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system was occasioned, and every class of the community was thrown into a state of embarrassment, the injurious and depressing effects of which continued for some years, and this without any other apparent cause than the monetary derangement which had occurred."

"An undue issue of four or five millions by the Bank [of England] would eventually make an extraordinary derangement in the value of all the property in the kingdom, and be productive of infinite mischief in a variety of ways."

3. Further extract from the testimony of J. C. Dyer, Esq.

"I think the banks, so far from having saved the country from the effects of those panics, have been the cause of those panics; and that they have been the cause of a constant succession of little panics, continually annoying the commerce of the country, by monthly and weekly fluctuations."

4. Extract from the testimony of Benjamin J. Smith, Esq., a director of the Bank of Manchester, before Lord Althorpe's committee:

"The supply of the circulation by the Bank of England subjects our trade to great and injurious fluctua tions, owing to what is called a scarcity of money, arising from causes of which the public, who are deeply interested in that question, can have no knowledge. The objections to the existing system are, that the Bank of England has a secret and despotic influence and control over the destinies of our commerce, which we feel to be a most pernicious one."

II. No local banks of issue in the great county of Lancashire, including Liverpool and Manchester. Inland bills of exchange used in large dealings; gold in the common transactions.

1. Extract from the evidence of J. C. Dyer, Esq., a director of the Bank of Manchester, before Lord Althorpe's committee:

"The bankers in Manchester who can, do not, issue notes, in consequence of the strong feeling that prevails in Lancashire againt local paper. There were two occasions when that feeling was publicly expressed; first, in 1834, and next when the Bank of Manchester was formed. Bankers who intended to issue notes abandoned their intention, from a conviction that they could not, under any such circumstances, derive any profit from the issue."

2. Extract from Mr. McCulloch's notes on Adam Smith's work:

"The principal distinction between notes and bills of exchange is, that every individual passing a bill of exchange bas to endorse it, and by so doing makes himself responsible for its contents. Nothing can be more inaccurate than to represent bank notes and bills of exchange under the same point of view. The note is payable on the instant, without deduction--the bill not until some future period. The note may be passed to another, without incurring any risk or responsibility, while every endorser of the bill makes himself liable for the value of it. Bank notes form the currency of all classes; of those who are not engaged in business, of women, children, laborers, &c, who are all, as we have seen, without the power to refuse them, and without the means of forming any correct conclusion as to the sclvency of the issuers. Bills of exchange, on the other hand, pass only, with very few exceptions, between persons engaged in business, and who are fully aware of the risk they run in taking them."

3. Further extract from McCulloch's notes:

"The effects produced by the employment of internal bills of exchange, have not certainly excited that attention, on the part of most of those who have speculated on the subject of currency, that might reasonably have VOL. XIII.-5

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[SENATE.

been expected; but this seems to have arisen chiefly
from their having been but very imperfectly aware of
the vast magnitude of the transactions settled by their
intervention, and of the extent to which they are em-
ployed. In the great manufacturing county of Lan-
cashire, and in part of Yorkshire, a bill on London at
three months is reckoned a money payment; and by far
the largest proportion of the currency consists either of
the bills of bankers drawn on their correspondents, or
of those of the merchants and dealers scattered up and
down the country. The following extracts from the
evidence given before the committee of the House of
Lords on Scotch and Irish currency, in the session of
1826, show the great extent to which internal bills are
now employed. Mr. Gladstone, an eminent merchant
of Liverpool, informed the committee that we sell our
goods, not for payments in cash, such as are usual in
other places, but generally at credits from ten days to
three months' date; these bills we pay to our bankers,
We have a con-
and receive from them bills or cash.
siderable portion of large Bank of England notes in
circulation; these are generally used for the payment of
duties, and also for the purpose of remittance; but the
great mass of our circulation is in bills of exchange.
Sovereigns and smaller bank notes are only required for
such objects as charges of merchandise, with duties,
freights, and other items.' Lewis Lloyd, Esq.
wages of workmen are paid in gold or Bank of England
notes; the manufacturer is chiefly paid in bills of ex-
change. When a bill is drawn in favor of a manufac-
turer, he endorses it to the person to whom he pays it,
and the person to whom he pays it pays it again to an-
other; and it goes on often till it is covered with endorse-
ments. Mr. Henry Burgess, a manufacturer at Leeds.
'The great mass of the circulating medium of Lanca-
shire, as in all the manufacturing districts in the North, is
bills of exchange: a part of the circulation is in gold and
silver and Bank of England notes.'

399

The

III. Suppression of all banks of issue in England, except the Bank of England, directly by law, or indirectly, by compelling them to give security for their issues.

1. Extract from Mr. McCulloch's notes on Adam Smith:

"It seems, therefore, to be indispensable, either that the country banks should be compelled, as has been previously proposed, to give full security for their issues, or that their paper should be suppressed altogether, and the paper of the Bank of England substituted in its * * * Now, it is obvious, and is indeed uniplace. versally admitted, that the only measure that can be adopted for guarding completely against the misconduct as well as the bad faith of the country bankers is to compel them to give full security for the payment of their notes. This, and this alone, can afford a sufficient guarantee to the public that the country paper in circulation will be returned when presented for payment, and that it is really equivalent to gold.

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Every country banker, on applying for stamps, should be required and obliged, previously to obtaining them, to lodge in the hands of Government securities, in stocks or landed estates, fully equivalent to the amount of the stamps issued to him."

2. Extract from the testimony of Henry Burgess, Esq., secretary of the committee of country banks, representing seven eighths of the bankers in England, who have resolved to relinquish their circulation rather than give security for it:

"The only strong opinion to which the committee have come is, that if securities for their issues were demanded, they would relinquish their issues altogether. That resolution was imbodied in a petition to Parliament.

*

* The chief reason why country bankers

SENATE.]

Deposite Banks.

would cease to issue notes, if called upon for securities, is, that it would be giving a preference to one class of creditors over another; besides, giving securities would be locking up their money in the funds, which money would be thus unavailable, and be also placed at risk. So they would prefer to give up their cir

culation."

IV. Extract from the report of the commissioners appointed on the part of the United States to examine into the debts and affairs of the Bank of the United States, to ascertain the value of the stock, showing above twenty millions of loans at low interest for long terms, or indefinite terms, and explaining the reason why borrowers in Philadelphia are thrown upon brokers at two and three per cent. discount per month.

1. Statement of the debts of the Bank of the United States, &c. on the 3d March, 1836:

A. On bank stock

[EC. 20, 1836.

3. Further extract from Mr. Clayton's report of 1832, to illustrate the conduct of the Bank of the United States in loaning much to the few, and little to the many, and explanatory of the present condition of the money market in Philadelphia, where small borrowers for short terms pay three per cent. per month discount for money, which may have come from the Bank of the United States to a large borrower on a term of years, or indefinitely, or on immateriality of time:

April, 1832, loan to 72 persons, $2,404,278

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1,294,800 00 delphia, April, 1832.

466,300 00

250,000 00

Notes discounted. :

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-$1,291,915 72

4,061,553 71

at 5 per cent.

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The length of time for which some of these loans are made is thus stated in the report:

5 per cent. C, due 24th August, 1837.

6 per cent. D, "when due immaterial."*

4 per cent. E, due 21st November 1840.

4 per cent. F, due 1st April, 1838.

5 per cent. G, due 15th March, 1838.

5 per cent. H, due 8th October, 1838.

5 per cent. I, due 1st December, 1855.

5 per cent. K, "time of payment indefinite."*

5 per cent. L, due 12th January, 1838.

6 per cent. M," when due immaterial."*

6 per cent. N," when due immaterial."*

2. Statement of loans from the Bank of the United

States to Thomas Biddle & Co., in the years 1830, 31, and '32, taken from the report of Mr. Clayton's committee of 1832, and now to be referred, as illustrative of some of the above loans on stocks or personal security:

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER, 20.

THE DEPOSITE BANKS.

Mr. WEBSTER offered the following resolutions, and asked the unanimous consent of the Senate to their immediate consideration:

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury communicate to the Senate the latest statement made at or for the Treasury of the condition of the deposite banks; exhibiting, among other particulars, the names and places of all deposite banks appointed since the 23d June last; their capitals, and the amounts of public moneys actually transferred, or ordered to be transferred, to those banks, respectively.

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury communicate to the Senate a detailed statement of all transfers of public moneys ordered since the 23d June last, for the purpose of executing the act of that date for regulating the deposites of the public money; showing the dates and amounts of such transfers; from what place to allowed for such transfers, other than such as were made what place; from what bank to what bank, and the time

in execution of the aforesaid act.

Mr. WEBSTER said that the honorable member from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] had, in his speech yesterday, read statements which had been obtained at the Treasury, for the purpose of showing that sundry banks had enlarged their issues since the publication of the Treasury order of the 11th of July. This information (said Mr. WEBSTER) is neither new nor surprising. That fact has been well undestood. But what banks are these which have thus increased their loans? Are they the banks of the country generally, or the banks in the principal commercial cities, or a majority of them? No, sir. The gentleman's statement was confined to the deposite banks, or some of them. All those deposite banks were seventy or eighty perhaps in number, while it has been stated that the whole number of banks in the country is near a thousand. Now, as I understand the subject, one of the strongest grounds of complaint against the order of the 11th of July, and against the manner of executing the deposite law, is, that by those measures many of these deposite banks, in places where the wants of business did not call for more money, have had large and entirely unnecessary sums of money nevertheless thrown into them, drawn from places in which it was wanted, to the great prejudice of other banks, and of the commercial community generally. I understand this to be one of the prominent objections

DEC. 20, 1836.]

Reduction of Duties-Treasury Circular.

If

to the course which the Treasury has pursued. By the provisions of the deposite law, the deposite banks pay interest on sums deposited beyond a certain amount. they receive money, therefore, beyond such amount, they are naturally tempted to put it out on loans, however little real occasion there may be for such loans; for otherwise the deposite would be a heavy charge to them.

An answer to these resolutions will give us light on this part of the case. It will probably be in the power of the Secretary to answer the first resolution without any delay. I hope we can have the answer to that so soon as to be before us before the conclusion of this debate. Nor do I suppose that any great time will be necessary to prepare an answer to the second resolution.

Mr. WRIGHT inquired of the mover whether the resolution was intended to ask for any more than the last statement rendered at the Treasury.

Mr. WEBSTER replied that he had no wish that the inquiry should go back and call for a voluminous amount of documents; all he wished was the last statement received.

Mr. WRIGHT made no objection; and the resolution was thereupon agreed to.

REDUCTION OF DUTIES.

Mr. NILES observed that, on a former sitting, the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN] had taken the ground that the whole subject of revenue belonged to the Committee on Finance; but if that doctrine was a sound one, the Committee on Manufactures would be left almost without any appropriate duty. He apprehended, however, that the honorable Senator was mistaken in the principle he had laid down. The compromise act recognised the principle that a reduction was to be made on the tariff of duties: the principle existed in the statutes of the country. Whatever committee it might be who should undertake the very difficult and delicate duty of devising the mode and measure of a reduction of the revenue, would find that the chief difficulty in the way was not of a financial character, but had to do with the matter of protection, not of revenue. If the subject of reduction affected very exclusively the great interests of the country, ought it not to be sent to the Committee on Manufactures? In order to test the sense of the Senate, he would make the motion that so much of the President's message as related to the reduction and repeal of duties be referred to the Committee on Manufactures.

Mr. CALHOUN observed that the question was not open to a motion; the reference had been made. If the gentleman wished to move a reconsideration, he could not do so unless he had voted in the affirmative.

Mr. NILES had supposed it in order to refer the same subject to two different committees, who might view it under different aspects. However, to avoid difficulty, he would confine his motion to so much of the message as related to the repeal of duties only.

Mr. CALHOUN said that this was included in his mo tion as much as the other. Whatever went to reduce the revenue he meant to refer to the Committee on Finance, as appropriately belonging to that committee. And he must be permitted to say that no committee in that body could represent more fully all the great interests concerned in such a subject. The chairman was connected extensively with one branch of Manufactures; the Senator from New York with another; and the Senator from Louisiana represented the great sugar interest of the South; while he from Missouri represented that of lead. As to the difficulty of the task, none could be more sensible of it than himself; none had felt it more deeply. The reduction, thus far, had been effected only by exertions such as he should be sorry to repeat.

[SENATE.

On motion of Mr. EWING, the subject was then laid on the table.

TREASURY CIRCULAR.

The Senate proceeded to the further consideration of the joint resolution introduced by Mr. EwING, of Ohio, rescinding the Treasury order of July 11, 1836, and prohibiting the Secretary of the Treasury from delegating the power to designate the kind of funds to be received in payment for the public lands.

Mr. CRITTENDEN, who had the floor, having moved the adjournment yesterday, yielded it to

Mr. BENTON, who read several extracts, to which he had referred in his speech of yesterday. Having concluded, he restored the floor to

Mr. CRITTENDEN. The opening of Mr. C's speech was in so low a tone as to be totally inaudible to our reporter. As soon as he was distinctly heard, he was observing that the Senate had been complained of by the Senator from Missouri, not only for having been tardy in its appropriations of money for the public service, at its last session, but for not having appropriated enough. The Senate had voted appropriations to the amount of thirty-eight millions, but this was complained of as scanty measure, and the Chamber had been gravely rebuked for not having done much more. Now, Mr. C. was very ready to take his share, and the share of any other gentleman who was tired of it, in the reproofs of the honorable Senator for an open opposition to a portion of this appropriation, and he should have considered himself fortunate had he and his friends been so far successful as to have defeated them. So far from regretting or being ashamed of the opposition he had made to this lavish expenditure of money, he took it to himself as a merit; so that, if the design of the honorable Senator, in his exhortation and reproof, had been to excite repentance, the homily had entirely failed.

But the more immediate subject before the Senate was the Treasury order, which it was proposed by his friend from Ohio to rescind, and to this he should endeavor to confine himself. The subject had been debated by the Senator from Missouri with all that zeal and ability which usually characterized the efforts of that gen

tleman.

Nor had Mr. C. any difficulty in readily excusing even a more than ordinary measure of zeal in that Senator on this occasion; for he thought, from a variety of facts, pregnant with circumstantial evidence, that he could very clearly see the true and genuine paternity of the order in question. He could not but believe that its descent from the honorable Senator might be as correctly traced as could be done in any other case of genealogy.

day

On the 22d of April 1st, the honorable Senator had submitted a resolution that from and after the of nothing but gold and silver should be receiv ed in payment for the public lands; and that the appropriate committee should report a bill to that effect. The subject was resumed on the following day, and by a vote of the Senate was laid upon the table. In that inglori ous repose it had remained by general consent. It was permitted to sleep in silence, which amounted to the most unequivocal condemnation of the measure. This body

then did condemn, as far as it could in such a mode, the very thing contained in this Treasury order; the author of the resolution being among the few, the very few, advocates who voted in its favor. But no sooner had Congress adjourned, than, on the 11th of July, the very measure, in regard to which the Senate had expressed its most decided opinion in the negative, was wrought up into the form of a Treasury order, surrounded, indeed, and embellished with sundry arguments directed against land speculators, and in favor of occupants or squatters. The very proposition which was rejected by Congress in April was enforced as a Treasury order in

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Jaly. Who could have any difficulty in tracing the ori-
gn of the order to the rejected resolution? No sooner
had the Senate condemned and rejected it, than it was
instantly taken up in an executive department, and made
to possess as complete effect as if the same thing had
been done by the very law which the Senate refused to
enact. Mr. C. would not, on this occasion, allude to
another exertion of executive authority, the circumstan-
ces of which very strikingly resembled the present case;
when Congress, just before its adjournment, had decla-
red the public money to be safe in the keeping of the
Bank of the United States, but had no sooner adjourned
than that very money was seized upon by the executive
authority, and transferred to the deposite banks.
both cases the executive authority had been made to
supply the place of the legislative. The eloquent Sen-
ator from Missouri had, in one clause of his speech, in-
vok. d the genius of the constitution. Now, supposing
that genius would come at the gentleman's bidding,
would it pronounce a proceeding like this to be in con-
formity with that instrument? Were not the members
of that and of the other House competent to decide on
questions of the currency-questions which deeply af.
fected all their constituents, far and wide. Did it not
belong to Congress to settle such questions? And did
not the duty of the Executive consist in carrying into ef
fect that which Congress in its wisdom might ordain?
But here that which Congress disapproved and refused
to enact is immediately carried into effect by the Execu-
tive, without any other legislative authority or sanction
than the profound opinions of the Senator from Missouri.
Mr. C. objected not only to the measure itself, but to
the time and manner of its enforcement.
Even were
the thing itself not in violation of law and the constitu-
tion, still the time and the manner in which it was done
were derogatory to the dignity, judgment, and authority
of Congress. What was the time which had intervened
between the rejection of the resolution and the enact-
ment of the order? It was the brief space between the
close of April and the 11th of July. What great change
had occurred within that time to justify such a measure?
Mr. C. would, therefore, be in favor of rescinding the
order, were it on no other ground than that of vindica-
ting the Senate from the disrespect that seemed to him to
have been offered to it by that proceeding.

[DEC. 20, 1836.

did possess the right, and considered it good policy to make a discrimination in favor of settlers, by yielding them a priority in the purchase of the tracts they had cultivated, how far would this go in advancing the gentleman's conclusion? Because Congress had power to do this, did it follow that the Executive had power to do it? Who ever heard of the Executive setting up a claim of authority to fix the price of the public lands, or, what was equivalent, to determine in what species of currency the land should be paid for? In what sense could this be regarded as an executive power? It was his place to execute the laws, but it belonged to Congress to judge what the laws should be.

Mr. C. said it had been argued that the laws authorized the receivers at the land offices to receive nothing but gold and silver, and that this order only carried the law into effect. Such an argument did, indeed, admit the authority of the law; but how did it bear upon the order? If the law required payment in gold and silver for the public land, how could it be dispensed with, as it was, by the order, in regard to citizens residing within the States wherein the land lay? There was no dispensing power confided to the Executive to set aside the law, and no discretionary authority to make a difference between citizens equal before the law. The public lands were common property, which all had a right to buy on the equal terms prescribed by law, and the Secretary of the Treasury had no more right to assign different modes of payment to different classes of citi. zens, than he had to give more lands to one, and less to another, for the same money. In this view the order was altogether illegal.

But again: On what principle of justice was one class of debtors required to pay their debts in gold and silver, and another class in what was deemed by the Government less valuable? With accuracy enough for the purposes of the present argument, the revenue may be stated at forty millions of dollars; one half paid in the West, for the purchase of public lands; the other half in the East, for duties and imposts. What right had the Executive to declare that the Western half should be exacted in gold and silver, but that the Eastern half might be paid in bank paper? The arbitrary inequality and injustice of such a regulation would be clear to every understanding. Mr. C. could not be content under a disBut there were other more decided objections to a crimination so invidious and offensive. What must be measure of this character, two of which he would dis- the effect upon the West of continuing such an order in tinctly specify. The first was, that it made an unlawful force? The money was collected by the land offices, discrimination between different classes of American cit- and thence poured into the banks, but it was not expendizens; and, secondly, it made an equally unjust discrim-ed in the West. The great objects of public expendi ination between debtors for the public lands and all oth- ture, as every one knew, were on the Atlantic seaboard. er debtors to the Government. First, it made a person- It was there that the colossal palaces, under the name of al distinction between citizens of the United States; gold custom-houses, were to be found. It was there that forand silver was demanded of all purchasers of the public tifications reared their formidable front, and bristled domain, unless they were actual settlers of the land they from point to point along the whole coast. It was there wished to purchase, or bona fide residents of the State that all the great expenditures for the navy were to be within which the lands lay. Here was a personal dis- made. If the money derived from the sale of the pubtinction, grounded merely on place of residence. Alic lands were to be applied to the ordinary expenditures particular species of currency was exacted from the one of the Government, then this mass of specie which was class, while another less valued specics was accepted collected in the West was to be transported from year to from the other class. Could this be done? Was it year to the Atlantic States; and it could not be otherwise. consistent with equity? With equal rights of American The millions derived from the sale of the public lands citizens? The public domain was the common property could not be expended in the West, and therefore there of the whole people; and how did the resident of Illinois, would be a perpetual drain of specie out of the Western or Ohio, or of Indiana, become possessed of higher into the Eastern States. The people of the West could rights in the purchase of it than you or I? Why was be not be insensible to these results, or otherwise than justentitled to easement in the manner of making his pay-ly indignant at a measure marked with invidious distincments? Where was the law or the constitution giving him such a right? Where could it be found? Nowhere. But it had been said that the discrimination was the same which had been made by various acts of Congress in favor of actual settlers; and Mr. C. would not contest that fact. But suppose it to be conceded that Congress

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tions, which permitted their Eastern brethren to pay their debts to Government in the ordinary medium of business, but compelled them to pay in gold and silver.

When the knowledge of this order first reached the place of Mr. C's residence, the objections which he had stated had suggested themselves to his mind on the first

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perusal, but he had at that time no apprehension that the effects to be produced on the currency and business of the country were likely to be so extensive. If, as it appeared, the object of the order was the accumulation of specie in the banks, he doubted not that there would be a thousand ways devised to evade and defeat it. He thought that the same thousand dollars, by being made to travel backward and forward between the bank and the land office, might be made to purchase land enough to satisfy the desires of any number of buyers. Mr. C. spoke on this subject from information and conjecture, having had no personal experience. He had never attended a land sale in his life, and knew nothing of the arts employed; but it was reasonable to suppose that men who were much engaged in business of this kind would become expert in availing themselves of every advantage in conducting it. But he had also thought that, on this side of the mountains, it would be easier to evade the order than on the other; for there was a proviso which admitted a cert ficate of deposite in the Treasury to be received in the place of cash. This, he supposed, would obviate the transportation of specie to the West, and would require it only to be carried to Washington, in which there would be no great difficulty; but he had since understood that a mode had been devised still more convenient: the intended purchasers would obtain drafts on the Bank of the Metropolis. They would present these drafts at the counter, and the question was asked, do you want hard money? Yes, I want to buy land. The matter was easily managed. A certain amount of silver was put into a little keg, and this was put into a wheel-barrow and carried across the street to the Treasury, where the requisite certificate was granted of so much money deposited in the Treasury. The keg was then wheeled back to the bank, and this had been repeated until it became a matter of open ridicule among the subalterns of the Treasury. This little barrel had been rolled backward and forward from the bank to the Treasury and from the Treasury to the bank, a distance of not more than fifty yards, until, according to a calculation which had been made, it had travelled about 1,100 miles; and this was the boasted metallic circulation. This process did but exemplify, to a considerable extent, the operation of this Treasury order over the whole country. But, allowing for all these evasions, this order undoubtedly has and must continue to occasion large sums of gold and silver to be temporarily withdrawn from general circulation, and paid into the land offices. From these offices it is transferred to the deposite banks--is there subjected to the ordinary banking uses and purposes, and serves to strengthen and fatten these corporations, to the prejudice of the general circulation, and of those banks from which that gold and silver has been withdrawn. To compensate for these evils, and this derangement of the currency, what adequate good has been or can be produced by this order? I cannot perceive it--it appears visionary to me to suppose that it will add a single dollar to the amount of the specie of the United States.

But, sir, the direct operation of this order has not, probably, been more injurious, or perhaps so much so, as its indirect consequences in producing distrust and alarm. When the Treasury raises its mighty arm, the banks are shaken far and wide. The sudden call for gold and silver, made by this order, aided by some other causes, rendered the banks, to some extent, uneasy, and created apprehensions in the minds of the holders of their notes. The consequence was that these holders pressed the banks for payment; the banks pressed their debtors, and withheld their customary accommodations; and thus, sir, derangement and pressure were more severely and widely extended. Such, I know, has been the case in Kentucky to a considerable extent.

[SENATE.

The Senator from Missouri had exhibited a table, the results of which he had pressed with a very triumphant air. Was it extraordinary that the deposite banks should be strengthened? The effect of the order went directly to sustain them. But it was at the expense of all the other banks of the country. Under this order all the specie was collected and carried into their vaults, an operation which went to disturb and embarrass the general circulation of the country, and to produce that pecuniary difficulty which was felt in all quarters of the Union. Mr. C. did not profess to be competent to judge how far the whole of this distress was attributable to the operation of the Treasury order, but of this at least he was very sure, through a great part of the Western country it was universally attributed to that cause. The Senator from Missouri supposed that the order had produced no part of this pressure. If not, he would ask what it had produced? Had it increased the specie in the country? Had it increased the specie in actual and general circulation? If it had done no evil, what good had it done? This, he believed, was as yet undis covered. So far as it had operated at all, it had been to derange the state of the currency, and to give it a direction inverse to the course of business. The honorable Senator, however, could not see how moving money across a street could operate to affect the currency; and seemed to suppose that moving money from west to east, or from east to west, would have as little effect. Money, however, if left to itself, would always move according to the ordinary course of business transactions. This course might indeed be disturbed for a time, but it would be like forcing the needle away from the pole; you might turn it round and round as often as you pleased, but, left to itself, it would still settle at the north. Our great commercial cities were the natural repositories where money centred and settled. There it was wanted, and it was more valuable if left there than if carried into the interior. Any intelligent business man in the West would rather have money paid him for a debt in New York than at his own door. It was worth more to him. If, then, specie was forced, by Treasury tactics, to take a direction contrary to the natural course of business, and to move from east to west, the operation would be beneficial to none, injurious to all. It was not in the power of Government to keep it in a false direction or position. Specie was in exile whenever it was forced out of that place where business called for it. Such an operation did no real good. It was a forced movemen', and was soon overcome by the natural course of things.

Mr. C. was well aware that men might be deluded and mystified on this subject, and that, while the delu sion lasted, this Treasury order might be held up before the eyes of men as a splendid arrangement in finance; but it was only like the natural rainbow, which owed its very existence to the mist in which it had its being. The moment the atmosphere was clear, its bright colors vanished from the view. So it would be with this matter. The specie of the country must resume its natural course. Man might as well escape from the physical necessities of their nature, as from the laws which governed the movements of finance: and the man who professed to reverse or dispense with the one was no greater quack than he who made the same professions with regard to the other.

But it was said to be the distribution bill which had done all the mischief; and Mr. C. was ready to admit that the manner in which the Government had attempted to carry that law into effect might in part have furnished the basis for such a supposition. He had no doubt that the pecuniary evils of the country had been aggravated by the manner in which this had been done. On this subject, however, he confessed himself to be but a

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