SENATE.] Bank of the United States. [FEB. 2, 1831. This that there are two different deposites of public money in revenue payments, are discredited and disparaged, and the bank; one in the name of the Treasurer of the United fall into the hands of brokers at all places where they are States, the others in the name of disbursing officers. The not issued and payable. They cease to insulate at all the annual average of the former has been about three and a points to which the exclusion extends. I am informed half millions of dollars, and of this I have said not a word. that the notes of the banks south of the Potomac and But the essential character of both deposites is the same; Ohio, even those of the lower Mississippi, are generally they are both the property of the United States; both per- refused at the United States' Branch Bank in St. Louis, manent; both available as so much capital to the bank; and and, in consequence, are expelled from circulation in both uncompensated. Here is the statement of the month- Missouri and Illinois, and the neighboring districts. ly amount of these secondary deposites, as I find them on exclusion of the Southern notes from the northwest quarthe bank returns; and to it I appeal for the verification of ter of the Union, is injurious to both parties, as our trawhat I allege: vellers and emigrants chiefly come from the South, and 1830. the whole of our trade gees there to find a cash market. $855,691 The exclusion, as I am told, (for I have not looked into 1,562,841 the matter myself,) is general, and extends to the banks 1,554,969 in Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Missis1,652,841 sippi, and Louisiana. If this be the fact, the joint reso 1,323,661 lution of 1816 is violated: for, under the terms of that 1,346,206 resolution, there are several banks in each of the States 1,129,990 mentioned whose notes are receivable in the collection of 875,459 federal revenue; that is to say, specie paying banks 1,346,206 whose notes are payable, and paid, in specie, on demand. 1,334,081 Yet, in consequence of exclusion from the United States' 1,194,682 Branch Bank, they are excluded from all the land offices, 1,616,656 eleven in number, which deposite in that branch; and, January, 1826. February, March, April, 1825. May, 1,428,025 June, 1,532,258 July, August, 1,264,758 September, 1,585,401 I have not ascertained the average of these deposites being excluded from the land offices, they cease to be since 1817, but presume it may equal the amount of that current money among the people. If a traveller, or emibonus of one million five hundred thousand dollars for grant, brings these notes to the country, or receives them which we sold the charter, and which the Finance Com- in remittance; if a trader accepts them in exchange for mittee of the Senate compliments the bank for paying in produce, they are "shaved" out of their hands, and sent three, instead of seventeen, annual instalments; and shows out of the country. This is a pecuniary injury done to how much interest they lost by doing so. Certainly, this the Northwest; it may be more-it may be a political inwas a disadvantage to the bank. It would have been bet- jury also; for it contributes to break the communication ter for it to have dribbled out to us one hundred thousand between the two quarters of the Union, and encourages dollars, instead of five hundred thousand dollars of our own the idea that nothing good can come from the South--not money, at a time. But there are three considerations even money! This power to disparage the notes of all which should prevent her from complaining: first, that it other banks, is a power to injure them; and, added to all was the bargain to pay in three years; secondly, that we the other privileges of the Bank of the United States, is a furnished the money; thirdly, that we kept up the amount power to destroy them! If any one doubts this assertion, in her hand. Finally, these monthly returns show that let him read the answers of the President of the bank to the overdrawings, for permitting which the bank has been the questions put to him by the Chairman of the Finance so much lauded, were overdrawings in name, not in fact; Committee. These answers are appended to the committhe amount of the money being only transferred to another tee's report of the last session in favor of the bank, and deposite, and the money itself remaining in the hands of expressly declare the capacity of the federal bank to destroy the State banks. The worthy Chairman [Mr. SMITH, Mr. President, it does seem to me that there is some- of Md.] puts this question: "Has the bank at any time thing ominous to the bank in this contest for compensa-oppressed any of the State banks?" The President, [Mr. tion on the undrawn balances. It is the very way in Biddle,] answers, as the whole world would answer to a which the struggle began in the British Parliament which question of oppression, that it never had; and this reshas ended in the overthrow of the Bank of England. It is ponse was as much as the interrogatory required. But it the way in which the struggle is beginning here. My re-did not content the President of the bank; he chose to go solutions of two and three years ago are the causes of the further, and to do honor to the institution over which he speech which you now hear; and, as I have reason to be- presided, by showing that it was as just and generous as it lieve, some others more worthy of your hearing, which was rich and powerful. He, therefore, adds the followwill come at the proper time. The question of compen- ing words, for which, as a seeker after evidence, to show sation for balances is now mixing itself up here, as in the alarming and dangerous character of the bank, I reEngland, with the question of renewing the charter; and turn him my unfeigned and pardonable thanks: “There the two, acting together, will fall with combined weight are very few banks which might not have been destroyed upon the public mind, and certainly eventuate here as by an exertion of the power of the bank. they did there. the bank. This is enough! proof enough! not for me alone, but 4. To discredit and disparage the notes of all other for all who are unwilling to see a moneyed domination set banks, by excluding them from the collection of the fe- up--a moneyed oligarchy established in this land, and the deral revenue.--This results from the collection--no, not entire Union subjected to its sovereign will. The power the collection, but the receipt of the revenue having been to destroy all other banks is admitted and declared; the committed to the bank, and along with it the virtual exe- inclination to do so is known to all rational beings to reside cution of the joint resolution of 1816, to regulate the col- with the power! Policy may restrain the destroying falection of the federal revenue. The execution of that re-culties for the present; but they exist; and will come forth solution was intended to be vested in the Secretary of the when interest prompts and policy permits. They have Treasury a disinterested arbiter between rival banks; been exercised; and the general prostration of the Southbut it may be considered as virtually devolved upon the ern and Western banks attests the fact. They will be Bank of the United States, and powerfully increases the exercised, (the charter being renewed,) and the remaincapacity of that institution to destroy, or subjugate, all ing State banks will be swept with the besom of destrucother banks. The notes of the State banks excluded from tion. Not that all will have their signs knocked down, FEB. 2, 1831.] Bank of the United States. [SENATE. and their doors closed up. Far worse than that to many applied for a loan; the President of the bank, nothing of them. Subjugation, in preference to destruction, will loth to make a loan to that great State, for twenty years be the fate of many. Every planet must have its satel. longer than the charter has to exist, expresses his regret lites; every tyranny must have its instruments; every that he cannot lend but a limited and inadequate sum. The knight is followed by his squire; even the king of beasts, funds of the institution, he says, will not permit it to adthe royal quadruped, whose roar subdues the forest, must vance more than eight millions of dollars. And why? behave a small, subservient animal to spring his prey. Just cause it has invested three millions in real estate! To this 50 of this imperial bank, when installed anew in its formi- power to hold real estate, is superadded the means to acdable and lasting power. The State banks, spared by the quire it. The bank is now the greatest moneyed power sword, will be passed under the yoke. They will become in the Union; in the event of the renewal of its charter, it subordinate parts in the great machine. Their place, in will soon be the sole one. Sole dispenser of money, it will the scale of subordination will be one degree below the soon be the chief owner of property. To unlimited means rank of the legitimate branches; their business, to per- of acquisition, would be united perpetuity of tenure; for form the work which it would be too disreputable for the a corporation never dies, and is free from the operation legitimate branches to perform. This will be the fate of of the laws which govern the descent and distribution of the State banks which are allowed to keep up their signs, real estate in the hands of individuals. The limitations in and to set open their doors; and thus the entire moneyed the charter are vain and illusory. They insult the underpower of the Union would fall into the hands of one sin-standing, and mock the credulity of foolish believers. gle institution, whose inexorable and invisible mandates, The bank is first limited to such acquisitions of real estate emanating from a centre, would pervade the Union, giv-as are necessary to its own accommodation; then comes a ing or withholding money according to its own sovereign proviso to undo the limitation, so far as it concerns purwill and absolute pleasure. To a favored State, to an in-chases upon its own mortgages and executions! This is dividual, or a class of individuals, favored by the central the limitation upon the capacity of such an institution to power, the golden stream of Pactolus would flow direct. acquire real estate. As if it had any thing to do but to To all such the munificent mandates of the High Directory make loans upon mortgages, and push executions upon would come, as the fabled god made his terrestrial visit of judgments! Having all the money, it would be the sole love and desire, enveloped in a shower of gold. But to lender; mortgages being the road to loans, all borrowers others-to those not favored--and to those hated-the must travel that road. When birds enough are in the net, mandates of this same directory would be as "the plane- the fowler draws his string, and the heads are wrung off. tary plague which hangs its poison in the sick air:" death | So when mortgages enough are taken, the loans are called to them! death to all who minister to their wants! What in; discounts cease; curtailments are made; failures to a state of things! What a condition for a confederacy of pay ensue; writs issue; judgments and executions follow; States! What grounds for alarm and terrible apprehen- all the mortgaged premises are for sale at once; and the son, when, in a confederacy of such vast extent, so many attorney of the bank appears at the elbow of the marshal, independent States, so many rival commercial cities, so sole bidder, and sole purchaser. much sectional jealousy, such violent political parties, What is the legal effect of this vast capacity to acquire, such fierce contests for power, there should be but one and this legal power to retain, real estate? Is it not the moneyed tribunal before which all the rival and contend- creation of a new species of mortmain? And of a kind ing elements must appear! but one single dispenser of more odious and dangerous than that mortmain of the money, to which every citizen, every trader, every mer-church which it baffled the English Parliament so many chant, every manufacturer, every planter, every corpora- ages to abolish. The mortmain of the church was a power tion, every city, every State, and the Federal Government in an ecclesiastical corporation to hold real estate, indeitself, must apply, in every emergency, for the most indis-pendent of the laws of distribution and descent: the mortpensable loan! and this, in the face of the fact, that, in main of the bank is a power in a lay corporation to do every contest for human rights, the great moneyed institutions of the world have uniformly been found on the side of kings and nobles, against the lives and liberties of the people. the same thing. The evil of the two tenures is identical; the difference between the two corporations is no more than the difference between parsons and money changers; the capacity to do mischief incomparably the greatest on 5. To hold real estate, receive rents, and retain a body the part of the lay corporators. The church could only of tenantry.--This privilege is hostile to the nature of our operate upon the few who were thinking of the other republican Government, and inconsistent with the nature world; the bank, upon all who are immersed in the busiand design of a banking institution. Republics want free-ness or the pleasures of this. The means of the church holders, not landlords and tenants; and, except the cor- were nothing but prayers; the means of the bank is moporators in this bank, and in the British East India Com-ney! The church received what it could beg from dying pany, there is not an incorporated body of landlords in sinners; the bank may extort what it pleases from the any country upon the face of the earth whose laws em- whole living generation of the just and unjust. Such is anate from a legislative body. Banks are instituted to pro- the parallel between the mortmain of the two corporations. mote trade and industry, and to aid the Government and They both end in monopoly of estates, and perpetuity of its citizens with loans of money. The whole argument in succession; and the bank is the greatest monopolizer of the favor of banking--every argument in favor of this bank-two. Monopolies and perpetual succession are the bane rests upon that idea. No one, when this charter was of republics. Our ancestors took care to provide against granted, presumed to speak in favor of incorporating a them, by abolishing entails and primogeniture. society of landlords, especially foreign landlords, to buy the glebes of the church, lean and few as they were in lands, build houses, rent tenements, and retain tenantry. most of the States, fell under the republican principle Loans of money was the object in view, and the purchase of limited tenures. All the States abolished the antiof real estate is incompatible with that object. Instead of republican tenures; but Congress re-establishes them, remaining bankers, the corporators may turn land specu- and in a manner more dangerous and offensive than belators: instead of having money to lend, they may turn fore the revolution. They are now given, not generally, you out tenants to vote. To an application for a loan, but to few; not to natives only, but to foreigners also; they may answer, and answer truly, that they have no for foreigners are large owners of this bank. And thus, money on hand; and the reason may be, that they have the principles of the revolution sink before the privileges laid it out in land. This seems to be the case at present. of an incorporated company. The laws of the States fall A committee of the Legislature of Pennsylvania has just before the mandates of a central directory in Philadel Even SENATE.] Bank of the United States. [FEB. 2, 1831. phia. Foreigners become the landlords of free born bank the operation is doubly good; for even the half of Americans; and the young and flourishing towns of the United States are verging to the fate of the family boroughs which belong to the great aristocracy of England. one per cent. on bills of exchange is a great profit to the Under 1. It She Let no one say the bank will not avail itself of its capacity to amass real estate. The fact is, it has already done So. I know towns, yea, cities, and could name them, if it might not seem invidious from this elevated theatre to make a public reference to their misfortunes, in which this bank already appears as a dominant and engrossing proprietor. I have been in places where the answers to inquiries for the owners of the most valuable tenements, would remind you of the answers given by the Egyptians to similar questions from the French officers, on their march to Cairo. You recollect, no doubt, sir, the dialogue i 7. To establish branches in the different States without to which I allude: "Who owns that palace?" "The Ma- their consent, and in defiance of their resistance. -No one meluke;" "Who this country house?" "The Mameluke;" can deny the degrading and injurious tendency of this pri"These gardens?" "The Mameluke;" "That field cover-vilege. It derogates from the sovereignty of a State; tramed with rice?" "The Mameluke."--And thus have I been ples upon her laws; injures her revenue and commerce; answered, in the towns and cities referred to, with the lays open her Government to the attacks of centralis.n; im single exception of the name of the Bank of the United pairs the property of her citizens; and fastens a vampire States substituted for that of the military scourge of Egypt. on her bosom to suck out her gold and silver. If this is done under the first charter, what may not be ex- derogates from her sovereignty, because the central insti pected under the second? If this is done while the bank tution may impose its intrusive branches upon the State is on its best behavior, what may she not do when freed without her consent, and in defiance of her resistance. from all restraint and delivered up to the boundless cupi- This has already been done. The State of Alabama, but dity and remorseles exactions of a moneyed corporation? four years ago, by a resolve of her Legislature, remon6. To deal in pawns, merchandise, and bills of ex-strated against the intrusion of a branch upon her. change.--I hope the Senate will not require me to read protested against the favor. Was the will of the State resdry passages from the charter to prove what I say. I pected? On the contrary, was not a branch instantaneknow I speak a thing nearly incredible when I allege that ously forced upon her, as if, by the suddenness of the acthis bank, in addition to all its other attributes, is an in- tion, to make a striking and conspicuous display of the corporated company of pawnbrokers! The allegation omnipotence of the bank, and the nullity of the State? staggers belief, but a reference to the charter will dispel 2. It tramples upon her laws; because, according to incredulity. The charter, in the first part, forbids a traffic the decision of the Supreme Court, the bank and all its in merchandise; in the after part, permits it. For truly branches are wholly independent of State legislation; and this instrument seems to have been framed upon the it tramples on them again, because it authorizes foreigners principles of contraries; one principle making limitations, to hold lands and tenements in every State, contrary to the and the other following after with provisoes to undo them. laws of many of them; and because it admits of the moreThus is it with lands, as I have just shown; thus is it with main tenure, which is condemned by all the republican merchandise, as I now show. The bank is forbiden to deal States in the Union. 3. It injures her revenue, because in merchandise--proviso, unless in the case of goods pledg- the bank stock, under the decision of the Supreme Court, ed for money lent, and not redeemed to the day; and, is not liable to taxation. And thus, foreigners, and nonproviso, again, unless for goods which shall be the proceeds resident Americans, who monopolize the money of the of its lands. With the help of these two provisoes, it is State, who hold its best lands and town lots, who meddle clear that the limitation is undone; it is clear that the bank in its elections, and suck out its gold and silver, and peris at liberty to act the pawnbroker and merchant, to any form no military duty, are exempted from paying taxes, in extent that it pleases. It may say to all the merchants who proportion to their wealth, for the support of the State want loans, Pledge your stores, gentlemen! They must whose laws they trample upon, and whose benefits they do it, or do worse; and, if any accident prevents redemp- usurp. 4. It subjects the State to the dangerous mation on the day, the pawn is forfeited, and the bank takes nouvres and intrigues of centralism, by means of the possession. On the other hand, it may lay out its rents for tenants, debtors, bank officers, and bank money, which goods; it may sell its real estate, now worth three millions the central directory retain in the State, and may embody of dollars, for goods. Thus the bank is an incorporated and direct against it in its elections, and in its legislative company of pawnbrokers and merchants, as well as an and judicial proceedings. 5. It tends to impair the proincorporation of landlords and land-speculators; and perty of the citizens, and, in some instances, that of the this derogatory privilege, like the others, is copied from States, by destroying the State banks in which they have the old Bank of England charter of 1694. Bills of ex-invested their money. 6. It is injurious to the commerce change are also subjected to the traffic of this bank. It is of the States, (I speak of the Western States,) by suba traffic unconnected with the trade of banking, dangerous stituting a trade in bills of exchange, for a trade in the for a great bank to hold, and now operating most injuri-products of the country. 7. It fastens a vampire on the ously in the South and West. It is the process which drains bosom of the State, to suck away its gold and silver, and these quarters of the Union of their gold and silver, and to co-operate with the course of trade, of federal legislastifles the growth of a fair commerce in the products of tion, and of exchange, in draining the South and West of the country. The merchants, to make remittances, buy all their hard money. The Southern States, with their bills of exchange from the branch banks, instead of buying thirty millions of annual exports in cotton, rice, and toproduce from the farmers. The bills are paid for in gold and silver; and, eventually, the gold and silver are sent to the mother bank, or to the branches in the Eastern cities, either to meet these bills, or to replenish their coffers, and to furnish vast loans to favorite States or individuals. The bills sell cheap, say a fraction of one per cent.; they are, therefore, a good remittance to the merchant. To the bacco, and the Western States, with their twelve millions of provisions and tobacco exported from New Orleans, and five millions consumed in the South, and on the lower Mississippi,--that is to say, with three-fifths of the mar ketable productions of the Union, are not able to sustain thirty specie paying banks; while the minority of the States north of the Potomac, without any of the great FEB. 2, 1831.] Bank of the United States. [SENATE. staples for export, have above four hundred of such partnership; the immense standing deposites for which banks. These States, without rice, without cotton, with- we receive no compensation; the loan of five millions of out tobacco, without sugar, and with less flour and pro- our own money, for which we have paid a million and a visions, to export, are saturated with gold and silver, half in interest; the five per cent, stock note, on which while the Southern and Western States, with all the real we have paid our partners four million seven hundred and sources of wealth, are in a state of the utmost destitution. twenty-five thousand dollars in interest; the loss of ten For this calamitous reversal of the natural order of things, millions on the three per cent. stock, and the ridicuthe Bank of the United States stands forth pre-eminently lous catastrophe of the miserable bonus, which has been culpable. Yes, it is pre-eminently culpable! and a state- paid to us with a fraction of our own money: I pass ment in the National Intelligencer of this morning, (a over all this, and come to the point of a direct loss, as a paper which would overstate no fact to the prejudice of partner, in the dividends upon the stock itself. Upon this the bank,) cites and proclaims the fact which proves this naked point of profit and loss, to be decided by a rule in culpability. It dwells, and exults, on the quantity of arithmetic, we have sustained a direct and heavy loss. The gold and silver in the vaults of the United States' Bank. stock held by the United States, as every body knows, It declares that institution to be "overburdened" with gold was subscribed, not paid. It was a stock note, deposited and silver; and well may it be so overburthened, since it for seven millions of dollars, bearing an interest of five has lifted the load entirely from the South and West. It per cent. The inducement to this subscription was the calls these metals "a drug" in the hands of the bank; that seductive conception that, by paying five per cent. on its is to say, an article for which no purchaser can be found. note, the United States would clear four or five per cent. Let this "drug," like the treasures of the dethroned Dey in getting a dividend of eight or ten. This was the inof Algiers, be released from the dominion of its keeper; ducement; now for the realization of this fine conception. let a part go back to the South and West, and the bank will Let us see it. Here it is: an official return from the Reno longer complain of repletion, nor they of depletion. gister of the Treasury of interest paid, and of dividends 8. Exemption of the stockholders from individual lia- received. The account stands thus: bility on the failure of the bank. This privilege dero- Interest paid by the United States, gates from the common law, is contrary to the principle Dividends received by the United States, of partnerships, and injurious to the rights of the com munity. It is a peculiar privilege granted by law to these Loss to the United States, corporators, and exempting them from liability, except in $4,725,000 4,629,426 95,574 It Disadvantageous as this partnership must be to the their corporate capacity, and to the amount of the assets United States in a moneyed point of view, there is a far of the corporation. Unhappily, these assets are never more grave and serious aspect under which to view it. assez, that is to say, enough, when occasion comes for re- It is the political aspect, resulting from the union between curring to them. When a bank fails, its assets are always the bank and the Government. This union has been tried less than its debits; so that responsibility fails the instant in England, and has been found there to be just as disasthat liability accrues. Let no one say that the Bank of trous a conjunction as the union of church and State. the United States is too great to fail. One greater than is the conjunction of the lender and the borrower, and it, and its prototype, has failed, and that in our own day, holy writ has told us which of these categories will be and for twenty years at a time: the Bank of England master of the other. But suppose they agree to drop failed in 1797, and the Bank of the United States was on the point of failing in 1819. The same cause, namely, stockjobbing and overtrading, carried both to the brink of destruction; the same means saved both, namely, the name, the credit, and the helping hand of the Governments which protected them. Yes, the Bank of the United States may fail; and its stockholders live in splendor upon the princely estates acquired with its notes, while the industrious classes, who hold these notes, will be unable to receive a shilling for them. This is unjust. It is a vice in the charter. The true principle in banking THE SPEECH--Extract.--"I have said enough to show requires each stockholder to be liable to the amount of that Government has been rendered dependent on the his shares; and subjects him to the summary action of bank, and more particularly so in the time of war; and every holder on the failure of the institution, till he has paid up the amount of his subscription. This is the true principle. It has prevailed in Scotland for the last century, and no such thing as a broken bank has been known there in all that time. rivalry, and unite their resources. Suppose they combine, and make a push for political power: how great is the mischief which they may not accomplish! But, on this head, I wish to use the language of one of the brightest patriots of Great Britain; one who has shown himself, in these modern days, to be the worthy successor of those old iron barons whose patriotism commanded the unpurchaseable eulogium of the elder Pitt. I speak of Sir William Pulteney, and his speech against the Bank of England, in 1797. though the bank has not yet fallen into the hands of ambitious men, yet it is evident that it might, in such hands, assume a power sufficient to control and overawe, not only the ministers, but king, lords, and commons. As the bank has thus become dangerous to Government, 9. To have the United States for a partner. Sir, there it might, on the other hand, by uniting with an ambitious is one consequence, one result of all partnerships be- minister, become the means of establishing a fourth estween a Government and individuals, which should of it- tate, sufficient to involve this nation in irretrievable slavery, self, and in a mere mercantile point of view, condemn this and ought, therefore, to be dreaded as much as a certain association on the part of the Federal Government. It is East India bill was justly dreaded, at a period not very the principle which puts the strong partner forward to remote. I will not say that the present minister, (the bear the burthen whenever the concern is in danger. The younger Pitt,) by endeavoring, at this crisis, to take the weaker members flock to the strong partner at the ap- Bank of England under his protection, can have any view proach of the storm, and the necessity of venturing more to make use, hereafter, of that engine to perpetuate his to save what he has already staked, leaves him no alterna- own power, and to enable him to domineer over our contive. He becomes the Atlas of the firm, and bears all stitution: if that could be supposed, it would only show upon his own shoulders. This is the principle: what is that men can entertain a very different train of ideas, the fact? Why, that the United States has already been when endeavoring to overset a rival, from what occurs to compelled to sustain the federal bank; to prop it with them when intending to support and fix themselves. My her revenues and its credit in the trials and crisis of its object is to secure the country against all risk either from early administration. I pass over other instances of the the bank as opposed to Government, or as the engine of damage suffered by the United States on account of this ambitious men." VOL. VII.-5 SENATE.] Bank of the United States. [FEB. 2, 1831. And this is my object also. I wish to secure the Union sponsible system of centralism to direct the whole! Danfrom all chance of harm from this bank. I wish to pro-gers from such contingencies are too great and obvious to vide against its friendship, as well as its enmity-against be insisted upon. They strike the common sense of all all danger from its hug, as well as from its blow. I wish mankind, and were powerful considerations for the old to provide against all risk, and every hazard; for, if this whig republicans for the non-renewal of the charter of risk and hazard were too great to be encountered by King, 1791. Mr. Jefferson and the whig republicans staked Lords, and Commons, in Great Britain, they must certainly their political existence on the non-renewal of that charter. be too great to be encountered by the people of the They succeeded; and, by succeeding, prevented the counUnited States, who are but commons alone. try from being laid at the mercy of British and ultra-fede10. To have foreigners for partners.--This, Mr. Presi-ralists for funds to carry on the last war. It is said the dent, will be a strange story to be told in the West. The United States lost forty millions by using depreciated curdownright and upright people of that unsophisticated rency during the last war. That, probably, is a mistake region believe that words mean what they signify, and of one-half. But be it so! For what are forty millions that "the Bank of the United States" is the Bank of the compared to the loss of the war itself-compared to the United States. How great then must be their astonish- ruin and infamy of having the Government arrested for ment to learn that this belief is a false conception, and that want of money--stopped and paralyzed by the reception this bank (its whole name to the contrary notwithstand-of such a note as the younger Pitt received from the Bank ing,) is just as much the bank of foreigners as it is of the of England in 1795? Federal Government. Here I would like to have the 11. Exemption from due course of law for violations of proof--a list of the names and nations, to establish this its charter. This is a privilege which affects the adminis almost incredible fact. But I have no access except to tration of justice, and stands without example in the annals public documents, and from one of these I learn as much of republican legislation. In the case of all other delinas will answer the present pinch. It is the report of the quents, whether persons or corporations, the laws take Committee of Ways and Means, in the House of Repre- their course against those who offend them. It is the sentatives, for the last session of Congress. That report right of every citizen to set the laws in motion against every admits that foreigners own seven millions of the stock of offender; and it is the constitution of the law, when set in this bank; and every body knows that the Federal Govern- motion, to work through, like a machine, regardless of ment owns seven millions also. powers and principalities, and cutting down the guilty Thus it is proved that foreigners are as deeply interested which may stand in its way. Not so in the case of this in this bank as the United States itself. In the event of a bank. In its behalf, there are barriers erected between renewal of the charter they will be much more deeply the citizen and his oppressor, between the wrong and the interested than at present; for a prospect of a rise in the remedy, between the law and the offender. Instead of a stock to two hundred and fifty, and the unsettled state of right to sue out a scire facias or a quo warranto, the injured things in Europe, will induce them to make great invest- citizen, with an humble petition in his hand, must repair ments. It is to no purpose to say that the foreign stock-to the President of the United States, or to Congress, and holders cannot be voters or directors. The answer to crave their leave to do so. If leave is denied, (and denied that suggestion is this: the foreigners have the money; it will be whenever the bank has a peculiar friend in the they pay down the cash, and want no accommodations; President, or a majority of such friends in Congress, the they are lenders, not borrowers; and in a great moneyed convenient pretext being always at hand that the general institution such stockholders must have the greatest in-welfare requires the bank to be sustained,) he can proceed Aluence. The name of this bank is a deception upon no further. The machinery of the law cannot be set in the public. It is not the bank of the Federal Govern- motion, and the great offender laughs from behind his barment, as its name would import, nor of the States rier at the impotent resentment of its helpless victim. which compose this Union; but chiefly of private in- Thus the bank, for the plainest violations of its charter, dividuals, foreigners as well as natives, denizens, and and the greatest oppressions of the citizen, may escape the naturalized subjects. They own twenty-eight millions of pursuit of justice. Thus the administration of justice is the stock, the Federal Government but seven millions, subject to be strangled in its birth for the shelter and proand these seven are precisely balanced by the stock of tection of this bank. But this is not all. Another and the aliens. The Federal Government and the aliens most alarming mischief results from the same extraordinary are equal, owning one-fifth each; and there would be as privilege. It gives the bank a direct interest in the Premuch truth in calling it the English Bank as the Bank of sidential and Congressional elections: it gives it need for the United States. Now mark a few of the privileges friends in Congress and in the Presidential chair. Its fate, which this charter gives to these foreigners. To be land- its very existence, may often depend upon the friendship holders, in defiance of the State laws, which forbid aliens of the President and Congress; and, in such cases, it is not to hold land; to be landlords by incorporation, and to hold in human nature to avoid using the immense means in the American citizens for tenants; to hold lands in mortmain; hands of the bank to influence the elections of these offito be pawnbrokers and merchants by incorporation; to cers. Take the existing fact--the case to which I alluded pay the revenue of the United States in their own notes; at the commencement of this speech. There is a case in short, to do every thing which I have endeavored to made out, ripe with judicial evidence, and big with the fate point out in the long and hideous list of exclusive privileges of the bank. It is a case of usury at the rate of forty-six granted to this bank. If I have shown it to be dangerous per cent., in violation of the charter, which only admits an for the United States to be in partnership with its own interest of six. The facts were admitted, in the court becitizens, how much stronger is not the argument against a low, by the bank's demurrer; the law was decided, in the partnership with foreigners? What a prospect for loans court above, by the supreme judges. The admission conwhen at war with a foreign Power, and the subjects of that cludes the facts; the decision concludes the law. The forPower large owners of the bank here, from which alone, feiture of the charter is established; the forfeiture is inor from banks liable to be destroyed by it, we can obtain curred; the application of the forfeiture alone is wanting money to carry on the war! What a state of things, if, in to put an end to the institution. An impartial President the division of political parties, one of these parties and or Congress might let the laws take their course; those of the foreigners, coalescing, should have the exclusive con- a different temper might interpose their veto. trol of all the money in the Union, and, in addition to the crisis for the bank! It beholds the sword of Damocles money, should have bodies of debtors, tenants, and bank suspended over its head! What an interest in keeping officers stationed in all the States, with a supreme and irre- those away who might suffer the hair to be cut! What a |