefore _it is inferred_ the senate can express no opinion on any matter which may form the subject of impeachment. The constitution does not say so. That is undeniable; but senators think so.

The senate acts in three characters, legislative, executive, and judicial; and their importance is in the order enumerated. By far the most important of the three is its legislative. In that, almost every day that it has been in session, from 1789 to the present time, some legislative business has been transacted; whilst in its judicial character, it has not sat more than three or four times in that whole period.

Why should the judicial function limit and restrain the legislative function of the senate, more than the legislative should the judicial? If the degree of importance of the two should decide which ought to impose the restraint, in cases of conflict between them, none can doubt which it should be.

But if the argument is sound, how is it possible for the senate to perform its legislative duties? An act in violation of the constitution or laws is committed by the president or a subordinate executive officer, and it becomes necessary to correct it by the passage of a law. The very act of the president in question was under a law to which the senate had given its concurrence. According to the argument, the correcting law cannot originate in the senate, because it would have to pass in judgment upon that act. Nay, more, it cannot originate in the house, and be sent to the senate, for the same reason of incompetency in the senate to pass upon it. Suppose the bill contained a preamble reciting the unconstitutional or illegal act, to which the legislative corrective is applied; according to the argument, the senate must not think of passing it. Pushed to its legitimate consequence, the argument requires the house of representatives itself cautiously to abstain from the expression of any opinion upon an executive act, except when it is acting as the grand inquest of the nation, and considering articles of impeachment.

Assuming that the argument is well founded, the senate is equally restrained from expressing any opinion, which would imply the innocence or the guilt of an impeachable officer, unless it be maintained, that it is lawful to express praise and approbation, but not censure or difference of opinion. Instances have occurred in our past history, (the case of the British minister, Jackson, was a memorable one,) and many others may arise in our future progress, when in reference to foreign powers, it may be important for congress to approve what has been done by the executive, to present a firm and united front, and to pledge the country to stand by and support him. May it not do that? If the senate dare not entertain and express any opinion upon an executive measure, how do those who support this expunging resolution justify the acquittal of the president, which it proclaims?

No senator believed in 1834, that, whether the president merited impeachment or not, he ever would be impeached. In point of fact he has not been, and we have every reason to suppose, that he never will be impeached. Was the majority of the senate, in a case where it believed the constitution and laws to have been violated, and the liberties of the people to be endangered, to remain silent, and to refrain from proclaiming the truth, because, against all human probability, the president might be impeached by a majority of his political friends in the house of representatives?

If an impeachment had been actually voted by the house of representatives, there is nothing in the constitution which enjoins silence on the part of the senate. In such a case, it would have been a matter of propriety for the consideration of each senator to avoid the expression of any opinion on a matter upon which, as a sworn judge, he would be called to act.

Hitherto I have considered the question on the supposition, that the resolution of March, 1834, implied such guilt in the president, that he would have been liable to conviction on a trial by impeachment before the senate of the United States. But the resolution, in fact, imported no such guilt. It simply affirmed, that he had ‘assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both.’ It imputed no criminal motives. It did not profess to penetrate into the heart of the president. According to the phraseology of the resolution, the exceptionable act might have been performed with the purest and most patriotic intention. The resolution neither affirmed his innocence, nor pronounced his guilt. It amounts, then, say his friends on this floor, to nothing. Not so. If the constitution be trampled upon, and the laws be violated, the injury may be equally great, whether it has been done with good or bad intentions. There may be a difference to the officer, none to the country. The country, as all experience demonstrates, has most reason to apprehend those encroachments which take place on plausible pretexts, and with good intentions.

I put it, Mr. President, to the calm and deliberate consideration of the majority of the senate, are you ready to pronounce, in the face of this enlightened community, for all time to come, and whoever may happen to be president, that the senate dare not, in language the most inoffensive and respectful, remonstrate against any executive usurpation, whatever may be its degree or danger?

For one, I will not, I cannot. I believe the resolution of March, 1834, to have been true; and that it was competent to the senate to proclaim the truth. And I solemnly believe, that the senate would have been culpably neglectful of its duty to itself, to the constitution, and to the country, if it had not announced the truth.

But let me suppose that in all this I am mistaken; that the act of the president, to which exception was made, was in conformity with the spirit of our free institutions, and the language of our constitution and laws; and that, whether it was or not, the senate of 1834 had no authority to pass judgment upon it; what right has the senate of 1837, a component part of another congress, to pronounce judgment upon its predecessor? How can you, who venture to impute to those who have gone before you an unconstitutional proceeding, escape a similar imputation? What part of the constitution communicates to you any authority to assign and try your predecessors? In what article is contained your power to expunge what they have done? And may not the precedent lead to a perpetual code of defacement and restoration of the transactions of the senate, as consigned to the public records?

Are you not only destitute of all authority, but positively forbidden to do what the expunging resolution proposes? The injunction of the constitution to keep a journal of our proceedings is clear, express, and emphatic. It is free from ambiguity; no sophistry can pervert the explicit language of the instrument; no artful device can elude the force of the obligation which it imposes. If it were possible to make more manifest the duty which it requires to be performed, that was done by the able and eloquent speeches, at the last session, of the senators from Virginia and Louisiana, (Messrs. Leigh and Porter,) and at this of my colleague. I shall not repeat the argument. But I would ask, if there were no constitutional requirement to keep a journal, what constitutional right has the senate of this congress to pass in judgment upon the senate of another congress, and to expunge from its journal a deliberate act there recorded? Can an unconstitutional act of that senate, supposing it to be so, justify you in performing another unconstitutional act?

But, in lieu of any argument upon the point from me, I beg leave to cite for the consideration of the senate two precedents; one drawn from the reign of the most despotic monarch in modern Europe, under the most despotic minister that ever bore sway over any people; and the other from the purest fountain of democracy in this country. I quote from the interesting life of the cardinal Richelieu, written by that most admirable and popular author, Mr. James. The duke of Orleans, the brother of Louis XIII, had been goaded into rebellion by the wary Richelieu. The king issued a decree declaring all the supporters of the duke guilty of high treason, and a copy of it was despatched to the parliament at Paris, with an order to register it at once. The parliament demurred, and proceeded to what was called an _arret de partage_.

‘Richelieu, however, could bear no contradiction in the course
which he had laid down for himself;’ [how strong a resemblance
does that feature of his character bear to one of an illustrious
individual whom I will not further describe!] ‘and hurrying
back to Paris with the king, he sent, in the monarch’s
name, a command for the members of the parliament to present
themselves at the Louvre in a body, and _on foot_. He was obeyed
immediately; and the king receiving them with great haughtiness,
the keeper of the seals made them a speech, in which he declared
that they had no authority to deliberate upon affairs of state;
that the business of private individuals they might discuss, but
that the will of the monarch in other matters they were alone
called upon to register. _The king then tore with his own hands
the page of the register on which the arret de partage had been
inscribed, and punished with suspension from their functions
several of the members of the various courts composing the
parliament of Paris._’

How repeated acts of the exercise of arbitrary power are likely to subdue the spirit of liberty, and to render callous the public sensibility, and the fate which awaits us, if we had not been recently unhappily taught in this country, we may learn from the same author.

‘The finances of the state were exhausted, new impositions were
devised, and a number of new offices created and sold. Against
the last-named abuse the parliament ventured to remonstrate;
but the government of the cardinal had for its first principle
despotism, and the refractory members were punished, some with
exile, some with suspension of their functions. All were forced
to comply with his will, and the parliament, unable to resist,
yielded, step by step, to his exactions.’

The other precedent is suspended by the archives of the democracy of Pennsylvania, in 1816, when it was genuine and unmixed with any other ingredient.

The provisions of the constitution of the United States and of Pennsylvania, in regard to the obligation to keep a journal, are substantially the same. That of the United States requires that

‘Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from
time to time publish the same, except such parts as may in their
judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members
of either house on any question shall, at the desire of one
fifth of the members present, be entered on the journal.’

And that of Pennsylvania is,

‘Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish
them weekly except such parts as require secrecy, and the yeas
and nays of the members on any question shall, at the desire of
any two of them, be entered on the journals.’

Whatever inviolability, therefore, is attached to a journal, kept in conformity with the one constitution, must be equally stamped on that kept under the other. On the tenth of February, 1816, in the house of representatives of Pennsylvania, ‘the speaker informed the house that a constitutional question being involved in a decision by him yesterday, on a motion to expunge certain proceedings from the journal, he was desirous of having the opinion of the house on that decision, namely, that a majority can expunge from the journal any proceedings _in which the yeas and nays have not been called_.’ Whereupon Mr. Holgate and Mr. Smith appealed from said decision; and on the question, is the speaker right in his decision? the members present voted as follows: yeas three, nays seventy-eight. Among the latter are to be found the two senators now representing in this body the state of Pennsylvania. On the same day a motion was made by one of them, (Mr. Buchanan,) and Mr. Kelly, and read as follows.

‘Resolved, that in the opinion of this house, no part of the
journals of the house can be expunged, even by unanimous consent.’

The senate observes, that the question arose in a case where the yeas and nays had not been called. Even in such a case, there were but four members, out of eighty-two, who thought it was competent to the house to expunge. Had the yeas and nays been called and recorded, as they were on the resolution of March, 1834, there would not have been a solitary vote in the house of representatives of Pennsylvania in support of the power of expunging. And if you can expunge the resolution, why may you not expunge also the recorded yeas and nays attached to it?

But if the matter of expunction be contrary to the truth of the case, reproachful for its base subserviency, derogatory to the just and necessary powers of the senate, and repugnant to the constitution of the United States, the manner in which it is proposed to accomplish this dark deed is also highly exceptionable. The expunging resolution, which is to blot out or enshroud the four or five lines in which the resolution of 1834 stands recorded, or rather the recitals by which it is preceded, are spun out into a thread of enormous length. It runs, whereas, and whereas, and whereas, and whereas, and so forth, into a formidable array of nine several whereases. One who should have the courage to begin to read them, unaware of what was to be their termination, would think that at the end of such a tremendous display he must find the very devil. It is like a kite or a comet, except that the order of nature is inverted, and the tail, instead of being behind, is before the body to which it is appended.

I shall not trespass on the senate by inquiring into the truth of all the assertions of fact and of principle, contained in these recitals. It would not be difficult to expose them all, and to show that not one of them has more than a colorable foundation. It is asserted by one of them, that the president was put upon his trial and condemned, unheard, by the senate, in 1834. Was that true? Was it a trial? Can the majority now assert, upon their oaths, and in their consciences, that there was any trial or condemnation? During the warmth of debate, senators might endeavor to persuade themselves and the public, that the proceeding of 1834 was, in its effects and consequences, a trial, and would be a condemnation of the president; but now, after the lapse of nearly three years, when the excitement arising from an animated discussion has passed away, it is marvellous that any one should be prepared to assert, that an expression of the opinion of the senate upon the character of an executive act was an arraignment, trial, and conviction of the president of the United States.

Another fact, asserted in one of those recitals, is, that the resolution of 1834, in either of the forms in which it was originally presented, or subsequently modified prior to the final shape which it assumed when adopted, would have been rejected by a majority of the senate. What evidence is there in support of this assertion? None. It is, I verily believe, directly contrary to the fact. In either of the modifications of the resolution, I have not a doubt, that it would have passed! They were all made in that spirit of accommodation by which the mover of the resolution has ever regulated his conduct as a member of a deliberative body. In not one single instance did he understand from any senator at whose request he made the modification, that, without it, he would vote against the resolution. How, then, can even the senators, who were of the minority of 1834, undertake to make the assertion in question? How can the new senators, who have come here since, pledge themselves to the fact asserted, in the recital of which they could not have had any connusance? But all the members of the majority; the veterans and the raw recruits――the six years men and six weeks men――are required to concur in this most unfounded assertion, as I believe it to be. I submit it to one of the latter, (looking toward Mr. Dana, from Maine, here by a temporary appointment from the executive,) whether, instead of inundating the senate with a torrent of fulsome and revolting adulation poured on the president, it would not be wiser and more patriotic to illustrate the brief period of his senatorial existence by some great measure, fraught with general benefit to the whole union? Or, if he will not or cannot elevate himself to a view of the interest of the entire country, whether he had not better dedicate his time to an investigation into the causes of an alien jurisdiction being still exercised over a large part of the territory of the state which he represents? And why the American carrying trade to the British colonies, in which his state was so deeply interested, has been lost by a most improvident and bungling arrangement?

Mr. President, what patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution! What new honor or fresh laurels will it win for our common country? Is the power of the senate so vast that it ought to be circumscribed, and that of the president so restricted, that it ought to be extended? What power has the senate? None, separately. It can only act jointly with the other house, or jointly with the executive. And although the theory of the constitution supposes, when consulted by him, it may freely give an affirmative or negative response according to the practice, as it now exists, it has lost the faculty of pronouncing the negative monosyllable. When the senate expresses its deliberate judgment, in the form of resolution, that resolution has no compulsory force, but appeals only to the dispassionate intelligence, the calm reason, and the sober judgment of the community. The senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative offices, nor glittering honors to bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy expectants, rendering us homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute our commands.

How is it with the president? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast republic. By means of principles which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads of dependents and partisans, scattered over the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and to laud to the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the government, during the last eight years, like a tropical tornado. Every department exhibits traces of the ravages of the storm. Take, as one example, the bank of the United States. No institution could have been more popular with the people, with congress, and with state legislatures. None ever better fulfilled the great purposes of its establishment. But it unfortunately incurred the displeasure of the president; he spoke, and the bank lies prostrate. And those who were loudest in its praise are now loudest in its condemnation. What object of his ambition is unsatisfied? When disabled from age any longer to hold the sceptre of power, he designates his successor, and transmits it to his favorite. What more does he want? Must we blot, deface, and mutilate the records of the country to punish the presumptuousness of expressing an opinion contrary to his own?

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution? Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you eradicate from memory and from history the fact, that in March, 1834, a majority of the senate of the United States passed the resolution which excites your enmity? Is it your vain and wicked object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has been denied to omnipotence itself? Do you intend to thrust your hands into our hearts, and to pluck out the deeply-rooted convictions which are there? or is it your design merely to stigmatize us? You cannot stigmatize us.

‘Ne’er yet did base dishonor blur our name.’

Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and bearing aloft the shield of the constitution of our country, your puny efforts are impotent, and we defy all your power. Put the majority of 1834 in one scale, and that by which this expunging resolution is to be carried in the other, and let truth and justice, in heaven above and on the earth below, and liberty and patriotism decide the preponderance.

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging? Is it to appease the wrath, and to heal the wounded pride, of the chief magistrate? If he be really the hero that his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all grovelling sycophancy, all self-degradation, and self-abasement. He would reject with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches, and your baby lines in the fair records of his country. Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the secretary of the senate will preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to that senator of the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our free institutions, all that now remain to us, some future American monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate especially this expunging resolution, may institute a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of the knight of the black lines.

But why should I detain the senate or needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exertions. The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done; that foul deed, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean’s waters will never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before you, and like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence of the constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that, henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any president may perform, you have for ever hermetically sealed the mouth of the senate. Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what power he pleases; snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the halls of the capitol, overawe congress, trample down the constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice. That it must wait until a house of representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it composed of the partisans of the president, shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and, if the people do not pour out their indignation and imprecations, I have yet to learn the character of American freemen.

ON THE SUB-TREASURY BILL.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, SEPTEMBER 25, 1837.

[AFTER the removal of the public deposits from the bank of
the United States, by order of president Jackson, in October,
1833, the revenues were collected and disbursed through certain
state banks, selected by the secretary of the treasury. In the
month of May, 1837, the pressure upon the banks was so great,
from a variety of causes, that a general suspension of specie
payments took place. In this state of things, Mr. Van Buren, who
succeeded general Jackson as president, in March, 1837, issued
a proclamation, calling an extra session of congress, to meet
on the first Monday in September. In his message to that body,
which contained a majority favorable to his administration, he
recommended the adoption of a system of finance, in collecting
and disbursing the revenue of the nation, in gold and silver,
which was called by its supporters, ‘the _Independent Treasury_,’
and by its opponents, ‘the _Sub-Treasury_.’ The system had
been before proposed in congress, by Mr. Gordon, of Virginia,
and rejected, the friends of Mr. Van Buren at that time
generally voting against it. On the present occasion, Mr. Clay
delivered his sentiments on this novel project, in the following
remarks; a bill having been introduced by Mr. Wright, chairman
of the committee on finance, embodying the system referred to,
which was not finally adopted, until near the close of Mr. Van
Buren’s administration.]

FEELING an anxious desire to see some effectual plan presented, to correct the disorders in the currency, and to restore the prosperity of the country, I have avoided precipitating myself into the debate now in progress, that I may attentively examine every remedy that may be proposed, and impartially weigh every consideration urged in its support. No period has ever existed in this country, in which the future was covered by a darker, denser, or more impenetrable gloom. None, in which the duty was more imperative to discard all passion and prejudice, all party ties, and previous bias, and look exclusively to the good of our afflicted country. In one respect, and I think it a fortunate one, our present difficulties are distinguishable from former domestic trouble, and that is their universality. They are felt, it is true, in different degrees, but they reach every section, every state, every interest, almost every man in the union. All feel, see, hear, know their existence. As they do not array, like our former divisions, one portion of the confederacy against another, it is to be hoped that common sufferings may lead to common sympathies and common counsels, and that we shall, at no distant day, be able to see a clear way of deliverance. If the present state of the country were produced by the fault of the people; if it proceeded from their wasteful extravagance, and their indulgence of a reckless spirit of ruinous speculation; if public measures had no agency whatever in bringing it about; it would, nevertheless, be the duty of government to exert all its energies, and to employ all its legitimate powers, to devise an efficacious remedy. But if our present deplorable condition has sprung from our rulers; if it is to be clearly traced to their acts and operations, that duty becomes infinitely more obligatory; and government would be faithless to the highest and most solemn of human trusts should it neglect to perform it. And is it not too true, that the evils which surround us are to be ascribed to those who have had the conduct of our public affairs?

In glancing at the past, nothing can be further from my intention than to excite angry feelings, or to find grounds of reproach. It would be far more congenial to my wishes, that, on this occasion, we should forget all former unhappy divisions and animosities. But in order to discover how to get out of our difficulties, we must ascertain if we can, how we got into them.

Prior to that series of unfortunate measures which had for its object the overthrow of the bank of the United States, and the discontinuance of its fiscal agency for the government, no people upon earth ever enjoyed a better currency, or had exchanges better regulated, than the people of the United States. Our monetary system appeared to have attained as great perfection as any thing human can possibly reach. The combination of United States and local banks presented a true image of our system of general and state governments, and worked quite as well. Not only within the country had we a local and general currency perfectly sound, but in whatever quarter of the globe American commerce had penetrated, there also did the bills of the United States bank command unbounded credit and confidence. Now we are in danger of having fixed upon us, indefinitely as to time, that medium, an irredeemable paper currency, which, by the universal consent of the commercial world, is regarded as the worst. How has this reverse come upon us? Can it be doubted that it is the result of those measures to which I have adverted? When, at the very moment of adopting them, the very consequences which have happened were foretold as inevitable, is it necessary to look elsewhere for their cause? Never was prediction more distinctly made; never was fulfilment more literal and exact.

Let us suppose that those measures had not been adopted; that the bank of the United States had been rechartered; that the public deposits had remain undisturbed; and that the treasury order had never issued: is there not every reason to believe that we should be now in the enjoyment of a sound currency; that the public deposits would be now safe and forthcoming, and that the suspension of specie payments in May last, would not have happened?

The president’s message asserts that the suspension has proceeded from over-action, over-trading, the indulgence of a spirit of speculation, produced by bank and other facilities. I think this is a view of the case entirely too superficial. It would be quite as correct and just, in the instance of a homicide perpetrated by the discharge of a gun, to allege that the leaden ball, and not the man who levelled the piece, was responsible for the murder. The true inquiry is, how came that excessive over-trading, and those extensive bank facilities, which the message describes? Were they not the necessary and immediate consequences of the overthrow of the bank, and the removal from its custody of the public deposits? And is not this proved by the vast multiplication of banks, the increase of the line of their discounts and accommodations, prompted and stimulated by secretary Taney, and the great augmentation of their circulation which ensued?

What occurred in the state of Kentucky, in consequence of the veto of the recharter of the bank of the United States, illustrates its effects throughout the union. That state had suffered greatly by banks. It was generally opposed to the reëstablishment of them. It had found the notes of the bank of the United States answering all the purposes of a sound currency, at home and abroad, and it was perfectly contented with them. At the period of the veto, it had but a single bank, of limited capital and circulation. After it, the state, reluctant to engage in the banking system, and still cherishing hopes of the creation of a new bank of the United States, encouraged by the supporters of the late president, hesitated about the incorporation of new banks. But at length, despairing of the establishment of a bank of the United States, and finding itself exposed to a currency in bank notes from adjacent states, it proceeded to establish banks of its own; and since the veto, since 1833, has incorporated for that single state, bank capital to the amount of ten millions of dollars――a sum equal to the capital of the first bank of the United States, created for the whole union.

That the local banks, to which the deposits were transferred from the bank of the United States, were urged and stimulated freely to discount upon them, we have record evidence from the treasury department.

The message, to reconcile us to our misfortunes, and to exonerate the measures of our own government from all blame in producing the present state of things, refers to the condition of Europe, and especially to that of Great Britain. It alleges that

‘In both countries we have witnessed the same redundancy of
_paper money_, and other facilities of credit; the same spirit
of speculation; the same partial success; the same difficulties
and reverses; and, at length, nearly the same overwhelming
catastrophe.’

The very clear and able argument of the senator from Georgia, (Mr. King,) relieves me from the necessity of saying much upon this part of the subject. It appears that during the period referred to by the message, of 1833–5, there was, in fact, no augmentation, or a very trifling augmentation, of the circulation of the country, and that the message has totally misconceived the actual state of things in Great Britain. According to the publications to which I have had access, the bank of England, in fact, diminished its circulation, comparing the first with the last of that period, about two and a half millions sterling; and although the joint stock and private banks increased theirs, the amount of increase was neutralized by the amount of diminution.

If the state of things were really identical, or similar, in the two countries, it would be fair to trace it to similarity of causes. But is that the case? In Great Britain a sound currency was preserved by a recharter of the bank of England, about the same time that the recharter of the bank of the United States was agitated here. In the United States we have not preserved a sound currency, in consequence of the veto. If Great Britain were near the same catastrophe, (the suspension of specie payments,) which occurred here, she nevertheless _escaped_ it; and this difference in the condition of the two countries, makes all the difference in the world. Great Britain has recovered from whatever mercantile distresses she experienced; we have not; and when shall we? All is bright, and cheerful, and encouraging, in the prospects which lie before her; and the reverse is our unfortunate situation.

Great Britain has, in truth, experienced only those temporary embarrassments which are incident to commercial transactions, conducted upon the scale of vast magnitude on which hers are carried on. Prosperous and adverse times, action and reaction, are the lot of all commercial countries. But our distresses sink deeper; they reach the heart, which has ceased to perform its office of circulation in the great concerns of our body politic.

Whatever of embarrassment Europe has recently experienced, may be satisfactorily explained by its trade and connections with the United States. The degree of embarrassment has been marked, in the commercial countries there, by the degree of their connection with the United States. All, or almost all, the great failures in Europe have been of houses engaged in the American trade. Great Britain, which, as the message justly observes, maintains the closest relations with us, has suffered most, France next, and so on, in the order of their greater or less commercial intercourse with us. Most truly was it said by the senator from Georgia, that the recent embarrassments of Europe were the embarrassments of a creditor, from whom payment was withheld by the debtor, and from whom the precious metals have been unnecessarily withdrawn by the policy of the same debtor.

Since the intensity of suffering, and the disastrous state of things in this country, have far transcended anything that has occurred in Europe, we must look here for some peculiar and more potent causes than any which have been in operation there. They are to be found in that series of measures to which I have already adverted――

First, the veto of the bank;

Second, the removal of the deposits, with the urgent injunction of secretary Taney upon the banks to enlarge their accommodations;

Third, the gold bill, and the demand of gold for the foreign indemnities;

Fourth, the clumsy execution of the deposit law; and,

Fifth, the treasury order of July, 1836.

[Here Mr. Clay went into an examination of these measures,
to show that the inflated condition of the country, the wild
speculations, which had risen to their height when they began
to be checked by the preparations of the local banks necessary
to meet the deposit law of June, 1836, the final suspension of
specie payments, and the consequent disorders in the currency,
commerce, and general business of the country, were all to be
traced to the influence of the measures enumerated. All these
causes operated immediately, directly, and powerfully upon us,
and their effects were indirectly felt in Europe.]

The message imputes to the deposit law, an agency in producing the existing embarrassments. This is a charge frequently made by the friends of the administration against that law. It is true, that, the banks having increased their accommodations, in conformity with the orders of secretary Taney, it might not have been convenient to recall and pay them over for public use. It is true, also, that the manner in which the law was executed by the treasury department, transferring large sums from creditor to debtor portions of the country, without regard to the commerce or business of the country, might have aggravated the inconvenience. But what do those who object to the law think ought to have been done with the surpluses which had accumulated, and were daily augmenting to such an enormous amount in the hands of the deposit banks? Were they to be incorporated with their capital, and remain there for the benefit of the stockholders? Was it not proper and just, that they should be applied to the uses of the people from whom they were collected? And whenever and however taken from the deposit banks, would not inconvenience necessarily happen?

The message asserts that the bank of the United States, chartered by Pennsylvania, has not been able to save itself or to check other institutions, notwithstanding ‘the still greater strength it has been said to possess under its present charter.’ That bank is now a mere state or local institution. Why is it referred to more than the bank of Virginia, or any other local institution? The exalted station which the president fills forbids the indulgence of the supposition, that the allusion has been made to enable the administration to profit by the prejudices which have been excited against it. Was it the duty of that bank, more than any other state bank, to check the local institutions? Was it not even under less obligation to do so than the deposit banks, selected and fostered by the general government?

But how could the message venture to assert, that it has greater strength than the late bank of the United States possessed? Whatever may be the liberality of the conditions of its charter, it is impossible that any single state could confer upon it faculties equal to those granted to the late bank of the United States――first, in making it the sole depository of the revenue of the United States; and, secondly, in making its notes receivable in the payment of all public dues. If a bank of the United States had existed, it would have had ample notice of the accumulation of public moneys in the local banks; and, by timely measures of precaution, it could have prevented the speculative uses to which they were applied. Such an institution would have been bound by its relations to the government, to observe its appropriations and financial arrangement and wants, and to hold itself always ready promptly to meet them. It would have drawn together gradually, but certainly, the public moneys, however dispersed. Responsibility would have been concentrated upon it alone, instead of being weakened or lost by diffusion among some eighty or ninety local banks, dispersed throughout the country, and acting without any effective concert.

A subordinate but not unimportant cause of the evils which at present encompass us, has been the course of the late administration towards the compromise act. The great principle of that act, in respect to our domestic industry, was its stability. It was intended and hoped that, by withdrawing the tariff from their annual discussions in congress, of which it had been the fruitful topic, our manufactures would have a certainty, for a long period, as to the measure of protection extended to them by its provisions, which would compensate any reduction in the amount contained in prior acts. For a year or two after it was adopted, the late administration manifested a disposition to respect it, as an arrangement which was to be inviolable. But for some time past it has been constantly threatened from that quarter, and a settled purpose has been displayed to disregard its conditions. Those who had an agency in bringing it forward, and carrying it through congress, have been held up to animadversion; it has been declared by members, high in the confidence of the administration in both houses, to possess no obligatory force beyond any ordinary act of legislation, and new adjustments of the tariff have been proposed in both houses, in direct contravention of the principles of the compromise; and, at the last session, one of them actually passed the senate, against the most earnest entreaty and remonstrance. A portion of the south has not united in these attacks upon the compromise; and I take pleasure in saying, that the two senators from South Carolina, especially, have uniformly exhibited a resolution to adhere to it with perfect honor and fidelity.

The effect of those constant threats and attacks, coming from those high in power, has been most injurious. They have shown to the manufacturing interest that no certain reliance was to be placed upon the steadiness of the policy of the government, no matter under what solemn circumstances it was adopted. That interest has taken alarm; new enterprises have been arrested, old ones curtailed; and at this moment it is the most prostrate of all the interests in the country. One half in amount, as I have been informed, of the manufacturers throughout the country, have actually suspended operations, and those who have not, chiefly confine themselves to working up their stock on hand.

The consequence has been, that we have made too little at home, and purchased too much abroad. This has augmented that foreign debt, the existence of which so powerfully contributed to the suspension, and yet forms an obstacle to the resumption of specie payments.

The senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) attributed the creation of the surplus revenue to the tariff policy, and especially to the acts of 1824 and 1828. I do not perceive any advantage, on the present occasion, in reviving or alluding to the former dissensions which prevailed on the subject of that policy. They were all settled and quieted by the great healing measure, (the compromise,) to which I have referred. By that act I have been willing and ready to abide. And I have desired only that it should be observed and executed in a spirit of good faith and fidelity, similar to that by which I have been ever actuated towards it.

The act of 1828 was no measure of the friends of the manufacturers. Its passage was forced by a coalition between their secret and open opponents. But the system of protection of American industry did not cause the surplus. It proceeded from the extraordinary sales of the public lands. The receipts, from all sources other than that of the public lands, and expenditures of the years 1833–6, (during which the surplus was accumulating,) both amount to about eighty-seven millions of dollars; thus clearly showing, that the customs only supplied the necessary means of public disbursement, and that it was the public domain that produced the surplus.

If the land bill had been allowed to go into operation, it would have distributed generally and regularly among the several states the proceeds of the public lands, as they would have been received from time to time. They would have returned back in small streams, similar to those by which they have been collected, animating, and improving, and fructifying the whole country. There would have been no vast surplus to embarrass the government; no removal of deposits from the bank of the United States to the deposit banks, to disturb the business of the country; no accumulations in the deposit banks of immense sums of public money, augmented by the circuit it was performing between the land offices and the banks, and the banks and the land offices; no occasion for the secretary of the treasury to lash the deposit banks into the grant of inordinate accommodations; and possibly there would have been no suspension of specie payments. But that bill was suppressed by a most extraordinary and dangerous exercise of executive power.

The cause of our present difficulties may be stated in another way. During the late administration we have been deprived of the practical benefit of a free government; the forms, it is true, remained and were observed, but the essence did not exist. In a free, or self-government, the collected wisdom, the aggregate wisdom of the whole, or at least of a majority, moulds and directs the course of public affairs. In a despotism, the will of a single individual governs. In a practically free government, the nation controls the chief magistrate; in an arbitrary government, the chief magistrate controls the nation. And has not this been our situation in the period mentioned? Has not one man forced his will on the nation? Have not all these disastrous measures――the veto of the bank, the removal of the deposits, the rejection of the land bill, and the treasury order――which have led to our present unfortunate condition, been adopted, in spite of the wishes of the country, and in opposition, probably, to those of the dominant party itself?

Our misfortune has not been the want of wisdom, but of firmness. The party in power would not have governed the country very ill, if it had been allowed its own way. Its fatal error has been to lend its sanction, and to bestow its subsequent applause and support upon executive acts, which, in their origin, it previously deprecated or condemned. We have been shocked and grieved to see whole legislative bodies and communities approving and lauding the rejection of the very measures which previously they had unanimously recommended! To see whole states abandoning their long-cherished policy, and best interests, in subserviency to the executive pleasure! And the numberless examples of individuals who have surrendered their independence, must inflict pain on every patriot bosom. A single case forces itself upon my recollection as an illustration, to which I do not advert from any unkind feelings towards the gentleman to whom I refer, between whom and myself civil and courteous relations have ever existed. The memorial of the late bank of the United States, praying for a recharter, was placed in his hands, and he presented it to the senate. He carried the recharter through the senate. The veto came; and, in two or three weeks afterwards, we behold the same senator at the head of an assembly of the people, in the state-house yard, in Philadelphia, applauding the veto, and condemning the bank――condemning his own act! Motives lie beyond the reach of the human eye, and it does not belong to me to say what they were, which prompted this self-castigation, and this praise of the destruction of his own work; but it is impossible to overlook the fact that this same senator, in due time, received from the author of the veto the gift of a splendid foreign mission!

The moral deducible from the past is, that our free institutions are superior to all others, and can be preserved in their purity and excellence only upon the stern condition that we shall for ever hold the obligations of patriotism paramount to all the ties of party, and to individual dictation; and that we shall never openly approve what we secretly condemn.

In this rapid, and I hope not fatiguing review of the causes which I think have brought upon us existing embarrassments, I repeat that it has been for no purpose of reproaching or criminating those who have had the conduct of our public affairs; but to discover the means by which the present crisis has been produced, with a view to ascertain, if possible, what (which is by far much more important) should be done by congress to avert its injurious effects. And this brings me to consider the remedy proposed by the administration.

The great evil under which the country labors is the suspension of the banks to pay specie; the total derangement in all domestic exchanges; and the paralysis which has come over the whole business of the country. In regard to the currency, it is not that a given amount of bank notes will not now command as much as the same amount of specie would have done prior to the suspension; but it is the future, the danger of an inconvertible paper money being indefinitely or permanently fixed upon the people, that fills them with apprehensions. Our great object should be to reëstablish a sound currency, and thereby to restore the exchanges, and revive the business of the country.

The first impression which the measures brought forward by the administration make, is, that they consist of temporary expedients, looking to the supply of the necessities of the treasury; or, so far as any of them possess a permanent character, its tendency is rather to aggravate than alleviate the sufferings of the people. None of them proposes to rectify the disorders in the actual currency of the country; but the people, the states, and their banks, are left to shift for themselves, as they may or can. The administration, after having intervened between the states and their banks, and taken _them_ into their federal service, without the consent of the states; after having puffed and praised them; after having brought them, or contributed to bring them, into their present situation; now suddenly turns its back upon them, leaving them to their fate! It is not content with that; it must absolutely discredit their issues. And the very people, who were told by the administration that these banks would supply them with a better currency, are now left to struggle as they can with the very currency which the government recommended to them, but which it now refuses itself to receive!