Chapter CXVI: Report of the Bank Committee

Early in the session the Finance Committee of the Senate, which had been directed to make an examination into the affairs of the Bank of the United States, made their report--an elaborate paper, the reading of which occupied two hours and a half,--for this report was honored with a reading at the Secretary's table, while but few of the reports made by heads of departments, and relating to the affairs of the whole Union, received that honor. It was not only read through, but by its author--Mr. Tyler, the second named of the committee; the first named, or official chairman, Mr. Webster, not having acted on the committee. The report was a most elaborate vindication of the conduct of the bank at all points; but it did not stop at the defence of the institution, but went forward to the crimination of others. It dragged in the names of General Jackson, Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. Benton, laying hold of the circumstance of their having done ordinary acts of duty to their friends and constituents in promoting their application for branch banks, to raise false implications against them as having been in favor of the institution. If such had been the fact, it did not come within the scope of the committee's appointment, nor of the resolution under which they acted, to have reported upon such circumstance: but the implications were untrue; and Mr. Benton being the only one present that had the right of speech, assailed the report the instant it was read--declaring that such things were not to pass uncontradicted for an instant--that the Senate was not to adjourn, or the galleries to disperse without hearing the contradiction. And being thus suddenly called up by a sense of duty to himself and his friends, he would do justice upon the report at once, exposing its numerous fallacies from the moment they appeared in the chamber. He commenced with the imputations upon himself, General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, and scornfully repulsed the base and gratuitous assumptions which had been made. He said:

"His own name was made to figure in that report--in very good
company to be sure, that of President Jackson, Vice-President
Van Buren and Mr. senator Grundy. It seems that we have all been
detected in something that deserves exposure--in the offence
of aiding our respective constituents, or fellow-citizens in
obtaining branch banks to be located in our respective States;
and upon this detection, the assertion is made that these
branches were not extended to these States for political effect,
when the charter was nearly run out, but in good faith, and
upon our application, to aid the business of the country. Mr.
B. said, it was true that he had forwarded a petition from the
merchants of St. Louis, about 1826 or '27, soliciting a branch
at that place: and he had accompanied it by a letter, as he had
been requested to do, sustaining and supporting their request;
and bearing the testimony to their characters as men of business
and property which the occasion and the truth required. He did
this for merchants who were his political enemies, and he did
it readily and cordially, as a representative ought to act for
his constituents, whether they are for him, or against him, in
the elections. So far so good; but the allegation of the report
is, that the branch at St. Louis was established upon this
petition and this letter, and therefore was not established with
political views, but purely and simply for business purposes.
Now, said Mr. B., I have a question to put to the senator from
Virginia (Mr. Tyler), who has made the report for the committee:
It is this: whether the president or directors of the bank had
informed him that General Cadwallader had been sent as an agent
to St. Louis, to examine the place, and to report upon its
ability to sustain a branch?

"Mr. Tyler rose, and said, that he had heard nothing at the bank
upon the subject of Gen. Cadwallader having been sent to St.
Louis, or any report upon the place being made."

"Then, said Mr. Benton, resuming his speech, the committee has
been treated unworthily,--scurvily,--basely,--by the bank! It
has been made the instrument to report an untruth to the Senate,
and to the American people; and neither the Senate, nor that
part of the American people who chance to be in this chamber,
shall be permitted to leave their places until that falsehood is
exposed.

"Sir, said Mr B., addressing the Vice-President, the president,
and directors of the Bank of the United States, upon receiving
the merchants' petition, and my letter, _did not send a branch
to St. Louis_! They sent an agent there, in the person of
General Cadwallader, to examine the place, and to report upon
its mercantile capabilities and wants; and upon that report,
the decision was made, and made against the request of the
merchants, and that upon the ground that the business of the
place would not justify the establishment of a branch. The
petition from the merchants came to Mr. B. while he was here, in
his seat; it was forwarded from this place to Philadelphia; the
agent made his visit to St. Louis before he (Mr. B.) returned;
and when he got home, in the spring, or summer, the merchants
informed him of what had occurred; and that they had received
a letter from the directory of the bank, informing them that a
branch could not be granted; and there the whole affair, so far
as the petition and the letter were concerned, died away. But,
said Mr. B., it happened just in that time, that I made my first
demonstration--struck my first blow--against the bank; and the
next news that I had from the merchants was, that another letter
had been received from the bank, without any new petition having
been sent, and without any new report upon the business of the
place, informing them that the branch was to come! And come it
did, and immediately went to work to gain men and presses, to
govern the politics of the State, to exclude him (Mr. B.) from
re-election to the Senate; and to oppose every candidate, from
governor to constable, who was not for the bank. The branch had
even furnished a list to the mother bank, through some of its
officers, of the names and residences of the active citizens
in every part of the State; and to these, and to their great
astonishment at the familiarity and condescension of the high
directory in Philadelphia, myriads of bank documents were sent,
with a minute description of name and place, postage free. At
the presidential election of 1832, the State was deluged with
these favors. At his own re-elections to the Senate, the two
last, the branch bank was in the field against him every where,
and in every form; its directors traversing the State, going
to the houses of the members of the General Assembly after they
were elected, in almost every county, over a State of sixty
thousand square miles; and then attending the legislature as
lobby members, to oppose him. Of these things Mr. B. had never
spoken in public before, nor should he have done it now, had
it not been for the falsehood attempted to be palmed upon the
Senate through the instrumentality of its committee. But having
been driven into it, he would mention another circumstance,
which also, he had never named in public before, but which would
throw light upon the establishment of the branch in St. Louis,
and the kind of business which it had to perform. An immense
edition of a review of his speech on the veto message, was
circulated through his State on the eve of his last election.
It bore the impress of the bank foundry in Philadelphia, and
was intended to let the people of Missouri see that he (Mr.
B.) was a very unfit person to represent them: and afterwards
it was seen from the report of the government directors to the
President of the United States, that seventy-five thousand
copies of that review were paid for by the Bank of the United
States!"

The committee had gone out of their way--departed from the business with which they were charged by the Senate's resolution--to bring up a stale imputation upon Gen. Jackson, for becoming inimical to Mr. Biddle, because he could not make him subservient to his purposes. The imputation was unfounded and gratuitous, and disproved by the journals of the Senate, which bore Gen. Jackson's nomination of Mr. Biddle for government director--and at the head of those directors, thereby indicating him for president of the bank--three several times, in as many successive years, after the time alleged for this hostility and vindictiveness. This unjustifiable imputation became the immediate, the next point of Mr. Benton's animadversion; and was thus disposed of:

"Mr. B. said there was another thing which must be noticed
now, because the proof to confound it was written in our own
journals. He alluded to the 'hostility' of the President of the
United States to the bank, which made so large a figure in that
report. The 'vindictiveness' of the President,--the 'hostility'
of the President, was often pressed into the service of that
report--which he must be permitted to qualify as an elaborate
defence of the bank. Whether used originally, or by quotation,
it was the same thing. The quotation from Mr. Duane was made
to help out the argument of the committee--to sustain their
position--and thereby became their own. The 'vindictiveness'
of the President towards the bank, is brought forward with
imposing gravity by the committee; and no one is at a loss to
understand what is meant! The charge has been made too often
not to suggest the whole story as often as it is hinted. The
President became hostile to Mr. Biddle, according to this fine
story, because he could not manage him! because he could not
make him use the institution for political purposes! and hence
his revenge, his vindictiveness, his hatred of Mr. Biddle, and
his change of sentiment towards the institution. This is the
charge which has run through the bank presses for three years,
and is alleged to take date from 1829, when an application was
made to change the president of the Portsmouth branch. But how
stands the truth, recorded upon our own journals? It stands
thus: that for three consecutive years after the harboring
of this deadly malice against Mr. Biddle, for not managing
the institution to suit the President's political wishes--for
three years, one after another, with this 'vindictive' hate
in his bosom, and this diabolical determination to ruin
the institution, he nominates this same Mr. Biddle to the
Senate, as one of the government directors, and at the head
of those directors! Mr. Biddle and some of his friends with
him came in, upon every nomination for three successive years,
after vengeance had been sworn against him! For three years
afterwards he is not only named a director, but indicated for
the presidency of the bank, by being put at the head of those
who came recommended by the nomination of the President, and
the sanction of the Senate! Thus was he nominated for the
years 1830, 1831, and 1832; and it was only after the report
of Mr. Clayton's committee of 1832 that the President ceased
to nominate Mr. Biddle for government director! Such was the
frank, confiding and friendly conduct of the President; while
Mr. Biddle, conscious that he did not deserve a nomination
at his hands, had himself also elected during each of these
years, at the head of the stockholders' ticket. He knew what
he was meditating and hatching against the President, though
the President did not! What then becomes of the charge faintly
shadowed forth by the committee, and publicly and directly
made by the bank and its friends? False! False as hell! and no
senator can say it without finding the proof of the falsehood
recorded in our own journal!"

Mr. Benton next defended Mr. Taney from an unjustifiable and gratuitous assault made upon him by the committee--the more unwarrantable because that gentleman was in retirement--no more in public life--having resigned his place of Secretary of the Treasury the day he was rejected by the Senate. Mr. Taney, in his report upon the removal of the deposits, had repeated, what the government directors and a committee of the House of Representatives had first reported, of the illegal conduct of the bank committee of exchange, in making loans. The fact was true, and as since shown, to a far higher degree than then detected; and the Senate's committee were unjustifiable in defending it. But not satisfied with this defence of a criminal institution against a just accusation, they took the opportunity of casting censure upon Mr. Taney, and gaining a victory over him by making a false issue. Mr. Benton immediately corrected this injustice. He said:

"That he was not now going into a general answer to the report,
but he must do justice to an absent gentleman--one of the
purest men upon earth, both in public and private life, and
who, after the manner he had been treated in this chamber,
ought to be secure, in his retirement, from senatorial attack
and injustice. The committee have joined a conspicuous issue
with Mr. Taney; and they have carried a glorious bank victory
over him, by turning off the trial upon a false point. Mr.
Taney arraigned the legality of the conduct of the exchange
committee, which, overleaping the business of such a committee,
which is to buy and sell _real bills of exchange_, had become
invested with the power of the whole board; transacting that
business which, by the charter, could only be done by the
board of directors, and by a board of not less than seven, and
which they could not delegate. Yet this committee, of three,
selected by the President himself, was shown by the report
of the government directors to transact the most important
business; such as making immense loans, upon long credits, and
upon questionable security; sometimes covering its operations
under this simulated garb, and falsified pretext, _of buying
a bill of exchange_; sometimes using no disguise at all. It
was shown, by the same report, to have the exclusive charge of
conducting the curtailment last winter; a business of the most
important character to the country, having no manner of affinity
to the proper functions of an exchange committee; and which they
conducted in the most partial and iniquitous manner; and without
even reporting to the board. All this the government directors
communicated. All this was commented upon on this floor; yet
Mr. Taney is selected! He is the one pitched upon; as if nobody
but him had arraigned the illegal acts of this committee; and
then he is made to arraign the existence of the committee, and
not its misconduct! Is this right? Is it fair? Is it just thus
to pursue that gentleman, and to pursue him unjustly? Can the
vengeance of the bank never be appeased while he lives and moves
on earth?"

After having vindicated the President, the Vice-President, Mr. Grundy, Mr. Taney, and himself, from the unfounded imputations of the committee, so gratuitously presented, so unwarranted in fact, and so foreign to the purpose for which they were appointed, Mr. Benton laid hold of some facts which had come to light for the purpose of showing the misconduct of the bank, and to invalidate the committee's report. The first was the transportation of specie to London while pressing it out of the community here. He said:

"He had performed a duty, which ought not to be delayed an hour,
in defending himself, the President, and Mr. Taney, from the
sad injustice of that report; the report itself, with all its
elaborate pleadings for the bank,--its errors of omission and
commission,--would come up for argument after it was printed;
and when, with God's blessing, and the help of better hands,
he would hope to show that it was the duty of the Senate to
recommit it, with instructions to examine witnesses upon oath,
and to bring out that secret history of the institution, which
seems to have been a sealed book to the committee. For the
present, he would bring to light two facts, detected in the
intricate mazes of the monthly statements, which would fix at
once, both the character of the bank and the character of the
report; the bank, for its audacity, wickedness and falsehood;
the report, for its blindness, fatuity, and partiality.

"The bank, as all America knows (said Mr. B.), filled the whole
country with the endless cry which had been echoed and re-echoed
from this chamber, that the removal of the deposits had laid her
under the necessity of curtailing her debts; had compelled her
to call in her loans, to fill the vacuum in her coffers produced
by this removal; and thus to enable herself to stand the
pressure which the 'hostility' of the government was bringing
upon her. This was the assertion for six long months; and now
let facts confront this assertion, and reveal the truth to an
outraged and insulted community.

"The first fact" (said Mr. B.), is the transfer of the moneys to
London, to lie there idle, while squeezed out of the people here
during the panic and pressure.

"The cry of distress was raised in December, at the meeting
of Congress; and during that month the sum of $129,764 was
transferred by the bank to its agents, the Barings. This cry
waxed stronger till July, and until that time the monthly
transfers were:

December, $129,764
February, 355,253
March, 261,543
May, 34,749
June, 2,142,054
July, 501,950
----------
$3,425,313

Making the sum of near three millions and a half transferred
to London, to lie idle in the hands of an agent, while that
very money was squeezed out of a few cities here; and the
whole country, and the halls of Congress, were filled with the
deafening din of the cry, that the bank was forced to curtail,
to supply the loss in her own coffers from the removal of the
deposits! And, worse yet! The bank had, in the hands of the
same agents, a large sum when the transfers of these panic
collections began; making in the whole, the sum of $4,261,201,
on the first day of July last, which was lying idle in her
agents' hands in London, drawing little or no interest there,
while squeezed out of the hands of those who were paying bank
interest here, near seven per cent.; and had afterwards to go
into brokers' hands to borrow at one or two per cent. a month.
Even now, at the last returns on the first day of this month,
about two millions and a half of this money ($2,678,006) was
still lying idle in the hands of the Barings! waiting till
foreign exchange can be put up again to eight or ten per cent.
The enormity of this conduct, Mr. B. said, was aggravated by
the notorious fact, that the transfers of this money were made
by sinking the price of exchange as low as five per cent. below
par, when shippers and planters had bills to sell; and raising
it eight per cent. above par when merchants and importers had
to buy; thus double taxing the commerce of the country--double
taxing the producer and consumer--and making a fluctuation of
thirteen per cent. in foreign exchange, in the brief space of
six months. And all this to make money scarce at home while
charging that scarcity upon the President! Thus combining
calumny and stock-jobbing with the diabolical attempt to ruin
the country, or to rule it."

The next glaring fact which showed the enormous culpability of the bank in making the pressure and distress, was the abduction of about a million and a quarter of hard dollars from New Orleans, while distressing the business community there by refusal of discounts and the curtailment of loans, under pretence of making up what she lost there by the removal of the deposits. The fact of the abduction was detected in the monthly reports still made to the Secretary of the Treasury, and was full proof of the wantonness and wickedness of the pressure, as the amount thus squeezed out of the community was immediately transferred to Philadelphia or New-York; to be thence shipped to London. Mr. Benton thus exposed this iniquity:

"The next fact, Mr. B. said, was the abduction of an immense
amount of specie from New Orleans, at the moment the Western
produce was arriving there; and thus disabling the merchants
from buying that produce, and thereby sinking its price nearly
one half; and all under the false pretext of supplying the loss
in its coffers, occasioned by the removal of the deposits.

"The falsehood and wickedness of this conduct will appear from
the fact, that, at the time of the removal of the deposits, in
October, the public deposits, in the New Orleans branch, were
far less than the amount afterwards curtailed, and sent off; and
that these deposits were not entirely drawn out, for many months
after the curtailment and abduction of the money. Thus, the
public deposits, in October, were:

"In the name of the Treasurer
of the United States, $294,228 62
"In the name of public officers, 173,764 64
-----------
$467,993 26

"In all, less than half a million of dollars.

"In March, there was still on hand:

"In the name of the Treasurer, $40,266 28
"In the name of public officers, 63,671 80
-----------
$103,938 08

"In all, upwards of one hundred thousand dollars; and making the
actual withdrawal of deposits, at that branch, but $360,000, and
that paid out gradually, in the discharge of government demands.

"Now, what was the actual curtailment, during the same
period? It is shown from the monthly statements, that these
curtailments, on local loans, were $788,904; being upwards of
double the amount of deposits, miscalled _removed_; for they
were not removed; but only paid out in the regular progress of
government disbursement, and actually remaining in the mass of
circulation, and much of it in the bank itself. But the specie
removed during the same time! that was the fact, the damning
fact, upon which he relied. This abduction was:

"In the month of November, $334,647 }
"In the month of March, 808,084 } _at the least_
---------
$1,142,731

"Making near a million and a quarter of dollars, at the least.
Mr. B. repeated, at the least; for a monthly statement does not
show the accumulation of the month which might also be sent
off; and the statement could only be relied on for so much as
appeared a month before the abduction was made. Probably the
sum was upwards of a million and a quarter of hard dollars,
thus taken away from New Orleans last winter, by stopping
accommodations, calling in loans, breaking up domestic exchange,
creating panic and pressure, and sinking the price of all
produce; that the mother bank might transfer funds to London,
gamble in foreign exchange, spread desolation and terror
through the land; and then charge the whole upon the President
of the United States; and end with the grand consummation of
bringing a new political party into power, and perpetuating its
own charter."

Mr. Benton commented on the barefacedness of running out an immense line of discounts, so soon done after the rise of the last session of Congress, and so suddenly, that the friends of the bank, in remote places, not having had time to be informed of the "reversal of the bank screws," were still in full chorus, justifying the curtailment; and concluded with denouncing the report as _ex parte_, and remarking upon the success of the committee in finding what they were not sent to look for, and not finding what they ought to have found. He said:

"These are some of the astounding iniquities which have escaped
the eyes of the committee, while they have been so successful
in their antiquarian researches into Andrew Jackson's and Felix
Grundy's letters, ten or twenty years ago, and into Martin Van
Buren's and Thomas H. Benton's, six or eight years ago; letters
which every public man is called upon to give to his neighbors,
or constituents; which no public man ought to refuse, or, in all
probability ever did refuse; and which are so ostentatiously
paraded in the report, and so emphatically read in this chamber,
with pause and gesture; and with such a sympathetic look for the
expected smile from the friends of the bank; letters which, so
far as he was concerned, had been used to make the committee the
organ of a falsehood. And now, Mr. B. would be glad to know, who
put the committee on the scent of those old musty letters; for
there was nothing in the resolution, under which they acted, to
conduct their footsteps to the silent covert of that small game."

Mr. Tyler made a brief reply, in defence of the report of the committee, in which he said:

"The senator from Missouri had denominated the report 'an
elaborate defence of the bank.' He had said that it justified
the bank in its course of curtailment, during the last winter
and the early part of the summer. Sir, if the honorable senator
had paid more attention to the reading, or had waited to have
it in print, he would not have hazarded such a declaration. He
would have perceived that that whole question was submitted to
the decision of the Senate. The committee had presented both
sides of the question--the view most favorable, and that most
unfavorable, to the institution. It exhibited the measures of
the Executive and those of the bank consequent upon them, on the
one side, and the available resources of the bank on the other.
The fact that its circulation of $19,000,000 was protected by
specie to the amount of $10,000,000, and claims on the State
banks exceeding $2,000,000, which were equal to specie--that
its purchase of domestic exchange had so declined, from May
to October, as to place at its disposal more than $5,000,000;
something more than a doubt is expressed whether, under ordinary
circumstances, the bank would have been justified in curtailing
its discounts. So, too, in regard to a perseverance in its
measures of precaution as long as it did, a summary of facts is
given to enable the Senate to decide upon the propriety of the
course pursued by the bank. The effort of the committee has been
to present these subjects fairly to the Senate and the country.
They have sought 'nothing to extenuate,' nor have they 'set down
ought in malice.' The statements are presented to the senator,
for his calm and deliberate consideration--to each senator, to
be weighed as becomes his high station. And what is the course
of the honorable senator? The moment he (Mr. T.) could return
to his seat from the Clerk's table, the gentleman pounces upon
the report, and makes assertions which a careful perusal of it
would cause him to know it does not contain. On one subject, the
controversy relative to the bill of exchange, and the damages
consequent on its protest, the committee had expressed the
opinion, that the government was in error, and he, as a member
of that committee, would declare his own conviction that that
opinion was sound and maintainable before any fair and impartial
tribunal in the world. Certain persons started back with alarm,
at the mere mention of a court of justice. The trial by jury had
become hateful in their eyes. The great principles of _magna
charta_ are to be overlooked, and the declarations contained in
the bill of rights are become too old-fashioned to be valuable.
Popular prejudices are to be addressed, and instead of an appeal
to the calm judgment of mankind, every lurking prejudice is to
be awakened, because a corporation, or a set of individuals,
have believed themselves wronged by the accounting officers of
the treasury, and have had the temerity and impudence to take a
course calculated to bring their rights before the forum of the
courts. Let those who see cause to pursue this course rejoice as
they may please, and exult in the success which attends it. For
one, I renounce it as unworthy American statesmen. The committee
had addressed a sober and temperate but firm argument, upon this
subject, to the Senate; and, standing in the presence of that
august body, and before the whole American people, he rested
upon that argument for the truth of the opinion advanced. An
opinion, for the honesty of which, on his own part, he would
avouch, after the most solemn manner, under the unutterable
obligations he was under to his Creator.

"The senator had also spoken in strong language as to that part
of the report which related to the committee of exchange. He
had said that a false issue had been presented--that the late
Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Taney) had never contended that
the bank had no right to appoint a committee of exchange--that
such a committee was appointed by all banks. In this last
declaration the gentleman is correct. All banks have a committee
to purchase exchange. But Mr. T. would admonish the gentleman
to beware. He would find himself condemning him whom he wished
to defend. Mr. Taney's very language is quoted in the report.
He places the violation of the charter distinctly on the ground
that the business of the bank is intrusted to three members
on the exchange committee, when the charter requires that
not less than seven shall constitute a board to do business.
His very words are given in the report, so that he cannot be
misunderstood; and the commentary of the committee consists in a
mere narrative of facts. Little more is done than to give facts,
and the honorable senator takes the alarm; and, in his effort
to rescue the late Secretary from their influence, plunges him
still deeper into difficulty.

"The senator had loudly talked of the committee having been made
an instrument of, by the bank. For himself, he renounced the
ascription. He would tell the honorable senator that he could
not be made an instrument of by the bank, or by a still greater
and more formidable power, the administration. He stood upon
that floor to accomplish the purposes for which he was sent
there. In the consciousness of his own honesty, he stood firm
and erect. He would worship alone at the shrine of truth and of
honor. It was a precious thing, in the eyes of some men, to bask
in the sunshine of power. He rested only upon the support, which
had never failed him, of the high and lofty feelings of his
constituents. He would not be an instrument even in their hands,
if it were possible for them to require it of him, to gratify an
unrighteous motive."