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condition of the public Treasury were known and understood, that its distribution, in some form or other, | would be demanded by the country. On the other hand, it seems to have been determined by the party, and some of those who act with it thoroughly, that the money should remain where it was, in the deposite banks, so that it could be wielded at pleasure by the Executive. Hence the report of the Secretary of the Treasury made to the two Houses of Congress on the 8th day of December, 1835, (doc. 2, page 2,) makes the aggregate bal ance in the Treasury, on the 1st day of January, 1836, no more than $19,147,000; but now the controversy is ended, he shows, in his report of the 6th of December, 1836, that the true amount of that balance was $26,749,803, making an error of $7,602,803. There enters into this, and thence arises the egregious error, an estimate of the receipts for the last quarter of the then current year. After three quarters of that quarter had elapsed; after this was in the hands of inferior officers, and, in the ordinary course of business, within the knowledge of his several bureaus at Washington, receipts within that quarter of about seven millions, he estimates the aggregate receipts for the whole quarter at $4,950,000, whereas the true amount, as now reported, was $11,950,000, making a difference in the receipts of that single quarter of seven millions. I think I am very safe in saying that this most extraordinary error never would have occurred in this report if it had been the wish of the Executive to parade before the nation a very prosperous state of the public Treasury, and a large receipt for the year 1835. If nothing had been feared about the land bill or distribution project, the estimate for that quarter would probably have equalled the actual receipts.

The statement of the Secretary, however, showed a surplus; but he proceeds to calculate it away in the year 1836. He conjectures that the receipts of that year will amount to $19,750,000, and of this he allows the public lands to produce $4,000,000. The whole receipt being less, by about $4,000,000, than sufficient to sustain the estimated expenses of the year. But in his report of December 6, 1836, he gives the receipts of the same year at $47,691,898; more, by about $28,000,000, than his estimate; and of this the public lan is yield $24,000,000, six times the amount of that estimate.

These facts are striking; and if the errors originate in mere mistake, which I am willing to believe, they indicate a most extraordinary degree of ignorance as to the business of the country, and the direction of its capital, or a mind easily biased and led into error by preconceived opinions.

But Senators, in the course of the debate which afterwards sprung up on the land bill, went much farther than the Secretary of the Treasury. They denied, and most unequivocally, that there was any surplus, or that there would be any: and, when some of us offered an estimate of what would be the receipts into the Treasury in the current year, we were told that it would be very difficult to fasten that estimate upon us at this session of Congress. I, however, for one, determined to relieve gentlemen from all trouble on that score, as far as regarded myself. On the 15th of March, 1836, I submitted my estimate of the revenues and expenditures of the current year, in a speech which I caused to be printed in pamphlet form. In this I estimated the receipts from customs for the year at $19,000,000 The public lands at more than 20,000,000 And I made the whole amount on hand, and received and receivable, in that year, in round numbers, without deducting expenditures

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77,000,000

The customs, it seems, have produced $23,000,000, which is $4,000,000 more than my estimate. The public

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lands $24,000,000-about the sum which I had supposed. And the footing of the column in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, which answers to my estimate of $77,000,000, is $74,441,702, being two and a half millions less than I conjectured. More than this deficit, however, is accounted for by the fact that the bank stock which I had supposed would fall in, within the current year, has not yet been sold, or the avails of it received into the Treasury.

When the true state of things became too obvious to be any longer successfully contested; when it became apparent to every one here and to the public that there was a large amount of public money lying in the deposite banks, and likely to remain there for years, an injury to the public, and beneficial to nobody, except bankers and brokers; and when no other means seemed to offer of resisting a distribution of this fund, the country became suddenly threatened with a foreign war-and, at one time, the walls of our Capitol were actually threatened with demolition by the great guns of the French navywe were in imminent danger of invasion, and appropriations to the amount of more than $80,000,000 were called for by gentlemen who are in favor of economy and reform, to enable the Executive to prepare for defence. But this spectre vanished. Then we were threatened with Indian invasion and Indian massacre on our whole Northwestern frontier. The squabble with a miserable horde of naked savages in the swamps of Florida, which has engaged the attention of this warlike administration for the last year, was magnified into a general and formidable rising of all the tribes east of the Rocky mountains, and military preparations were called for that we might be in armor to do battle with them. At last a report of the Secretary of War, sanctioned by the President, put an end to all this absurdity; the deposite bill passed, after a desperate struggle, and then came this measure-the Treasury order-intended to destroy its effect.

This order grew out of the contest to which I have referred. It was issued not by the advice of Congress or under the sanction of any law. It was delayed until Congress was fairly out of the city, and all possibility of interference by legislation was removed, and then came forth this new and last expedient. It was known that these funds, received for public lands, had become a chief source of revenue, and it may have occurred to some that the passage of a Treasury order of this kind would have a tendency to embarrass the country; and as the bill for the regulation of the deposites had just passed, the public might be brought to believe that all the mischief occasioned by the order was the effect of the distribution bill. It has, indeed, happened, that this scheme has failed; the public understand it rightly, but that was not by any means certain at the time the measure was devised. It was not then foreseen that the people would as generally see through the contrivance as it has since been found that they do.

There may have been various other motives which led to the measure. Many minds were probably to be con sulted, for it is not to be presumed that a step like this was taken without consultation, and guided by the will of a single individual alone. That is not the way in which these things are done. No doubt one effect hoped for by some was, that a check would be given to the sales of the public lands. The operation of the order would naturally be, to raise the price of land by raising the price of the currency in which it was to be paid for. But, while this would be the effect on small buyers, those who purchased on a large scale would be enabled to sell at an advance of ten or fifteen per cent. over what would have been given if the United States lands had been open to purchasers in the ordinary way. Those who had borrowed money of the deposite banks and paid

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it out for lands, would thus be enabled to make sale to advantage, and by means of such sales make payment to the banks who found it necessary to call in their large loans, in order to meet the provisions of the deposite bill. The order, therefore, was likely to operate to the common benefit of the deposite banks and the great land dealers, while it counteracted the efforts of the obnoxious deposite bill.

There may have been yet another motive actuating some of those who devised this order. There was dan ger that the deposite banks, when called upon to refund the public treasure, would be unable to do it: indeed, it was said on this floor that the immediate effect of the distribution bill would be to break those banks. Now this Treasury order would operate to collect the specie of the country into the land offices, whence it would immediately go into the deposite banks, and would prove an acceptable aid to them while making the transfers required by law. These seem to me to have been among the real motives which led to the adoption of that order. But one of the good effects which it was said this order would produce was, that it would prevent overissues of the banks, especially in the West. Such an opinion, however, if sincerely held, must have grown out of a very narrow view of our commerce and currency. There were no overissues, save by the deposite banks only, and with respect to them the order would have no such effect. They had made very great loans to land speculators; but that business was cut off by the distribution bill. That bill straitened those banks, and forced them to draw in their loans: and it was strongly resisted on that very ground; so strongly, indeed, that it was not until within two days before the passage of the bill that the opposition could be brought to believe that they could succeed in passing it. Some of the deposite banks had in their vaults public money to the amount of three times their nominal capital. The regular commerce and business of the country did not employ much beyond that capital; the residue could only be applied to extraordinary purposes. The progress of trade is steady. The commerce of the country advances in a regular manner. It would not absorb this sudden increase of banking resources, but the extra capital found an outlet in loans for the purpose of purchasing public land. Large amounts of specie were borrowed from the deposite banks and paid into the land offices, whence it was soon after returned to the banks, and loaned again for the same purpose. The distribution bill put an end to this: it went at once to cut up this business by the roots. The banks were required to pay back all the money deposited with them over and above three fourths of the amount of their capital actually paid in; of course their loans were at once cut short. The Treasury order, therefore, could not be required to do what was already done by an act of Congress. The patient had already been depleted: no sooner was the regular physician gone, but then in comes the quack doctor, and at once cuts an artery, to make the remedy perfect.

It has been said in the President's message, and in the report of his Secretary, that all the banks of the country were in the habit of making overissues of paper, and that this Treasury order was needed as a check upon such issues. It is a mere assumption; an entire mistake. Where is the evidence to prove it? I speak now, of course, of that part of the Union where I reside, and with which I am best acquainted, and where this order has had its chief effect, and I say that the assertion is wholly unfounded. I know, indeed, that the amount of banking capital has been increased of late years: it may, some. times, and in some places, have been too extensive, but it never was so there. There never has been in that part of the Union too much banking capital. The banks have increased their issues, but they have not made ex

[DEC. 14, 1836.

cessive issues. The course of business with us has changed of late. Four or five years ago we sent our stock alive on foot to market: our flour went to New Orleans-little or none of it went to the North. It then took us from sixty to ninety days to get our returns. But now, since the opening of our canal, we have a Northern as well as a Southern market; and, according to the present course of trade, it takes the merchant from six to ten months to make his returns. He must purchase his produce, let it lie by him till the canals open, then ship to New York, and thus in about ten months realize the proceeds. One thousand dollars turned three times is the same in the business of the country as three thousand turned but once. Of course, as the time is three times longer, we want three times the amount of money to do the same business. This has rightly increased three-fold the amount of bank issues. Besides, banks do not issue their notes upon the specie in their vaults—the notion is utterly fallacious: it is the staple produce of the country which those bank notes purchase; it is the pork and flour of the West, and the cotton and sugar of the South; that is the true capital on which the banks make these issues. The busines of the country could not be transacted if the issues of bank paper were based on the amount of gold and silver alone. Our banks at the West are solely commercial. They make loans for no other purpose than purposes of trade; at least if they know the purpose to which it is to be applied. They do not knowingly loan their money for the purpose of purchasing public land, nor even for the purpose of building or other improvements. A man, to be sure, may obtain a loan, and go and buy land with the money, but that is not the course of our bank business. A merchant buys $100,000 worth of pork or flour on acceptances in New York; he borrows the money to buy it; but it is the produce which is the capital that the bank paper represents; it is that which pays the debt. None of our banks expect that gold and silver are to be demanded for their notes. Drafts are demanded; these drafts meet the bills of exchange; and thus the whole transaction is settled. And who calls this overtrading? It is not overtrading. It is apportioning bank issues to the demands of commerce, and nothing more. currency answers all the purposes of gold and silver. Gold and silver are useless save so far as they represent exchanges. It was such overtrading, however, which the Treasury order put a stop to. It did stop it most effectually. No bank in the West dare now, or has dared since the emanation of this order, to make any loans or any issues. On the contrary, the banks, as soon as it appeared, all fortified themselves against apprehended danger, and with one accord shut their doors against all loans whatever. Nor dare they open them again until that order shall be taken out of the way, unless, indeed, the course of business should unexpectedly change. Commerce, as we all know, is one of the most ductile things in the world, and it may by circumstances be forced into a new channel; and when it has just scooped out for itself a new course, then, I suppose, some other executive order will be thrown in to check or obstruct the smooth onward flow of the current.

This

In my speech of the 15th of March last, to which I have adverted, I explained the manner in which the public funds were made to pay for the public landsperforming a circuit from the deposite banks to the speculator; from him to the land office, and from the land office to the deposite banks again-thus operating the exchange of the public lands by millions of acres to large purchasers for mere credit. I was denounced for this at the time; but the President has adopted (an honor which I duly appreciate) the very sentiment, and almost the language which I then used, in his recent message; and he tells us that the Treasury order was intend

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ed to remedy this evil-an evil which Congress had, in fact, remedied effectually before the issuing of that order. It would have been a fortunate thing if the mischief had been discovered sooner by the executive officers, and the abuse corrected before it became a subject of investigation before Congress.

In

Another object to be effected by this order is the putting down a paper, and putting up a gold and silver currency. This is its purpose, while its effect has been to banish almost entirely gold and silver from among us. No such thing is now to be heard of. You cannot, in the West, unless it be in towns, get a five dollar bill changed into specie in a ride of thirty miles; not that the banks do not pay specie for their notes, but the effect on the community is the same as if they did not. consequence of this order, all purchasers of land exchange their notes for gold and silver. In the town in which I reside, there is a bank well provided with resources, and within a circuit of thirty or forty miles there are six or seven more equally strong. Before the issuing of this Treasury order, the paper of these banks constituted the currency of that region of country; but, as if touched by the wand of an enchanter, that whole amount of paper has vanished from circulation: not a dollar of it is to be seen. The men who had it carried it to these banks to get gold and silver, and the banks, having reedeemed it, shut it up in their vaults, where it remains to guard their gold. There are still some notes in circulation, but they are notes on remote and inconvenient points-on distant banks in Ohio, on Western Pennsylvania, Western New York, Michigan and Vir. ginia. Our local banks used to receive their bills as cash, and, as the course of business permitted, send them home for exchange; but now they husband their own notes, and pay them out, so that paper of this kind constitutes nearly all our circulation, and they are so mixed in small parcels on each bank that it would cost nearly half their value to send them home and cash them. This is our gold and silver currency. The amount of our produce last year was unusually great, and our supply of pork this year, consequent upon it, is very large. There is now a great demand in the Eastern cities for all we have to dispose of: our merchants are well inclined to purchase, but they cannot do it; they deal more or less in borrowed capital, and our banks dare not lend them. They have tried to get money at the East, but the Eastern banks would not loan, because their paper would immediately return upon them. Some of our adventurous men thought of a third expedient: they would go to an intermediate point in Western New York, where no trade centres, and try to get a loan there, because it would be so long before the money would make its way to the Eastern cities, and from thence return to the bank that loaned it. The plan has been tried, and I am told it has to some extent succeeded. I have myself seen bundles of notes issued in Michigan, and payable somewhere in the State of New York, making their way as welcome strangers among us; and such is the sort of currency with which we are obliged to do business; such has been the effect of tampering with the currency by individuals who know nothing of the matter. Currency is a thing which admirably regulates itself, which our merchants admirably regulate; but the hand of ignorance must not touch it. The interference of such regulators is like the effort of some rude giant to move the wheels of a machine which he does not understand: the only effect is to ruin the engine, or give it a motion directly the contrary of that which was intended.

Another alleged object aimed at by the order is to check speculation. And here we find a saving provision in favor of residents within the State, and of actual settlers. Thus a discrimination is made by the Executive between different classes of American citizens, entitled

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An at

to equal rights under our constitution and laws. tempt was made last winter to urge this same measure, or a part of it, upon Congress, but Congress refused its assent, and now it is forced upon the people by execu tive authority. No doubt it was supposed that the order would be unpopular without this exception, and would have an especially bad effect just before a presidential election. The sale was therefore so limited in point of time, as to continue just beyond the time of election, and then to cease. Can any other reason be assigned for the particular date fixed upon? There is a provision in the constitution directly in the face of this order. Those who drew up the order seemed to have been aware of it, and to have avoided employing the same words as are used in the article of the constitution. But it is not, therefore, any the less in violation of its provisions. The constitution declares that the citizens of each of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States; even the States themselves cannot discriminate. But this order gives to the citizens of one State a privilege which the citizens of no other State are allowed to enjoy—that of paying for public land in the ordinary currency of the country. With some, this argument will have but little effect, especially as it is directed against an executive act; but it is not, therefore, the less sound. But there is another which will find more favor when that will fail. The measure is unpopular; as far as it has been felt and understood, it is decidedly unpopular. It is universally condemned throughout the West, at least as far as my acquaintance extends. The very discrimination between citizens of different States is unpopular, as it is unconstitutional and unjust. It is easy, by a familiar example, to show the effect of this branch of the order, how it works in practice, and how it will strike the minds of plain common men. Two neighbors, farmers, whose lands are separated by the boundary line between Ohio and Indiana, each have sons for whom they wish to purchase land, and they set out together on a journey into the northwest of Indiana to make their purchases. They buy side by side, and enter the land in the same office; they are both citi zens of the United States, and it is the United States that sells the land. Yet one of them, he who lives on the Indiana side, is allowed to pay in the ordinary currency of the country, while the other must pay in gold and silver. Yet their fences join; they can see the smoke of each other's chimneys, and nothing separates them but an imaginary line. Our Western people cannot perceive the justice of this. They do not understand it, and they do not like it; the thing is generally unpopular.

But now, sir, there is an expedient for getting rid of the effect of this order, which ordinary plain people do not think of. It is the easiest thing in the world for gen tlemen who understand how to manage it. There never was any thing more happily contrived to enable those who are shrewd and experienced in business, to get a selection of the public lands, and all for paper. Suppose one of these gentlemen wishes to purchase ten thousand acres of land; he provides himself with no cart to lug about gold and silver to make the purchase, indeed, scorns that cumbrous kind of machinery; he takes an easier road. He just goes to three times as many of the neighbors as he wants thousands of acres of land, and he promises to treat them for the mere use of their names. That, you know, costs them nothing, and so A, B, and C, bonafide residents of the State in which the land lies which he wishes to enter, authorize him, under their hand, to enter land in their names. He makes his entry, pays for it in paper, and then gets the whole transferred to himself. This gentleman carried no specie; he did nothing to help the circulation of gold and silver, and yet very snugly gets possession, himself, of all the land he wants. The Treasury order is the very thing for

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him, while it keeps down the plain dull man that would otherwise be his competitor. Thus genius is patronized, and a gold currency introduced.

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[DEC. 14, 1836.

prices. Nor is it owing to any deranged or diseased state of the currency, or of commerce; these prices, in the general, will be maintained; for the price in this country must at last be regulated by the price at which grain can be imported from the Baltic and the Black Sea. And, indeed, we at the West have reason to complain of the prices we get in comparison with those which our staples command in the Eastern cities. I have lately seen it stated that pork is selling at Montreal at $30 per barrel, and at about the same rate in Boston; while in the West we get what is equivalent to about ten or twelve dollars per barrel.

[Mr. KING, of Alabama, here stated that the price was $30 in Mobile.]

The price, I am sure, is decidedly too low with us. And now, sir, believing as I do that the Treasury order in question has been productive of all the effects I have stated, I hold that it ought to be rescinded, were it as a mere matter of policy. I am pursuaded that its rescision would soon restore the confidence of the people of the West, now so extensively impaired. We ought to prevent the improper discrimination between specie and notes payable in specie. It would enable our banks to make loans to the amount of our produce, and no more. Those institutions with us are skilful and cautious; they make no loans for the purchase of public lands, nor for any object which will prevent its speedy return. In a word, they refuse permanent loans of every kind. Sir, I would prevent the Secretary of the Treasury, or any other Executive officer, from making an unwarrantable

But this is not all. There is yet another way of evading the order; and it is provided for in the order itself. Any man may make a deposite of money in the Treasury of the United States, and a certificate of such deposite is receivable at the land office as so much cash. It is said, indeed, that this is according to a law of Congress. But what is the provision of that law? It is, that no man shall obtain a certificate for land till he pays the price of it into the office of a receiver, or into the Treasury of the United States. My construction of this law is, that the individual must have paid for that particular section of land, and not merely have made a general deposite of money. This, however, has been overlooked, and the ordinary course is to deposite a sum of money in one of the deposite banks; the certificate of which is sent to the Treasury, and then a Treasury certificate is issued for the same amount; and I am told that individuals have shaved honest purchasers on these certificates to the amount of fifteen or twenty per cent. It took them about a month to get this thing well into operation. But within the last two months there has been about $200,000 of this kind of specie capital created for the occasion. This is nothing but a fair sample of the practical effect of all attempts to juggle with the public money. The result always is the injury of ordinary industrious citizens, and the enriching and aggrandizing of those who are already rich, and who are keen-sighted and sagacious. It has been said, and it is a familiar answer to objec-discrimination between different classes of the citizens of tions such as I have now urged, that, notwithstanding all these difficulties, the price of produce is high, and that, therefore, what has been done to the currency has been for the benefit of the country. It is true produce is high, and what is the reason? We know in this country, from the papers, the wants of all parts of our extended community, and it has happened partly owing to a failure of crops, and partly from other causes, that grain is so scarce and in very great demand east of the mountains. It is nominally high with us in the West, but not as high as it should be in proportion to other things, because our traders cannot get funds to buy with, and competition in the purchase is put down. As the causes of these high prices are not generally understood, I will briefly sketch an outline of my views on that subject. There is an impression gone abroad that the people of the United States ought, of course, to be exporters of grain. But never was there a more incorrect idea. It is against the ordinances of nature, and the whole course of human things. We never can be exporters of grain unless there be war or famine in Europe. A great part of Europe, the north part of Asia, the north coast of Africa, Egypt, and the islands in the Mediterranean are all grain-growing countries. Grain is their great commodity. England, too, is a rich grain country. All these regions of the earth will supply their own demands for bread, and are destined to do so, while a large part of their clothing will be drawn from our great South.

We have at the North populous cities, extensive manufactories; in addition to which, there is our immense marine, our navy, our merchantmen, our fishing vessels, all to be supplied from our own grain region. Yet we are seldom in the habit of reflecting that it is but a belt of about four or five degrees of latitude which, in this country, produces wheat advantageously. This comparatively small portion of our country is relied on to supply our whole northern continent, the West India islands, and South America, all of which are, in this point of view, entirely dependent upon us. Is it astonishing that the price of wheat should be high? It is no Goyernmental arrangement. It is not the skill of any administration which has given to our farmers the existing

the United States. There should be no such discrimination. We have no right to set up the public property to sale, and then say to A or B this is the price if your business is so and so, or if your politics are of this complexion; but if not, you must pay a higher price. It is against the letter as well as the spirit of the constitution. I would abolish it. It ought to be abolished. It is peculiarly oppressive on the people of the West.

If there is to be a specie currency, why not try the experiment in our Eastern cities? Surely it would be more convenient there. A man in our Western region, if he selects a tract of land from the public domain, but is obliged to go away to get the money to pay for his purchase, loses his opportunity. His footsteps are tracked by the speculator or his agent, and the land is gone. If he would secure his section, he must carry his specie in his saddle-bags, and take a pistol in his hand to defend himself from robbers. Is it in this way you would compel your citizens to seek out their home upon the public domain? As soon as he finds a spot to suit him, he must carry away the specie to a land office; and whenever a large quantity accumulates there, an ox-cart, with a guard, must be employed to bring it back to the spot whence he got it. This, sir, has been all the specie currency of which we have heard so much. This is the active circulation of the precious metals. This is the way in which the Secretary makes up his statements on that subject. The money is carried one way in saddle-bags, and the other way in a cart. I would put an end to this state of things. I would try the hard money experiment, if it must be tried, on the seaboard, where it is easier to try it. As long as your land is offered at sale, it is lawful for all your citizens to buy it. You have no right to disfranchise any of them, under the plea of compelling them to get up a specie circulation.

It is said by the Secretary that he does not possess the same power over the deposite banks since the distributing act which he did before. He succeeded, he tells us, in keeping down the rate of the exchanges until the passage of that law. Now, sir, there is one species of control, which, if the Secretary do not possess, Congress dees, and ought to exercise it. It is said that there are

DEC. 15, 1836.]

Statements of Commerce and Navigation.

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several of the deposite banks who have millions of the off" until the last moment. He repeated, that if the public treasure in their vaults, and who use it, by their appropriations had been made in time to be used, which officers or agents, in shaving upon notes or exchanges. would have been done had it not been for the extraordiThey take advantage of the difficulty of the times, and nary organization of the committees of that body, by virtually act as brokers, thus keeping up the pressure which they were controlled by those gentlemen in favor and embarrassing the public, while they make enormous of surpluses, the case would have been far different profits out of the public money. I would institute an from what it was. There would not have been so much inquiry into this matter, and if banks are guilty of prac-surplus to talk of, and there would have been no occatices of this kind, I would at least leave them to do it sion for this new application of the term to an unexwith their own money, and not with the money of the pended balance. It was a new idea to prevent the appeople of the United States. propriations from being passed; and, instead of letting the money remain for two years before it could be called a surplus, as under the usage of the former law, to immediately seize upon it for distribution.

Mr. BENTON observed that he should want to make some exposition of facts, which he thought would go far to invalidate the statements made respecting the pre vious effects of this Treasury order, and to demonstrate clearly what had been its practical and beneficial results. For this purpose he should want a little more time, in order to get the returns, and such other documentary evidence as it would be necessary for him to refer to. He should show then to the Senate, far more satisfactorily by facts, than the gentleman from Ohio had been able to do by argument, why the banks had been prevented from extending the usual accommodations to the public. While on his feet, he would say that he entirely concurred with the Senator from Ohio in his construction of the law as respected payments into the public Treasury, for the purchase of lands. It had been his opinion for sixteen or seventeen years past, that the law ought to be so construed, though it had remained but as a dead letter on the statute book. He remembered that some years ago a register of a land office in Missouri, construing the act as he and the Senator from Ohio did, refused to receive from a purchaser a Treas ury certificate of deposite, and he (Mr. B.) was applied to by the individual to get the money returned to him. He had, however, heard it said since his arrival here, (though he did not get his information from any officer of the Government,) that as soon as the attention of the Secretary was turned to the law, he had given it the same construction that had been given to it by himself and the Senator from Ohio.

While up, he would remark, that as to this large amount of surplus on hand to distribute, which showed that there was so great a mistake on the part of those who said that there would be none, (though they said so with the necessary qualifications, that the appropriations should be made in time to be used,) yet when they came to look at the President's message, they found that of this large surplus, fifteen or sixteen millions of it was appropriated money, which could not be used, because the year was half gone before the appropriations were made. This (said Mr. B.) we represented so often last session on this floor, that if walls had tongues, as they are said to have ears, they would again and again reverberate the warning. But (said Mr. B.) the committees were so organized, being controlled by gentlemen who were in favor of distribution, and consequently anxious for surpluses, that the necessary appropriations were "staved off," for the purpose of making them.

In this way they might have surpluses in abundance at every session, and the whole revenue might, by keeping off the appropriations till too late to be used, be converted into surplus. It was almost incredible (Mr. B. said) to see the manner in which business was procras tinated at the last session. These few leaves, said Mr. B., (turning over a few pages of the acts,) contain every private act passed by Congress at the last session. They were Mr. Whittlesey's acts-acts sent up by the industry of one single man in the other House. Here, said Mr. B., (turning again to the volume,) are the remainder of the acts; and when you come to look at them, you will find that the appropriation bills were "staved VOL. XIII.-2

We have often (said Mr. B.) had fifteen or sixteen millions of surplus in the Bank of the United States, and not one word was said about it; and if the appropriations of the last session had been made in time to be used, (and there were many, too, that had been given up by their supporters,) there would be no more surplus in the Treasury now than had frequently been in the Bank of the United States, without causing excitement or alarm. Mr. B. only rose to say that he concurred with the Senator from Ohio in his construction of the law as to Treasury certificates of deposite, and to state what he had heard, that the officers of the Government had given it the same construction. What he had further to say was, that some disposition of this resolution of the Senator from Ohio should be made, which would permit the ordinary business of the Senate to go on without interrup tion, and not to have the important bills attending the commencement of the session blocked out by a protracted debate. He wished that the resolution might be laid on the table for the present, to give him time to refer to the documents necessary to be used in reply to the Senator, and that the ordinary business of the Senate might go on.

Mr. WEBSTER expressed his assent to a postponement of the discussion, but hoped it would not extend beyond the residue of the week. He knew of no subject more important, or in which the public mind seemed at this moment to take a deeper interest. The condition of the country in reference to the currency was admitted on all hands to be greatly deranged. A state of things, indeed, existed which was anomalous and unprecedented; for while the price of all sorts of commodities was unusually high, there existed at the same moment a scarcity of money. Such a state of the pecuni. ary interests of the country called for investigation, and demanded the prompt attention of Congress. He con. cluded by expressing a hope that Monday might be fixed upon for the further consideration of the resolution.

Mr. EWING had no objections to such an arrangement, though he was opposed to any unnecessary delay. He said a few words in reply to some of the remarks which had fallen from Mr. GRUNDY, disclaiming all agency in retarding the appropriations for the purpose of creating a surplus, &c. but reserved himself for the fuller discussion of the subject.

The resolution was then postponed to and made the order of the day for Monday. STATEMENTS OF COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.

The joint resolution introduced some days ago by Mr. BENTON, providing for the earlier preparation of the annual report on commerce and navigation was read a third time, and passed.

When the Senate adjourned.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15.

Mr. RIVES presented the credentials of RICHARD E. PARKER, Senator elect from Virginia; and

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