DEC. 29, 1836.] Treasury Circular. [SENATE. one half of each, the demander to have the option of one half of either metal, and the bank the other." This resolution was laid on the table, on motion of Mr. Mangum, and never afterwards disturbed. Treasury order! to shut up a portion of the specie, and thus make "confusion worse confounded." So far as I can understand the subject, I cannot approve his conduct. The order appears to me to have placed the specie exactly where it was least wanted-created distrust and Why were these movements made in the Legislature? want of confidence--collected the revenue where it was If the Executive possessed the power under the laws, not needed, and from whence it can only be transported why was it not exercised? Why did the Executive with expense-and essentially deranged the exchanges. wake up to a knowledge of its rights and duties a few I do not stop to prove that they are deranged, nor to days afterwards? Was it that the delusion of the specombat the assertions from high places that they are in as cie currency had come to a stand, and the people must good or a better condition than for several years past. No still be blinded a little longer by actions, when profesman of ordinary capacity in the country can or does be- sions had grown stale? Was it that a deposite bill was lieve them, but all regard them as the offspring of igno- to be defeated as far as practicable in its salutary effects? rance or recklessness. Nor shall I resist by argument the A still more decisive expression of opinion was also assertion that the order is conveying into the interior given by Congress in the deposite bill itself. In the 5th large sums in silver and gold, there to enter permanent-section of that act it was declared that no bank should ly into the currency of the country, and place it on a be selected or continued as a deposite bank, which firmer foundation." I do not believe that the assertion should, after the 4th July, 1836, issue notes of less deis credited even by the person who penned it. I know nomination than $5; nor should the notes of any bank be not who he was. The President, I feel assured, did not; received in payment to the United States, which issued nor, in his state of health, could he have examined it notes for less than that sum. This law established, as with care. clearly as law can, the opinion of Congress, that bank notes were to be received for dues to the Government; and that it was not wise, for the present, to confine the circulation to notes of a larger denomination than $5. And yet this order was issued within less than twenty days afterwards, forbidding any bank notes to be re There is one circumstance connected with the pretences, or, if you please, reasons for this order, which is worthy of remark. They have been acted on by the Executive, either in direct violation of the known will of Congress, or to supply what were regarded as defects or omissions in our legislation. They embrace two sub-ceived for the public lands. jects--the public lands and the currency--neither of them within the constitutional control of the Executive; both of them before Congress in the session which had expired seven days before the order was issued. Our journals show that we had under consideration, in various forms, the proper disposition of the lands: our attention was invited to it by the Executive; and we had bills and speeches in abundance to guide us. A select committee reported a bill to arrest monopolies of the public lands and purchases thereof for speculation, and substitute sales to actual settlers only, in limited quantities, and at reduced prices, &c., &c., (page 436;) and it rested, I believe, without an effort for its passage. We had a bill to change the mode of sales, and it was postponed indefinitely, on motion of Mr. Walker, and every supporter of the administration voting to postpone and defeat it; and yet, as soon as we had left our seats, the Executive issued an order to legislate on these very subjects, and carry out the views of a portion of his friends, but a small minority of the Senate, and against the will of the majority Where was the respect for a co-ordinate branch of the Government, the only power of regulation on this subject, when its opinion, thus expressed, was spurned? Did not the Executive know-had not these proceedings informed him-what Congress thought upon these topics? And did it comport with the courtesy due from him thus to spurn their opinion, and execute his own purposes? It is painful, sir, to contemplate such conduct; and I am not prepared to give it even a "reluctant approval" But, Mr. President, the worst aspect of this order is its total illegality. It has nothing on which to rest in the constitution and laws of the land. I propose to examine it in that aspect; and, in doing it, hope for the pardon of the Senator from Connecticut, if I should be compelled to use the ordinary process of reasoning familiar to lawyers. He seems to think very badly of them, and rejects them as safe guides. It is to be hoped that this hostility will not lead him quite up to the famous precedent given by Shakspeare, in the times of Henry VI, when Jack Cade, the clothier, undertook "to dress the Commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it," and promised to "apparel all the people in one livery, that they might agree like brothers, and worship him their lord." Dick, the butcher, thereupon said to him, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers;" and Cade answered, Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment?-that parchment being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?" If the Senator will permit us to look at a legal question with legal lights, we shall reach a conclusion satisfactory to ourselves, if not to him. The currency, also, was the theme of repeated motions, disquisitions, and projects. The President had pressed it upon Congress. On the 10th June, (page 420,) the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] introduced, on leave, the celebrated bill entitled a bill "to establish the currency of the constitution for the Federal Government," which proposed that the Government should refuse the notes of all banks which issued those of less than $20, after March, 1837; of $50, after March, 1838; of $100, after March, 1839; of $500, after March, 1840; of $1,000, after March, 1841; and all notes of all banks after 1842. On the 27th June, on motion of Mr. Wright, this bill was laid upon the table. The same Senator, on 22d June, (page 464,) offered a resolution requesting the President" to cause inquiries to be made of the deposite banks, and of other banks of good credit, to ascertain whether any of said banks, in consideration of being made or continued depositories of the public moneys, will agree to enter into arrangements to discon-ceived, to be made by the bank, with the approbation tinue the use and circulation of all paper currency of less denomination than $20; and also to promote the circulation of gold, by paying all the currency issued by it in gold and silver, the proportion of each to be at present according to the best ability of the bank, and eventually [At this point of Mr. SOUTHARD's remarks the Senate adjourned. The bill for the admission of Michigan was taken up the next day, and the Treasury order not resumed until the 6th January. Before the adjournment, however, Mr. Rives offered an amendment to his amendment, which directed the selection of the notes to be re of the Secretary.] When the Senate adjourned, Mr. President, I was commencing the examination of the legal right and power of the Executive to issue the order. We must regard it as the act of the President. The Secretary, aware, I suppose, of its questionable character, thought [DEC. 29, 1836. evil was not that all the currency was not specie, for it never had been so in the history of the Government. It was not that the Government could not get specie only for its claims, for it never had demanded specie only. But it was that the currency had degenerated into worthless paper, and that the Government was paid in that paper; and the object was to restore the currency, and obtain paper which would be redeemed on demand; to compel the banks to resume specie payments. The evil was depreciated paper; the remedy, to take only that which was not depreciated. It was not intended to restore what is called "the currency of the constitution." It was not to have a currency altogether of gold and silver, for that was utterly impracticable. It was not to exclude specie-paying notes, but to obtain them. Under these circumstances, it would be extraordinary if the resolution bore a construction which would authorize the Secretary to refuse them altogether. Its objects and effects are, to regulate the currency and the sales of the public lands, and they are so declared on the face of the order, in the report of the Secretary, and the other expressing the opinion of Congres s retary, the message of the President, and the defence on this floor. Neither of them is, in its nature, or by the principles of the constitution, under the power of the Executive. Aware of this, and unwilling boldly to deny it, its advocates do not pretend to defend the order on the broad constitutional right of the President to interfere with them, without the sanction and direction of Congress, but take refuge under the laws, and endeavor to pervert them to its defence. By these, therefore, they must stand or fall. They are mainly two-the resolution of April, 1816, and the law of the 24th April, 1820, and the practice under them. We are to decide upon these by the same rules which regulate the construction of all other laws; and, to my mind, their meaning is free from all reasonable doubt. And, first, of the resolution of 1816. The circumstances under which it was passed, the evil to be remedied, its words, and the action of Congress and the Treasury Department, all point clearly to one construction, and one only. The charter of the old bank expired in 1811; the nation, during the war of 1812, had suffered severely from the state of the currency; bank paper had depreciated; the paper of the Government had failed to afford a remedy; the banks, in three fourths of the Union, had refused to redeem their notes in specie; the Treasury had applied all the means under its control to induce them to resume specie payments; the dues of the Government were received in worthless paper; it was accumulating in their Treasury; and we all recollect it in the shape of a million or two of unavailable funds. The evil was, the refusal of the banks to redeem their notes in specie; the remedy was, to restore specie payments. Relief was to be found by Congress, for the evil was intolerable. Wise or unwise, constitutional or not, they adopted the expedient of chartering a bank. They made it the depository of the public money, agreed to receive its notes, and required it to pay specie on demand. The object of its creation was the restoration of specie payments, and bringing back the currency to the sound condition in which it had formerly been. The task was difficult, and Congress was disposed to afford all the aid in its power. The charter was passed on the 10th of April; and twenty days afterwards, before the adjournment of Congress, before a dollar was subscribed to the bank, the resolution was passed, and is entitled "A resolution relative to the more effectual collection of the public revenue." They may be regarded as cotemporaneous acts, both having the same object. That object was not to require all the currency to be specie, nor all the dues to the Government to be paid in specie. The man who | had proposed either, at that day, would have been regarded as laboring under the delirium of madness. The It has two parts-one prescribing the duty of the Secas to the time within which the duty might be accomplished. The first is mandatory, the second advisory. The first requires and directs the Secretary "to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States. The second part declares that nothing but the kinds of money so specified ought to be received after the 20th of February then next. It prescribes four kinds of money, either of which the Secretary was at liberty to receive; and he was to receive none other but those. But had he the power to refuse any one of these? Could he have rejected specie? Treasury notes? notes of the Bank of the United States? If not, on what principle of construction could he reject the other, when Congress had placed them on the same footing, and directed his duty in the same phraseology? Does any man believe that Congress intended that he should refuse them? Did Congress or the Secretary then so understand it? Surely not. And are we not bound now to give the construction which was then intended, and then understood, by all parties? At that day there was no dispute about it. All regarded it as directing the Secretary to receive notes payable and paid on demand in specie. The then Executive, and every Executive since, has construed and practised upon it in the same way, until the 11th July last, when new and strange light broke into the executive mansion, and from a source better calculated, I fear, to mislead than to direct. The Senate will remark that while the resolution prescribes the kinds of money to be received, it draws a plain distinction between legal currency and the moncy which it would receive. The former was established by law, and was the guide between creditor and debtor, between citizen and citizen, and the Government had a right to claim it. But it had also a perfect right to waive it, and receive any thing else in its stead. And, in this resolution, it points out three kinds of money which it would receive, which were not legal currencyTreasury notes, United States Bank notes, and notes of other banks. We shall see that this distinction is important, in the progress of this examination; and it is because it has been overlooked, that confusion has crept into the arguments of some of those who defend this order. The resolution has nothing to do with establishing or declaring the legal currency; it deals only with, and prescribes rules for, the payment of debts to Government. They who rely upon it ought to prove that Congress had no right to declare that the Government would receive any thing but legal currency. If they had that right, and have declared that they will receive something else, what authority has the Secretary to say that nothing else shall be received? To me it seems clear that, by the words and exposition of the resolution, the Executive had no authority to refuse notes of speciepaying banks. But it has been objected that this construction, by imposing on the Secretary the necessity of receiving these notes, compels him to receive all, and, of course, to take notes of inconvenient, or, perhaps, insolvent banks, and that the practice has been to select and refuse such as he saw fit. I answer, to require him to receive notes of specie paying banks does not compel him to receive those which are not equal to specie at the place where they are paid. It is a false construction to say that he must take such notes when they are at a discount; for they are not then specie-paying to the officer who receives them; he cannot turn them into specie without loss; they are not equivalent to specie. He takes them because he can get an equal amount of specie on demand for them. This he cannot do if the bank be at a distance; its notes are not then worth specie. Much less can he be required to take those the solvency of which is justly questioned. Congress intended to authorize the receipt of notes which were convertible into specie without loss. It would be quite as correct to argue that the Secretary, being bound to receive specie, was therefore obliged to receive that of which he doubted the weight and genuineness, and which could not be passed for the amount which its denomination indicated. He must exercise his judgment whether the notes are good, will be paid on demand, and are equal to specie where they are offered. Beyond'this he has no discretion. Besides, the order which we are considering does not direct the rejection of those notes only which are suspicious, of banks at a distance, and which are at a discount, but of all notes, the very best, those of banks in the immediate neighborhood, and which could be converted into specie without delay and without cost; and to prove, if he receive all, that he may receive some which are not of full value, is an odd mode of reasoning to reach the conclusion that he may reject all. But, if this inconvenience do exist in the rule, we must recollect that we are discussing, not its policy and expediency, but its meaning; not what the law ought to be, but what the law is, and, of course the power and duty of the Executive in regard to it. If he have not the power by law, it should be denied to him. If the law be not right, let Congress amend it. But, Mr. President, I deny the very foundation of the argument in support of this order; the point from which it starts and at which it ends. It rests on the assumption that gold and silver are the currency of the constitution, and thence it is inferred that the resolution is to be construed in relation to it, and that the Executive is justifiable in restoring it by his orders and regulations to the country. There is no such thing as a currency of the constitution in any other sense than that which regards all matters whithin the legitimate powers of Congress as constitutional. In that sense, the courts, the departments, the customs, are the courts, departments, and customs, of the constitution. The constitution has provided no currency for the Union. The 5th item, 8th section, of the 1st article, says that "Congress shall have power to coin money, and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins." It may coin money, and may prescribe its value; it may coin gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, whatever it pleases, and place what value upon it it sees fit. The power is unrestricted and unlimited. It is the power to create a currency for the Union, according to the condition and necessities of the Union. [SENATE. The confederation had no currency; and, until Congress exercised the power, the Union had no currency. When it did exercise it, it created a currency in conformity with the constitution, but in no other sense the currency of the constitution. It might have established other metals as coins, have given them different values, have required gold and silver to pass at a higher or lower standard, and they would have been equally the currency of the constitution as they now are. Congress has changed the fineness and standard value of coins, and might have changed them still more, and been equally within its constitutional powers. The cant phrase "currency of the constitution," means nothing more nor less than the currency which Congress has established in virtue of the authority conferred upon it, and which it may alter at pleasure. It might, so far as its power is concerned, have established any other. Gold and silver are the legal currency, the current money, and are constitutional only because they have been made legal; but, without an act of Congress, they would have been no currency. There is, sir, another provision on this subject in the same article, section 10, item 1: "No State shall coin money, emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold and silver a tender in the payment of debts." The reasons for this provision are abundantly found in the history of the Revolution and of the confederation. The power was wisely taken from the States; the control of Congress was intended to be complete. One Senator [Mr. BUCHANAN] has said that, by some strange accident, Congress had lost all control in regard to the currency. It is so, and it is extraordinary that his memory does not direct him to that accident. But the constitution was not created in that spirit, nor with that view. With Congress the regulation of the currency is a question not of power, but of policy; with the States it is a question not of policy, but of power. Congress wisely established a currency of gold and silver, and made them a legal tender at a standard nearly corresponding with that of the nations with whom we have most commercial intercourse; and in this respect its duty was well done, and its policy will, I trust, never be changed. But it had the power to create another medium and another standard. I should not have thought these remarks necessary, if we had not incessantly, for two or three years past, heard of the currency of the constitution in bills and speeches which, however unsound, seem to have been suited to the political market. I proceed to examine the action of Congress upon this subject. The law of the 31st of July, 1789, the fifth upon your statute book, regulating the collection of duties, directs that they shall be " received in gold and silver coin only," at the following rates: The gold of France, England, Spain, and Portugal, and all other gold of equal fineness, at 89 cents for every pennyweight; the Mexican dollar at 100 cents; a crown of France and of England at $1 11, and all other silver of equal fineness, at $1 11 per ounce. This law is referred to by the Secretary of the Treasury in his report of the 26th April, 1836, and he seems to consider it as a recognition by Congress that gold and silver alone were a legal tender, and alone ought to be received for dues to the Government. Speaking of the authority to direct what money shall be received for public lands, he says: "This Department entertains the opinion that Congress alone possesses that authority in the first instance, to be enforced by the Treasury as the chief fiscal agent of the Government, under such constructions of the laws relating to the subject as seem reasonable. An authority of this kind was accordingly exercised by that body as early as 1789, by requiring all duties on foreign imports to be received in gold and silver only,' by subsequently directing payment for the public lands to be made in cash,' and by often recog nising the principle countenanced in the constitution (in SENATE.] Teasury Circular. [DEC. 29, 1836. the prohibition of any State to make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts') that such a coin alone should generally be permitted to be used as a legal tender either by or to the United States." A more muddy phraseology could not well be found than this of our Secretary, and he shall be my Magnus Apollo who will construe it by any known rules. He seems, however, to assert that Congress had often, and especial. ly by the act of 1789, recognised the principle that gold and silver alone should be used as money with which to pay to the Government. He makes a great mistake. Congress has never recognised that principle, and in that act had no reference to legal currency or legal tenders. They were deciding only what they would receive for the duties. A legal currency was not established until the 21 of April, 1792, nearly three years afterwards; and they directed the receipt of coins which never have been made a lawful tender: the crown of England, and all other gold and silver, not enumerated in our laws, giving currency to foreign coins. That act establishes only that Congress drew a distinction between legal currency and the moneys which they were willing to receive; but it does not recognise a currency, nor prescribe to its agents the rule that such coins alone as have since been made a legal tender "should generally be permitted to be used as a legal tender either by or to the Uni-ognises the right of the United States to receive other ted States." The first reference fails the Secretary. He must not rest upon this law to justify him in the pretence that, by the order of 11th July, he was carrying out the expressed will of Congress. There is nothing in our laws or practice to impugn this view, unless it be the act of 2d April, 1792, establishing the mint, and the laws making foreign coins a lawful currency. That act, section 16, (1 Laws, 267,) | declares that "all the gold and silver coins which shall have been struck at, and issued from, the said mint, shall be a lawful tender in all payments whatsoever," &c. But this merely establishes the currency--the lawful tender; and has nothing to do with the question what the Government will receive for its dues. That it is to be decided by the practice and by other laws, and the Executive has no lawful authority to violate that practice and those laws. The laws relating to foreign coins as a legal tender commenced with the act of 9th February, 1793. He seems to admit--and I use the word seems with becoming caution--he seems to admit that there was no direct action of Congress on this subject of payments to the Government, from this law of 1789, to the charter of | the bank and the resolution of 1816. If that be so, there was then, up to the latter period, no declaration by Congress that the legal currency alone should be received for dues to the Government, and no direction or will of Congress to be carried out by the action of the Execu tive. And the practice as to the receipts was directly the reverse of the order of the 11th July. Almost immediately after the law of 1789, as soon as the collections commenced under it, Mr. Hamilton, the then Secretary of the Treasury, received into the depositories of the Treasury notes of banks which were convertible into specie. He took care that they should be notes of solvent banks-convertible-equal to specie where they were received. Our Secretary considers this as a modification of the enactments and principles of the law. What right had Mr. Hamilton to modify the law? Ile did no such thing. He knew that Congress intended rather to prescribe the value to be received than the medium in which the duties should be paid; that the object was to receive specie or its equivalent. His construction was known to and sanctioned by Congress, and it became the settled practice--the common law of the Government, and continued, with every legal sanction, from his day down to the resolution of 1816; and I know of no authority which could change it without the command of Congress. During the war of 1812, and after its termination, the banks south and west of New York suspended specie payments, and yet their notes were received by the Govment. It was of necessity, not choice; but it proves the practice, and confirms the assertion that the Secretary and the advocates of this order are in error when they suppose that there was any thing which required gold and silver only to be received for dues to the Government prior to 1816. The practice itself had the force of law, and Congress alone, in whom rested the control of the currency and of the Treasury of the nation, could alter it. An interference with it by the Executive was an assumption of undelegated authority. It declares, 1. That the gold coins of England, Portugal, France, and Spain, shall pass current as money, at the rates then fixed, as shall also the Spanish milled dollar and its parts, until three years after the mint shall commence to coin, after which only the Spanish milled dollar and its parts were to pass current. This coin had been the common currency before this act, and is the only one which, through all changes and at all times, has been a lawful, recognised tender between citizen and citizen. But this act, section 3, directly recforeign gold and silver coins in payment, and directs the officers who receive them to send them to the mint to be recoined. Thus establishing the fact that, at the mo. ment of fixing the currency, they received what was not made lawful, and therefore no argument can be drawn from the currency to justify the act of the Secretary. He must look only to those laws and resolutions which relate to the moneys which the Government has agreed to receive. Under this law all foreign coins would have ceased to be a lawful tender three years after the mint went into operation. This period was fixed by a proc. lamation of the President, dated 22d July, 1797, to be for silver coins, except Spanish milled dollars, on the 15th October, 1797, and for gold, on the 31st July, 1798. (See 5 Laws, appendix, 511.) But the law was suspended from time to time, although no alteration was made in the foreign coins which should be received, until the act of the 25th June, 1834, which added the dollar of Mexico, Peru, Chili, and Central America, and that restamped in Brazil, and the five-franc piece of France; which then became a legal tender. But still, other foreign coins were received by the Government, and still are received. We have, then, the practice and the laws up to the passage of the resolution of 1816, and find nothing to justify the Secretary in his order. The character of that resolution has been considered, and we have to inquire whether the practice since comports with the construction which I have put upon it. The first action under it was by Mr. Crawford, and his conduct is referred to as authority for this order. I am not the assailant of Mr. Crawford, nor his apologist for any errors which he may have committed. I was not his advocate, and to this hour have been made to feel the penalty of my offence. I leave his defence to those who were his particular friends in his palmy days--some of whom have strangely changed positions since that time. I thought he sometimes stretched the law beyond the meaning of the law, but he did nothing on this subject which could be a justification for this order. He had been compelled to receive depreciated paper, for there was nothing else in which the Government could be paid. He was a good democrat-the very model of those who now claim the name; yet he used all the power of influence and of argument to induce Congress to charter the late bank. His argument in its DEC: 29, 1836.] Treasury Circular. [SENATE. hears me were absolved from his honorary obligation to secrecy, I doubt not he could tell us when, and where, and by whose aid, that production was prepared, and how that reputation was acquired. favor is one of his ablest efforts. He had to aid that bank in restoring the currency of the country to a sound condition; and the resolution of 1816 was enacted to give him countenance and support. It was, of course, his duty to go as far as that resolution authorized him to go; and the point at which he stopped his successors oughtmittee of the House of Representatives, of which Mr. to have hesitated to pass. In that trial, which took place before a most able com Livingston was chairman, and Mr. Webster one of the members, the conduct of Mr. Crawford was investigated, and their report is given in the documents of the House of Representatives. The Secretary, in his report of 26th April last, seems in some difficulty to give us a correct and safe history of his acts, on account of the burning of the Treasury. Fire seems to be either a warm friend or a desolating It appears by it that the chief complaint was, not that enemy to the existing administration. It will afford or Mr. Crawford received the notes of the specie-paying avoid many an explanation, when errors and corruptions banks, or of any banks, but that, after they were receivare alleged against it. It may truly be said to be an ad-ed, he deposited the money in insolvent banks, and ministration purified and cleansed by fire. But enough remains on this point to enable us to understand Mr. Crawford's conduct correctly. Under that resolution, and the law chartering the bank, he was bound by his duty to receive and place in that bank the public moneys; and to receive, after the 20th February, 1817, nothing but specie, Treasury notes, notes of the Bank of the United States, or notes of specie-paying banks. To effect this end, he had to deal with banks which had refused specie for their notes, had resumed it, and subsequently stopped again. He did not direct that notes of specie banks should be refused, but gave directions that the officers should not receive notes which would not be received by the Bank of the United States, in which he had to deposite them, and by which they were to be credited and paid, either in their own notes, or in specie. What less could he have done to perform his duty? He further requested the depositors to give notice to the receivers what notes they would so consider. This was justifiable, because Congress had created the depository, and had required the treasure to be placed in it, and had not, at the same time, required that depository to receive any money but that which it was willing to receive. The Secretary could accomplish the two great objects of his duty-to aid in compelling the banks to resume specie payments, and thereby restoring a sound currency, and to deposite the public money in the Treasury provided for it-in no other way. But, when this example is cited by the Secretary and by Senators, do they not perceive the strong contrasts between the acts of 1817 and of 1836? When the order now under consideration was issued, there was no obligation on the Secretary to restore a currency already sound, at least not declared to be unsound by Congress, and there was no Treasury designated by Congress which had refused to receive the notes which the Secretary has rejected. The precedent manifestly does not sustain the act. Mr. Crawford did not forbid all specie-paying notes; he only required that those received should be equivalent to specie where they were paid; and all his regulations were governed by two considerations 1. To receive all the kinds of money mentioned in the resolution of Congress; 2. To take the notes of banks in such way that they could be received into the Treasury; and that no money should be lost by taking notes of insolvent banks. Mr. Crawford did receive notes of specie-paying banks. This he could not bave done, if the laws and resolutions of Congress required only gold and silver. The phrase "currency of the constitution" had not then acquired its potency in Congress, nor among the people; nor had the adroit reformers of that currency undertaken to restore it " for the Federal Government." The acts of Mr. Crawford were called in question, and he was accused and tried-and a verdict of acquittal pronounced. His defence gave him more reputation than any other production of his life; and if one who VOL. XIII.-13 thereby lost it; and that he made corrupt bargains to give these State banks too much for receiving and transferring the public money. But neither his accuser nor the committee ever dreamed that it was his duty, under the laws then in force, or under the resolution of 1816, to refuse notes and demand specie. That very sage notion was reserved for these times, when the spargere voces ambiguas is the creed of the popular politician; when gold and silver have been converted into "the currency of the constitution," and men rest their claims to popular confidence on the unworthy cry of-gold, gold, silver, silver; no United States Bank; no United States Bank; the poor against the rich; the poor against the rich!--et id genus omne. No United States Bank, sir! The hour is approaching rapidly when a different language will be held; when the successors of those who have made profit, in money and honors, by these impositions on popular credulity, will, under another name, perhaps, and by more specious devices, restore the substance, if not the form, of that great controller and purifier of the currency. And I, sir, for one, shall rejoice when that hour arrives, provided the object be boldly, manfully, and frankly avowed and accomplished, without local and personal objects, and with a single eye to the permanent and lasting inter ests of the nation. The precedent of 1817, sir, proves only that Mr. Crawford and the then Executive considered themselves bound to receive bank notes which were equivalent to specie where they were paid; and that he gave directions to the receivers and the depositories to take them wherever they were equivalent to specie; and it condemns the bold assumption of the order of 11th July, which refuses all notes and demands specie only, without legal sanction for the usurpation of power-a usurpation perpetrated under advice which would destroy any administration, because it inflicts injuries which an intelligent nation cannot and will not bear. The subsequent history of the practice under this res olution has been most unskilfully told by the Secretary, in his report before referred to, and has been unadvisedly adopted by the Senator from New Hampshire. It is stated that Mr. Crawford, in eighteen hundred and twenty-three, extended the indulgence of receiving at the Western banks notes of certain banks on the seaboard. The indulgence-why, sir, that indulgence was nothing more nor less than receiving for lands and other dues in the West the notes of banks which were not only worth specie, but which were, at the places at which they were received, the very best funds which the Government could obtain. They were notes of banks the drafts on which were at a premium. It was the receipt, not of actual specie, but of that which, for the uses of the Government, was worth more than specie. This is a singular kind of indulgence, and an odd kind of argoment to show that the Treasury has the power to refuse all notes of all specie-paying banks. The resolution of 1816 requires the Secretary to receive specie-paying notes; he receives those of the local banks and of banks on |