Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

SENATE.]

Duty on Coal-Burning of the Post Office-Mr. Clay's Land Bill.

Mr. BROWN the credentials of ROBERT STRANGE, Senator elect from North Carolina.

Messrs. STRANGE and PARKER appeared, were qualified and took their seats.

DUTY ON COAL.

Mr. WEBSTER presented two petitions; one from John Haskell, and a great number of other persons; and the other from N. D. Snelling and others, of Boston, praying for a reduction of the duty on coal.

Mr. W. said these petitions were very numerously and respectably signed, and he hoped the subject would attract the serious attention of Congress. The duty on coal, like that on salt, wheat, and wool, though not a duty on manufactured articles, was yet either originally Jaid, or is now continued, for purposes of protection. Indeed, coal was one of the articles first brought forward, after the establishment of this Government, as requiring and deserving protection. As these petitions, therefore, might be thought to affect a part of the general system of protection, he thought it proper to refer them to the Committee on Manufactures. Coal was a necessary of life; it was now very high, the price being nearly twice as great now, he believed, as when the duty was laid. He was of opinion that, unless this duty on coal was to be considered as a part of the general system of protec tion, it ought to be reduced, or perhaps repealed altogether. He hoped the committee would examine the subject and bring it to the consideration of the Senate at an early day. At the present price of fuel in the larger cities, a reduction in the price of coal is most desirable, if there exist against it no insurmountable objection.

The memorials were referred, as moved by Mr. WEBSTER, to the Committee on Manufactures.

BURNING OF THE POST OFFICE.

Mr. ROBINSON presented the following resolution, and moved its immediate consideration:

Resolved, That the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads be instructed to inquire into the cause of the destruction by fire of the building in which were kept the General Post Office, the city post office, and the patent office.

Mr. CLAY suggested whether it would not be expedient to invest the committee with power to send for persons and papers, so far as there might be any papers remaining.

Mr. ROBINSON said the idea of the committee was that the proposed committee of inquiry should proceed in the duty assigned them till they should find it necessary to send for persons and papers, when they could readily ask and obtain the requisite power.

The resolution was unanimously adopted.

On motion of Mr. WRIGHT, so much of the President's annual message as relates to finances was referred to the Committee on Finance.

After disposing of various petitions, resolutions, and bills,

On motion of Mr. GRUNDY, the Senate proceeded to the consideration of executive business; and, when the doors were opened,

Adjourned till Monday.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19.

The CHAIR presented the credentials of Mr. BUCHAN AN, elected a Senator by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, for six years from the 4th of March next.

After the reception and disposal of various petitions, Mr. CALHOUN gave notice that he would, to-morrow, ask leave to introduce a bill to continue the operations of the deposite act of the last session, so as to ope

[DEC. 19, 1836.

rate on the excess of revenue that may be received this year.

While up, Mr. C. said he would put a question to the chairman of the Committee on Finance, [Mr. WRIGHT.] He wished to be informed by that gentleman whether his motion of Thursday to refer so much of the President's message as relates to finance to the Finance Committee, included that part of the message which relates to the reduction of the revenue to the wants of the Government?

Mr. WRIGHT replied that he was unable to answer the question precisely. In making his motion, he had intended to refer all parts of the message relating to finance to the Committee on Finance. He had had no consultation with his colleagues as to how far they considered that portion of the message referred to by the gentleman from South Carolina, as coming under their consideration. Whether or not they considered it as more properly belonging to the Committee on Manufactures than to the Committee on Finance, he knew not.

Mr. CALHOUN said that he would then move, in order to remove all doubts on the question, that that portion of the message to which he had alluded, be referred to the Committee on Finance. He made the mo. tion, because of its probably having a stronger bearing on the action of this body, and on political events hereafter, than any other question which might be brought before the Senate.

Mr. CLAY'S LAND BILL.

Mr. CLAY, in pursuance of the notice which he had given, rose to ask leave to introduce the land bill. He felt it due to the occasion to make some explanations.

The operation of the bill which had heretofore several times passed the Senate, and once the House, commenced on the last of December, 1822, and was to continue five years. It provided for a distribution of the nett proceeds of the public lands during that period, upon well-known principles. But the deposite act of the last session had disposed of so large a part of the divisible fund under the land bill, that he did not think it right, in the present state of the Treasury, to give the bill-which he was about to apply for leave to introduce-that retrospective character. He had accordingly, in the draught which he was going to submit, made the last day of the present month its commencement, and the last day of the year 1841 its termination. If it should pass, therefore, in this shape, the period of its duration will be the same as that prescribed in the former bills. The Senate will readily comprehend the motive for fixing the end of the year 1841, as it is at that time that the biennial reductions of ten per cent. upon the existing duties cease, according to the act of the 20 March, 1833, commonly called the compromise act, and a reduction of one half of the excess beyond twenty per cent. of any duty then remaining is to take effect. By that time, a fair experiment of the land bill will have been made, and Congress can then determine whether the proceeds of the national domain shall continue to be equitably divided, or shall be applied to the current expenses of the Government.

A

The bill in his hand assigns to the new State of Arkansas her just proportion of the fund, and grants to her 500,000 acres of land as proposed to other States. similar assignment and grant are not made to Michigan, because her admission into the Union is not yet complete. But when that event occurs, provision is made by which that State will receive its fair dividend.

He had restored, in this draught, the provision contained in the original plan for the distribution of the public lands, which he had presented to the Senate, by which the States, in the application of the fund, are restricted to the great objects of education, internal im

[blocks in formation]

provement, and colonization. Such a restriction would, he believed, relieve the Legislatures of the several States from embarrassing controversies about the disposition of the fund, and would secure the application of what was common in its origin, to common benefits in its ultimate destination. But it was scarcely necessary for him to say that this provision, as well as the fate of the whole bill, depended upon the superior wisdom of the Senate and of the House.

In all respects, other than those now particularly mentioned, the bill is exactly as it passed this body at the last session.

The bill was read a first time, and passed to a second reading.

PATENT OFFICE.

Ma. RUGGLES submitted the following resolution, which was considered and agreed to:

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to examine and report the extent of the loss sustained by the burning of the Patent Office, and to consider whether any and what measures ought to be adopted to repair the loss, and to establish such evidences of property in patented inventions, as the destruction of the records and drawings may have rendered necessary for its se curity; and to report by bill or otherwise.

[SENATE.

of the Treasury to use or employ it, it seemed to him that the whole revenues of the Government might be made receivable in paper money. Funds is the word used in the resolution, a word which had no place in our constitution, nor in our legislation, previous to the imposition of the paper system upon us, and which had no definite or legal meaning. It is a paper system phrase, and, in the jargon of that system, is understood to comprehend all sorts of paper credits and securities, and all sorts of currencies, which can be made available in the payment of debts, or in the support of credit. It is a wretched phrase to come into legislation, and ought to be substituted by something of clear and precise import. Gold and silver is the language of our constitution, and to supersede them by the word "funds," is to banish them from our financial system, and to open the Treasury to the inundation of paper money.

In the observations which he should make upon these resolutions, Mr. B. said he should not confine himself merely to the remarks of the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. EWING,] but looking further back and all around, and having due regard to what had preceded this motion, and which was indissolubly connected with it, he should treat the whole subject as it appeared before him, and as it had been exhibited to the public. He had especially in his eye a certain speech, delivered in Kentucky in SepOn motion of Mr. BENTON, the committee was ap.tember last, and a certain letter written in Philadelphia, pointed by the Chair, and consists of the following gentlemen: Messrs. RUGGLES, PRENTISS, STRANGE, PAKER, and BAYARD.

The remaining portions of the President's annual message were appropriately referred to the variouis standing committees.

Several bills were introduced and appropriately referred, as also a number of resolutions submitted for con sideration.

TREASURY CIRCULAR.

The Senate proceeded to the further consideration of the joint resolutions, introduced by Mr. EWING, of Ohio, in the following words, being at their second reading, as follows:

in November last. Passages from each of these would be referred to at proper places; and paying due attention to these givings out, and to all the signs which had been visible for some months past in the political zodiac, he could see distinctly that two great objects were proposed to be accomplished by the instrumentality of this joint resolution: first, the condemnation of President Jackson for a violation of the laws and constitution, and the destruction of the prosperity of the country; and, secondly, the overthrow of the federal constitutional currency, and the imposition of the paper money system of the States upon the Government and people of the Union.

In the first of these objects the present movement is twin brother to the famous resolution of 1833, but without its boldness; for that resolution declared its object "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, upon its face, while this one eschews specification, and &c. That the Treasury order of the 11th day of July, insidiously seeks a judgment of condemnation by inferanno Domini one thousand eight hundred and thirty-ence and argument. In the second of these objects every six, designating the funds which should be receivable in payment for public lands, be, and the same is hereby,

rescinded.

"Resolved, also, That it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury to delegate to any person, or to any corporation, the power of directing what funds shall be receivable for customs, or for the public lands; nor shall he make any discrimination in the funds so receivable, between different individuals, or between the different branches of the public revenue."

Mr. BENTON said it was unusual to oppose joint resolutions at their second reading, but he had given notice of his intention to oppose this resolution, not for the purpose of attempting to arrest its course, but to excite attention and discussion, and to lay the foundation for a motion which he intended to make, namely, to send the subject to a committee, and to make it the duty of that committee to inquire into the operation and effects of the Treasury order proposed to be rescinded and into the conduct of the banks which affected to be crippled by it. This motion, and the scope and details of the inquiry, will be brought forward in due time.

The resolution consists of two clauses, the first clear, the second ambiguous. The recision of the Treasury order, excluding paper from the land offices, was the object of the first clause; but the second was without specification, and making no allusion to the constitutional currency, and imposing no obligation on the Secretary

body will recognise the great design of the second branch of the same famous resolution of 1833, which, in the restoration of the deposites to the Bank of the United States, clearly went to the establishment of the paper system, and its supremacy over the Federal Government. The present movement, therefore, is a second edition of the old one, but a lame and impotent affair compared to that. Then, we had a magnificent panic; now, nothing but a miserable starveling! For though the letter of the President of the Bank of the United States announced, early in November, that the meeting of Congress was the time for the new distress to become intense, yet we are two weeks deep in the session, and no distress memorial, no distress deputation, no distress committees, to this hour! Nothing, in fact, in that line, but the distress speech of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. EwING;] so that the new panic of 1836 has all the signs of being a lean and slender affair--a mere church-mouse concern-a sort of dwarfish, impish imitation of the gigantic spectre which stalked through the land in 1833.

That every thing might appear in its proper order, and every actor in this drama have his proper place, Mr. B. would now introduce passages from the speech and let ter to which he had referred, reserving other passages for introduction in other stages of the proceedings. And first, from the speech:

"Mr. Clay proceeded to speak of the constant tampering with the currency, which marked the conduct of

[blocks in formation]

this administration. One rash, lawless, and crude experiment succeeds another. He considered the late Treasury order, by which all payments for public lands were to be made in specie, with one exception, for a short duration, a most ill advised, illegal, and pernicious measure. In principle it was wrong; in practice it will favor the very speculation which it professes to endeavor to suppress. The officer who issued it, as if conscious of its obnoxious character, shelters himself behind the name of the President.

"But the President and Secretary had no right to promulgate any such order. The law admits of no such discrimination. If the resolution of the 30th of April, 1816, continued in operation, (and the administration on the occasion of the removal of the deposites, and on the present occasion, relies upon it as in full force,) it gave the Secretary no such discretion as he has exercised. That resolution required and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to adopt such measures as he might 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 said legal currency of the United States. This resolution was restrictive and prohibitory upon the Secretary only as to the notes of banks not redeemable in specie on demand. As to all such notes, he was forbidden to receive them from and after the 20th of February, 1817. As to the notes of banks which were payable and paid on demand in specie, the resolution was not merely permissive, it was compulsory and mandatory. He was bound, and is yet bound, to receive them, until Congress interfere."

From the letter of Mr. Biddle to Mr. J. Q. Adams, Mr. B. read as follows:

"PHILADELPHIA, November 11, 1836.

"MY DEAR SIR: I proceed to the second subject of our conversation-the present state of the currency which I shall treat dispassionately, as an abstract question of mere finance.

"Our pecuniary condition seems to be a strange anomaly. When Congress adjourned, it left the country with abundant crops, and high prices for them-with every branch of industry flourishing, and with more specie than we ever possessed before-with all the elements of universal prosperity. Not one of these has undergone the slightest change; yet, after a few months, Congress will reassemble, and find the whole country suffering intense pecuniary distress. The occasion of this, and the remedy for it, may well occupy our thoughts. "In my judgment, the main cause of it is the mismanagement of the revenue-mismanagement in two respects: the mode of executing the distribution law, and the order requiring specie for the public lands.

"Such a measure was of itself sufficient to disorganize the currency. But it was accompanied by another, which armed it with a tenfold power of mischief. This was the Treasury order prohibiting the receipt at the land offices of any thing but specie; an act which seems to me a most wanton abuse of power, if not a flagrant usurpation.

"The whole pecuniary system of this country, that to which, next to its freedom, it owes its prosperity, is the system of credit. Our ancestors came here with no money; but with far better things--with courage and industry; and the want of capital was supplied by their mutual confidence. This is the basis of our whole commercial and internal industry. The Government received its duties on credit, and sold its lands on credit. When the sales of land on credit became inconvenient, from the

[DEC. 19, 1836.

complication of accounts, the lands were sold for what is termed cash. But this was only another form of credit; for the banks, by lending to those who purchased lands, took the place of the Government as creditors, and the Government received their notes as equivalent to specie, because always convertible into specie. This was the usage; this may be regarded as the law of the country. By the resolution of Congress, passed on the 30th of April, 1816, it was declared that no duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States as aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States.'

"This resolution presents various alternatives-the legal currency or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or notes of specie-paying banks. A citizen had a right to choose any one of these modes of payment. He had as much right to pay for land with the note of a specie-paying bank, as to pay it for duties at the custom-house. If this be denied, certainly any one of them might be accepted by the Treasury; but to proscribe all but one--to refuse every thing but the most difficult thing-to do this without notice of the approaching change in the fundamental system of our dealings-is an act of gratuitous oppression.

"If he prohibits the receipt of any thing but specie, to correct land speculations, he may make the same prohibition as to the duties on hardware, or broadcloth, or wines, whenever his paternal wisdom shall see us buying too many shovels, or too many coats, or too much champagne; and thus bring the entire industry of the country under his control.

"It remains to speak of the remedy of these evils. They follow obviously the causes of them. The causes are the injudicious transfers of the public moneys, and the Treasury order about specie.

"The first measure of relief, therefore, should be the instant repeal of the Treasury order requiring specie for lands; the second, the adoption of a proper system to execute the distribution law.

"These measures would restore confidence in twentyfour hours, and repose in at least as many days. If the Treasury will not adopt them voluntarily, Congress should immediately command it."

From these documents, said Mr. B., and from the speech of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. EwING,] the charges which are made against President Jackson, and on which this resolution is supported, and for which the recision of the Treasury order is demanded, are, first, a violation of the laws; secondly, a violation of the constitution; thirdly, a destruction of the prosperity of the country. Mr. B. would join issue upon each of these charges, and take each by itself, and all in their turn; and first of the illegality. This charge was bottomed upon the alleged contravention of the joint resolution of April, 1816, for the better collection of the public revenue, and although partly set out both in the Kentucky speech, and in the Philadelphia letter, he preferred to read it entire, as the first part, though merely directory, yet was directory in the essential particular of showing who was to be the active agent in carrying the resolution into effect.

The joint resolution of 1816.

"That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, required and directed 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

[blocks in formation]

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; and that, from and after the 20th day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States as aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States."

This is the law, continued Mr. B., and nothing can be plainer than the right of selection which it gives to the Secretary of the Treasury. Four different media are mentioned in which the revenue may be collected, and the Secretary is made the actor, the agent, and the power, by which the collection is to be effected. He is to do it in one, or in another. He may choose several. or all, or two, or one. All are in the disjunctive. No two are joined together, but all are disjoined, and presented to him individually and separately. It is clearly the right of the Secretary to order the collections to be made in either of the four media mentioned. That the resolution is not mandatory in favor of any one of the four, is obvious from the manner in which the notes of the Bank of the United States are mentioned. They were to be received as then provided for by law; for the bank charter had then just passed; and the 14th section had provided for the reception of the notes of this institution until Congress, by law, should direct otherwise. The right of the institution to deliver its notes in payment of the revenue, was anterior to this resolution, and always held under that 14th section, never under this joint resolution; and when that section was repealed at the last session of this Congress, that right was admitted to be gone, and has never been claimed since.

The words of the law are clear; the practice under it has been uniform and uninterrupted from the date of its passage to the present day. For twenty years, and under three Presidents, all the Secretaries of the Treasury have acted alike. Each has made selections, permitting the notes of some specie-paying banks to be received, and forbidding others. Mr. Crawford did it in numerous instances; and fierce and universal as were the attacks upon that eminent patriot, during the presidential canvass of 1824, no human being ever thought of charging him with illegality in this respect. Mr. Rush twice made similar selections, during the administration of Mr. Adams, and no one, either in the same cabinet with him, or out of the cabinet against him, ever complained of it. For twenty years the practice has been uniform; and every citizen of the West knows that that practice was the general, though not universal, exclusion of the Western specie-paying bank paper from the Western land offices. This every man in the West knows, and knows that that general exclusion continued down to the day that the Bank of the United States ceased to be the depository of the public moneys. It was that event which opened the door to the receivability of State bank paper, which has since been enjoyed.

Mr. B. then approached an argument which he deemed authoritive in this case; it was the 24th article of the rules and regulations of the Bank of the United States for the government of their branches. It was made since the passage of the joint resolution of 1816, and related to the collection of the revenue of the United States. It made short work with the notes of the speciepaying banks of the States, excluding the notes of the whole of them from all branches of the revenue, except of such banks as might be situated in the same place where the branch bank was situated. The notes of these branches alone were to be received in payment; if

[SENATE.

the Secretary of the Treasury required others to be received, they would not be taken in payment, but merely noted as a special deposite at the instance of the Government. This is the article:

"Article 24. The offices of discount and deposite shall receive in payment of the revenue of the United States the notes of such State banks as redeemed their engagements with specie, and provided they are the notes of banks located in the city or place where the office receiving them is established. And also the notes of such other banks, as a special deposite on behalf of the Government, as the Secretary of the Treasury may require."

Here (said Mr. B.) is selection-a selection by which a few State banks, in no event exceeding those in twentyfive places, for there were never more than twenty-five branches, would have their notes received, while the mass of the State banks, amounting to many hundreds, were entirely cut off. The legality of this selection and exclusion has never been questioned; yet there are persons who deny to President Jackson the right of making the same selection; and who must stand before the public as denying to the President of the United States the power over the execution of the laws which they concede to the President of the Bank of the United States.

Mr. B. said that it might well be supposed that he had now sufficiently repelled this charge of illegality. He certainly deemed the charge sufficiently answered; but he had other arguments yet to use-arguments belonging to that authoritative class to which he had alluded, and from which the gentlemen making the charge cannot be allowed to appeal. It would be recollected, he said, that, about a dozen years ago, a committee of the House of Representatives had been raised to investigate certain charges against the then Secretary of the Treasury, that hunted-down and persecuted citizen, William H. Crawford. These charges happened to involve the point now in discussion, not as a charge, but incidentally and historically; and among the members of that committee there happened to be a gentleman who was the author of the joint resolution of 1816, who is now a member of this body, [Mr. WEBSTER,] and who has signified an intention to speak in this debate. That committee made a report, purporting to be the unanimous opinion of the body; and from that report an extract will now be read:

"At the time of the adoption of this resolution, (joint, of 1816,) debts accruing to the United States, whether on account of the sales of public lands, or at the customhouse, or from any other source of revenue, were in fact received in some parts of the country, but evidently in disregard of the law, in the notes of the State banks which did not redeem their paper by cash payments. By this resolution it was obviously made the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to correct that departure from law as soon as practicable; and it was, as is equally obvious, imperative on the Department, after the 20th of February, 1817, to allow nothing to be received in payment of debts due to the United States, but the legal money of the United States, Treasury notes, notes of the Bank of the United States, or those of State banks, the notes of which were payable and paid on demand in specie. The Bank of the United States was incorporated in April, 1816, &c. In the early part of the year 1817, it is represented by the Secretary, and appears to be true, that an arrangement was made with the Bank of the United States, by which the public funds were to be deposited in the branches of that institution in all places where such branches existed; and where there were no such branches, that bank was to designate certain State banks for which it would be responsible, and in which such public moneys would be deposited; and notes of all banks which the Bank of the

[blocks in formation]

United States would receive in deposite as cash, and none other, were to be received on sales of public lands. It is further represented that, in the execution of this engagement, difficulties and controversies arose between the United States Bank and the State banks thus employed in receiving the deposites of the public moneys; and ere long the Bank of the United States signified to the Department of the Treasury that it could not continue such arrangement; and that thenceforward it could receive nothing in deposite, as cash, but the legal currency of the country, or its own notes. The agreement with the Bank of the United States terminated, for these reasons, on the 30th June, 1818. About this period, also, the Bank of the United States issued orders prohibiting its Western branches from issuing any of their own notes for circulation, even in exchange for, or on deposite of, specie." "That institution (the Bank of the United States) is indeed bound to give the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place; but this can only mean cash funds; and it is bound also to receive money on deposite for the United States; but it is not bound to receive in deposite, as cash, the bills of any bank whatever but its own, although they may come within the provisions of the act of 1816."

*

This, Mr. President, continued Mr. B., was in 1824. It was eight years after the joint resolution of 1816 had passed, and two years after the author of the letter to Mr. Adams, which has been read, came to the presidency of that institution. It is, therefore, the report of transactions to which he was privy and a party. The report speaks historically, in reciting an agreement between the Secretary of the Treasury and the directors of the Bank of the United States, by which, among other things, the selection of the State bank notes receivable in payment of the public lands was to be left to the Bank of the United States, and none should be received except such as that bank would agree to credit as specie; that afterwards the bank receded from that agreement, and refused to receive any State bank notes whatever, taking nothing but gold and silver coin, and its own notes; and finally refused to issue its own notes in the West, even in exchange for specie! and thus left nothing but specie to be received; and after making these recitals, the committee conclude with the expression of their own opinion of the law, that the Bank of the United States was not bound to receive in deposite, as cash, the bills of any State bank whatever, although they come under the provisions of the act of 1816.

These are the recitals, and this the opinion of that committee, and certainly they are correct, both in the narration and in the judgment. What, then, becomes of this charge of illegality in the Woodford speech, and this letter to Mr. ADAMS, thus confuted and invalidated by the conduct of the bank itself? And what becomes of the pretended injury of all those Western banks in having their notes excluded under an order from President Jackson, when they had been previously excluded for nearly twenty years under the orders of the president of the Bank of the United States? Why not complain before? Why not apply to Congress to rescind the order of the bank president, as they now apply for the rescision of the order of the President of the Union? And the politicians and presses which have lavished denunciations upon President Jackson, and wept salt tears over the wrongs of these banks, and the oppressions of the people, on account of the specie order, where were those tears and those denunciations when the president of the Bank of the United States gave previously the same order so many years before, and enforced it up to the day of the removal of the deposites? The fact is, and all the inhabitants of the new States know it, that local bank paper, with few and stinted exceptions, was

[DEC. 19, 1836.

excluded from all the land offices, from the establishment of the Bank of the United States down to October, 1833. During that long. interval, scarcely any thing was received but specie, or United States Bank notes. Local bank paper was in a state of general and permanent exclusion almost the whole time, and the whole country was quiet and contented. No complaint; no charge of illegality; no cry of oppression; no pretext of ruin on the part of the banks; no lamentations and denunciations on the part of politicians. But the instant that President Jackson has done what the president of the bank did; the moment he has restored things to their former footing, and put back local bank paper to the state of exclusion in which it had rested under the administration of both his predecessors, that instant the storm of rage and grief breaks out. A new impeachment must be got up; a new panic must be excited; the Senate chamber is again to become the laboratory of alarm; and a new chorus must become the burden of the song-that the specie order made the distress, and nothing can relieve the distress but the rescision of the order, or the recharter of the bank!

Surely we have accumulated proof enough upon this point; surely there is no necessity for any thing to refute this charge, and to establish the legality of this Treasury order. But other proof is at hand, and, though unnecessary, it shall be used. High as is the authority of the report of the committee of 1824, and close as it is to the point, there is yet a higher authority, and still closer to the point, yet to be adduced; for it is the authority of the same author of the resolution, and that before the question was raised, and while the resolution was on its passage; and in which he not only understood them, as shown afterwards in the report of the committee of which he was a member, but in which he went farther, and expressed his fear that the whole good effect of the resolution might be lost, if the Treasury Department should not execute it precisely as that Department, under the splendid and beneficent administration of President Jackson, had done!

Extracts from Mr. Webster's speech in the House of Representatives, April 26, 1816, on the resolution offered by him for the more effectual collection of the revenue in the lawful money of the country.

"Mr. W. said he felt it to be his duty to call the attention of the House once more to the subject of the collection of the revenue, and to present the resolutions which he had submitted. He had been the more inclined to do this, from an apprehension that the rejection, yesterday, of the bill which had been introduced, might be construed into an abandonment, on the part of the House, of all hope of remedying the existing evil. He had had, it was true, some objections against proceeding by way of bill, because the case was not one in which the law was deficient, but one in which the execution of the law was deficient. The situation of

the country, (said Mr. W.,) in regard to the collection of its revenues, is most deplorable. With a perfectly sound legal currency, the national revenues are not collected in this currency, but in paper of various sorts, and various degrees of value. It is quite clear that by the statute all duties and taxes are required to be paid in the legal money of the United States, or in Treasury notes, agreeably to a recent provision. It is just as clear that the law has been disregarded, and that the notes of the banks of a hundred different descriptions, and almost as many different values, have been received, and are still received, where the statute requires legal money or Treasury notes to be paid. There are some political evils which are seen as soon as they are danger. ous, and which alarm at once as well the people as the Government. Wars and invasions, therefore, are not

*

« AnteriorContinuar »