Class Book .5 J^O W^^sCt^ COPYRIGHT OBPOSiT -"-^ V^^~->>^ NJ THE Life and Times OF Silas Wright By. Rv -M P 1 l l et Author of the " DeWOCKACY of the PniTED ^TATES," and " JhE fEDERAl. pOVEf^NMENX, ITS ppFICERS AND THEIR DuTIES. " Volume I. / / 'Ji ■'.■ ~1' Y5%' THE ARGUS COMPANT, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS. 1874. t.340 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year one thimsaud eight hundred and seventy-four. Bt R. H. GILLET, In the office of the Lilirariaii of Congress, at Washington. TO Won. Francis Preston Blair ffbe fife-long |)cvsouul auD ^oUtuul ,^"riena OP ' SILAS WRIGHT, This Work on jiis Life and Times is j^espectfully Pedicated, AS AN EVIDENCE OF ESTEEM. BV R. |-i. GiLLET, INTRODUCTION. The Autlior lias endeavored to present Silas Wright to the present generation as lie was seen and known to the last. Althongh ardently attached to him, he is not aware that he has overdrawn one trait in his character, or failed truly to represent the varied acts of his stirring life. For more than twenty years he was distinguished as a rising star whose brightness was never obscured by spot or cloud. Few did or said so much during their long lives. Whatever feelings envy may have engendered against him, he was no man's enemy. He wrote a]id spoke freely, and believed and felt what emanated from liim. To what extent his thoughts should be presented to the public, was a question of deep solicitude to tlie Author. On reflection, he finally determined to present wliatever came within his reach, as fully as the same came from him, whether it related to political, friendly or family matters. In no other way could he be pre- sented and seen as he was, and his true character be fully known and properly appreciated. It would present him almost as unfairly to suppress a portion of what he said and did as to add to either. His speeches, in most cases, were carefully and labori- ously prepared by his own hand for the public. His vi InTR OB UCTION. letters clearly and truly present his feelings and thoughts, and were designed to produce conviction in the minds of those to whom addressed. They contain nothing not consistent with trutJi, and wliich had not been freely and fully communicated to those with whom he mingled in an unrestrained intercourse. He never said, or did, or wrote anything concerning public affairs which he wished to conceal from the public. There are few thoughts, if any, contained in one now given, which he had not, at some time, freely communicated to the Author, and others about liim, without an injunction of secrecy. We think it due to his reputation and our readers to give his letters as we found them, as best calculated to show the man as he really was. It is not in the studied expressions of those laboriously prepared for the public that the real man is to be found, but in those rapidly dashed off for the eye of friends, whose criticisms never have stings. With very few exceptions, every letter given was written to trusted friends, and not for the public, and are there- fore the more valuable. They will be found between chapters where they do not constitute a separate one, in the order of date. Mr. Wright's speeches and reports, now given, do not, in all cases, possess the same interest as when first presented to the public. With the thorough investigator and profound statesman, their elaborate details, instead of being the source of objection, will excite great interest, while the political wisdom found mingled in them will well reward the labor of all who study them. Intr OD UCTION. Vll The Author hopes he has so presented Gov. Wkight as to secure for him the respect, if not the admiration, of all his readers. He trusts that many will profit by his examples in their journey through life. All must admire his patient and untiring industry, his cheerful and unflagging perseverance, his great frankness and sincere cordiality, his kindness of heart and inoffen- sive manners, his intrepid and unbending integrity, as well as his heroic self-sacrifice in sustaining his cherished political principles, by yielding his own and conforming to the wishes of those friends who sought his services in a new field of action, when he reluctantly consented to be made Governor. TABLE OF CONTENTS. «VOLTJ]VrK I. i'AGE. Introduction v CHAPTER I. Preliminary Chapter 1 CHAPTER II. Parentage and Birthplace of Silas Wkiuht 'S CHAPTER III. His Boyhood ^ CHAPTER IV. In College •' CHAPTER V. Selects the Law as a Profession and Studies it 13 CHAPTER VI. Selecting u Place to Practice Law 1^' CHAPTER VII. Tlie Young Lawyer in Canton 1^ CHAPTER VIII. Other Relations in Life Mii/ CHAPTER IX. Mr. Wright and Local Offices 26 CHAPTER X. Nomination and Canvass for the State Senate 39 CHAPTER XL Elected to the State Senate '^'^ CHAPTER XII. In tlie State Senate X Table of Contents. CHAPTER XIII. Paob. Organization and Proceedings in tlie Assembly 42 CHAPTER XIV. Proceedings in the Senate on the Electoral Law 45 CHAPTER XV. Clamor about the Postponement of the Electoral Law 59 CHAPTER XVL Failure of the Attempted Censure for Not Opposing Mr. Crawford, 66 CHAPTER XVII. Congressi(jn;d Cavicus in 1824 69 CHAPTER XVIII. Removal of De Witt Clinton as Canal Commissioner 73 CHAPTER XIX. Legislative Caucus for Nominating Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, 77 CHAPTER XX. Appointing Electors of President and Vice-President 80 CHAPTER XXI. Changing the Electoral Law 82 CHAPTER XXII. Successor of Rufus King 85 CHAPTER XXIII. Amending the State Constitution 91 CHAPTER XXIV. State Bank Charters 92 CHAPTER XXV. The New York Canals 100 CHAPTER XXVI. Legislative Caucus Address 104 CHAPTER XXVII. The Van Buren Letter 114 CHAPTER XXVIII. Nominated and Elected to Congress 119 Table of Contents. xi CHAPTER XXIX. Page. Retires from the State Senate 121 CHAPTER XXX. What he Omitted to Do while There 132 CHAPTER XXXI. In the Twentietli Congress at its First Session 124 CHAPTER XXXII. Mr. Wright and Mr. Barnard 134 CHAPTER XXXII Re-elected to Congress 187 CHAPTER XXXIV. Elected Comptroller 139 CHAPTER XXXV. Mr. Wright as Comptroller 143 CHAPTER XXXVI. The Georgia Missionaries 151 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Chenango and other Minor Canals. 154 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Re-elected Comptroller 156 CHAPTER XXXIX Elected to the Senate of thi' United States 160 CHAPTER XL. Entrance into the Senate of the United Slates 162 CHAPTER XLI. Letters Concerning NuUilication 164 CHAPTER XLII. Nullification and Compromise Measures 169 CHAPTER XLIII. Case of Elisha R. Potter Claiming a Seat as a Senator from Rhode Island 174 xii Table of Contents. CHAPTER XLIV. Page. Removal of the Deposits from the Bank of the United States 176 CHAPTER XLV. Defense of the New York Safety Fund Banking System 321 CHAPTER XLVl. Views Concerning Legislative Inquiries into the Duties of Govern- ment Officials 231 CHAPTER XLVII. Extending the Charter of the Bank of the United States 235 CHAPTER XL VIII. Defense of Gen. Jackson's Protest 264 CHAPTER XLIX. The Bill to Pay for French Spoliations prior to 1800 304 CHAPTER L. Executive Patronage, or the Repeal of the Four Year Law 312 CHAPTER LI. Expunging the Senate Resokition Condemning Gen. Jackson 335 CHAPTER LII. Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia 340 CHAPTER LIII. Relief of the New York Sufferers by Fire 353 CHAPTER LIV. National Defenses 355 CHAPTER LV. Specie Payments 384 CHAPTER LVI. Distribution of the Proceeds of the Public Lands 392 CHAPTER LVIL Purchasing Sites and Materials for Fortifications 444 CHAPTER LVIII. Views Concerning Certain State Legislation in 1836 464 Table of Oumtents. xiii CHAPTER LIX. Page. Public Deposits ^"0 CHAPTER LX. Rechartering Banl Life a ad Times of Silas Wrigut. Chapter VI. SELECTING A PLACE TO PRACTICE LAW The question oi' locality wliere to x>i*actice, is one of importance to a lawyer just admitted, as well as to a practitioner of experience. This is often a difficult ques- tion, and the determination of which involves the consid- eration of many doubtful points. If he locates in a city without a previous reputation, or influential friends to aid him in securing business, can he expect to succeed without an insufferable delay '( If he is without consid- erable means, how can he sustain himself while waiting? If he goes to a new place, lio]jing to grow up with the country, liow can he determine what places will grow up and furnish business of any considerable value? How long must he there devote his time and talents to patience and hope before productive business shall spring up? Questions like these were discussed between him and his father. His severe and persistent application as a student had much impaired his former robust health. It Imd brought upon him a headache, commencing in the fore- part of the day, which continued until near night. Outdoor exercise, and particularly on horseback, was deemed the most apj)ropriate remedy. Considering these circumstances, it was determined that the young lawyer should personally explore western and northern New York on horseback, for the double purpose of restoring his impaired health and selecting a suitable location for practice as a lawyer. Accordingly, his father furnished him a suitable horse, and supx)lied him with the requisite means, and he commenced his explorations early in tlie summer of 1819. He visited many places in western New York which have since become the centers of population and business. Returning, he passed from Life asd Times of Si/.as Winmir. 17 Watertown to Plattsburgli, tliruugli Canton, in St. Law- rence county. Here he met with a former neighbor iroin Weybridge, Captain Medad Moody, an okl Iricuid oi" Jiis father's, who earnestly besought hmi to locate in Canton. Captain Moody was a man of excellent sense, with a veiy sound judgment. He had established himself there, on the bank of the Racquet river, as an inn Iveeper, expect- ing at some future day the county buildings would be located at that place and the courts held there. He called attention to the map of the State, showing that St. Law- rence county was as large as some of the States, with not a mountain or much waste land in it— that it abounded with excellent timber and splendid waterfalls for mills, and excellent building stone, and that the soil was superior for grain and grass. He insisted that it must become a rich county and furnish at Canton ample employment for an able and honest lawyer. He offered to erect for him a commodious office, and render him all the assistance in his power, assuring him of complete success. Others joined the captain in his account of the flattering prospects for a young lawyer at Canton. The considerations thus presented were carefully weighed by Mr. Wright, while many others presented themselves to his observing and reflecting mind. He became satisfled that the county buildings could not long remain at Ogdensburgh, on the St. Lawrence river, n(^ar one corner of the immense county, and that Canton was a central and natural location for them. There were no lawyers in the county nearer than ten miles, and all but two were eighteen miles distant. There were mills, factories, stores and hotels at Canton, which was a lirst-rate farming town- ship ten miles square. The place must grow and his businesr grow with it. Time has proved the correctness of these anticipations. These and some other minor considerations induced the young lawyer to locate there. He returned home, and his father approving his location, he returned and settled at Cnnton in October, 1819. ]_8 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter VIL THE YOUNG LAWYER IN CANTON. In the fall oi 1810 there rode into Canton a young- man twenty-four years of age, of a nui8cuhir and robust build, neatly but plainly dressed. He wore a tall but narrow-rimmed hat, which enabled others the more fully to see his large, florid face. His complexion was dark, eyes light and hair nearly black, but thin, made so by voluntary action to counteract pain in the head. He was mainly dressed in homespun of the better kind. His manners were simple, but easy and calculated to attract attention. His conversation was plain, simple and natu- ral, which all could understand, and he made no effort at display. Neither Greek, Latin, nor pithy quotations were heard from him, nor striking poetical expressions. All could axiproach him and feel at ease. His int;ercourse with tli(3 people induced the belief that he was gentle, kind and benevolent. The fear of contentions and law- suits, which his first entrance occasioned, were soon dis- sipated, and gave place to respect, admiration and attach- ment. The people soon became proud of the new comer. Captain Moody recounted the virtues of the father, and predicted their reappearance in the son. The citizens of that town soon gave him tlieir unlimited confidence, and he cheerfully gave them his. They had but little law business, but what they had they unhesitatingly confided to him. He did not seek business, but it came to him. He never commenced a suit without perfectly under- standing its merits and having a clear conviction that the plaintiff would succeed. He seldom tried a cause where he did not fully understand what the witnesses on both Life a.xb Timfs or Silas Wniuht. U) sides would say, witli full UKHuoiaiidums of llicir expected testiuiony. The poiuts which each side was expected to make were carefully noted, with the authori- ties to which each was expected to refer. He was iicver taken by surprise on a trial, though his adversaries oft(;ii were. The late distinguished Aaron Hackley, when opposed to him on a trial at Ogden.sburgli, audibly remarked, " My God, what is that young fellow's head made oiV His skill in the examination of witnesses was proverbial and extraordinary. Even reluctant witnesses usually became impressed with the idea that he was fair and kind, divulging fully whatever they knew. Juries conlided in him, almost as much as in the judges, and scarcely ever failed to place implicit confidence in his addresses to them. In no instance did he ever utter a word to them or the court, which he did not religiously believe to be true and right. Hence the confidence which they had in him. Success must nearly always follow such conhdence. Mr. Van Buren expressed to him, at an early day, the opinion that he ought to remove to w^estern New York and compete with John C. Spencer for the honors of the l)ar. But his diffidence concerning his own powers, and local attachments, would ncjt permit him to do so. He loved Canton and his neighbors and St. Lawrence county too well ever to abandon his selected hom(\ ^ He was contented with tlie small income which his limited Imsiness afforded him. Instead of grasping for more business and greater gains, he seemed almost to shrink from what he had, and was contented with little. It is known that he spent as much time to induce his neighbors peacefully to adjust their controversies, as others did to secure new business. As a magistrate he not unfrequently abandoned his fees to induce the par- ties to make amicable settlements. On one occasion he appeared before a magistrate for one of his neighbors, 20 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and, at liis suggestion, the counsel'^ on the other side and the justice assenting to it, the parties were got into the tatter's ofRce, and loi'ked in and Ivept there until they amicably settled. They thus became friends, and both thanked liim for what he had done, while all acquainted with this new court of conciliation and its success breathed blessings upon him as a peacemaker. Mr. WuiGHT, in his practice as a lawyer, seemed to overlook his own interests and treat them as of minor importance, but was exceedingly watchful and attentive to those of his clients. He seemed to love labor, and would not allow a student to lighten the drudgery of copying his papers. Neither in his office nor in the courts did he make a display of his classical education, or attempt to confound a listener by using technical or other special law terms. He always used plain and sim- ple language which all could understand and appreciate. There was truth and justice in the remark made by a sensible townsman, "that he was the only lawyer he ever knew whose law was all common sense, and who always gave plain, sensible reasons for his opinions upon all subjects." In this sentence we have an ample reason for the confidence which his acquaintances reposed in him, and a key to his success as a lawyer. While practicing law, and before entering public life, his amusements, beyond conversation with his neighbors, were few. But they were healthful and instructive. He spent much time in the forest, rifie in hand, hunting, but with limited success; though a good marksman, his skill never enabled him to carry in venison of his own killing. Much of his leisure time was spent in reading. Shak- speare was his favorite author. He considered him the best and closest observer who had ever written, and admir-ed his descriptions of men and things. He con- * The Author. Life and Times of Stlas Wright. 21. sidered liis works a fountain of wisdom. He nc^vcr tii'ed in reading tliem. He read the pul)lic pajxMS, hut ahvays with the main design of gleaning sometliing to rcunember. During his service in the Senate of tlie United States, and pai'ticularly tlie latter part of it, when compelled to perform a vast amount of labor, he read lighter works to relieve the brain, hy diverting his thoughts from fatiguing subjects. In tins, lie followed tlie examph; of many laborious men, like W. M. Men^dith, of Phila- delphia. Tradition informs us that, when mentally fatigued, Mr. Jefferson relieved his mind and changed the current of his thoughts by resorting to his violin. He said, the year before he died, that he had used this instrument, two hours a day, from his boyhood. Exces- sive mental fatigue is relieved, with many, by the gambols of children, with which Mr. Wright was not blessed. The light works which he read for the relief of the mind he never attempted to remember. In his professional reading, he was diligent in seeking and understanding the princij)les involved. He read law exceedingly slow, being desirous of accurately ascertain- ing the true theories upon which the law was based, and of so impressing them upon the mind as to recollect them in all future time and to be able promptly to apply them in practice. In reading Shakspeare for amuse- ment, he manifested the same care in understanding what he read. But he seldom, if ever, quoted from liim, or any other author. He preferred uttering his own thoughts in his own language, instead of that of another, however elegant, forcible or apx)ropriate. He never used his voice as the vehicle of conveying other men's thoughts, however splendid or impressive. 22 LiF^ AND Times of Silas Wiught. Chapter VIIL OTHER RELATIONS IN LIFE. On settling in Canton, Mr. Wright identitied nimself with tlie people, and was active in everything which con- cerned or interested them. The practical good sense which he manifested on all occasions, soon induced them to put him forward as a leader in almost everything. His example was copied, and all became emulous to please him. When sickness demanded watchers, he was always ready, and often walked several miles, and sometimes through storms and mud, to attend the bedside of the sick and afflicted. His care and thoiightfulness rendered him a very acceptable watcher. His presence and atten- tion awakened hoj)e and gave confidence, when that of others failed to do so. He encouraged the citizens of Canton in improving their highways, by accepting the position of road-master, and working, without reference to the amount of his tax, with his own hands. Tlie conse- quence of this was emulation in the different road dis- tricts, which resulted in Canton having the best highways in the county. Although without musical talent, to encourage others and to secure good music in the church, he was the first who became active in establishing sing- ing schools, and was ever a punctual attendant, and took part in the clioii- of the church. He was a liberal supporter and a punctual attendant of the Presbyterian church, and, in the absence of a clergyman, read sermons, while the deacon attended to other religious duties common in churches. Being an excellent reader, it was long remarked that the printed sermons he read made the attendance at church more Life and Times of Silas Wright. interesting and profitable than at any otlnu- period. The operations of the liuman mind on svich subjects exhibit, occasionally, some singular peculiarities. On onc^ occa- sion, when he seemed to read from the printed volume, he actually read a manuscript sermon prepared by a Mr. Catlin, the hatter of the town. It was extolled as oik^ of Dr. Spring's best productions, but when tlie author became known it was denounced as a trashy aftair. As an officer under the common-school system, he devoted much time and attention in furthering the inter- ests of education. His visits at the schools were hailed with delight. During the period of his expected visits, lx)th teachers and pupils labored for his a])plause. A kind and cheering word repaid l)()th for days of unremit- ting labor. The complimentary expressions used by him were repeated and spread over the town with great joy by both parents and children. Tlie latter would purposely put themselves in positions, when he was expected to pass, so as to secure an approving smile and a word of encouragement. The secret of the attachment of children to him, as w(^ll as others, was developed in after life by a young fairy miss of some eight summers, who, on being asked why she liked liini, answered, "Because he always speaks so kind to me.'' Here was an unconscious declaration of a great philosophical prin- ciple, upon which much of the happiness of mankind depends. She still lives, is the wife of one of tlie first lawyers of Burlington, Vermont, and often dwells upon his memory with peculiar delight. The accumulation of wealth, beyond what his lalwrs naturally produced, seemed never to occupy a thought of his. He made no investments with reference to the growth of the village, or the rem.oval of the county buildings to Canton. He never became a subscriber for stocks, anticipating a rise. Later in life, on two occa- sions, friends, hoping to benefit him, did so without 24 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Ills knowledge or consent, whose acts, so kindly intended. Ms regard for tliem induced him not to repudiate. Mr. Coming's subscription to tlie stock of tlie Utica and Schenectady railroad turned out well, and that of Mr. Croswell to the American Land Company quite the reverse. He was never known to be laying plans to secure pecuniary gain or personal advancement. No one ever accused him of wrong or injustice. Every engage- ment made by him, down to those made to children, was scrupulously fulfilled. A promise, without a considera- tion, was as sacred with him as if made for coined gold. In settling accounts, where doubts arose, he always refused the doubtful penny, often saying he had no use for it, and that it would burn a hole in his pocket. The example of Mr. Wright, upon nearly every subject, exerted a most salutary influence in his town. The desire so to act as to secure his apj^robation seemed to be almost universal. "What will Silas say?" was a question often asked. Contests, and other matters, which, on reflection, it was thought he would not approve, were usually abandoned. Nearly every one manifested a disposition to conform in all things to his example. It became discreditable, and then odious, to wrangle, quar- rel or act meanly. Lawsuits among themselves went out of fashion. The people of Canton became noted for order, uprightness and integrity. It is due to truth to sa}^ that this was owing to the silent exami^le of Mr, Wkight, and the desire of the citizens to please him. He made no effort to control, nor did he fight vice and call upon others to witness his zeal and exertions, expecting them to applaud him for it. He ruled by the purity, sincerity and integrity which controlled his own action, and all as quiet as the index hand directs the stranger on his travels upon ih^Q highway. Through life, his dress was simple and plain, but exceedingly neat. He seemed only anxious to appear LtPE ANT) TrMF.S OF Si LAS WUKUfT. 25 respectably in liis position. He was always cool and col- lected, bnt was qnite diffident. Tliis contribnttnl to his wish to avoid occasions when formalities and display werc^ tlie leading features, from which he seemed to shriidv. No one was more gentle or frank. His collocpiial powers were of the highest order. These qualities won the hearts of all who came in contact with lum. l^>nt for the formalities of many official positions he always had strong distaste, which grew upoii him as life advanced, and was, doubtless, among the reasons for his rejection of the cabinet positions and foreign missions offered him on various occasions by different Presidents. He loved the simplicity of country life, and preferred the society of his neighbors to that of kings, princes and high offi- cials, association with whom w^as often througli a laby- rinth of forms and ceremonies. This he could not endure. '^' *It is due to liis memory to state that, when he had been in practice some two years, his professional duties called him to Potsdam, where he met a young mail in deep poverty, struggling to learn his own profession. Kind words from the landlady who kept the village inn induced him to call him in. He studied his character and capacity, and learned all about, his means and hopes. Although actually reading law, he did chores for the lawyer with whom he was studying, to cover his board, and lu- was without friends or relatives to aid him. At the close of the interview he invited him to come to Canton and read law in his office, ottering to secure him the village schoc^l to meet his expenses. lie gladly accepted the invitation, and was soon with his first patron. He remained with him until he was elected to tlie State Senate, in the fall of 1H23. The young man, at the proper time, was admitted to the bar, and became a successful practitioner. He rose, by industry and perseverance, and very early in life served two terms in Con- gress; was voluntarily appointed, by Mr. Van Buren, to negotiate Indian treaties; was voluntarily made Register, and then Solicitor of the Treasury by Mr. Polk; was employed as assistant in the Attorney-General's office under Mr. Pierce, and was made Soli,citor f or the United States in the Court of Claims, where he served three years. During nearly all this time he practiced in the higher courts in New York or Supreme Court at Washing- ton. Until the death of Governor Wright, in 1847, their friendship was without interruption. The survivor believes that he owed his deceased friend for his successes and advancements during his life. He is now attempting to pay the debt as well as he can, in preparing the present work. 26 Ltfe and Times of jStlas Wright. Chapter IX. MR. WRIGHT AND LOCAL OFFICES. Under the old Constitution of 1777, justices of tlie peace and surrogates were appointed by the Grovernor and Council of Appointment. Mr. Wright's preceptor and friduid, Judge Skinner, was not only a State Senator, but was also a member of this Council, wielding an extended political influence. It was both easy and natural for him to seek opportunities to show his appre- ciation of the character and talents of his late student, whose noble and excellent qualities he had often men- tioned with great aj^parent satisfaction, and to promote his interests. Mr. Wright had not been long established in his profession when he received, unsolicited by him, commissions for these offices. They were botli naturally connected with his profession. Both are best exercised by those who understand the law. From the time of receiving these commissions until he entered the State Senate he performed the duties of both to the entire sat- isfaction of every one. They were of little pecuniary value to him, neither producing fees to the amount of $100, and the latter, probably, not one-half of that sum. On the death of Dr. Campbell, who liad long held and faithfully discharged the duties of Postmaster of Canton, Mr. Wright was appointed to supply his place. He was commissioned during the administration of President Monroe, by Postmaster-General Meigs. When the vacancy occurred, at the instance of his neighbors and friends, he took such stejDS as are usual in such cases to procure the appointment. It was the only office which he ever held which he personally sought to obtain. In Life and Times of Silas Wright. 27 doing so in this case lie only complied with the earnest solicitations of those who did business at the offi(H% boinii; persons of all political parties. Its duties were performed to the satisfaction of the whole community. The income derived from it, while he held tlie office, was very trifling. He continued to hold it until a short time l)efore the 4th of March, 1827, when he would become entitled to take his seat as a member of Congress. The patriotic spirit which animated the militia during the war of 1812, and which so largely contributed to the splendor of its conclusion, had not died out in nortln^rn New York when Mr. Wright settled there. In 1822, the young men of Canton, many of whom were skilled in tlie use of the rifle, and some of whom were practical deer- killers, desired to form themselves into a rifle company with uniforms. They unanimously invited Mr. Wkight to become their captain. Participating strongly in the feeling which impelled his father and brothers to volun- teer for the defense of Plattsburgh, during the war, he consented and was commissioned. The company was soon raised and equipped, they adopting a green uniform as most becoming to riflemen. He took peculiar pride in drilling and maneuvering this company, which had no superior at the annual review^s. He continued in com- mand until 1825. Other companies, consisting of cavalry, artillery, infantry and riflemen, were also raised, uni- formed and equipped. These, by a general order from the Adjutant-General's office, were grouped together and formed a " Kifle Regiment," in the organization of which he was elected its major, and in 1826 colonel. He was justly proud of this regiment, and those composing it were loud in their eulogies of their colonel. A large por- tion of them, without distinction of party, voted for him the fall when lie was first elected to Congress. In 1827, the officers of the Forty-ninth Brigade and Twelfth Division of the Militia of New York, with great 28 Life and Times of Silas Wright. unanimity, elected liim brigadier-general. In tlie fall of 1828 lie reviewed liis brigade. By his candor, frankness and cordial manner he won the hearts of most of those composing the brigade. Many of those who differed from him, politically, became his supporters at the November election, when he was re-elected to Congress. From this time, for near twenty years, liis progress was onward and uj^ward, until treachery of professed politi- cal friends caused his defeat when nominated for re-elec- tion SIS Governor, to the infinite regret of nearly the entire democracy of the Union, and of many who had not acted with him politically. His sudden death, in less than a year, prevented his rising and being made the successor of President Polk, as was earnestly desired by the great body of the American people. Life anu Tlue;s of Sila;s Win gut. 29 Chapter X. NOMINATION AND CANVASS FOR THE STATE SENATE. Under tlie Constitution of 1821, tli(3 State was divided into eight Senate districts. The fourth was conqDOsed of the counties of Washington, Warren, Saratoga, Mont- gomery, Essex, Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton and St. Law- rence. Each district was entitled to four Senators. At the session of 1823, Archibald Mclntyre, of Montgomery, John Cramor, of Saratoga, Melancton Wheeler, of Wash- ington, and David Erwin, of Franklin counties, repre- sented the district in the Senate. A Senator to supply the place of Mr. Erwin was to be elected in November of that year. Allen R. Mooers, of Clinton, was nominated by the federal party, and Mr. Wright by the democratic or republican. Out of this nomination and its incidents sprung the only imputations of l^ad faith ever made against the latter. He was accused of making a pledge on the subject of the electoral law and violating it. From April 12, 1792, a statute of the State had pro- vided for the appointment of presidential electors by the Legislature, in November, previous to casting their votes. Similar laws existed in many States. In some they were elected by the people, usually by general ticket, but some by districts, some by majority, and others by a ]3lurality of votes. The Legislature to be elected in 1828, including the twenty four Senators whose terms of office had not expired, would, under this law, elect presidential electors who would vote for the President for the tenth term. Some discussion was had in this State concerning changing the mode of selection from legislative appointment to an election by the people. Taking power from the few and 30 Life and Times of Silas Wihoht. distributing it to the many was a popular thought, and uK^t ^yith few dissenters. The only question w^as one involving the general ^^rinciple, where the power of acting should be vested. The State, by an immense majority, had just decided this very principle by abolishing the Council of Revision and Appointment, and taking from the Grovernor a very large proportion of his patron- age and giving it to the people, making most of the offices elective. It required no profound reflection to under- stand that the masses of the people would approve taking from the Legislature and conferring upon the people the election of electors of President and Vice-President. The question of how they should be elected, whether by general ticket or by districts, requiring a majority or plurality to elect, had hardly been considered at all. The majority principle, in nearly all cases of election, was th(Mi almost uniformly and firmly established in all IS^ew Ennland. It is believed that nowhere, in making nominations for the Legislature, in the fall of 1823, were resolutions passed on the subject of an electoral law of any descrip- tion, and most certainly none dictating in wliat manner or what shoukl constitute an election. Had details been gone into, a great diversity of opinion would have been developed. It had been the practice of the republicans, in the Fourth Senate district, for the nominating convention of one year to determine and declare from what county the next nomination should be made, leaving that county, if no convention should be called, to name and present a can- didate the next year. The convention of 1822 had decided that in 1823 the candidate for the Senate should be selected from St. Lawrence county. A convention was accordingly called in that county, and Mr. W right was duly nominated. Although made late in the fall, infor- mation of his having been nominated was sent to every LiFt: AXD Times of Silas Wnigbt. 31 county in the district, and duly cinnounced in tlic^ demo- cratic pa.i)ers. This convention passed no resolutions concerning a change in the electoral law, nor did it ask or receive any pledge from its nominee on any subject what- ever. At that time there was no democratic paper in St. Lawrence or Franklin counties. The PlattsLurgh Repub- lican, on the 25th of October, 1823, announced the nomi- nation in these words : " Senatorial Convention. "At a meeting of republican delegates lV<>in the difterent towns in the county of St. Lawrence, at Canton, on the 11th of September, 1823, Hon. Ansen Bailey, Chairman, and D. C. Jud- son Secretary ; '' Eesolved, unammo^cslt/, that Silas WitKiUT, Ji;., be recom- mended to the electors of this senatorial district as a suitable candidate to supply the place of the Hon. David Erwin in the Senate of this State." The friends of the federal candidate, under th(^ siipi)o- sition that there were so many candidates for the presi- dency—Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, Adams and Crawford- thought that there must be a very large majority against the latter. If so, they could prejudice Mr. A¥ right by creating the belief that he was for Crawford. They, therefore, published throughout the district that he was a supporter of Mr. Crawford. Knowing tliat most of the voters desired to change the electoral law from legisla- tive appointment to election by the people, they also proclaimed that Mr. Wright was opposed to any change. These two assumptions were calculated to defeat him and secure the election of Gen. Mooers. The following article from the Plattsburgh Republican of the twenty-hfth of October, discloses the objects of the friends of Mooers in making these imputations, and why they were not j)ut forth at an earlier day : 32 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " Federal Misrepresentations of our Senator. " The federalists attempted to aid their Senator by misrepre- senting" the opinions ot" Mr. Wright ; and they resorted to this unmanly course after they thought it was too late to get a refu- tation of their falsehoods before the public. It, however, has arrived in time. " The federalists, in setting up Allen II. Mooers in opposition to the fair rights of St. Lawi'ence, and in misrepresenting the opinions of Mr. Wright, have shown a want of common honesty and of good faith to a neighboring county. " The following letter is from the secretary* of the republican convention which nominated Mr. Wright, and bears date Ogdensburgh, Oct. 25, 1823 : " ' Sir. — ^The federal nomination of a Senator in your county, in opposition to Mr. Wright, would not have called for any special notice, were it not for some unfounded assertions, or suggestions, in relation to liim. " 'If talents of a respectable character, integrity unimpeach- able, and sound and correct republican principles, entitle a man to public confidence, Mr. Wright has strong claims. That he is the supporter of Mr. Crawford is untrue. Viewing the strife between the friends of the different candidates for the presi- dency as resulting from a choice of men merely — -not being aware at this time that any particular set of measures or course of policy is to be pursued in case of the election of one candi- date which would not be by the other — he has not thought it became him, in the situation in wliich he is likely to be placed, to commit himself by any })ledge as resulting from his individual partialities or prejudices. His friends here are satisfied with this course ; indeed, Avitli most of them, myself among the number, it is esteemed the only correct and proper course. It is perhaps due to him to say, that Mr. Crawford is not his favorite candi- date ; but should he ever be called upon to act in a public capacity, lie will be governed exclusively by a regard to the public interests and the support of republican principles. " 'On the other topic of their opposition to him, I am able to *Hou. David C. Judson, who still lives, in 1874. LlFK AND TniRS OF StL.\S Wh'KllIT. speuk decisively. lie is and lias been, since tlie sulijin-l was tirsl agitated, tiie decided and open advocate of tlie election of electors of President by the peo[)le by general ticket. This is a settled o[)inion of his, which, as he this day-observed to nie, no circunistances could induce liini to alter or to refrain from sup- porting, " 'The nomination having been conceded to this county by the other parts of the district — it having been made at a convention of delegates in which the wdiole county was represented, with entire unanimity, and it being I'eceived among us with general approbation, more so than any other which could have been made, we were not aware that any exertions on our part were necessary, furlher thau to make the nomination known.' " Here we have an exact account of the whole matter by a highly honorable man, an actor in the affair, and writ- ten and published at the time. There was certainly no pledge, although there was a distinct avowal of his views and feelings. Although Mr. Crawford was not his favorite candidate, he refused to commit himself against him, but would, if called upon to act, be exclusively governed by a regard to the public interests and the sup- port of republican principles. The correctness of this sentiment no one can question. On the subject of the electoral law, he was and had been an open advocate of electing electors of President by the people, and by general ticket. He declared before the nomination, and on the day Mr. Judson wrote, that he was for thus electing them, and that no circumstances could induce him to alter or to refrain from supporting- such a law. This declaration of fixed opinions was in no sense a "pledge." Mr. Judson did not seek a pledge, nor was one given. His and Mr. Weight's opinions harmonized. Under such circumstances, no one needed or thought of a pledge. Mr. Judson communicated to the pul)lic a denial of the assumptions of the federalists, and strengthened it by stating facts and circumstances 3 34 Life and Times of Silas Wright. personally known to liini. No one acquainted with liim will doubt the truth of whatevta- lie may say, or question liis intentions or ability to report accurately whatever occurred. It will be observed that these publications were made at the time to repel the accusations, made at a late stage of the canvass by his adversaries, that he was a Crawford man and opposed to changing the electoral law. They served that purpose, and cannot be tortured into any- thing else. Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 35 Chapter XT. MR. WRIGHT ELECTED TO THE STATE SENATE. Tlie vote at the election in November, 1823, cleai-ly showed that the usual party lines were not drawn. To a casual observer, it would seem that local questions had prodnc(^d their usual results. But, in fact, the different counties cast their votes principally with reference to the state of the knowledge of the voters coiicerning the candidates, and their supposed opinions and preferences among the aspirants to the presidency. Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Saratoga, Warren and St. Lawrence counties gave Mr. Wkiciht majorities, Washington, Hamilton and Montgomery alone gave majorities for Gen. Mooers. St. Lawrence county gave Mr. Wright 1,419 votes, and Allen R. Mooers, 20. The town of Canton, where Mr. Wright resided, gave him 19D, and Jason Fenton, an old democratic friend of his, residing in Madrid, 1, which was cast by Mr. Wright himself. Mr. Wright received every vote in his town but his own. He was declared elected by a majority of 1,316 votes. The vote in St. Lawrence, and especially in Canton, shows the impression that the young lawyer had made upon the people. The vote in favor of his adversary did not average one to a town in his county. He was then only twenty-eight years of age, and was probably the youngest man who had then ever been elected to the Senate. This election made him, not only a Senator to participate in enacting laws, but in virtue of that office he became a member of the highest judicial court in the State, the Court for the Correction of Errors, which reviewed cases from the Supreme Court and Court of 36 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chancery. Tliis constituted him a member of a tribunal in which the judges of the Supreme Court and the Chancellor sat, with many venerable and learned men as Senators. It has never been suggested by his brethren, or by the members of the bar, that he did not here per- form his duty as satisfactorily as any other Senator. He did not attemjit to become a leader in this court, but con- tented himself with listening and voting as his sense of justice dictated. Life and Times of Sflas Wright. 37 Chapter XII. IN THE STATE SENATE. The Senate convened on the first Tuesday in January, 1824, at tlie Capitol in Albany. Mr. Wright attended, was sworn into office, and took his seat as a member. In that body were John A. King, Walter Bowne, John Leflerts and Jasper Ward, from the First District ; John Hunter, John Suydam, Stephen Thorn, James Burt and William Nelson, from the Second ; Edward P. Living- ston, Charles E. Dudley, James Mallory and Jacob Haight, from the Tliird ; Melancton Wlieeler, John Cramer, Archibald Mclntyre and Silas Wright, Jr., from the Fourth ; Alvin Bronsin, Thomas Greenly, Sher- man Wooster and Peiiey Keyes, from the Fifth ; Farran Strannahan, Tilly Lynde, Isaac Ogden and Latham A. Burrows, from the Sixth ; Byram Green, Jesse Clark, Jonas Eaiie and Jedediah Morgan from the Seventh ; Heman J. Redfield, John Bowman and James McCall, from the Eighth. Erastus Root was Lieutenant-Governor and President of the Senate, and John F. Bacon, Clerk. After Mr. Monroe's second election to the presidency, there occurred what was called the " era of good feeling." The federal party was disl^anded, and certain gentlemen of that party, in the State of New York, described as "high minded," assigned, in a formal paper issued by them, as a reason for this, that they "had no longer any ground of principle to stand upon." Although federalists were, wherever there were hopes of success, nominated for office, they were not presented as federal candidates. Some other name was assumed or conferred. Nearly everybody shrunk from the old name as if it 38 Life and Times of Silas Wright. would taint them. No federalist, as such, tJiought of securing the presidency, and no candidate of that party was in the field for election in 1824. None but demo- cratic candidates were brought forward. The competitors were all distinguished democrats, who had hjug stood high in that party, and had occupied exalted official positions. Three of them had held the three highest offices in Mr. Monroe's administration, from about its commencement. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, was a man of high talents, extensive knowledge and great experience. His personal character was without spot or blemish. He had long been recognized as a democrat, and was a favorite with a large portion of the New-England people. William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, was no less distinguished for talents, with great acqiurements and extensive experience in the affairs of the Federal Government. His character was above reproach. He had long been a leader in the democratic party, and was largely supported by democrats in the congressional caucus which nominated Mr. Monroe for his second elec- tion. He had a strong hold upon the democracy, and was looked upon as a leading candidate to fill the place of Mr. Monroe. John C. Calhoun was Secretary of War under Mr. Monroe. He had sustained himself in Congress with great success, and had displayed high executive talent in the War Department. His private character was above suspicion. His democracy was unquestioned. Henry Clay was a member of Congress, and for many years Speaker of the House. He possessed talents, had had long experience in government affairs, and had no superior in eloquence. His character was unstained, and he had always been a democrat. His manners were exceedingly popular. His friends were ardently attached to him. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 39 Andrew Jackson liad always been a democrat, and his private cliaracter was irreproacliable. He had served in the Senate of the United States, and in high positions in Tennessee. His splendid achievement in closing tile war of 1812, at New Orleans, had won the public admiration. Although not looked npon as a very prominent candi- date for the presidency, still there was a wide-spread feeling in his favor, and especially among those who had served in the army, or j)erformed duty among the militia. The elements of his future great popularity then existed, bnt wei-e not concentrated or organized, except in limited localities. From among these candidates a president was to be chosen. At the commencement, Mr. Crawford united more democratic strength than eitlier of the others, and whose respective friends united in a common effort for Ins d(rfeat. Numerous plans were devised to accomplish this purpose. Newspapers were established to support the different candidates, but all agreeing in opposing Mr. Crawford. In New York, a change in the mode of choosing electors of President and Vice-President was sug- gested in 1828, and pul)lic opinion soon after adopted the proposition with much unanimity. It was the common impression that such a change would defeat Mr. Craw- ford. Mr. Adams' friends thought they saw his success in its adoption. Little thought was bestowed by either on the question of how and by wliat vote the electors should be chosen. The minds of the most active anti- Crawford men were too much occux)ied with defeating him by the change, to consider the details of a bill to accomplish it Joseph C. Yates was then Governor, and in his message to the Legislature, at the opening of the session, he called attention to the general subject of a change, dis- cussed it some, but did not specifically recommend one. He rather created the impression that he thought it best 40 Life and Times of Silas Weight. to leave the law as it existed, at least for the present. His presentation of the subject was not calculated to con- centrate opinion or accomplish any particular result. Although an excellent man, and had been a sterling judge, he manifested little talent in the organization and manage- ment of political parties. He was not calculated for a safe leader of masses of men. He vainly thought that all leading men were as pure and upright as himself, and that they would not assume to be exclusively actuated by one motive to accomplish one worthy object, when the sole purpose was to secure another and quite a different one. In the end he became the victim of his own honest credulity. He unwisely became separated from a, large portion of his old real friends, while he gained no new ones from among his former adversaries. Mr. Wright to Minet Jenison. "Albany, 2Uh Jantiary, 1824. " My Dear Sir. — I have delayed writing you, that I might inform you who was Surrogate and wliat to do with the papei-s. On Thursday last, Horace Allen was appointed to that office and on that day I wrote to him. I will, liowever, write you again when he sends me the requisite clerk's certificate. Li the mean- time I will fulfill tlie promise made to you, and to remind you that I want to hear from home. I have nothing of interest to communicate, as nothing of an important nature has yet been done in the Legislature. The electoral law h:is not yet been passed, although a bill on that subject is now before the Assem- Idy. It is all the talk and all the subject of interest here, and so much difference of opinion exists on the details of a bill, that the final ])assage of one is very doubtful. ' " The great questions of difference are whetlier the election shall be had by general ticket or by distiicts ; and again, whether a plurality or majority of votes shall elect. The great object seems, with all, to be, and ought to be, to preserve the strength of the State entire, and not have onedialf of the votes for one candidate and the other half for another, and thus neutralize the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 41 voice of this, the stroiigx'st State in the Union. I :ini yet iov the Yankee system to clioose by general ticket, and require a maiority of all the votes to constitute a choice, and thus liave something or nothing. Yet, what will be the result no one can tell. " I have been well since I left home, and am as well situated an on tlio anu'iidment proposed hy Mr. Redfield, to elect by congressional districts, was as follows : Ayes — Burt, Cramer, Earll, Gardiner, Greenby, Morgan, Ogden, Redfieia, Thorn, Wlieeler— 10. JVai/s — Bowman, Bowne, Bronson, Burroughs, Chirk, Dudley, Green, Haight, Keyes, Lefferts, Livingston, Lynde, Mallory, McCall, Mclntyre, Nelson, Stranahan, Suydam, Ware, Wooster, Wright — 21. These various votes were given after full discussion and ample deliberation. There was no other mode of electing proposed, or, apparently, thought of. After so much discussion, considering the extent and intensity of the excitement in and out of the Senate, there was no expectation, or even hope, that these votes could be changed, or any new proposition presented or adopted. Harsh words, crimination and recrimination, and impeach- ment of motives had accomplished their usual results. Under such circumstances, men seldom, if ever, change their positions, or lend a willing ear to the rebukes, or even persuasions, of their adversaries. All hope of carry- ing either of the rejected propositions had disappeared. No one manifested a disposition to yield his views, as shown by his vote, to favor the change proposed by others. Each had become fixed in his opiuions, like contestants in a battle, who honestly believing themselves riglit, become more intensified the longer and fiercer it rages. To yield at all under such circumstances would create a suspicion of weakness or bad faith. No one expected another to retrace his steps, to take a new departure. Everything pointing to such a result was hopeless. It was when matters thus presented themselves that Mr. Ogden moved to commit the bill and report to the committee of the whole. Mr. Livingston thereupon moved to postpone the further consideration of the report and bill to the first Monday of November, prior to which the existing law required the Legislature to 58 Life and Times of Silas Wright. appoint electors. Before taking a vote on this motion, Mr. Wright addressed the Senate on the subject, and his remarks are thus reported in the Albany Argus : "Mr. Wkight said lie had had the honor of offering a propo- sition giving to the people the choice of electors, hy general ticket, and hy ri, majority of votes, which he had su])posed the only safe system to be adopted. He had, however, been nnfor- tunate enough not to be able to induce but three members of the Senate to think with him, after all the reasons he could offer in favor of the proposition. A proposition had then been made to make the choice by districts, whicli, after being fully and ably discussed, received but two votes. And now, said Mr. W., we have rejected the proposition to choose l)y general ticket and, phirality of votes. Divisions have been taken upon all these propositions, and the name of every member of the House stands recorded upon our journals, with his vote on each proposition distinctly given. These, Mr. W. said, were all the propositions he had heard suggested, nor had he ingenuity enougli to suggest or devise a fourth. He, therefore, despaired of even a hope that the Senate could agree upon a law, as he did not believe that members trifled witli their votes upon this important subject, or were prepared to change their names as they already stood upon the journals. These being his views, Mr. W. said he should vote for the postponement, unless he could hear some reasons to con- vince him that his conclusions were not correct. The resolution (Mr. Cramer's) just taken could not be made effective, as both the majority and plurality systems, by one of which alone it could be made so, had been deliberately rejected, and he saw no good reason for spending more time on the subject." A vote was thereupon taken on the postponement, which resulted as follows : Ayes — Messrs. Bowman, Bowne, Bronson, Dudley, Earll, Greenby, Keyes, Lefferts, Livingston, Mallory, McCall, Redfield, Stranahan, Suydam, Ware, Wooster, Wright — 17. N^ays — Messrs. Burrows, Burt, Clark, Cramer, Gardiner, Green, Haight, Lynde, Mclntyre, Morgan, Nelson, Ogden, Thorn, Wheeler— 14. Life and Times of Silas Whkhit. 59 CHAPTER XV. THE CLAMOR ABOUT THE POSTPONEMENT OF THE ELECT- ORAL VOTE The disposition made of the subject iiitensilied the excitement concerning the electoral law, and tended to strengthen the new party. The charge of forfeited pledges resonnded through the State. The seventeen senators who voted for the postponement were denounced as "infamoiis," and their names were printed in the papers of the "People's party," in broad, black letters, and those of Messrs. Wright and Mallory, who had voted for the general proposition of Mr. Cramer in favor of passing, at that session, a law giving the ^leople the choice of electors by general ticket, in very large black letters. Handbills, thus printed, were conspicuously placed in lawyers' offices, taverns, stores, groceries and other places. Mr. Wright was singled out as a special object of attack. He was hung, and often burnt in effigy ; and at Ogdensburgh he was hung and burned by the side of the village liberty-pole, on the banks of the Oswegatchie. It was claimed by his adversaries that he cheated the voters in making a pledge to secure his election, and had infa- mously violated it. In the vocabulary of liard epithets, there was scarcely one that was not applied to him. But it has been shown, and will be hereafter conclusively proved, that he made no pledge. If one had been given, as assumed, he gave no vote in violation of it. All who conversed with him understood that he was unchange- ably in favor of a change by a general ticket. To this he adhered to the last. The congressional district system 60 Life and Times of Silas Wright. commanded but two votes, in a Senate consisting of tliirty- two members. He had never said or intimated tliat lie would favor a general ticket with a plurality. No one pretended to have ever conversed with him on that sub- ject. Nor has any person claimed to have spoken with liim whether lie was in favor of electing by majority or plurality. This was left an open question, and, as such, he had the same right to decide it for himself, in favor of requiring a majority, as others had in favor of a plurality. It is not known, or believed, that one member of the Legislature entered the Capitol publicly committed on that subject. The people's party had no plank on this subject in their platform. Every member had the power to act as he chose concerning it, and was free to do so, untrammeled by party usages or resolves. Why should Mr. Weight be called upon to change his views, and leave Mr Cramer and others to enjoy and carry out theirs? They were all sworn to perform their duties according to the best of their ability. His motives were as much entitled to respect as theirs. It is undeniable — nay, it is conceded now — that the object of the Adams, Clay, Jack- son and Clinton men was to change a law of long stand- ing, to increase the chances of their favorites for the pre- sidency, and diminish those of Mr. Crawford, who, a few days before, had been nominated by a congressional caucus for the presidency. They wished to make a change to injure the competitor of their friends. They sought to deprive him of the advantage he had under the existing law, and to make a new one to accomplish that i:>ur230se. Making laws to confer special favors upon others has never been recognized as an American prin- ciple. If, as the law then stood, Mr. Crawford had an advantage, upon what principle of morals could his com- petitors claim the right to legislate him out of it 'i The Legislature had been elected to perform certain duties under the old law. They were by it required, on a cer- Life and Times of Silas Wukiht. 61 tain day, to choose electors. The majority of them were democrats, and it was the general expectation that they would conl'orhi to the usages of that party, and choose ele(;tors favorable to its candidate, who should be pre- sented in the usual way. All the candidates but one, although claiming to ])e democrats, declined to submit their pretensions to the tribunal that had selected and presented Jefferson, Madi- son and Monroe, twice each, for the suffrages of the people, as democrats. The friends of these candidates denounced Mr. Crawford, who had been selected in the usual way, and confessedly a democrat of high character, and demanded that his friends should participate in making a law to legislate his prospects and hopes away; and denounced them with great bitterness because they would not consent to do so. Their right to demand Mr. Crawford's friends should yield the point was no greater than that of his friends to require them to yield. Neither had the least possible right to insist upon such a claim. If Mr. Crawford's adversaries had changed places with his friends, would they have yielded it to liim ? As his opponents, if they possessed the vantage ground would they have yielded it to him % Why the young, quiet, inoffensive Mr. Wright should be selected as the target for the shafts of the adversaries of Mr. Crawford can only be accounted for upon the ground that falsehood and calumny had secretly done their detestable work and could continue to be more suc- cessfully employed against him than older men more extensively known. He and his friends had the same right to claim that he was honest and sincere, in what he said and did, that they and others had. His record was without spot or blemish, and his character, in all respects, above reproach. Whether he was wise in his course is not the question. Was he honest and sincere ? Did he violate a pledge % Nearly all of those who then most loudly 62 Life and Times of Silas Wright. denounced Mm as dishonest, insincere and a violater of pledges, have since discovered their error and liave given him their hearty snpport for liigher positions. Mr. Ham- mond, in tlie last volume of his Political History of New York, withdrew the charges made in his second volume, as having been founded upon erroneous information, and tills relieves him from the odium formerly heaped upon him. In this volume, at page 50, he says : " It now affords us sincere pleasure to say, that we are con- vinced that we had formed an erroneous opinion of him, and that instead of being addicted to plot and contrivance he was frank and sincere ; and although we earnestly wish, that on the subject of the electoral law, and in the attempt to clioose, or rather the effort to avoid choosing, a Senator of the United States, his con- duct liad been different, we are entirely satisfied his motives were pure and lionorable. Our reasons for arriving at this conclusion are these : Mr. Wkigut honestly and sincerely believed, whether erroneously or rightly is not now a subject of inquiry, that tlie ascendency of the democratic party in this State and nation would best secure the liberties and promote the prosperity of the people. Hence, he regarded as a dereliction of duty any con- sent to support men, or measures, the consequence of which he had reason to apprehend would produce the overthrow, or cause a diminution of that party," Mr. Hammond refers to the evidence on which he changed his opinion concerning Mr. Wright. It con- sisted mostly of conhdential letters addressed to the late Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence county, by Mr. Wright; of these he says : "These letters afford internal evidence that the sentiments they contain were dii'ectly from the heart, and evince such an entire devotedness to the cause in which he was engaged, so total an absence of all selfish considerations, and such perfect disin- terestedness, and at the same time so much frankness, candor and liberality, even toward political opijonents, that we cannot for one moment believe that, on the occasion to which we have Life and Times of Stlas Whigiit. 63 alluded, he was iiitiueiiced by any otlier motive than a desire to sustain and promote the great and paramount interests of the State and nation. His error, as a public man, if it be an error, in our judgment, arose from liis uniform devotion to the great interests of tlie l)arty to whicli he belonged, on whose ascend- ency, we have heretofore stated, he sincerely believed depended the prosperity of his country." He then indorses this remark of Grovernor Seymour : "Mr. WiMciiiT was a great man, an honest man ; if he com- mitted errors, they were induced by his devotion to his party. He was not selfish ; to him his party was everything — himself nothing." Mr. Wright fully believed, and acted on that belief, thiit if the State and Federal governments were not administered ujion purely democratic principles, which would restrain the action of those administering them within the clear boundaries of tlieii- Constitutions, both would ultinuitely fail in accomplishing the objects for which they were created. He often avowed this belief, which was the pole-star of his life. Fidelity to it ever governed all his actions. The ascendency of the demo- cratic party was the object of incessant laboi*. His own interests were ever made to yield to it, as Avill be here- after shown, on many occasions. The following lettei's to his trusted friend, Minet Jeni- son, clearly and truthfully show the motives which actu- ated him on the subject of the electoral law : Mr. Wkigiit to ]Minkt Jenison. "Albany, V2th Fehy., 1824. "Dear Sir. — I received last night, by mail, a letter from Mr. Joseph Barnes, inclosing the within draft in favor of Andrew C. Barton, which, I suj»i)ose, is intended to pay, so far, the judgment of Fisher against him. I have Avritten a receij)t on the back of the draft, whicli, if Barton will sign, you may give him the Langdon note, unless you know some good reason why it 64 Life an^d Times of Silas Wright. sliould not be given up. I wish you to see Boynton sign the receipt, and then deliver the note to him or his order. I expect Mr. Barnes is to have it, but the draft will not authorize me to deliver the note to Barnes unless Barton directs it. If you have received the money on the note before you get this, it will be the same thing as the note, and need the same disposition. " I have nothing new to write, nor do I hear from you. Where is the letter I was to receive from you, Lem. and Day? Mr. Day lost one of his sons while here, I have learned, but which one I have not heard. How come you on with county meetings and the People's business ? I have heard that rather a farcical meet- ing was held at Canton lately. Tell our democrats to look out, and not let these new-fashioned republicans get too much the stait of them. They may depend upon it, Clinton is the meaning of all this. The electoral law has not yet been acted uj^on, but will before long, probably. In the meantime, my friends must not get suspicious of Winslow and myself until we act, and then, if we do not act right, it will be their duty to tell us of it. But if, in acting, we should not please the restless Clin- tonians and old federalists, even, of our own county, I should not myself be willing to take that as an evidence that we had acted wrong. But really, my friend, I do not find that being a grave Senator makes much difference with old Silas. As near as I am able to calculate, he is about the same thing yet, — gets mad, and scolds and sicears (I must say it, for it is true) about as easy as usual, and mixes about the same quantity of laugh with it. Remember me particularly to my friends there, and break out in a letter forthwith. I will, through you, now pro- mise a letter to old Lem. and Jose Barnes. " Yours till death, "S.WRIGHT, Jk. " To Mr. M. Jenison." "Albany, Wth March, 1824. " My Dear Sir. — Yesterday the Senate again committed one of those aristocratical acts which have so often characterized that body. The electoral law was again brought up on Monday morn- ing and occupied that House until three o'clock on Wednesday, Life and Times of Silas Wright. ()5 when it was postponed until tlie first Monday of November next. The first proposition was ofi^ered by me, that the electors should be chosen by general ticket and by a majority of votes, recurring to the Legislature in case no choice was made. This was debated until three o'clock Monday afternoon, and voted down 2*7 to 4. On Tuesday morning another proposition to elect by districts was made, and occupied all that day and the next day till noon, when it was voted down 21 to 10. Then another proposition to elect by general ticket and plurality of votes was made, and after much debate was also voted down 18 to 13. These being all the modes that could possibly be suggested, and all lost by con- siderable majorities, a motion was made to postpone the subject to the first Monday of November next, which was carried 17 to 14. I am aware this result will make much noise, and I presume will excite much hard feeling against me; but I have done all in my power to procure what I believed would be a safe law, and not being able to efi^ect it, I voted to postpone the subject. The trutli is, Mr. Clinton and his friends are the most clamorous here for the alteration of the law, and have no doubt, if the law had been so altered as to let a plurality elect, he would now have been nominated as the federal candidate for president, and vio- lently supported in this State by all his old political friends. 1 have acted on this subject as I believed was for the best interests of the democratic party of this State, and by that party it will be determined whether I have acted rightly, and by that deter- mination I am willing to be judged. I want to hear from your town meeting, and expected a letter to-day. I hope the feeling with which you wrote is allayed by a successful issue of that meeting, but I hope with fear. I shall be with you, I think, is a month. Kemember me to all my friends, and when you hear the political curses which will probably fall upon mo, laugh, and say they are the pay I deserve for putting myself out of my business. Look at The Argus and you will see the report of the proceedings. " In great haste, "S. WRIGHT, Jr. " Mr. MiNET Jknison." 5 66 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. Chapter XVL FAILURE OP THE ATTEMPT TO CENSURE MR. WRIGHT FOR NOT OPPOSING MR. CRAWFORD. A feeble attempt was made to censure Mr. Weight for not opposing Mr. Crawford. Those making it soon saw that persisting in it would damage themselves. The facts, upon which, alone, it could be based and proved, neces- sarily showed that the course of those differing with him was dictated, not by a controlling desire to give the l^eople the choice of the electors, but their acts were designed to destroy the prospects of Mr. Crawford and promote those of his rivals. The attempted censure was not long persisted in. Although it had been announced at the time of his nomination, as stated by Mr. Judson elsewhere, that Mr. Crawford was not his favorite candi- date, he had stated that it did not become him to " commit himself by any pledges resulting from his own individual partialities or prejudices ;" "but should he ever be called upon to act in a piiblic capacity, he would be governed exclusively by a regard to the public interests and the support of reimblican principles." Nothing could be more frank or less selfish. From these avowals it is quite clear that he intended not to act exclusively upon his personal opinions and wishes, but to harmonize and act with his political friends in the support of democratic principles. His accusers acted upon a similar principle. They did so with reference to sustaining their respective political friends, and to support the principles which actuated them. In one thing they did not conform to the principle which controlled the action of Mr. Weight, He was ready, and did sacrifice his personal preferences Life and Times of Silas Wright. G7 and conformed to the usages of the democratic jiarty. This X\\e:y refused to do, and each struggled to secure the election of him who had won their partialities. This principle was the controlling one governing theii' action throughout the entire controversy. They spurned the usages of the democratic party, which, from its organiza- tion during John Adams' administration, and which brought Jefferson and his successors into power, and, down to 1824, had commanded the respect of all support- ing that party. They refused to be bound by them, while each presidential aspirant challenged all his com- petitors, and entered the held of combat alone on his own account, except when a common purpose occasioned a union and concert of action to crush a dreaded rival, as in the Legislature of New York. The democratic usages which overthrew John Adams, sustained Jefferson and Madison in their conflicts with the federal party, and which enabled them to strangle secession and disunion in New England, were denounced as incipient treason, organized and combined to overthrow or crush our liber- ties. The old-fashioned efforts made to concentrate, combine and secure the triumph of the democratic party were denounced and stigmatized as the invasions of "King Caucus." Great valor was displayed infighting this imaginary king, and great guns and little guns united in firing hard words at him and his friends. The " king " was killed and few mourners attended his funeral, but a numerous-headed, irresponsible successor has so con- ducted affairs, that very many of those who charged and aimed the fatal guns which brought him to the dust, have loudly repented their want of appreciation of his useful and effective qualities. They are equally anxious to dethrone his successor for conceded faults and question- able action. 68 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Whjght. Mr. Wright to Minet Jenison. "Albany, 2d Aprit, 1824. "My Dear Sir. — I can wiite you but one word. Your letter lias just come to hand, and the friendship you manifest gives me trouble. Not because I do not value it, but because the noise that is made in your neighborhood on my account gives you more trouble than it does me. I have not time to explain on the subject of the electoral law. Suffice it to say, I am satis- fied with my course, and can look any man in the face who blames me, with a knowledge of the facts, and tell him lie is not honest. That his blame is cast Avhere his conscience tells him it is not deserved, and that the clamor he creates is selfish, corrupt and wicked in its intent. I am sick of politics. Not because I have been abused by those whose abuse alone could compliment me, but because I have found no honesty in any party that pleases me. Yet I must tell you I have found some ten or twelve honest men who ai-e democrats to the bone, but who will not sell their birthright, and we have quarreled with all parties and now stand firm and undaunted on the brink of ruin, ready to sink, if fortune so determines, but not to say we have forfeited our faith and conscience to serve this man or that. My time is gone. Tell the St. Lawrence 'People' that I am ready, when the democracy of the county or the 4th Senate district ask it, to lay my honors at their feet and thank them for the use, and retire with all the content I entered on their business. This is truth, and when I get home I Avill do it, under that condition, with more joy than I shall again return to this city. But enough, I shall see you by the 20th, and in the meantime " I remain your friend, &c., "S. WRIGHT, Jr. "Mr. Minet Jenison." Life and Thies of Silas Wright. G9 Chapter XVIL CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS IN 1824. For a long series of years, the democratic members of Congress, at tlie session before a presidential election, had held a caucus to nominate candidates to be supported hj the party. At these gatherings, the merits and prospects of presidential asj)irants were publicly considered and more or less discussed, and the concentrated action given to the world. This mode of selecting and presenting candidates had been common in State Legislatures, both with Reference to presidential candidates, and those to be supported for State offices, affecting a whole State. Tennessee and Pennsylvania had thus presented the name of General Jackson. The opponents of Mr. Crawford, in Congress, refused to go into caucus and submit t\um- claims to its determination. Each candidate feared that the friends of Mr. Crawford might form a combination with those of some other candidate and thus strengthen him and thereby weaken himself. If there should be no caucus no such purpose could be accomplished. The refusal to go into caucus, according to the usages of the party, was considered by the friends of Mr. Crawford as an act of bad faitli. They, however, vainly hoped that refractory members enough would attend to make [i majority if a meeting should be called. A notice was issued, calling one at the Capitol on the 14th of February, 1824. There were then 262 Senators and Members in Congress. Of these, sixty-six attended the meeting. Benjamin Ruggles, a Senator from Ohio, was chairman, and El a Collins, of New York, secretary. William H. Crawford was unanimously nominated for President and 70 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Albert Gallatin for Yice-President. Mr. Wright felt bound by this nomination, thus made in conformity with the usages of the democratic party. He believed it his duty to conform to the action of his political friends, taken in the ordinary way. Whatever his personal pre- ferences might be, he deemed it right to surrender and bury them, and sustain the nomination of his party, whether wisely or unwisely made. He did not attempt to set up his individual opinion against those of his friends, who, in the usual way, iiad presented candidates and had invited the democratic party to support them. From this time he was considered a supporter of Mr. Crawford, and went with the friends of that gentleman when theii- measures did not conflict with the views he had so often and frankly avowed on the electoral law. The friends of Mr. Crawford insisted that the friends of his competitors had manifested great unfairness, in refusing to conform to the usages of the democratic party to which they claimed to belong, by declining to go into caucus and submit the pretensions of all the candidates to the friends of all, and to allow them to select a com- mon standard bearer for the whole party. A candidate thus selected would be sure to be elected, as the old fed- eral party had lost its organization and had been dis- banded. The Crawford men claimed that they were acting strictly within the recognized usages of the demo- cratic party, and that their opponents were setting them at defiance, breaking up its organization and endangering its ascendency. They insisted that those who would not adhere to its usages were not, at heart, true democrats, and that those who sought to deprive, by legislation, a democratic candidate of the advantages which existing laws gave him, and to confer them upon those who refused to be bound by the time-lionored usages of the party, had no claims upon them for assistance. They said that those who thus set the usages of the party at defiance had no Life and Times of Silas Wright. 71 claims upon them for help or forbearance, and that, to a considerable extent, they were leagned with and were acting in subserviency with the old federalists. The times were thus made vocal with crimination and recrimination. During all this time the people's party, as they called themselves in New York, was increasing in numbers, without openly avowing any preference for any one of the presidential aspirants, but were open in their hostility to Mr. Crawford, although they professed to be, in fact, democrats in principle. They insisted that their contro- versy was exclusively concerning choosing electors. The sequel will show otherwise, or that their purposes were changed, as those of political men sometimes are. 72 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XVIII. REMOVAL OF DE WITT CLINTON AS CANAL COMMISSIONER. Prior to this removal, tlie two political parties in the State were respectively christened, by their adversaries, as "Bucktails" and "Clintonians," the former from a badge worn by the members of the Tammany Society in their caps, and the latter for their support of Mr. Clinton. Matters connected with the formation of the new Consti- tution, in 1821, had lowered the ascendency of Mr. Clin- ton's star, and resulted in the election of Governor Yates, in 1822, without opposition. But he still had numerous and powerful friends, who stood ready to serve him. Most of these hoped that a law choosing electors by general ticket and plurality would be passed, under which he might, amid the numerous candidates, secure a plurality of votes. Although these would not elect him, they would indicate his standing and influence in the State, and might lead to important and significant consequences. His friends were bitterly opposed to Mr, Crawford, and acted in concert with those of his competitors. Mr. Crawford's friends charged them with forming a coalition witli \A\q people's party to defeat him. They sought to make them openly support Mr. Clinton, or to cause a breach between them and his friends. In the former event it was expected to induce those Bucktails who were opposing Mr, Crawford to leave the people's party and join the friends of the latter, which woukl materially improve his prospects. If it produced a division between the Clintonians and people's party, the same object would be accomplished. The plan was plausible, being based upon the principle of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 73 divide and conquer. The division might be so extensive as to fully accomplish the desired result. It might be tlie means of defeating the enemies of Mr. Crawford, and giving him the thirty-six electoral votes of the State. The means of accomplishing this purpose was to remove Mr. Clinton from the office of Canal Commissioner, on political grounds, as Mr. Van Buren had been removed from the office of Attorney-Greneral, and as numerous other officers, high and low, had been removed by Mr. Clinton and his friends. The principle of action was not new, but had been long practiced upon in both the State and Federal governments. It has since been, and now is, practiced daily by both. On the last day of the session, a resolution was offered in the Senate, by Mr. Bowman, to remove Mr. Clinton from the office of Canal Conindssioner. The vote was immediately taken, with- out debate, and the question carried by the following vote : Ayes — Bowman, Bowne, Bronson, Burt, Dudley, Eavll, Green, Greenly, Haiglit, Keyes, Livingston, Mallory, McCall, Redtield, Stranahan, Thorn, Ward, Wheeler, Wooster, Wright — 20. Nays — Cramer, Mclntyre, Morgan — 3. In the Assembly it was concurred in by a vote of sixty - four to thirty- four, — Messrs. Wheaton, Tallmadge and others of the people's party voting in the affirmative. Notwithstanding the promising appearances of this movement, it failed to accomplish the purpose designed, to any considerable extent. It introduced a new element into the political complications in the State, which had been an enigma which few understood, and especially those residing at a distance. Out of this a new and popular side-issue was adroitly framed, which was managed with dexterity and skill. On the trial it was made to swallow up all others presented by Mr. Crawford's friends, however clear they might be in his 74 Life and Times of Silas Weight. favor. While it served to kill off some of tlie people's party who voted for the resolution, it enabled Mr. Clinton's friends to raise the cry of persecution. They insisted that he was a martyr, struck down by political bludgeons in the hands of wicked men. They claimed that he had been fiendishly pursued, when he was gratuitously serving the State in the completion of the great works of internal im^Drovement, of which his friends insisted he was the father. He was nominated and elected Governor by an immense majority, thus proving that his friends and the ]3eople' s party had coalesced, as the friends of Mr. Crawford had charged. The friends of Mr. Clinton denounced Mr. Wright for voting for his removal, and declared that it could neither be Justified nor palliated. They seemed to forget that it was made distinctly upon political grounds, and upon a principle that Mr. Clinton had often acted upon, and which they had justified. This principle is as old and wide-spread as political parties. Abraham Van Yecliten and Thomas Addis Emniett, as well as Martin Van Buren, had been removed from the office of Attorney- General. Rutgers Van Rensselaer and John Van Ness Yates had been displaced as Secretaries of State. A host of others had been removed in the same way. No party has ever existed, in this country, which has not displaced adver- saries and ajDpointed friends. Those who removed Mr. Clinton believed that he was their political adversary. The event proved that such belief was well founded. He harmonized with their enemies, and became their stan- dard bearer. It was well known that the removal was not made at all on personal grounds. No imputations were made upon him personally, and the removal did not imply any. It was evidence of but one thing — that, as political men, those who removed him deemed him a political enemy, whom they ought to remove purely upon political grounds, which would do him no injury as a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 75 citizen. It was doing by him as lie liad done by others, and as he wonld do by them if he had the power. His friends claimed that his public services had been so great that he should be exempt from the application which applied to other party men, which his adversaries denied. T. ey claimed that among political men the same rule should apply to all, and that his personal merit, however great, should not create an exception in his favor. They affirmed that they were not bound to search out the evi- dence of an officer's services and determine tlie extent of services which should create the exception, and that this had never been done by any party, but that the issue was not personal, but merely political, and had ever been so in such cases. Such were the grounds upon which Mr. Wright acted, and justified what he did. He went with his political friends, whose wisdom, experience and patriotism he respected, although the result proved that they had not accurately calculated the consequejice of their acts, at least to a great extent. That he acted from honest motives, with the intention of promoting the suc- cess of democratic principles, is now almost universally admitted. No selfish motive entered into the act, as is clear from the fact that in no way could he derive any personal advantage from it. Mr. Hammond, in his History, says : "In the Assem- bly, as well as in the Senate, nearly all the members belonging to the people' s party, who were supporters of Mr. Adams, voted for the resolution, while some of the Crawford men voted against it." The motives of the Adams men in this vote are not disclosed. It is probable that the dissenting Crawford men deemed the measure unwise and impolitic. On returning home, Mr. Wright found many of those who promoted his election dissatisfied. But nearly all the democracy approved his acts. In time the entire demo- cratic party and many others gave him their confidence 76 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and became his admirers and supporters. Even many of the leaders and most ardent of the people's party became his friends, and defended and justified his course upon the grounds above suggested. His vote for Governor is confirmatory evidence of the correctness of these con- clusions. His honor, and the uprightness of his inten- tions, his frankness and sincerity, were then proverbial. On these subjects he was then, as liis memory to this day is, cherished and made a common standard of comparison. To say of a man that he is "as honest, upright, frank and sincere as Silas Wright," is deemed tlie strongest affirmation that can be made in his favor. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 77 Chapter XIX. LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS, NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. On the 3d of April, 1824, a legislative caucus was held to nominate candidates for Governor and Lieutenant- Governor. Gov. Yates and Col. Samuel Young were the leading candidates. Mr. Wright took ground in favor of the renomination of Gov. Yates. He and Mr, Flagg insisted that if he had erred, it was through the advice of the party to which he belonged, and that he ought not to be sacrificed for acting with his i^arty. On the other hand. Col. Young was a favorite of the people's party, and they had concerted measures for his nomination, and for a new paper in Albany to support him. Caucuses were held on the subject, at which Messrs. Cramer, Wheaton and Monell attended. At one of these, it was finally resolved to call a State convention of dele- gates to nominate him. But this, though suspected, was not known at the time of this legislative caucus, and Col. Young was nominated by a small majority. The chagrin of Gov. Yates at his defeat was exceedingly great, and is supposed to have induced him to take the course he sub- sequently pursued during the residue of his official term. The legislative caucus of the people's party resulted in calling a State convention of delegates, on the 21st of September, at Utica, to make nominations for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. Gov. Yates was induced to issue a jjroclamation on the second of June, convening the Legislature on the second of August, under this clause in the State Constitution, "The Governor shall have power to convene the Legisla- 78 Life and Times of Silas Whight. t^^re on extraordinary occasions." He stated, in liis proclamation, that Congress had made no provision for clianging the mode of selecting the electors, and added that "the ^^eople were jnstly alarmed with the apprehen- sion that their undoubted right of choosing the electors of President and Vice-President would be withheld from them." It was charged, and believed at the time, that the Governor took this extraordinary step with the hope of securing a nomination from the people's convention, thereafter to be held. If this was so, he was doomed to a second disappointment on the subject of his nomination. He had no chance whatever in that convention. This calling the Legislature together, under the circumstances, lost him the conhdence of those who had, in the legisla- tive caucus, manfully sustained him. These things ended his official life. When the Legislature convened, on the second of August, they resolved that nothing had occurred since the previous adjournment authorizing the Governor to call an extra session, and adjourned to meet according to law. Mr. Wkight voted for these resolutions, upon the ground that, the Legislature having just considered and acted upon the only question presented by the Governor in his proclamation and message, that subject could not possibly, so soon thereafter, become an " extra- ordinary occasion," within the meaning of the Constitu- tion, so as to authorize convening the two Houses. This view was then and ever since has been deemed the true one. This proclamation, session and adjournment served only to increase the agitation, and inspire active partisans with increased zeal and greater activity. The war of words became intensely absorbing and excessively bitter. The charges of violated pledges and rights with- held from the people soon gave place to charges of bargain and corruption in the election of President by the House of Representatives, the accusations coming freely, and Life and Times of Silas Wrkuit. 79 mainly from the other side ; the accused, in turn, becom- ing the accusers. At the convention of the people' s party, Mr. Tallmadge, who had expected the nomination for Governor, was defeated, and Mr. Clinton nominated by a very large majority. It is not remembered that Mr. Clinton openly avowed his preference for eithei- presidential candidate, although he was then really and soon afterwards was known as a supporter of Gen. Jackson. Col. Young, in a published letter, declared that Mr. Clay was his lirst choice, and, in substance, that he disa])proved of the course of those who were cliarged as hostile to a change of the electoral law ; which gave great offense to many, and to some who helped nominate him, and lost him the active support of many Crawford men. Mr. Clinton was elected by a majority of 16,906 votes. Mr. Wright supported Col. Young, in good faith, as the democratic candidate. He believed, however, that he had, by his letters and conversation concerning the elec- toral law and the candidates for the presidency, damaged his support, if he did not thereby occasion his own defeat. Mr. Wright, and many others, doubtless, felt the sting of Ids shrinking from the responsibility of the course of many who participated in liis nomination. They also thought that, having been nominated by a State legisla- tive caucus, he ought, in good ftiith, to have supported the candidate selected by a national legislative caucus, and that deserting it and declaring for Mr. Clay was an act of bad faith to the democratic party. Mr. Wright ever attributed these acts of Col. Young to his conforming to the advice of his friend, Mr. Cramer, instead of follow- ing the dictates of his own judgment, which was honest and usually very sound. 80 Life and Times of Silas Wbight. Chapter XX. APPOINTING ELECTORS FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE- PRESIDENT. On the 2d of November, 1824, the Legislature convened, according to law, to choose presidential electors. In the Senate, the Clay and Adams tickets each received seven votes, and the Crawford ticket seventeen. In the House, the Clay ticket received thirty-two votes, the Crawford ticket forty-three, and tlie Adams ticket fifty. The Clay and Adams men agreed upon a compromise, and electors were nominated accordingly ; but upon joint ballot of the two Houses, owing to blank votes, only thirty-two of them were elected. Upon a second ballot, four Crawford men were chosen. It was alleged that these four were elected by the aid of Adams men. Their election caused Mr. Crawford to be one of the three highest from whom the House of Representatives had to choose, and pre- vented Mr. Clay being one of the three. It was then well understood that the election would go into the House, where Mr. Clay presided as Speaker, and was deemed all-powerful. Hence the belief that the Adams men, by design, deprived Mr. Clay of the means of becoming a competitor in the House. No other explanation has been given. Mr. Weight voted for the Crawford electors. Aside from considering himself bound by his nomination by tiie congressional caucus, the course of events subse- quently to his entering the Senate had induced him to distrust all the other candidates, except Gren. Jackson, who had no oi'ganized party in the State, or show of strength in the Legislature,— Mr. Wheeler, of the Assem- Life and Times of Silas Winuirr. 81 bly, being his only avowed supporter in it. When the electors cast their votes for President, Mr. Pierre A. Bar- ker, who was chosen as an Adams man, cast his for the General. Twenty-six votes were cast for Mr. Adams and four for Mr. Clay. For Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun received twenty-nine, and Nathan Sanford seven. Thus ended the great contest in New York. 6 . 82 ^li^^ ^ND Times of Silas Wright, Chapter XXI. CHANGING THE ELECTORAL LAW. At tlie November session of the Legislature a law was passed concerning clioosing electors, submitting to the people the question as to how the choice should be made. It provided for ballot-boxes at the next general election, in which the voter might deposit a ballot upon which the mode of his choice should be inscribed. It miglit be for chosing "by districts," "general ticket and plurality," or "general ticket and majority." Without waiting for the advice of the people, on the IStli of March, 1825, the new Legislature passed an act for electing, by " districts," as many electors as the State might be entitled to members in the House of Represen- tatives, and these, when assembled to vote for President and Vice-President, to choose two electors to correspond witli the two Senators to which the State was entitled, and to fill any vacancies which might then exist. This act was not supported by Mr. Weight. Under this law the people elected, in 1828, thirty-four Presidential electors, eighteen in favor of Gen. Jackson, and six- teen for Mr. Adams. Thus, the people of the whole State gave but two effective votes. The eighteen Jackson electors chose two to represent the senatorial vote, so that the vote of the State was twenty for Gen. Jackson and sixteen for Mr. Adams. In effect, N^ew York was dwarfed down to the size of Rhode Island, and less than New Jersey. Results like this had been anticipated by Mr. Weight, and urged as a reason why the district system should not be adopted. The people of the State thereupon took the same view. They felt humiliated to Life and Times of Silas Wrkiut. S^i see the power of the State thus thrown away and her importance in a presidential election reduced to substan- tially nothing. Those who had felt proud of New York and gloried in her power and influence in national elec- tions, at once abandoned the district system, and came out in favor of a general ticket and plurality. On the IStli of April, 1829, the Legislature passed a law repeal- ing the district system, and adopting that of a general ticket for the whole State, a plurality making a choice, which law still exists. Although still preferring the nuijority system, Mr. Weight, not then in the Senate, yielded his private opinion and concurred with his friends and the public generally, in this action of the Legislature. Mr. Weight to Minet Jenison. "Weybridge, Vt., Bee. 9, 1824. " My Dear Sir. — Tlie traveling is so bad and the time to tlic annual session so short, that I have given up the expectation of returning home this vacation The following is a copy of the receipt I have from Mrs. Smith Willard : "'Received, Albany November 27, 1824, of S. Wright, Jr., fifty-six dollars fifty cents, to be applied on the account of Joseph Ames, and Ames, Walker & Adams. "(Signed) 'SMITH WILLARD.' " This was the sum I found on my memorandum, to be paid on the loth of December. We adjourned. Soon after I received my pay, and immediately });iid the money. It was more than enough to balance the account of Ames, individually, and the residue was applied on the account of the old firm of Ames, Walker & Adams. Mr. Ames will therefore pay to Mr. Hasbrouck, on my land contract, $56.50, as of the 2'7th November, and we shall be even. The first payment on the contract falls due on the first January next, and I wish this payment made by that time. I have nothing new to write. Our calculations as to the election were not more disappointed than those of wiser men and more inte- rested politicians. The State has taken a kind of political somer- 84 Lit'E AND Times of Silas W hi get. set, which I think will be tiiiowii buck next year. I have nothing new to write, but what the newspapers of the clay have taken to you. Our last session has Ixen interspersed with stoims and sun- shine like the others. I send you a copy of our electoral [law], together with the report of the committee on that subject, of which I had the honor to be a member. " In confidence I inform you that my friend Earll, the Onondaga Chief, laid the plan and drew the report, etc. The opposition curse the plan and call it ours ; say we had better belong to another seve}iteen, etc., etc. We think the plan rather cunning, as it is sound in principle, ^J)eq/>Z«^6V< in its character, and furnishes a safe retreat for the seventeen. All our friends must take at once the district ground, as that is the democratic ground beyond all question. You will think this is contrary to my ground of last winter. It is, lint it is more democratic, and the keeping of the vote of the States together anyway, when dishonest men try to divide it, is impracticable. On the district ground we shall, at the ballot-boxes, Avhip the Clintonians, as they will take the general ticket plurality g^voxxnd. I send you a copy of the Chemi- cal Bardv evidence. The report of the committee, you have in I'he Argus. Read them together, and let them circulate. They will go to prove the characters of some men what I have declared them to be. After this document has been read by our friends in Canton, I wish you to send it to Allen for his reading, but get it back and keep it safe. Give my resj^ects to all, particularly to Messrs. Sackrider &, Barnes, and tell them to read this treatise on chemistry. Stoors will also read it, I think. " In haste, your friend, "S. WRIGHT, Jr. "Mr. MiNET Jenison." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 85 Chapter XXII. SUCCESSOR OF IIUFUS KING. The term of Rufiis King, wliose long and successful public service is so well known, was to expire on the 3d of March, 1825. His great age and enfeebled health induced him to decline a re-election. The first day of February was the time fixed by law for the appointment of a suc- cessor. The people' s party and Clintonians had elected a large majority to the Assembly. Ambrose Spencer, a distinguished jurist, was their first choice to succeed Mr. King, and tliey accordingly nominated liini. In the Senate the Lieutenant-Governor, who was the presiding officer, and Senators Ogden, Burrows, Gardiner and others, as well as the friends of Mr. Crawford, were oj)posed to his election. Ten Senators nominated Mr. Spencer. James Tallmadge, Edward P. Livingston, Vic- tory Birdseye, Samuel Young and John W. Taylor, received two nominations each ; Mr. Wright nominating Victory Birdseye. Eleven other Senators nominated each a sej)arate candidate. No one had a majority, A reso- lution was then offered declaring Mr. Spencer duly nomi- nated, but failed, eleven to twenty. Similar resolutions, declaring James Tallmadge and Col. Young respectively nominated, were ofl'ered, but laid on the table. One nominating John W. Taylor was lost, nine to twenty-two. The Senate then adjourned. As no one had a majority, the two Houses could not meet and compare nominations, and, if they did not agree, elect by joint ballot. The election failed, as the voting could not be again commenced on another day without a change of the law. 85 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Although it was conceded that the Senate was legally authorized to scatter its vote so as not to make a nomina- tion, the twenty-one Senators who did not so act as to concentrate their nomination, to the end that the two Houses could meet and act by joint ballot, were severely censured by the Clintonians and people's party gener- ally. Mr. Jenkins, in his biography of Mr. Weight, gives the probable causes of Mr, Spencer's defeat as follows : " The Crawford men opposed him because he was friendly to Mr. Adams. The adherents of CTen. Tallmadge imagined that he could be appointed by a joint resohition, in case no election was made in the customary manner ; a portion of the Adams men would not concur in any tiling approved by Gov. Clin- ton; and another portion, headed by Thurlow Weed, of Monroe county, also rejoiced at his defeat, because they hoped it might lead to the selection of Albert H. Tracy, of Buffalo. Resolutions were subsequently passed in the Senate, with the vote of Mr. Weight, nominating Gen. Tallmadge and Mr. Tracy. The House refused to concur, on the ground that that mode of appointment was unknown to the laws of the State ; l)ut it is not unlikely that their legal scruples would never been heard of, had the name of Judge Spencer been inserted in one of the resolu- tions. 'At the time, Mr. Wkight and his friends insisted that the majority of the people were opposed to the appointment of Judge Spencer. The result of the fall election showed that this was the case; and it is some little gratification to know that the electors of the State ratified, in the end, the conduct of their Senators in 1825." Notwithstanding his great learning and superior ability as a Jurist, Judge Spencer, it is alleged, was never person- ally popular. He was considered a severe politician, somewhat ar^^-ogant and overbearing in his manners, and resentful and vindictive in his dislikes. He had been a rigid democrat, but had left his old friends and joined Life and Times of Silas Wright. 87 theii' adversaries, and manifested the usual zeal of new converts. In the convention for revising the Constitu- tion, he sought to retain the old Council of Revision and Appointment, composed of the judges of the Supreme Court, where he presided, and of the Chancellor, and had there fought for the retention of the old odious pro- perty qualification, to entitle a citizen to vote for Gover- nor and Senators. Throughout that convention he had acted with Kent, Van Yechten, and other leaders of the federal party. At that time New York was really demo- cratic at the core, as the next general election fully demonstrated. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that Mr. Wright and those who acted with him assumed, and acted upon the assumption, that the j)eople did not wish Mr. Spencer to be made United States Sena- tor, which would enable him to control j)olitical affairs in the State, especially in national matters, and to gratify his resentments and disposition to rule in things both per- sonal and political. They believed that tlie majority of the people would approve their resorting to all lawful means, as legislative bodies daily do to stave off ques- tions and kill bills, to defeat a candidate against whom so many objections were raised and sustained by proof. The fall elections of that year showed that he had rightly anticipated the wishes of the people. After the people spoke, Mr. Spencer was not heard of. In the next Legis- lature — the political character of the Assembly having been changed — the accomplished Nathan Sairford, tlien Chancellor, was almost unanimously elected to the United States Senate, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the expiration of the term of the venerable and patriotic Rufus King, whom Mr. Adams soon after sent to England as minister. Mr. Wright voted for Mr. Sanford, 88 Ltfe and Times of Silas Wright. Mr. Wright to Minet Jenison. "Albany, M March, 1825. " My Dear Sir. — You will not be surprised when I tell you that your letter did not reach me until I had spoken hard things against you for your silence. The liberality with which you account, in this letter, induces me to fear that you must have troubled your own friends to have made out the money. As to politics, I am not surprised at your account. I was much disap- pointed in the result of the election, as well in the State as in our county, but, after learning the result, I expected to hear that our friends at Canton were as hidden and in silence. As to them, I will now say to you this State, and nearly this Union, is in a perfect state of chaos. Adams is President, and, although I was rather pleased than otherwise with the result, there is much reason to believe that his administration will be anything hut republican. He seems determined to unite all interests in his (jabinet, seeming to think that he shall thus unite all j^arties in his favor. But Mr. Adams ought to be old enough to know that it is easier to desexwe a man's friendship tlian to buy it, and that it is not always the most prudent general who enlists the soldiers of an enemy rather than fight them. It is true, in the organiza- tion of a new cabinet, Mr. Adams must have united some one of the different interests with his. This might have been easily done, but all can never be united, and, by putting all into the cabinet, he will keep them all alive, and, however they may differ among themselves, they will all ascree in this one thing of putting him out of the way at the end of four years. I am soi-i-y to say that the prospect now is, that he will select very weak individuals from the several parties. All things here, and all jiarties I may say here too, are waiting to determine whether they are to support or oppose the national administration. Mr. Clinton, you will have seen, has been offered the appointment of minister to London. It is now said he will refuse the appointment and declare war against Adams ; but that is uncertain yet. That Mr. Adams should have taken this man to his bosom and confidence, was, to me, the unkindest cut of all. I confess to you I am heartily sick of politics, but have not yet entii'ely concluded to Life and Tines of Silas Wright. 89 relinquish the little notion I formerly had of lieing an honest man. I therefore intend to do my duty, to the best of my ability, while I remain in my present high station, without much refer- ence, as I now feel, to future popularity, but with the utmost care, at all times, to defeat and thwart the intentions of the political jugglers that are so plenty in this State. In doing this I shall necessarily incur tlie ill-will or abuse of the same kind of men at liome. But be it so. If I can gratify no other passion, I can and will gratify my indignation on these political pharisees. And I will engage that, while I hold the purse-strings, these fel- lows get few fat offices with my consent. " Where is my friend Allen ? I fear that the result of the elec- tion has blown him off the coast. I have not heard a word from him since I left St. Lawrence. Our friend, V. D. H.,* gets along but badly, as far as I can leai-ii, with his canal, and you know, since the use they made of it at the last election, I must feci dis- posed to help him along as fast as possible, lie has been in New York most of the time of the session, but I believe he kee])s one printing press constantly going here, for his productions, at h/'s oion expense. Write often and I will answer as usual. " Sincerely yours, "S. WRIGHT, Ju. "Mr. MiNBT Jenison." Mr. Wright to Parley Keyes, one of the Celebrated Seventeen Senators. " Canton, 29th JVov., 1825. "My Dear Stu. — I write for tlu' purpose of in([uiring of you whether Ambrose Spencer is a Senator from this State, in the Congress of the United States. If you are able to answer the question, I wish you would communicate the information to the Hon. John C. Spencer, of Ontario county, in this State, who pro- bably has some anxiety to know. I have looked in my next year's almanac, and cannot find his name among the list. It * Jacob A. Van Den Heuvel, in the Assembly from St. Lawrence, elected with tlie expectation that lie would secure the construction of a canal from Ogdoiisburgh to Lake Champlaiii. 90 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Spencer is 7iot senator, what are the prospects of the Buchtail candidate., General T. ? Again ; if four adjoining counties have this year elected all Bucktail members to the Assembly, and they form our congressional district, will they elect federal congress- man next year ? But, seriously, my friend, were ever men so badly whipped as the allies in this State, this year ; and was ever an event so fortunate ? The blood of the martyrs may now be truly said to be the seed of the Church., and the Magnus must wish the d 1 had tlie memories of his darling people. I know what the feelings of yourself and our Lewis friends are, as to our member elect,* and you know what my fears are. But suffice it to say that he was the only man we could have elected, and still an election so nearly upon old party grounds has not been known here for ten years. Tlie rest of our ticket was undoubted, and we elect the whole, except our poor friend Hitchcock, who is lost by the d d treachery of Raymond, our late high-minded sheriff. He nominated himself for clerk, and made too strong a diversion from Hitchcock. " Our friend Danvers, too, in Washington county, is lost, and is now candidate for clerk of the Assembly, with Young, etc., to support him. He wishes me to write you on the subject, and request you, if consistent, to give him a lift. That he is perfectly competent, you will not doubt ; that he is a true and stern demo- crat, we know ; and I have heard of no candidate I Avould feel so strongly interested for. He says he will not conflict with Liv- ingston, if he is a candidate, but he thinks he will not be. If you have no other candidate you prefer, I hope you will extend your favor to him. Please let me hear from you, and say when you will be at Denmark, on your way down, and I will meet you there. I now intend to be there on the twenty-third or twenty- fourth. Do not fail to let me know. " Truly, your obedient servant, "SILAS WRIGHT, Jk. "Hon. Parley Keyes." * Baron S. Doty, formerly from Lewis county. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 91 CHAPTER XXIIL AMENDING THE STATE CONSTITUTION. By the Constitution of 1821, the right of suffrage was limited to those who paid taxes, performed duty in the militia, or served in fire companies. Justices of the peace were appointed by the judges of the county courts and boards of supervisors. These provisions were the subject of loud and extensive complaint. The Legislature of 1825 proposed amendments to the Constitution on these subjects, which were agreed to by two thirds of that of 1826, and ratified at the N ovember election. Under these, citizenship and residence, except as to colored people, who were required to own real estate to the amount of $250, were the only conditions of voting. Justices of the peace were made elective, like other town officers. These changes received the support of Mr. Wright, on the ground that they were salutary improvements, and much preferable and more democratic than the old provisions. 1)2 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XXIV. STATE BANK CHARTERS. The powers of aggregated capital, in the form of banks, with tlie privilege of issuing a paper currency, was felt in New York at an early day. As places of discount and deposit, banks are of great convenience to those engaged in trade and commerce, by enabling them to anticipate the payment of good business paper. The holder sells, the bank buys, and, if the maker is good and performs his duty, the transaction is substantially ended when it is begun. Making paper to sell is simply a means of borrowing, and is essentially different from anticipating existing means. New York bank charters not only authorized loaning the capital paid in, but lend- ing their credit, in the form of bills, to once and a lialf that sum. A bank having $100,000 capital could loan, including its own bills, $250,000. This capacity of self- expansion made bank stock a favorite investment. Hence, the Legislature was annually besieged by appli- cants for new charters. Had banking been left free, like other business, the inducements to enter into it would have been limited and controlled by competition. But, in 1804, when there were but six banks in the State — three in New York, one in Albany, one in Hudson and one at Waterf ord, or near there — the power of combined capital was concentrated upon the Legislature, which passed the "restraining act," which gave the incorporated banks a monopoly of discounting notes. It made it a penal offense to contribute capital to any company or associa- tion to be used in making discounts, or transacting any other business wliich banks usually transact, or to receive Life a.\d Times of Silas Wrkiiit. 9^3 moiie}' on deposit, and declared all notes and secnrities received in sucli business to be void. Tins impolitic and anti-democratic law, Mr. \i\i\ Baren, when in the State Senate, in 1814, sought to repeal. This act gave the banks a monopoly of tlie business in which they were engaged, and by concentrating their strength in its favor they were enabled to prevent its repeal until the adopti(jn of t'he free banking system in 1887. It was this law which caused bank charters to be sought by every means at the hands of the Legislature. The broader the powers conferred the more valuable the charter. Skillful and unscrupulous men were often thrown into the Legisla- ture to promote schemes for securing bank charters. As a member of Assembl}^ fiom the city of New York, Aaron Burr had carried through it the Manhattan Baidv, so disguised as to be unknown, in a l^ill for " supplying the city of New York with pure and wholesome water." Dilax)idated politicians sold their services and professed influence as lobbyists, for which they were often liberally rewarded when their labors proved successful. AVliile the restraining law existed, the stock of banks newly chartered would be above par, and could be sold at a large profit. These stocks were distributed by commis- sioners named in the charters, thus enabling them to become the mediums of rewarding, through advantageous sales, those who were promised rewards for votes and influence. These distributions were usually so made as not to disclose the real beneficiary. On some occasions the applicants for charters raised funds for distribution among members and lobby agents, but to be reimbursed from the advance of stocks controled by the managers. Offices in and the management of a new bank were among the means of rewarding those who had lent valuable assistance in obtaining charters. Securing such charters became a means of corrupting the Legislature, and of rewarding those who were the paid agents of corruption. 94 Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. Applicants for bank charters commenced swarming around the Legislature as early as 18-28-24. The pressure became intense in 1825, when there were some forty applications for new bank charters. The appetite for bank charters increased by being fed. Mr. Wright never voted for a bank charter. He was looked upon as the leader of those opposed to increasing their num- ber. Great efforts were made to induce him to yield his opposition, but all to no effect. The gratification of ambition, cupidity and vanity were held out without success, but tending to increase his unyielding opposi- tion. A distinguished constituent of his, who had been in Congress, and then held a high federal office, was selected to approach him. The answer which he received was a combination of reason, scorn and contempt, which withered him, and forever closed his mouth on the sub- ject. His contingent fee for securing an important vote was more than lost, Mr. Wright was not communica- tive on the subject. The occupant of an adjoining room described it as one of the most remarkable scenes which ever occurred. Mr. Wright not only denmmced the indignity and insult of gray hairs seeking to corrupt and destroy one, of half the tempter's years — to disgrace his professions of democracy and bring odium upon the democratic party, and administered a keen rebuke to the crawding miscreant who had sold himself, and who professed to make merchandise of the votes of others, and all with a stinging contempt without a parallel. The intruder quailed under the eye of insulted integrity and independence, and sought forgetfulness where wa-ong- doers never find it — in the wine-cup. Mr. Hammond says : "Mr. Wright took a firm stand against the extension of exclusive privileges, and main- tained it resolutely, manger the blandishments of politi- cal friends and the threats of opponents. During that session, sixteen bank charters passed the Assembly, and LlfE AND TlUKS OF Si LAS WliiatlT. 95 fourteen were originally introduced into tlie Senate, which passed to a third reading. The greater part of these failed of obtaining a constitutional vote in the Senate ; and we have no doubt that that failure was, in most cases, produced by the personal efforts and influence of Mr. Wright." The Legislature had been in session but a few days before more than forty applications for new banks were presented and pressed by applicants, and sagacious and skillful agents. The pressure upon Mr. Wright was very great. Its effect upon liim is shown in the following- anecdote related by Mr. Hammond. "To show with what painful anxiety this combination of bank applicants bore upon the mind of Mr. Weight, we l^eg leave to relate an anecdote communicated to the author by a gentleman who lodged in the same room with Mr. Wkigiit, during the winter of 1825. Mr. Wright was occasionally subject to restless nights, or rather his sleep was sometimes unquiet. One night, which succeeded a day when some of the bank bills had been discussed in the Senate, after Mr. WiinaiT had been asleep some time, hefeprung from liis bed to the floor, being still asleep, and exclaimed, Avith a loud voice, 'My God! the combination is too strong, — every bank will pass.' When he awoke, it was with great difficulty that his nervous system could be so far quieted as to enable him to obtain any more rest that night." Nothing could show more conclusivel}^ how deeply he felt the force of the principles which were involved and he was seeking to defend. There are few upon whom the subject of their official duties makes so deep an impression. The case of Jasper Ward, a Senator from the first dis- trict, became the subject of great interest. He was accused of corrupt conduct, as a Senator, in the passage of an amendment to the Chatham insurance act, and an act incorporating the ^Etna Insurance Company, thus conferring special legislative favors like bank charters. 96 Life and Times op Silas Weight. On the first day of the session of 1825, Mr. Ward informed the Senate tliat he had been accused of improper conduct in relation to these acts, and demanded, at the hands of the Senate, an investigation in relation to the charges. His communication was referred to a select committee consisting of Messrs Weight, Spencer, Bur- rows, McCall and Haight. Four days afterwards Mr. WriCtHT offered the follow- ing resolution, which was adopted : " Resoloed, That the committee to whom was referred the comraunication of Jasper Ward, made to the Senate on the third instant, he instructed to inquire into the truth of the charges contained in the New York American and New York Evening Post, sometime during the month of July or August last, in rehi- tion to the conduct of Jasper Ward in eifecting the passage of an amendment to the act incorporating the Chatham Fire Insur- ance Company, and the passage of the act incorporating the ^Etiui Fire Company, and into otlier improper conduct in the passage of either of said bills, in which the said Jasper Ward shall appear to liave been directly or indirectly concerned." The investigation of the committee was laborious and thorough. The testimony was all taken down minutely by Mr. Wiik^ht, with his own hand, and the report was drawn by him. The depositions and report occupy seventy large folio pages in the Senate Journal. The report states that several of the charges made were wholly unsustained by proof. But the evidence authorized Mr. Wright, as chairman of the committee, on the 28th of February, to offer the following resolution : " Resolved, That the conduct of Jasper Ward, a Senator from the first district, and the means used by him in obtaining the passage through the Legislature of the act entitled 'An act to amend the Chatham Fire Insurance Company,' and also his con- duct and the means used by him in obtaining the passage of ' An act to incorporate the vEtna Fire Insurance Company of New York,' were a violation of his duties as a Senator, affording a Life and Times uf tSiLAS Wright. 97 pernicious and dangerous example, tending to corrupt the public morals, and to impair the public confidence in the integrity of the Legislature, and that his conduct in these respects deserves and should receive severe reprehension ; therefore, '■'■ liesolved, That said Jasper Ward, Senator as afoi-esaid, be, and he hereby is, expelled the Senate." The Senate laid this resolution npon the table, and ordered that Mr. Ward should be heard, on a certain day, by counsel. On the next day the presiding officer of the Senate received the following communication from him : "SiK. — Unwilling to retard the business of the honorable the Senate by anything that concerns me individually, I have, upon mature reflection, concluded to waive the indulgence granted me to appear before the Senate by counsel. I do this from the con- viction that the honorable body over which you preside is fully competent to decide on the merits of my case, as justice may require, without the agency of counsel. At the same time, per- mit me to request you to inform the Senate that I hereby resign my seat as a member of their body. "I have the honor to be, very respectfully, " Your obedient servant, "JASPER WARD." Here the action of the Senate ended. Mr. AVard had anticipated its probable action, and expelled himself without a hearing. Mr. Spencer had first moved in the matter, and he and his friends complained of Mr, Wright being made chair- man over him. It was insinuated that Mr. Ward was to be screened and protected through the agency of Mr. Wright and his political friends on the committee. But the industrious, able and fair manner in which he per- formed his duties silenced all complaint, and Mr. Spencer ever after honored and respected Mr. Wright, as did other careful observers. This course proved that where 7 98 Life and Times of jSilas Wright. duties were to be performed, personal and political feel- ings must yield. Mr. Ward had won the esteem of his brethren in the Senate ; but it is due to Mr. Wright to say that he had noticed in him a careless and half reck- less manner of doing and saying things that were dis- tasteful to him, which somewhat diminished the pain that he must otherwise have felt during these proceed- ings. Mr. Ward was not probably a bad man at heart, but the course of events about the Legislature, in relation to bank and corporation charters, had familiarized the minds of men to practices which no one could defend. In the beginning the practiced wrongs were small and not alarming. They grew, day by day, until the public became amazed and demanded the punishment of all such offenders. Obtaining bank charters, to make profits by the advance of their stocks, continued, to a large extent, until the free banking law of 1837 rendered all such enterprises hopeless. Mr. Wright was never the owner of bank stock, or otherwise interested in banks. He admitted their con- veniences, while he regretted their defects and tlieu- inability to aid the public when assistance was most needed. Instead of dealing in real money, they exchanged credits with their customers, exacting interest upon their own. Under such circumstances, when panics and finan- cial storms came, they struggled to protect their own credit, outstanding in the form of bills. Instead of increasing the volume of the currency, they actually diminished it. They lent freely when money was j)lenty, and collected it in from their customers when it is scarce. Banks of issue expanded and contracted the circulating medium at the wrong times. No such objec- tions exist to banks of discount and deposit, dealing in constitutional currency. To such banks Mr. Weight did not object. This opposition to granting special legislative favors, Life and Times of Silas Wright. 99 through bank charters, and his admiration of "Benton mint drops" and opposition to the United States Bank, induced the very general belief that he was a ' ' hard money" man, and opposed to all banks. This belief sprang up soon after he entered the State Senate, and expanded while he remained there. As a whole, the banks were unfriendly to him. They were at the bottom, and caused a portion of the difficulties which disrupted the democratic party in the State, and which led to the formation of combinations with other interests, which pursued liim to his grave. An account of these will be given in another place. 100 LiF£} AND TuiE^ (JF Silas Wright. Chapter XXV. THE NEW YORK CANALS. The New York canals were commenced in 1816. The Erie and Champlain were completed near the time Mr. Wright entered the State Senate. They occasioned wonderful clianges in the value of real estate throughout their length, and esi)ecially in certain prominent locali- ties. This, and their usefulness, aroused an unregulated spirit of speculation, resulting in applications for canals in almost every corner of the State. There was a perfect mania for canals. The State, by constructing them, was expected to make everybody residing near them rich. The applicants often controlled local elections. St. Law- rence county, by an immense majority in the fall of 1824, elected Jacob A. Vanden Heuvel to the Assembly, under the expectation that he would cause the construction of a canal from Ogdensburgh to Plattsburgh or Lake Cham- plain. But owing to the refusal of the water to run up hill, over the Cliateaugay mountains, and his want of success in procuring land of the British Government in Canada, so as to avoid them, the work was never com- menced or authorized. In his annual message to the Legislature, in 1825, Gov. Clinton discussed, at great length, the subject of canals, and their great advantages. He especially enumerated a large number of localities where canals might be con- structed, and called the attention of the Legislature to them. At that session, the Legislature responded to his views by making provision for surveying seventeen of the routes recommended by him. These things flattered the hopes and excited and increased the efforts of those Life and Times of Silas Wright. 101 residing near tliese localities, or who owned lands in the neighborhood of them. Thousands of men conhdently expected to be made rich by the legislation of the State in constructing canals. Mr. Wkight was made chairman of the committee on canals. To secure his favorable action seemed all-import- ant, and pressure of every possible variety and form was brought to bear upon him. Flattery and hopes of pre- ferment, — of becoming a second Clinton and guiding the affairs of the State, were largely resorted to. Threats of political destruction often played a part in the efforts to control the young Senator. Personal considerations produced no effect upon him. He reflected with a full conscientiousness of the momentous importance of the subject, and formed opinions for life which have success- fully stood the scrutiny of time. Instead of temporizing, he souglit occasion to present his conclusions to the Senate, and through it to the people of the State. , The application of David E. Evans and others for tlie construction, by the State, of a branch from the Erie canal, by way of Tonawanda, to Olean, on the Alleghany river, presented one. Their petition was referred to the committee on canals, consisting of two besides the chair- man. Cadwallader D. Golden, from the first district, a distinguished lawyer in the city of New York, a gentle- man of talents, high character and standing, a warm and efficient Clintonian, and an ardent internal improvement man, was second on the committee. He was a "speedy impulse" man, ))ut a fair-minded, candid and prudent one. The third was Jacob Haight, from t\m tliird district, a person of intelligence and high personal char- acter, who belonged to and acted with the people's party. The hearing before this committee was long, patient and fair. On this application, the committee, through Mr. Wright, made a long and able report, which remains a 102 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. monument of his labor, candor, fairness and financial wisdom. Tlie Erie and Cliamplain canals had been com- pleted. The canal debt was large, but, by applying the proceeds of the canal fund and canal tolls to its pay- ment, it was rapidly decreasing, thus authorizing the expectation that it would be fully extinguished within a few years. The question presented was that between the debt-paying and debt-contracting systems. If this petition was granted many others must follow, and the public debt be largely increased. If denied, the canal debt would soon be canceled, and the Legislature would then be, under the Constitution, authorized to apply the proceeds of the canals to making such internal improve- ments as the best interests of the State required, without becoming burdened with debt. Its solution involved the principles upon which such improvements should be made. These principles were fully and clearly stated in the report, to which Mr. Wright adhered through life. They were approved by the leading men of the State, and were fully indorsed by the majority of the electors at the time. They led to his appointment, in 1829, to the office of Comptroller, to the anti-debt policy of the act of 1842, the financial provisions of the Constitution of 1846, and the amendments of 1867. These principles are thus stated in the report : " The great principles, tlien, which the committee suppose must be determined by the Legishiture, before they Avill authorize the construction of any new canals at the expense of the State, are: " First. The practicability of making a canal upon the route proposed, and of obtaining a supply of water sufficient for its use. " Second. Tlie ability of the State to sustain the expense, or the resources from which the work is to be carried on. " Tldrd. The importance of the work, and the promise of the utility and consequent income to reimburse the treasury for the expense of making it. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 103 "And, unless the committee can make an affirmative and cer- tain application of these principles to the project of the peti- tioners, they do not consider themselves at liberty to ask the Senate to adopt it," The report takes strong grounds against resorting to the credit of the State for the purpose of making further improvements. It says : "That the State has borrowed money for the construction of canals is true, and that it can again do it tlie committee do not doubt. But that it has paid the money so borrowed is not true ; that tlie most hazardous part of this experiment, the pa^anent of the debt due for this splendid improvement, has yet been tested is not true." The canal debt was then $7,884,770.99 ; on the 30th September, 1869, it was $12,564,780, having been increased $5,680,009.01, or almost doubled in amount. The whole State debt is now (1871) $43,265, c 06. 40. Had Mr. Wiught's policy been pursued, our canal debt would, many years since, have been paid, the Erie canal enlarged, and other public works been constructed, and the State without a debt occasioned thereby. This rejjort defeated the anticipations of those who had built high hopes based on expected legislation. The principles upon which it was based became an element in the poli- tics of the State. The democrats, almost unanimously, adopted them ; those who did not, became parties to the combinations which occasioned his defeat in 1846, when a candidate for re-election as Governor. Forty-four years have rolled by, and many non -paying canals have been constructed by the State, and the canal debt immensely enlarged, and the State staggering under an enormous indebtedness, all tending to demonstrate the wisdom of the policy marked out in this report by Mr. Wkigiit. 104 Life and Times ot Silas Wbtght. Chapter XXVI. LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS ADDRESS. From the organization of tlie federal government to 1824, presidential candidates had been, with one or two early exceptions, nominated by a caucus of members of Congress, at the session next previous to tlie elections. Candidates for Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and other officers, voted for throughout the whole State, had been selected by State legislative caucuses in the same way, each party acting by itself. The want of harmonious action when Mr. Crawford was nominated in 1824, and the unfavorable result when Col. Young was presented by a legislative caucus in the State of Nev/ York, led to the abandonment of nominatmg caucuses for the action of the electors. The system of calling State conventions, to select candidates to be supj)orted, followed, as better calculated to collect and combine the wishes and inte- rests of the masses of a party. Under the caucus system, districts and counties represented by political adversa- ries had no voice in the selections made, and were com- pelled to yield to the representatives of other districts and counties. A caucus of the democratic members of the Legislature of New York, at its winter session in 1826, was called, when the best mode of nominating candidates to be sup- ported for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor was among the subjects of consideration. It appointed a commit- tee to prepare and report resolutions and an address. Mr. Wright was a member of this committee, and prepared those which were reported at an adjourned meeting, which were unanimously adopted. These are LiBE AND Times of Silas Wright. 105 so important, and the reasons so strong and conclusive in favor of clianging from the caucus to the convention sys- tem, which exercised so wide an influence and were so satisfactory to all his political friends, that we gire the resolutions and address entire. The mode then recom- mended now prevails throughout the entii'e Union, by all political parties. Republican^ Legislative Meeting. " At a meeting of the republican members of the Legislature of the State of New York, held at the Senate Chamber of the Capitol, in the city of Albany, on the 13th day of April, 182G, Jacob Haight, Esq., Senator from the third district, in the chair, and Robert Monell, Esq., of the Assembly, from the county of Chenango, Secretary. The following resolutions and address were unanimously agreed to : " Resolved, That it be recommended to the republican electors of the several counties of this State to choose delegates, equal to the number of representatives in the Assembly to which they may be respectively entitled, to meet at the village of Herkimer, on the first Wednesday of October next, to nominate candidates to be supported for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor at the ensuing election. " Resolved, That it be recommended to the republican electors of the several towns in each county to choose delegates, to meet in county convention, to appoint their delegates to the State convention. " Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the republican members of this Legislature, and publislied. "JACOB HAIGHT, Chairman. " Robert Monell, Secretary?'' '■'■To the RepuUican Electors of the State of Neto Yo7-k: " Fellow-Citizens. — The time has again arrived, when, accord- ing to the long-established usages of the republican party, your representatives in tlie Legislature would be called upon to dis- lOG Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. charge the responsible duty of nominating for your acceptance, and offering for your support, candidates for the offices of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the State. The number of years through which tlie practice of a legislative nomination of these distinguished officers has been adhered to by the republicau party, the success which for so large a portion of the time has attended that party under it, and the several distinguished officers who have, through the intervention of such a nomination, been from time to time elevated to the highest and most responsible stations in the government, are the best proofs that, in these nominations, the pul)lic Avill has been consulted, the public inte- rests regarded, and tlie great object of all nominations, tlie selec- tion of fit and suitable candidates for office, satisfactorily attained. " We are aware that the mode of nomination has been assailed; that it has been pronounced bad in principle and arbitrary in practice ; that management and intrigue have been said to govern its pi-oceedings, and the elevation of a favorite to mark its results; that its supporters liave been charged with a blind obedience to imperial dictation, and the actors in it with the most flagrant abuse of usurped power. These charges and allegations we have often heard. Tlic evidences of their truth we have not seen. On the contrary, we have seen the democracy of the State sup- porting, and successfully suppoi'ting, candidates for offices thus nominated. We have seen the government of the State satisfac- torily administered by officers thus nominated, thus supported and thus elected. We have seen the rights of the citizen pro- tected, his privileges extended, and the safety of his person ami property secured to him under the administration of such oflicers. We have seen the State defended from the attacks of her enemies without, and protected in the enjoyment of peace and tranquillity within, under such administrations. We have seen her rising to a proud pre-eminence among her sister States, and giving strength and confidence to the national government under such an admin- istration. Nay, we have seen the same individual, at one time elevated to the highest executive office in the State from such a nomination, and at another time from a nomination made in a diffi^rent manner. Nor have we been able to discover that the pride of power or the consequence of office were more sensibly Life and Times of Silas Wright. 107 felt or more boldly manifested, when the former mode of nomi- nation was the stepping-stone to the office, than when a different nomination effected the same object. Experience, then, has as yet exhibited no dangers to the State or the citizen, arising from this mode of proposing candidates for office. The agents in making these nominations are the representatives of the people, carrying with them the strongest evidence of public confidence, — a voluntary election by a majority of their immediate constituents. Principle, then, cannot be violated while tliese constituents ask of them the performance of this duty, or whilst their interest or the interests of the public can be subserved by a prompt dis- charge of it. Nothing, therefore, but the strongest reasons of policy and expediency can, at this time, excuse the republican members of the Legislature from following the course which has been so long and so successfully pursued by the republican party. But those reasons, they do believe, at this time exist, and to give them in the most phiin and undisguised manner to their con- stituents is the object of this address. " Formerly our annual elections were in the spring, and followed close upon the adjournment of the Legislature. The minds of the electors were drawn to the subject of the officers to be elected, and, if a Governor and Lieutenant-Governor were of the number, the public mind of the whole State was occupied in can- vassing the merits of the several individuals who might chance to be named for those distinguished offices ; and ordinarily, before the members of the Legislature were called togetlier to name the candidate, the public feeling had marked the man to receive that honor too strongly to be mistaken. I5ut if at any time this may not have been the case, yet that same feeling would be in a state of preparation to have its doubts and per- plexities resolved, by the naming of one from the number of persons who might be too nearly balanced in the public mind to enable the superior qualifications of either to produce a pre- ponderance in his favor. Then, too, all the conflicting candi- dates for those offices were put before the public at about the same period, and their respective qualifications were weighed with a reference to the relative merits and defects of each ; an entire view of the persons from which a choice was to be made 108 Life and Times of Silas Wright. was presented to the elector at once, and liis judgment was formed from a comparative estimate of all the candidates. Now the annual elections are in the fall, and nearly seven months from the time at which a nomination must be made, if made by the republican members of the Legislature in the usual manner. " Hence the candidate is named at a time when the public mind is not aroused by the excitements of an approaching election ; when no immediate interest is felt in a question, the determina- tion of which is so remote ; when the great body of the commu- nity cannot be drawn to an attention of the real interests they have in such a designation, and when the majority of the electors of the State have neither pointed to the man who should be put in nomination, or weighed the merits of the respective competi- tors for so high a distinction. In the meantime, no candidate is nominated in opposition to the one thus selected until a short time before the election ; but the individual receiving this early mark of the confidence in his political friends is put to the necessity of bearing the test of public scrutiny against himself ; of having his positive and negative qualifications canvassed and discussed by the partial pens of political opponents, whilst the standard by which he is compared, instead of being an opposing candidate for office ^ — human and errino- like himself — is that ideal perfection with which the human mind is so apt to deceive itself, and which we rather wish than expect to find in men. He stands alone, for half the year, before the public, inviting the scrutiny of his political friends and the criticism of his political enemies, while his antagonist, by a comparison witli whom he might bear the one and rise superior to the other, is unnoticed, because he is unknown. "The merits of men, if merits they can be called, exist mostly by comparison, and few indeed can be found who are able, for so great a length of time, without the benefit of this comparison, to endure, uninjured, the storm of political opposition, interested in the destruction of that character which it has been well said ' is tarnished by too much handling.' Hence, prepossessions and prejudices are formed against the candidate who stands so long alone before the public, which preclude the possibility of an impartial comparison, when a counter-nomination affords the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 109 opportunity. Bui on the contrary, the mind of the elector, having become biased against the candidate, whose defects have been exliibited and magnitied l)y long and frequent repetition, seizes the alternative presented by a fresh nomination, not because the faults of the second candidate are less, but because they are less known to him. "Another important advantage, which we give to our oppo- nents by so early a nomination, is the opportunity of forming combinations of local feeling and local interests against any per- son we might put in nomination, and of selecting their candidates with reference to such sectional and partial interests, to the exclusion of a fair expression of the electors of the State in reference to the principles of the person to be elected. That many parts of the State are more or less affected with questions of a local and sectional nature will always be true, and that such questions, whenever they may exist, and whatever may be their extent or importance, should not be made the engines of a political party, or the subjects of a deceptive encouragement, given lor political i)urposes, is also true. If, then, the candidates of both or all ])olitit-al parties are put before the public, at nearly the same time, all have an equal interest in refraining from or attempting these combinations ; all select their candidates with a knowledge of the same facts, and all have an equal time to embody their friends, and the various interests of every part of tlie State, in favor of their i-espective candidates. Hence these local combina- tions must be far less partial, and consequently the evil to be apprehended from them far less extensive. These are some of the reasons which have induced the republican members of the Legislature to omit, at this time, making the nominations of the candidates of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor in the manner heretofore practiced. " But what mode of nomination of these offices to recommend to their constituents, or in what manner candidates shall be brought before the public, has been a question of somewhat difficult solu- tion. No plan, however, has been suggested which seemed so likely to produce a satisfactory result as that of calling a general State convention, and they have, therefore, unanimously con- cluded to recommend to the republican party of the State that 110 Life and Times of Silas Wright. mode of making these nominations. That substantial objections, in a State so large as ours, exist to this recommendation, they are fully sensible; and that considerable personal sacrifices, and, in some instances, heavy expenditures, must be incurred to carry this recommendation into efiect, they are equally aware. That some counties may omit to appoint delegates; that county con- ventions in others may be thinly attended, and that delegates apjiointed may, in some instances, fail to attend a State conven- tion, are also evils justly to be apprehended. But objections may be found to the most perfect of human institutions, and your representatives, in recommending the adoption of this mode of nomination^ feel the fullest confidence that that deep and active interest which is felt by every republican in the preserva- tion and success of his party and his principles, will induce him to meet and obviate these difticulties with the same cheerfulness with which he must repeatedly have encountered other and greater evils. " The appi'oaching election is an important one to the republi- can party of this State, both on account of the number and importance of the offices to be elected, and on account of the peculiar effect the result of that election may, and pio- bably will, have upon the future strength and prosperity of the party itself. The history of the last two years furnishes all the instruction necessary to direct us successfully through the coming contest. The divisions which unfortunately dis- tracted and divided the republican jjarty in 1824 were created by a premature enlistment of our prejudices and partialities towards the several distinguished individuals who were then before the public as candidates for the presidency. In the inten- sity of those prejudices and those pai'tialities, and that, too, when our real interests were the same, we forgot our duty to ourselves, dissolved the strong ties which had so long bound us together, and the consequences are fresh in the recollection of every repub- lican. But when reflection i*eturned, that strong attachment to sound piinciples and usages, which, when left to its free exercise, has never failed to insure success, again restored us to harmony and gained our election. Shall we not, then, profit by the lessons which experience has so recently taught us? Shall we again, and Life and Times of Silas Wright. Ill so soon, suffer ourselves to be divided by the same causes that produced our former divisions — to be defeated by the same causes that produced our late disunion ? "It is not to be disguised that prejudices and partialities, as to the next presidential election, are already beginning to prevail; that a variety of interests are actively engaged in preparing for that distant struggle, and that efforts will be made to intermix those prejudices, those partialities and those interests in our next State election. If wisdom is to be learned from experience, republicans will be cautious. If they are honest to themselves they will remain united. They will surrender their partialities for men, to their attachment to the interests of the party and the State. They will select as candidates for office, not the followers of any man, but the followers and adherents of republican principles, and, without inquiring for their presidential partialities, they will support them as republicans. In choosing delegates to the conven- tion, let it be a subject of interest to the yeomanry of the respective counties that their delegations are selected from the sound democracy of theii- county; that tliey ai-e men of liberal views, but of unshaken constancy — men Avho, in selecting a candidate for the office of Governor, will not ask, is he friendly to this or that num for the presidency, but is he a republican ? Has he been lirm in his adherence to republican priiicii)les and the re[»ublican cause? Is he honest, capable, and faithful to the CJonstitution V In a convention composed of such delegates, no divisions are to be apprehended; but the selection of candidates who would unite the feelings and secure the support of the whole l)arty would be the certain result. Pursue a different course and our former divisions are renewed, our strength divided, and our defeat inevitable. Republicans! the present political calm in this State is deceptive and portentous. Suffer not yourselves to be deluded by it. It is the stillness which precedes an impending storm. Permit not yourselves to sleep till you are swept away by its fury. Your o})})onents are not changed. They would fain amuse you with their song of peace, while they rally from defeat and prepare again to meet you at the polls. But let the union which now prevails among republicans be cherished and preserved; let the recent prejudices which have existed pass 112 Life and Tlmks of Silas Wrjght. away with the causes which have produced tliem, and suffer not others of a similar character to be admitted in their stead; let your candidates for office be carefully and judiciously selected — men honest, faithful and capable, uniting the confidence and feelings of republicans — and you have nothing to fear from the consequences of such a meeting. Consider the proposed altera- tion in the manner of nominating your Governor and Lieutenant- Governor not as an abandonment of principles and usages which have heretofore governed and sustained the democracy of the State, but as an alteration rendered necessary by the change in the organization of your government, and rather as an additional inducement to a rigid adherence to the principle of regular nomi- nations by delegated conventions. Let your town conventions be punctually and carefully attended, — your county conventions represented by a sound, a judicious delegation, and you will thus insure a State convention whose proceedings may prove that the interests of the party are bettered by the change in the mode of nomination. Your last election proves that you have the power to succeed; that harmony of sentiment and concert of action will render you irresistible ; in short, that if you are defeated, you will defeat yourselves. " John Bowman. Joshua Smith. Jonas Cleand. Latham A. Burrows. Charles Stebbins. Francis Cooper. James Burt. Sherman Wooster. Henry B. Cowles. David Gardiner. Silas Wright, Jr. Thomas Crary. Jonas Earll, Jr. Samuel Young. Daniel Cruger. Stukely Ellsworth. Isaac R. Adriance. Thomas Dibble. Peter Hagar, 2d. Daniel D. Akin. Baron S. Doty. Jacob Haight. Stephen Allen. Robert Eldridge. Parley Keyes. Levi Beardsley. Augustus Filley. Wells Lake. David Benedict. Josiah Fisk. P. R. Livingston. Nathan Benson. Willam Fitch. James Mallory. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 113 Philip Brasher. James McCall. John G. Forbes. David W. Bucklin. William Nelson. Maltby Gelston. Phineas Stanion. Usher H. Moore. James Hall. Wm. Tov/nsend. William Pierce. Benj. Hendricks. David Tropp. Peter Robinson. Fkeborn G. Jewett. Daniel Wardwell. Ab'm Shultz. Tilly Lynde. James Wiley. Joseph Scofield. Martinus Maitice. Hen. Williams. Williams Seaman. James W. Glashen. David Woodcock. Avery Smith. Isaac Minard. 8 Elial T. Foote. Chauncey Betts. Arch'd McIntyre. John French, Josiah Churchill. Robert Monell. E. A. G. B. Grant. Wm. a. Tompson. Horatio Orris. Isaac Hayes. John Tracy. Jon. E. Robinson. Ogdkn Hoffman. Eamona Varney. Erastus Root. Martin Lawrence. Grattan Wheeler. Nicholas Schuyler. John Lynde. David Willard. Daniel Scot. Hudson M'Farlan. J. H. Williamson. Alpiieus Sherman. Amos IMiller. Benj. Woodward. John H. Smith." 114 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XXVII. THE VAN BUREN LETTER. A calm survey of tlio field of battle of 1824 furnislied ample materials for reflection upon tlie past and specula- tions upon the future. There was found far more to con- demn than to approve. But, to active and aspiring men, the future furnislied most ample ground for contempla- tion. It was believed that Mr. Clinton would be nomi- nated for re-election in the fall of 1826, and that he had determined that he would sup})ort Gen. Jackson at the next presidential election. ]\Ir. Van Buren was then in the United States Senate at Washington, and it was known that he had concluded to support the General. It then became a question whether the democratic party should nominate a candidate to run against Mr. Clinton for Governor, or let the election go by default. It was known that a large portion of those formerly designated as Bucktails could not be induced to vote for Mr. Clinton. It was said in Albany that Mr. Van Buren, under the circumstances, thought that no nomination, in opposition to Mr. Clinton, ought to be made. Mr. Wkight and others there looked at the matter from another stand- point, and had arrived at a different conclusion. At Albany it was thought best to communicatn their views to Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. Wright was selected for that duty. In a letter addressed to Alva Hunt, dated the 20th of September, 1844, Mr. Weight refers to this subject and says : "This is a sketch of tlie circumstances under which tlie letter was written, Mr. Adams was elected President by the House of Life amj Times of ^Silas Wrjuht. 115 Representatives, in Februiiry, IS'25. Mi\ Clay had suippcrted liim an "■ Should we decline to sup})ort the candidate run against Mr. Clinton because he was friendly to Adams, this would inevitably induce the friends of that candidate, two-thirds of whom, so far as the State is concerned, would be our friends, not only to run for Congress, Senate and Assembly tickets, but to run them pledged for Adams, In any event, then, from this state of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 117 thiiifs, it does appear to me that we should be between two fires, without the least prospect of escaping tlie flames, instead of bringing off the spoils.'''' This last sentiment was the subject of severe animad- version, and especially by hypocrites who had devoted their lives to work of securing political "spoils." ISTot one of those who were loud and severe in these denun- ciations failed to secure spoils to the greatest possible extent. The principle is old, and the practice is only lim- ited by unsuccessful efforts of hungry partisans. Mr. Wright then proceeds to consider the question of who should be nominated. He, under the seal of confi- dence, discusses with freedom the merits of several gen- tlemen who had been spoken of for nomination. Among these was William B. Rochester, then circuit judge of the eighth district, and Nathan Sanford, late chancellor, and others. His description of each is graphic and just, both personally and politically. He finally recommended the nomination of Mr. Sanford. Mr. Hammond, in his History, expresses the opinion that Mr. Van Buren brought this letter with him when he canu! from Washington to All)any, in January, 1829, to be inaugurated Governor of New York, and on return- ing in Mar(!h, to Ix^come Secretary of State under Gen. Jackson, it was accidontly left in a bureau which was sold at auction, and bid in by one Frederick Porter, a mer- chant of Albany. He adds, that Porter brought the letter to him, and that he advised him to return it to Mr. Wkioiit, who was then Comptroller of the State. This Mr. Porter allowed the letter to be published in the Work- ingmen's Advocate, an an ti- democratic paper. Mr. Hammond thus accounts for his having th(? knowledge on this subject which occasioned the remark of Mr. Wright in his letter to Mr. Hunt. It does not seem possible that this letter was sold in a desk at auction, and retained a year and a half by the purchaser before showing it. 118 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Why did not Porter act on Hammond's advice 'i It was doubtless purloined, but whether by Porter, or who else, there is no evidence. It cannot be doubted that the design of this publica- tion was to involve Mr. Wright in difficulty with those whose characters and positions he had so freely but truthfully discussed. But those causing the publication of this confidential letter utterly failed in accomplishing their unjustifiable and malignant object. The })ersons to whom he referred promptly notified Mr. Wright that they saw nothing wrong on his part, and that it should, in no respect, alTect their friendly relations. The principal effect of this publication was to show to the public that it was the young Senator from St. Lawrence, instead of senior politicians, who had combined and led the distracted democratic party in New York out of its entanglements, and enabled it to make Mr. Van Buren Governor in 1828, which contributed to the elevation of Gen. Jackson to the presidency, and the triumph of the democratic party in the State for a long series of years. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 119 Chapter XXVIIl. NOMINATED AND ELECTED TO CONGRESS. No public officer ever more rapidly won the esteem of his associates than Mr. Wright in the State Senate. His talents, frankness, candor and conciliatory de2:)ort- ment commanded the respect not only of political friends, but even of his adversaries of the severest kind. The abuse heaped upon him by the Clintonians and people's party, in relation to the electoral law, excited the strong symj^athy of the entire democratic party in the State, and especially in northern New York. Mr.' Wright resided in the twentieth congressional district, consisting of St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Livingston and Oswego counties, then represented by Nicholl Fosdick, of St. Lawrence, and Daniel Hiignnin, of Oswego, elected by anti-democrats. The democracy of the district, with entire unanimity, and in accordance with the wishes of the party in the State, nominated him for Congress, with KudoI])li "Bunner, of Oswego, for a ('olleagiie. Mr. Wright was the first of the distinguished semiiteen, who was presented to the people for their suffrages. It was a distinct chalh^nge to the adversaries of \\\i^. democracy, who nominated Mr. Fosdick for re-election, and Elisha Camp, of Jefferson, as his associate. The contest was a most animated one, calling out the most active exertions of the friends of Mr. Wright on one side, and occasion- ing a most determined opposition on the other. A more warmly-contested congressional election had never been known in the State. Three of the celebrated seventeen resided in this district, and one, Mr. Wright, was a candidate brought forward, in part, at the instance of 120 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the other two — Parley Keyes, of Jefferson, and Alvin Bronson, of Oswego county. Mr. Bronson, one of the fah^est and best of men, was not noted as a politician ; but Mr. Keyes was esteemed one of the foremost in the State, — though without education, was distinguished for his sound sense, great shrewdness and untiring energy. No one managed a political contest with more vigor and skill. He was an ardent and sincere friend, and con- siderably advanced in years. Being in the Senate with him, he early discovered the talents and good qualities of Mr. Weight, and soon regarded him almost as a son. This called out his best exertions. With such supporters the effort to defeat Mr. Wright was doomed to fail. Mr. Bunner was a most excellent man, who had not been in public life so as to become a special target to be aimed at. The contest was really over Mr. Wright. Through him the democracy triumphed. He and Mr. Bunner were elected by over 500 majority. Under the circum- stances, this was a wonderful triumph. His political enemies had expected to crush him out and destroy all future ho23e concerning him. But his triumph laid the foundation for a long and successful career in public life, during which he commanded the esteem, respect and confidence of all good men to an unequaled extent. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 121 Chapter XXIX. RETIRES FROM THE STATE SENATE. Under Ms election to Congress, in November, 1826, Mr. Weight became entitled to take liis seat in the House of Representatives on the 4tli of March, 1827. Between these two x3eriods he continued to perform his duties as Senator. Some of his most important services were then rendered. His great report on the canal policy was then prepared. Not wisliing to run any hazard concerning the action of Gov. Clinton, in case he continued in the Senate after the third of March, he resigned his senator- ship, to take effect on the fourth of March. To promote the convenience of others, and witliout profit to himself, he had continued to hold the office of postmaster at Can- ton. This he also resigned, to take effect on the same day. These two resignations put an end to the warmly agitated question of the Governor's declaring his seat in Congress vacant, and issuing a writ of election to fill a vacancy. The expressions of regret on Mr, Wright's retu'iiig from the Senate were general and heartfelt. Those who differed with him in oiiinion admired his candor and frankness, and respectful deportment and superior talents, while he was almost idolized by his political friends. The aged parted with him as from a son, expressing strong hopes and expectations of his future in the new field upon which he w^as about to enter, and the young as parting from a kind, unselfish brother, whose footsteps it was safe to follow. No man ever retired from a legislative body more esteemed and respected by all 122 Life A^D Tnihs of Silas Wright. Chapter XXX. WHAT HE OMITTED TO DO. The immense size of St. Lawrence county, and the expectation that the county buiklirigs woukl be removed from Ogdensburgh to the central position at Canton, has been mentioned among tlie inducements for Mr. WiiiGnT''s locating at that place. Under such circumstances it might have been expected that he would become an agi- tator of that question. It would have been easy for liim while in the Senate to have procured the passage of an act requiring the removal, after having made suitable land purchases to profit by it. But he did neither. The selfishness of others precipitated action when it occurred. People in Jefferson county sought the formation of a new county by uniting a part of St. Lawrence with a portion of Jeft' erson, fixing the county buildings at Ox-bow. Others in the east end of St. Lawrence wanted the county divided, making a new county, with public buildings at Potsdam, leaving the old county with the court-house at Ogdens- burgh. These schemes were manfully resisted by the people of Canton and other places. They correctly insisted that the influence and importance of the county would be greatly diminished by the division. Each portion would have its own separate interests, in which the other would not participate. If kept together, the county would soon have three members in the Assembly, and would wield a powerful influence in tlie politics and legislation of tke State. Tke question of removal became one of controlling importance in tke local election of 1827, and was decided by tke people, wko elected Jabez Wiiles and Moses Row- ley to tke Assembly, as friendly to tliat measure. On Life and Times of Silas Wright. 123 the 28th of January, 1828, wlien Mr. Weight had been some two months attending to his duties in Congress, and had been out of the Senate nearly a year, the act for removal was passed. At that time he had made no pur- chases of real estate or other preparations, to profit one cent thereby. The removal was in pursuance of the voice of the majority of the voters of the county. It was tlie work of tlie people, and not of Mr. Weight tlirough his unbounded influence in the Legislature. Nothing could more conclusively demonstrate that he was utterly unselfish, and that on no occasion would he make his official position the means of improving his pecuniary affairs. In his course on this subject we have the clearest possible evidence that, in all such matters, he was guided by duty, and not by love of dollars. 124 Life and Times of Silas Weight. Chapter XXXI. MR. WRIGHT IN THE TWENTIETH C0NC4RESS AT ITS FIRST SESSION. Mr. Wkight took the Constitutional oath, and a seat in Congress, on the 3d of December, 1827. The result of the presidential election of 1824 had left the political situation in an anomalous condition. The number of candidates for the chair of State had been reduced to two. Mr. Crawford had retired to a judgeship in Georgia. Mr. Calhoun was enjoying the honors of the Vice- Presidency. Mr. Clay had been absorbed by Mr. Adams, whom he was serving as Secretary of State. Mr. Adams, without a party in phalanx agreeing with him in everything, and ready to act on all occasions in concert, was laboring in the presidency, hoping to form a numerous and harmo- nious party. Gen. Jackson was enjoying home life, at the Hermitage, leaving to his friends the management of his political fortunes. The great issues to be tried by the electors, in 1828, had not been fully developed or pre- sented in tangible form. Each of the former candidates had friends, with views more or less definite on political subjects. Their numbers were sufficient to command respectful attention. But the labor of harmonizing them was not easy, if it was not a hopeless task. Mr. Adams had selected his positions in his messages, leaving Gen. Jack- son' s friends the advantage of general objections and the choice of unoccupied ground to stand upon. The coun- try resembled a chess-board, with armies arrayed, with- out players who could calculate with certainty what service each individual will perform. The inducement Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. 125 wliich would bring one into line would upset and drive anotlier away. The leading players studied the field with reference to these considerations. Selfish motives, founded upon local interests, were oftener appealed to than constitutional and patriotic principles. The labor of harmonizing and combining such elements was the task committed to those giving direction to political opinion. It was conceded the New England, as well as certain aiiti-democratic States, would again go for Mr. Adams, and that certain southern and western States would vote for Gen. Jackson. But it was exjiected that the votes of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio would control the result. The great game was played with reference to the votes of these States, whose wishes, as a whole, were unknown. Neither side sought concerted action through a national convention, and both repudiated caucuses. Each claimed to be democratic. A tariff to protect American manufactures was passed in 1816, by the votes of Lowndes and Calhoun, of South Carolina, Tucker and Newton, of Virginia, Forsyth, of Georgia, and otluu' southern gentlemen, as well as by Mr. Clay and members from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Gov. Yates, in 1824, and afterward in his annual messages, took ground in favor of encourag- ing domestic manufactures by an increase of duties on foreign importations. This theory was generally received as the true doctrine, except in New England, wliere navigation and commerce were the controlling interests, manufactures not then having become the leading busi- ness there. The feeling in New York was fully indicated hy reso- lutions introduced into the Assembly, on the 28th of January, 1828, by Daniel Wardwell, a strong Jackson man, from Jeiferson county, an excellent and good man, who subsequently served three terms in Congress. 126 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ''^Resolved, That the Senators of this State, in the Congress of the United States, be and they are hereby instructed, and the Representatives of this State be requested, to make every proper exertion to effect such a revision of the tariff as will afford a sufficient protection to the growers of wool, hemp and flax, and the manufacture of iron, woolens and every other article, so far as the same may be connected with the interest of manufactures, agriculture and commerce. " Resolved, as the sense of this Legislature, That the provi- sions of the woolens bill, passed the House of Representatives at the late session of Congress, whatever advantages they may have promised to manufacturers of woolen goods, did not afford ade- quate encouragement to the agriculturalist and growers of wool." Both these resolutions passed the Assembly and Senate by a nnanhnous vote, and were transmitted to the Sena- tors and Members in Congress from New York by the Governor. It is indicative of the popular feeling that they passed without dissent, when we consider that it is not probable that one in ten ever read the woolens bill referred to, or had any precise knowledge on the general subject embraced in the resolutions. The country was excited upon one of the most abstruse subjects known to politi- cal economy, without having done so much as to give the subject "a sober second thought," if they had given it any thought at all. But these resolutions indicate the direction in wliicli popular opinion was setting — in favor of the farmer and the wool-grower, as much as of the manufacturer. They pointed out the ground which it was safe for a New York Member of Congress to occupy. It was a prudent posi- tion for Jackson men in that State to occupy. They indicated the chord which might be safely toitched, and the music which it might be expected to produce. From this brief review, the reader will be -prepared to scrutinize and understand the course of subsequent events for the I iFE AND Times of Silas Wright. 127 next two years. Sncli was the condition of things when Mr. Wright entered npon his duties in Congress. His reputation for talents, industry, and many other good and useful qualities, had preceded him. The Committee on Manufactures, though not first in rank, was then deemed of the most importance politically. It had charge of the all-hnportant subject of the times. Kollin C. Mallory, who had been ten years in Congress, from Vermont, and an able and ardent protectionist, was made chairman of that committee. James S. Stevenson, of Pennsylvania, Lewis Condit, of New Jersey, Thomas P. Moore, of Kentucky, Silas Wright, Jr., of New York, William Stanberry, of Ohio, and William D. ~T .■'■ of South Carolina, were members of it. All . i.uous and papers relating to manufactures and the :: lift* were referred to it. < ^he 31st of December, Mr. Malloiy, by direction of imittee, offered the following resolution : udvcd, That the Committee on Manufactures be vested witli ver to send for persons and papers." i>i;dng its discussion, Mr. Wright thus addressed thi- House as follows : " Mr. Wright, of New York, said that, as lie had been honore(l with a situation on the Committee of Manufactures, he felt tlic more entitled to ask tlie in(hdgence of the House in ottering- a few statements and explanations, in reply to what had been said on the other side ; and he would hrst remark it was three weeks, and not lour weeks, as had been said, since the members com- posing that committee had been announced to the House. For some days after their appointment, not a single memorial, either for or airainst an alteration of the i)resent tariff of duties, had been laid before them. Then a few petitions, very briefly and generally expressed, were received from two or three States ; and if the gentlemen, who seemed to censure the committee for negli- gence, had had an opportunity to examine these documents, they would have found that they all had relation to what had been 128 Life and Times of Silas Weight. denominated 'A National Convention in Pennsylvania.' Petitions of this kind Avere all that the committee had before them for a considerable time. When he said this, he meant officially before them, in such a manner that tlie committee could act upon tliem. He admitted, indeed, that the members of the committee had, individually, seen a pamphlet which had been freely circulated, and which had respect to the doings of that convention. But it was never officially before either House or the committee until about ten days ago. This was all the time the committee had had to deliberate on several distinct propositions submitted to them, and he might be permitted to refer to the proceedings of this House, and to its progress in business, as an answer to the imputations thrown out as to the industry of the committee. Tiie resolution which had been this day offered had been resolved on in committee some days ago, and it was presented to the House on the very first opportunity that offered. He had been an advocate for its adoption, and he would now briefly state some of the reasons that had influenced him. It had been said thjat all the information, necessary to a right decision on the general subject, is already before the House and the committee. This might be true for aught he knew. His own experience in legis- lation had been very short, and he was unable to say Avhat amount of knowledge might be possessed by others ; but for himself, from the industry which he had been aide to bring to bear within the short time allowed liim (and he liatl examined diligently all the public documents and reports of former committees which were said to contain this species of information), he found himself still greatly at a loss and in want of much information of which the 2)ublic documents were destitute. Tiie whole subject stood in need of the exhibition of more precise detail. Two questions had been submitted to the committee; the first was, are any alter- ations at all, in the existing tariff, at this time necessary? It had been said that on this point the public mind had been deeply interested, and the public sentiment expressed with sufficient clearness to authorize the committee in coming to an affirmative decision. Should this be admitted, another question arose, and that was, to what extent is this alteration necessary, in order to attain the ends in view ? On this question, gentlemen might Life and Times of Silas Wright. 129 examine all the memorials of the mamifacturers, all the reports of the C(jmmittee of Manufactures, as well as the executive com- munications (at least as far as he had been able to investigate them), and they would not discover anything- to inform them whether five, eight or fifty per cent was to be added to the pre- sent rate of duties. Now, this was precisely the kind of informa- tion of which he stood in need; lie meant to be understood as referring to some pailicular bi-anches of manufacture, and there were others of a similar character on which other petitions might yet be presented. There were, however, some branches to which these remarks did not apply. But one chief subject on which he felt this want of information was the nuxnufacture of woolens. The Ilarrisburg convention had, on this subject, proposed a series of miiiimums to constitute a scale of duties, which, accord- ing to their judgment, was requisite and proper for the protection of that manufacture, liut had tlic members of that convention given to the world any facts calculated to show that the rales they pro[)os('d were sucli as i)recise]y to furnish the degree of protection required, and neither to fall shoit or to exceed it? He could not find this in tlieir pamphlet. " In what situation did he stand? As a servant of the House, he was conunanded to examine a certain subject, to bring his mind to a conclusion with respect to it, and re})ort a bill for the action of the House. The House had a claim upon him for the performance of that duty, and he was unwilling to be compelled to report upon the subject when he was not in j)Ossession of the facts requisite to form a decision. If, indeed, the House should say to liim, go on and do as well as you can with such lights as you have, he was perfectly willing to obey them. All he wished was to express the ditticulty under which lie labored in the dis- charge of his duty, and to ask the House to assist him. If tlu^y should Ijc of the opinion that it was not inqirojier to do so, he was entirely willing to proceed with such means of knowledge as were in his power. " To the questions whether this was a novel case, and whether the power now asked resided in the House, he did not profess himself able to decide ; his parliamentary experience had not been such as to enable him to do so. He would, however, sug- 9 130 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. gest to bis colleague [Mr. Oakley], who had offered the amend- ment, that, as it now stood, it did not require the witness who might be summoned to bring with him any papers. Supposing, then, that the committee should send for the agent of some manufacturing establishment, for the purpose of examining him in relation to its concerns, would not the witness, in order to give precise replies, want the books of the establishment ? By referring to these, his information would be rendered specific. He suggested, therefore, whether the amendment ought not to be so modified as to attain this object." The resolution was amended, on motion of Mr. Oaldey, by adding, "with a view to ascertain and report to the House such facts as may be useful to guide the judgment of this House in relation to a revision of the tariff duties on imported goods." The resolution was thoroughly discussed, and, after being thus amended, passed, ayes 102, Qiays 88. Clothed with such ample powers, the committee pro- ceeded to take evidence. Stenographers were not then employed by committees, and the evidence was all taken down by Mr. Weight, with his own hand. He drew the report presented by the chairman and the bill which accompanied it. These things involved labor from which most men would have shrunk. But he chose to perform it, as it enabled him fully to master the subject in hand. The bill conformed, in a very great extent, to the New York platform. Mr. Mallory moved to strike out certain provisions in the bill, deemed over-advantageous to the agriculturalist and wool-grower, and insert others of a different character. Upon this motion discussion arose. Mr. Wright then gave his views in a speech, which no one at the time answered, or attempted so to do. In this speech he presents the principle upon which, as a member of the committee, he acted in framing the report and bill. The following extracts will disclose the grounds upon which he stood : Life and Times of Silas Wright. 131 "And here, sir, it is my duty to premise that it has been my object, and I believe it to have been the object of a majority of the committee, to frame a bill which should have in view the protection of the leadinj^ interests of the countiy. I have sup- posed that, in all laws having reference to the protection of the domestic industry of this country, agriculture should be con- sidered the prominent and leading interest. This I have con- sidered the basis upon which the other great interests rest, and to which they are to be considered as subservient. Still, this is not to be considered as entitled to protection, exclusive of the manufacturing interest. I do not believe that a law which would be injurious to manufactures would be beneficial to agriculture; but I do believe that protection to manufactures should be given with express reference to the effect upon agriculture, and that no protection can be wise, or consistent with the policy of this government, which has not for its object to add strength and vigor to this great and vital interest of the country. The same may be said of the commercial interest, as it also is only subser- vient to the great interests of agriculture. " But, sir, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to draw a bill intended to furnish general protection to the domestic industry of this country which will not, in some of its provisions, operate injuriously upon some one of the interests concerned, and in some sections of the country. One leading principle, however, which operated upon my mind in the formation of the present bill, is that it is not and cannot be the policy of this government, or of this Congress, to turn the manufacturing capi- tal of this country to the manufacture of a raw material of a foreign country, while we do or can produce the same material in sufficient quantities ourselves. " This I consider to be a rule of universal application, and to extend itself not only to the same raw material, but to any which shall be equally valuable, and may be substituted for the raw material imported; and I cannot suppose that, in legislating for the protection of the industry of the country, this rule should ever be lost sight of." Such were the view^s entertained by Mr. Wright, which he urged upon Congress in a very elaborate speech. 132 Life and Times of Silas Wright. IJe followed the views of tlie people of liis State and district on tlie question of jirotection, without investi- gating or discussing the principle involved in conl'erring it. The principle of making agriculture the leading sub- ject of consideration could not be questioned, although in practice our government has done little or nothing to promote its interest. In refusing to give the manufacturer of wool a preference over the wool-grower, Mr. Wkigiit acted in accordance with the wishes of a large portion of the people. He was considered one of the ablest and most fearless champions of tlie farmer in Congress. This led to his re-election to Congress in the fall of the year 1828. His political adversaries manifested their chagrin at seeing Mr. Wiiigiit take so prominent a part on this tariff question, and rising so far above the position assigned, in the public estimation, to their friend, Mr. Mallory, the chairman of the Committee on Manufactures. Prior to the publication of his speech in defense of tlie agricultural interest, the Adams newspapers attempted to ridicule his effort, and described him as a man of no importance, who resided "way up north, beyond the Chateaugay woods." The speech spoke for itself, and placed him in the front rank of wise and thinking men, and an able debater. No one had examined the ques- tions involved with more industry or discussed them with greater ability. B}^ common consent lie was assigned a high position in Congress and among his political friends. The effort at ridicule gave place to high respect and often to sincere admiration. Mr. Mallory failed to secure the amendment which he proposed. The bill was considerably modified in the House and essentially changed in the Senate, in which shape it finally passed, nearly all the southern members voting against it. The bill, as finally passed, was avowedly one for the protection of growers, producers and manufacturers, and Life and Timeu of Silas Wright. 133 not for revenue. The southern people called it a "bill of abominations." They conceded the right to raise revenue by imposing a tariff of duties, and that, a s an incident, protection might be given ; but denied, emphati- cally, the right otherwise to give protection. Impost duties for the pur^^ose of protection have long since been rei)udiated. Even Mr. Clay, the great champion of the "American system," declared that he would no longer sustain a tariff for protection "for the sake of protec- tion." The true constitutional principle, as subsequently presented and defended by Mr. Wright, is now almost universally admitted, but in practice is continually vio- lated by Congress. 134 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XXXII. MR. WRIGHT AND MR. BARNARD. The position of Mr. Wright, a new member, in sus- taining a bill whicli did not commjand the support of the chairman of the committee who reported it, was peculiar and embarrassino'. He had to encounter not onlv John Davis and Isaac C. Bates, of Massachusetts, Elisha Whit- tlesey, of Ohio, and many other experienced members, but John W. Taylor, Dudley Marvin, Daniel D. Barnard and Henry R. Stoors, among his own colleagues. Each challenged some of his positions, and was so promptly and conclusively answered as to render an effective reply impossible. Mr. Barnard, then representing the Rochester district, took the bold ground that he was for such protection as would become "virtual prohibition." In the course of a long speech he attempted to be facetious at the expense of Mr. Weight. Among other things he said : " I understood ray colleague to appeal to our pati-iotisra for the encouragement of coarse wool, because the sheep which produces it is a native of this country. Indeed ! My friend and colleague is a lawyer, and I should be glad to have him inform me how many generations removed from their merino or Saxony ancestor, intro- duced into this country, a flock must be before they would become naturalized in the country, — before they would become entitled to our patriotic protection equally with those " ' whose blood Has crept through [natives] ever since the flood ! ' " The following caustic reply was occasioned more by the tone and manner of Mr. Barnard, than by what he is reported to have said, which was doubtless designed to Life and Times of Silas Weight. 135 annoy and occasion ridicule. In his reply Mr. Weight said : " But, Mr. Chairman, are we to enter upon this doctrine of monopoly ? Am I to agree that this is the only and correct stop- ping point in the protective system ? I had supposed that when I put the American manufacturer upon a par with the foreigner, and not only so, but left against the foreigner the whole of the expense and charges of bi'inging his goods to our markets, I had granted a fair protection to our manufacturer, but not that I had thereby granted him a monopoly. Such protection, and more, is furnished by the bill as reported by the committee. But, sir, it is not monopoly, and hence denunciations against that bill. Hence, too, I suppose, the arguments of the gentleman from Ver- mont (Mr. Mallory) have been heard against the proposition of the member from Pennsylvania (Mr. Buchanan), because that proposition will not effect the desired monopoly. " I must here be permitted, Mr. Chairman, to correct a misrep- resentation of one of my own arguments used upon a former occasion. I was represented by my colleague (Mr, Barnard) as having urged the protection of the native wool of this country in preference to, if not to the exclusion of, other kinds and quali- ties of wool. Sir, I used no such argument. The bill makes no such provision ; nor has any such distinction beeu suggested by me. But the terms and language of my colleague, in making this representation, deserve a moment's notice. After he had given this turn to my argument, he informed the House that I was a lawyer, and then appealed to me in that character — and in a strain of eloquence, to which he was aided by a draft upon the poets — to inform him how far removed from the blood of the merino a sheep must be to entitle it to protection upon my prin- ciples. When at home, sir, I bear the appellation of a lawyer ; and whether my colleague intended to apply it to me here reproachfully or not, I know not ; but I have not considered a place in that respectable profession disgraceful, I have already said that my colleague misrepresented my argument. He equally mistook my information. I will assure that honorable gentleman that I have never inquired into the decrees of blood of sheep or 136 Life and Times of Silas Wrigut. men. No ijart of luy education has led me to these inquiries. No branch of the profession of tlie law which I have studied, whatever may have been the fact with my colleague, has fur- nished one with tlie information he asks. None of my ambition is drawn from considerations of blood, and it therefore never lias been any part of my business to trace the blood of men or beasts. It never shall be any part of my business, sir, until that system of monopoly is established in this country which my col- league so ardently wishes and so loudly and so boldly calls for from this committee. When that time shall arrive, his blood may rate him among the monopolists. Tiien, too, sir, the degrees of blood of ray kindred, of ray friends, may determine whether they are to labor in the factories or be ranked among the monopo- lists ; and then, if my honorable colleague will make this api^eal to me as to the deacrees of blood of these relatives and these friends, it shall be my duty carefully and accurately and dis- tinctly to answer him." Mr. Barnard quailed under this rebuke, so gently but forcibly given, wlnle it greatly elevated Mr. Wrigut in tlie estimation of all who heard or read it, to whatever political party they might belong. Mr. Barnard never again invited a contest with Mr. Wright, by whom he had thus been so signally discomforted. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 137 Chapter XXXIII. RE-ELECTION TO CONGRESS. In the fall of 1828, by the unanimous approval of the enthe democracy of the district, Mr. Wright was nomi- nated for re-election to Congress. Parley Keyes, of Jeffer- son county, one of the ^'seventeen," was placed on the ticket with him, both avowed supporters of Gen. Jackson for the presidency. The Adams party nominated Joseph Hawkins, of Jefferson, and George Fisher, of Oswego. The candidates for electors in that district were Charles Dugan and Alvin Bronson, on the Jackson side, and Jesse Smith, of Jefferson, and Augustus Chapman, of St. Lawrence, on the Adams side. The latter were elected by a majority of 102. The contest was a sharp one, and called out much bitterness of feeling. Gen. Jackson was described by his enemies as a ferocious monster, who had, without the authority of law, hung six militia men, as well as committed other similar crimes and offenses. Coffin handbills made a conspicuous dis- play, and sundry citizens avowed their determination, if he sliould be elected, to remove to Canada to get beyond his power. Although a vigorous attempt was made to arouse former prejudices against Mr. Weight, they failed to have any effect adverse to him. In October, before the election, he reviewed his brigade of militia — the 149tli, Twelfth Division — which included the wnole of St. Law- rence and a part of Jefferson county, whicli brought him in contact with nearly half of the voters in the district. Free intercourse with the people not only dispelled all prejudice against him, but induced many political opponents to give him their support. His political adversaries over-acted their parts in describing him. The 138 Life and Times of Silas Weight. reaction was advantageous to Mm. He was elected by a handsome majority, while the residue of the democratic ticket in the district failed. Mr. Hawkins, of the Adams ticket, was elected to Congress over Parley Keyes. Owing to blunders in the returns, by omitting the word "Junior," in several towns, a certificate of election was given to George Fisher, who took a seat in the House of Representatives. Mr. Wright gave him notice, and took evidence proving that he was legally elected, which was presented to Congress and promptly acted upon. The committee to whom the petition and evidence were referred reported in favor of Mr. Wright's claim to a seat, and Mr. Fisher was ousted from his, after serving eight days, from the 7th to the 15th of December, 1829. Owing to his having been appointed Comptroller of the State, Mr. Wright did not take his seat, but immediately resigned. At the next election, in 1829, Jonah Sanford, of St. Lawrence, was elected to fill the vacancy, and served through the second session of the twenty-first Congress. The result of the election in 1828 was highly gratifying to Mr. Wright and his friends. It proved that, after all the efforts to crush him, he was, in his district, stronger than his party. Instead of weighing down his ticket, he had helped to lift it up, which showed that he enjoyed not only the confidence of his political friends, but the marked personal esteem of many of those belonging to the adverse party. It was his deserved personal high standing that secured his success at this election. No. one then voting for him ever lived to regret it. On the contrary, all were proud of having contributed to his elevation, whenever they did so. Mr. Wright, in the fall of 1828, attended, as a delegate from St. Lawrence county, the democratic State conven- tion at Herkimer which nominated Martin Van Buren for Governor and Enos T. Throop for Lieutenant-Gover- nor, both of whom were elected in November. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 139 Chapter XXXIV. ELECTED COMPTROLLER. The office of Comptroller of the State of New York, though not highest in rank, is one of very great import- ance. Like the Secretary of the Treasury in the federal government, he is the highest financial oflicer of the State, not subject to the control of even the Governor. He reports annually, direct to the Legislature, a com- plete statement of the funds of the State, and estimates the expenses for the ensuing year. He suggests plans for the improvement of the State revenues, settles all accounts in which the State is interested, not otherwise provided by law, and draws his warrant upon the Trea- surer for payment. He is also a member of the Canal Board. Such an office is of the highest importance. It had been held by the ablest men of the State, including Grov. Marcy. Originally it was unimportant, having little authority beyond auditing accounts. Every Legis- lature added to its duties, until they became more numer- ous and diversified than those of any other officer in the State, and the Comptroller became, in fact, the principal officer, and exercised more power and political influence than even the Governor. Gov. Marcy was promoted from that office, January 21, 1829, to be one of the three judges of the Supreme Court. Upon the office becoming thus vacant, on the 27th of January, 1829, while in Con- gress, at Washington — he having taken liis seat at the sec- ond session, which commenced December 4th, 1829 — and without any solicitation whatever on his part, Mr. Wi;IIGHT was elected, by the unanimous vote of the democrats in the Legislature, to this important office. No higher evi- 140 Life and Times of Silas Wright. dence could be furnished of the confidence of liis political friends in his ability, sagacity and integrity. He had been in public life only five years, in which short period he had made a recantation which secured universal confi- dence in his fitness for this high ofHce. His appointment was an emphatic indorsement of the financial policy pre- sented in his canal report while in the Senate two years previous. It was a contemptous repudiation and con- demnation of charges made by political adversaries of "violated pledges." A higher compliment could not have been paid him. His financial views were well under- stood, and this election was designed as evidence of their approval, by the democrats in the Legislature carrying out the undoubted wishes of his political friends in the State. A more acceptable appointment could not have been made. Mk. Wbight to Minet Jenison. "Albany, 2Uh May, 1830. "My Dear Sir. — Your very acceptable letter, of the 17tli, was received this morning, and I have yet little time to answer it, but am now temporarily at leisure to what I have been since the last of March. Never have I found myself so near being overpowered with laljor as during my late sale of lands for taxes. We are now about through, but it has thrown the ordinary busi- ness of the office so far back that our press is yet very great. I heard often from you during your illness, and sometimes feared that I should never have the pleasure of reading another of your letters. I am happy to learn that you are on the gain, and still I much fear that you need some one nearer than I am to caution you not to get well too fast. You have little constitution and must use great care in order to regain your ordinary health. " The news from my poor brotlier (Plinney) is of the worst kind. A letter received on Friday last tells me that his insanity is evidently increasing upon him, and that his liealth is failing, aTid his nerves more affected. On his account I have experienced feelings and anxieties, during the last five months, of which I Life and Times of Silas Wright. 141 have never before known anything. But I think I must give it uj). Ikooni to liope is liardly left. " I had ]io})e(l to be at Canton during tlie next month, l)ut T probably shall not. Indeed, I do not pretend as yet to fix in my own "mind the time when I shall be there. The Leo'islature have imposed u})on me the duty of investigating the expenditure of $100,000 of public money in draining the Cayuga marshes, in the county of Cayuga, and in which great abuses are alleged to have existed. It will be so late before I can get away, that I shall have to go there before I can visit St. Lawrence. "Do not give youself any trouble about my little business in your hands. Yet I wish you would tell Mr. Alanson Clark, and also Mr. Ilolcomb and Day, that the situation of my unfortunate bi-otlier is such that it is indispensably necessary for me to gather his little property together and to put it wlu'iv it can be had at any call to answer liis necessities. They kn«»w it was his money I loaned to them, and I shall l)e very deeply disappointed when I come there if 1 do not get it. " Of })oliti('al news we have very little. The new pai'ty, called "tlu! workingmen's," or "Fanny Wright j»arty," is one of tlie most desperate of devices of the old eiu'niy. Among those Avho really understand it, the design is notiiing l)etter than to intro- duce; at once among us the principles, and of course to follow them with the practices, of the French revolution. An e(pial dis- tribution of [)roj)erty is avowed as the object of those who want discretion, hut the great and leading point is now making hy all to introduce wliat they call " republiean ecuiality." This they propose to effect by a system of laws jiroviding that all children, from infancy to nniturity, shall be boarded, clothed, lodged and educated at the public expense, and that every child shall have just such board, just such clothing, just such lodging and just as much education as every other, and no more. Out of the large cities this party cannot progress any, if I do not misjudge, and in them, I think, the extravagance and absurdity of their notions will soon destroy them. In this city, the result of the special election held in the second ward, on the eighteenth, has given them a ruinous blow. You will have seen the account in The Argus. In New York they are already divided into three fac- 142 Life and Times of Silas Weight. tioas, with each a newspaper advocating different doctrines as the true principles of the party. It is true that Gen. Root has devised the notion of riding this hobby, and wants to be Gover- nor any way. His late visit to New York has helped very much to destroy what little hold he had upon the good feelings of his own friends, and, I suppose, to attach him more firmly to the working men. It is also true that Bucklin and Hitchcock are foremost in the new party and in their abuse of the " regency." Root is now at Washington and Bucklin is with him ; for what object is unknown to us. Root's associates are entirely composed of men like these and the old lobby. Little is to be feared from him or them, if our friends in the country keep rational and steady. " You will have seen the expose in The Argus of Spencer's great bugbear. If I do not entirely mistake the moral sense of our population, the affair will help Throop materially. Besides these subjects, there is nothing new. Anti-masonry is dying gradually. I will write again soon. " Very sincerely your friend, "S. WRIGHT, Je. " MiNET Jenison, Esq., Sheriff, etc." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 143 Chapter XXXV. MR. WllIGHT AS COMPTROLLER. On receiving notice of his election to the office of Comp- troller, Mr. Wkight resigned his seat in the House of Representatives, in the twentieth Congress, and took leave of that body and proceeded to Albany, took the oath of office and immediately entered upon his new duties. Here he found literally a mountain of labor. Although familiar with the general financial condition of the State, he had but a limited knowledge of the multi- farious duties of the Comptrollers office. He immedi- ately commenced the task before him. A perfect set of the Session LaAvs from 1777 were secured, and every pro- vision relating to his office copied therefrom with his own hand. This brought all his statute duties before him in a small compass, convenient for consultation. The details were far more minute than in the Revised Statutes which not long after came into use. He was soon master of the details as well as the general duties of the office. His new duties brought liim into contact with an immense number of people, and especially with those engaged in canal transportation and other business con- nected with or growing out of the canals. With all such he was attentive, patient and untiring in his efforts to aid those who needed advice and assistance in the presenta- tion and management of their business of a meritorious character. Few canal boatmen fully understood all the requirements of law and practice so as to present every- thing right at first. He took unwearied pains to aid all such in their business. The blessings invoked upon him for such labors were numerous and heartfelt. They all 144 Life and Tjmes of Silas Wright. expected justice from him, and kindness and patience in p;)inting- them to the way and means of securing it. It was these men and their descen hints and friends that came to the rescue at the election in 1844, when he carried a ]jolitical weight not his own. The statute required the Comptroller to make an annual report, at the meeting of the Legislatur •, oicerning the previous year's business, and to propose plans for the future management and improvement of the finances of the State. This duty was performed by communicating, on the 21st of January, 1830, a full and clear statement of the business of the office during the year 1829, and a minute and clear statement of the revenues of the State and from what source derived, and the expenses of the past and those estimated for the year 1830. An account of each of the funds belonging to the State from which revenues were derived was given, showing the items of which each consisted. There were four important funds whose conditions he fully described. The General Fund, the School Fund, Literature Fund and the Canal Fund. All were in a flour- ishing condition except the first, which was substantially exhausted. In this report he proposed a plan of supply- ing the means necessary to place this fund upon a proper footing. The extracts which we give below clearly exhibit his views, which were emphatically opposed to the debt-contracting system. As Comptroller, Mr. Wright inflexibly adhered to the financial and canal policy expressed in his report in the Senate, on the application of David E. Evans and others, in 1827. In this first report, he not only displayed his ability as a financial officer, but his peculiar capacity to present, in a clear and lucid manner, abstruse and com- plicated subjects, and especially those of a financial character. Like all his predecessors, he manifested a strong solid- Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. 145 tudefor the preservation of the "General Fnncl," mainly formed, during the administration of George Clinton, in 1791, from the sales of lands belonging to the State, which included the purchase, of Alexander Macomb, of 3,635,200 acres, at eightpence per acre While that fund was kept intact, taxation for ordinary State pur- poses was not necessary. Although the income from the canals and auction and salt duties more than equaled the interest on tlie canal debt, these were pledged, by the Constitution of 1821, for its payment. A deticit in the income from the General Fund and all other sources, to meet the expenses of the State government, it was shown, would undoubtedly occur the next year. Mr. Wright had the manly firmness to recommend a tax of one mill on the dollar on all the real and personal property in the State, to supply the deficiency in the income of the Gene- ral Fund, and the bahmce to be employed in reimbursing that portion of the capital which had been taken from it for various purposes. Extracts from Comptroller's Report, dated January 21, 1830. "Tlie CoiiiittrolU'i- Iius bestowed cousidenible retlectioii upon tills sul)jeet [si4)i»lying the General Fund without borrowing], and the result of his deliberation has been, that a general tax upon the lenl and personal i)ropcrty of the State, levied according to the same principles of taxation wliich govern tlie assessment and taxation of town and county taxes, will be that provision, lie is fully aware that to recommend the adoption of this measure would be odious, if it had not become an imperative duty. But he feels entirely confident that any system of partial taxation, intended to produce a revenue for the ordinary support of the government in time of peace and of public and private prosperity, would be much more odious even in its recommendation, and certainly in its execution. Such a system of revenue, too, must always be an uncertain dependence, as the objects upon which it would act must be sidiject to the fluctuations of trade, or depend- 10 146 L/FE AND Times of Silas Wright. eut upon tlic tastes and pleasures and pride of certain classes of the citizens, in addition to the evasions and frauds. " That some measure shoukl be taken by the Legislature to meet the claims upon the treasury, without incurring a public debt for tlmt purpose, the Comptroller cannot doubt ; and that the true interests of the State would be consulted by adopting such provisions as would preserve the remainder of the capital of the General Fund, and as might tend to restore that fund to an ability to meet the now reduced ordinary expenses of govern- ment, he can as little doubt. In these opinions he has been fully confirmed by an examination of this fund for several years past. "A tax of one mill upon the dollar of valuation of. the real and personal estate within the State would, in the opinion of the Comptroller, not only supply the existing deficiency in the reve- nue, and arrest the further decline of this (the general) fund after the present year, but will also contribute something to its resuscitation. He, therefore, respectfully recommends to the Legislature the imposition of such a tax. In doing this, he is but repeating the recommendation which was made from this office in 1826, and which has been continued in nearly every annual report since that time, with the single variation of the amount of tax recommended." The Legislature had not the courage to carry out this recommendation. Tliey conceded tliat it was right and just, but they seemed to fear tliat their constituents woukl not sustain tliem in doing wliat was riglit and ouglit to be done. Mr. Wright entertained no such .fears. Gov. Throop, in his message, fully indorsed Mr. Wright's views. The following extracts are from his report of 1831, in which he reiterates his opinions in his iirst annual com- munication as above given. These did not secure a more favorable result at the hands of the Legislature : Life and Times of Silas Wright. 147 Extract, from Report, dated 17th January, 1831. " Among the duties enjoined by the l:iw lequiring this report is that of suggesting phms for the iraprovenaent of the puhlic revenues. That the revenues appropriated to and derivable from the General Fund require improvement, to answer the objects for which tliat fund lias been instituted and hitherto sustained, is without question. That collections from the capital of this fund cannot be made to answei', for any considerable period, the wants of the treasury, is equally clear. The choice, therefore, of the plans for improving this branch of the public revenues would seem to be confined to two alternatives, viz., that of borrowing money, upon the credit of the State, to meet the deficiencies which may, from time to time, be found to exist in the treasury ; or that of adopting some mode of taxation which shall eventu- ally supersede the necessity of other aid to this fund. The opinions of the Comptroller upon tliese points, formed upon mature deliberation, and after much examination into the history and present power of the fund to produce revenue, and the plan of improvement recommended by him, and which, in his judg- ment, it would be wise to ado[)t, will be found in his last annual report to the Legislature. The detail at that time given to sup- port his conclusions cannot now require repetition, though the facts presented may be interesting to some and are therefore respectfully referred to, "In the recommendation then made, of imposing a general tax upon the real and })ersonal property within the State, to be levied and collected upon the same princii)les which govern the assess- ment and collection of the ordinary town and county taxes, as a mode of supply'ng tlie treasury, and a plan of improving this branch of the public revenue far preferable to a system of \)OV- rowing money and accumulating a public debt, the fullest confidence is still entertained ; and if the Comptroller be not mistaken in the belief that one of these alternatives must be adopted, lie unhesitatingly recommends the former to the con- sideration of the Legislature." Mr. Wright adhered to these views in his report made in 1832. 148 Life and Times of Silas W right. Mr. Wright served as Comptroller four years, until elected a Senator of the United States. Throughout this period he adhered to his anti-debt policy, although not fully sustained by the Legislature. Notwithstanding the combinations which were formed to promote them, he never yielded his assent to the construction of the Che- nango and other minor canals, at the expense of the State, when there was no reasonable prospect that they would ever pay their cost, or even pay interest upon it and keep themselves in repair. How far the democratic party yielded in 1832 to the Chenango pressure, when William L. Marcy and John Tracy were elected Governor and Lieutenant-Governor by a strong vote from the loca- tion of that canal, is not here a material question. But it is certain that Mr. Wright never changed his o]Dinions on these subjects nor yielded them his support. He lived and died opposed to unproductive and useless public works, and to the debt-contracting policy which has done so much to embarrass the State. The policy advocated by him, as State Senator, he sustained as . Comptroller and vindicated when Governer. Until practically adopted by the Legislature, New York will never be free from an onerous public debt, as he often stated to his friends. Time confirms the correctness of his expectations. Mk, Weight to Minet Jenison. "Aj.bany, I5th December, 1830. " My Deak Sir. — ' Don't give up the ship.' These were the words of the brave Lawrence Avhen lying iipon the deck of his vessel, shot down by the balls of the enemy, and just about to pass that 'bourne whence no traveler returns.' This answer I give you in the words of your own inquiry. This world is one of afflictions, wo often say, and it is often true; but still we cling to it with a fondness which is too strong an evidence that it also affords ns comforts and hopes as well as sorrows. That your cup must be almost full is evidently true, and I had hoped that your- Life and Times of Silas Wright. ^ 149 self and family would be spared further painful sickness, for the present at least. But so seems not to be the direction of events in that wise council, the motives and designs of which we can neither see nor comprehend. " It grieves me much to learn that our friend Baldwin thought it wise or just to use his friends in the manner you describe at the election; but if he has not seen and will not see that a firm and uniform, is better than a captions course, as well in politics as in morals; if he will not believe that a decent respect for the opinion of others, deliberately and gravely expressed, is better than the gratification of the partialities of our own minds; if he is not convinced that good faith and uniform support of his friends is the best way to induce a return of such favors, then he has not had sufficient experience, and time is still necessary to carry those convictions home to him. But it does not generally recpiire much time, if opportunity occurs. Baldwin has still too much faith in the ability of a politician to conciliate his political enemies; but if he will look about among all the men he knows, and ask himself who they are that stand the strongest with their friends and the strongest against their enemies when they come before the public as candidates, he will himself answer that they are, witliout a single exception, the men who have never, upon any occasion or for any cause, wavered in the support — open, firm and ac^tive support — of tlieir friends, their principles and their party, and who have equally uniformly, equally openly, and equally firmly and actively opposed their political enemies. If he will look for the men most respected by their political oppo- nents, and for the men he most respects as politicians, who ai-e opposed to him, he will find them among this class in all cases. If these facts and feelings will not decide him to act openly, firmly and decidedly with the republican party and its usages in all cases, nothing can. " My good brother will be with you before you get this, and I presume is before this day. I hope he may feel as mitch at home as he did on his visit, and that his winter maybe pleasant to him. You know the anxiety I feel on his account, and that you cannot do me so great a favor as the exercise of your kindness to him. I do not want him to study much and by any means confine him- 150 Life and Times of Silas Wright. self, but to exercise and keep the mind and body free and health- ful. I j)resume he will have some money which he will wish to loan, or so dispose of that it will earn him what it should, and he may like to take the loan Ames wishes to get. If so, I wish you would aid him to get it; and as he may not have the amount, you may make it up out of the sum Hill has paid to you, unless in your troubles you want to use it; but if you do, make use of it, or any part of it you do want. Should my brother want money let him have it, as I do not intend he shall spend at all upon his own. You need not try to send any part of this money to me; but if at any time you should wish to get it out of your hands you may loan it, if you can do so where it can certainly be had by calling for it, or you may deposit it to my credit in the Bank of Ogdensburgh, and take a certificate of deposit in my name and send that to me. But I have no want of the money and would rather you should keep it, if it does not trouble you. "I can find no printer as yet to send you, and doubt whether I shall be able to at Wyman's price. If I can find one I shall; but should he sell out to our opponents, I think you can have a press and printer, perhaps, quite as well. Yet I would rather he should not do so, and if he should ; I hojje you will see that the balance on my mortgage in your hands is paid or secured. I shall write to my brother very soon, but am greatly hurried in business. " Most truly yours, etc., "SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. "MiNET Jenison, Esq." Life and Tjmes of Silas Weight. 151 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE GEORGIA MISSIONARIES. DifRc 111 ties sprang up between the State of Georgia and tlie Cherokee Indians, who continued to occupy lands in that State claimed by Georgia. The federal government had agreed with that State to extinguish the Indian title to these lauds. By a treaty with them this was accomplished, but the Indians and some others denounced it as fraudulent and void, although confirmed by the Senate. Her Legislature had extended the laws of tlie State over this land, and made it penal for white men to reside there under certain circumstances. Mis- sionaries had gone among the Indians there in violation of these laws. The authorities of the State had caused them to be indicted, tried and convicted and imprisoned under them. Many Christian people were much excited on the subject, and the course^ the State assumed was claimed to be wrong and was severely' condemned. This question was becoming an element in the elections out of Georgia. Wishing to avoid this and to r-ender the mis- sionaries a service, Mr. Wukjiit interested himself in their behalf. At that time Wilson Lumkin was Governor of Georgia. Mr. Wright served in Congress with him in 1828, and knew him well. On the 18th of December, 1832, Mr. WiiiGiiT, together with Azariali Flagg and John A. Dix, addressed a letter to Gov. L., recommend- ing him to pardon these missionaries. With this request he promx^tly complied. Had he not done so, difficulties would probably have long continued between the Indians and the State, and perhaps serious collisions occurred. In this matter Mi'. Wukuit rendered nn important ser- 152 Life and Thies of Silas Weight. vice to the missionaries, Georgia and the Clierokee Indians, wliich gave great satisfaction throughout the country. Mr. Wright to Minbt Jenison. « " Albany, Uh October, 1831. " Mt Dear Sir. — Your letter was received this morning. The money you have received from Hill you will please to keep for the purpose of meeting the demand to become due to your brother. If Boyntoii will take it on the mortgage, you had bet- ter pay it now and save the interest ; but if he Avill not, then make any use of it you may have occasion for until it is wanted for that purpose. The other $100 I shall be prepared to make out at the time, as I have little hope Lemuel will make it ; but if, without any unpleasant and unprofitable interference, you can induce him to make it, I am satisfied you will save him just so much ; as, in his present habits, the property from which you expect it to come will certainly be squandered if it does not go to that object, and it will please me if the debt can be so much lessened. If he manifests no signs of change, the family must soon make an effort to obtain the charge of the business, or nothing will be j^aid, and the property will, at the same time, so depreciate as to produce inevitable ruin to them all. I do not ask this on my account, and I know the accomplishment, if not impossible, will be very difficult, but I suggest it because I believe it for their good. " I left my brother, or rather he left me, at Middlebury, on Monday of last week, and by Saturday last you must have seen him at Canton. I dare not trust myself to speak on the subject of the four days' meeting, further than to say that if our benevo- lent and wise Creator delights in exhibitions of passion of any kind in His creatures, I have been mistaken in all my views of that Glorious Being; and however contrary has been my conduct, I have always designed to cherish and entertain a reverence for my God. I hope evil is not designed, though I know that evil is produced by these studied efforts to play with the violent and dangerous passions of frail mortals; and whether the pretense be religion, the abduction of William Morgan, or the electoral law, Life and Times of Silas Wright. 153 the effect is all the same, though the motive in the operators may be very different. " In our blessed country, as yet, we have been able to withstand these shocks of public passion, but the time has not before been when they assailed us- in so many different ways, and with so formidable force, as now. Look at the conversion to anti-masonry of Mr. Wirt, the man now gravely recommended to us for the first office under the government, and say what more confident calculator upon the gullibility of free and enlightened men ever appeared before the pul)lic and claimed trust and confidence ? But I must stop. Neither my time or your patience can suffer more. " Take care of your health, and write often to me. To-morrow you make your nominations, and may a wise Power guide yoii to a harmonious and profitable result; for I really fear that, in addi- tion to anti-masonry, national republicanism. United States Bank and Indian sympathy, you have to number, as an opponent, Finny- ism and four-day meetings. I shall expect a letter before you get this. " In great haste, " Most truly your friend, "SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. "MiNET Jenison, Esq." 154 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XXXVII. THE CHENANGO AND OTHER LATERAL CANALS. The people of the Chenango valley and other places early sought the construction of lateral canals, claiming they would not only pay interest upon their cost, but at no distant day the expense of construction. Surveys were ordered and estimates made. Of these, the Che- nango was the most important. Those interested in its construction combined with others to secure their object. They sought by various means to make everything bend to their purposes. At the session of 1829, the Legislature autliorized its construction, provided the Canal Commis- sioners, after survey and estimate, should be of opinion that it would not cost over a million of dollars, and that for the first ten 3^ears the tolls would be equal to the interest of its cost, attendance and rej^airs, all of which they were required to report to the next Legislature. On the 21st of January, 1830, the Canal Commissioners, in their annual report, presented their conclusions on this subject. They said they had surveyed, examined and estimated, as required, and could not consistently with the law commence the work. They were of opinion that it would cost more than a million of dollars, and, "in regard to its revenue, it would not produce an amount of tolls, in connection with the increased tolls on the Erie canal, that would be~ equal to the interest of its cost and the expense of its repairs and superintendence, or either of iliemr This report was long and able, and exhibited clearly the facts and reasons upon which their conclusions were founded. This report was followed V)y one from Mr. Wkigiit, as Life and Times of Silas Wright. 155 Comptroller, "inwMcli," says Mr. Hammond, "in Ms own masterly, clear and convincing manner, with wliicli the pnblic are now well acquainted, he e^shibited the condition of the funds of the State, and proved that the State ought not to incur any additional expenditures, without, at the same time, providing the means of defray- ing such, expenses." Although Mr. Wright's canal and financial policy had received the approval of the people of the State, and these reports had demonstrated the impolicy of con- structing the Chenango and like canals, their supporters were not detered from pressing their applications. Mr. Francis Granger was a zealous supi)orter of these mea- sures. The valley of the Chenango was democratic. If the democrats there could be induced to withhold their votes from the democratic candidates and cast them for the opposing ticket, their adversaries might triumpli. In 1832 Mr. Granger became the anti-raasonic candidate for Governor, aud his previous support of the Chenango and other lateral canals was mainly relied upon for suc- cess. The democrats nominated AVilliam L. Marcy, of Albany, for Governor — then a United States Senator — and John Tracy, of Chenango, for Lieutenant-Governor. The nomination of Mr. Tracy seemed to satisfy the elec- tors of this part of the State that if the democratic State ticket prevailed their local interests would not be ignored. Both were elected and a majority of the Legislature were democratic. The pressure of these canal interests, when combined, was too strong to be resisted by those who adhered to Mr. Wright's policy, and, in process of time, these several lateral canals were constructed at the expense of the State. They have proved less productive than the commissioners or Mr. Wright expected, and are a constant drain upon the treasury of the State, as they anticipated. 156 Life and Times op Silas Wbight. Chapter XXXVIII. RE-ELECTED COMPTROLLER. Before tlie expiration of his first term of three years, as Comptroller, Mr. Wkigiit was nominated, by a demo- cratic legislative caucus, for re election. Some feeble attempt was made by those whose measures he con- sidered it his duty to oppose, to defeat his nomination. But his acknowledged abilities and his conceded fitness for the station prevented the effort becoming successful, or even formidable. Those of his political friends who had urged the measures in question at first manifested some feeling in opposition, but such was the unshaken con- fidence reposed in him as a faithful and wise public servant, that all serious opposition was waived. He was nominated by a very large majority, and elected, by the unanimous vote of his political friends in the Legislature, on the 6tli day of February, 1832. He was again sworn into office and entered upon his duties. His re-election was highly gratifying to the democracy in all parts of the State. He adhered to his opinions of the true financial policy which the State ought to pursue with unwavering fidelity. They were uniformly presented with great frankness, and with such clearness that no one could easily misunder- stand them. They were given at length in his annual report, made to the Legislature only two days before his election to the Senate of the United States. The follow- ing extracts show with what tenacity he adhered to prin- ciples which he deemed it wise for the State to pursue. If the Legislature had adopted and adhered to them, the State would not now owe a dollar, and its income would Li IE AND Times of Silas Wright. 157 be equal to the necessary expenses of the State govern- ment. Extracts from Report of January 2, 1833. " Thus it will appear that the whole capital of this (the General Fuudj is already expended, with the exception of the above balance of $6,810.06; although, from the fact that the credit of the State, in the shape of public stock, has been substituted for money, time is gained for the payment of the debt, and there is, from that cause only, an unexpended capital yet at liberty to contribute its income to the wants of the public treasury, amounting to $578,310.06. "The law makes it the duty of the Comptroller to suggest plans for the improvement and management of the public revenues, which duty he has, in every previous annual report, attempted to discharge; and he is unable to say lie can, at this time, add anything to his former suggestions. So far as it has been in his power, the true situation of the titiances of the State have been fairly and fully exhibited to each Legislature to which he has made a re[)ort, and his opinions of the policy to be pursued have been frankly expressed. He has never been unaware that the recommendation of a tax upon all the citizens and all the property of the State for the support of the government was a thankless duty ; but he has not believed that the official obliga- tion was less binding because the character of the recommenda- tion was unpleasant. On the contrary, he has felt the most firm conviction that the intelligence and patriotism of the citizens of the State would induce a just appreciation of the motives Avhich alone cinild draw forth such a recommendation ; that their just abhorrence of a perniiincnt public debt was even stronger than tlieir disinclination to be temporarily taxed, and that when they should see the one alternative or the other Approaching, they would demand the tax and interdict the use of their credit for the ordinary expenses of the government. " The Comptroller owes it to himself further to say, that his pi'evious recommendations of a light tax have been accompanied, in his own mind, at least, with the anticipation that the burthen upon the citizens would not be severe, and that the duration of 158 Life and Times of Silas Wright. any tax would be sliort. He found the capital of the General Fund materially i-educed, and sinking rapidly from gradual annual consumptions, but still he found that the prominent cause of the great reduction of the capital of this fund had been its ample contributions to the specific funds ; he found these funds in a healthful and flourishing condition ; the School Fund, dis- tributing its 1100,000 annually to the common schools, and promising, from the vast resources it had drawn from the General Fund in the unappropriated lands, to be able to advance upon that dividend as rapidly as the greatest good of these most interesting establishments would require ; the Literature Fund, dispensing its 110,000 annually to the academies of the State, and promising, from its improved revenues, a speedy increase to that useful bounty ; the Canal Fund, rising in importance, and swelling its revenues with a rapidity and certainty surpassing the most sanguine calculations of its strongest friends. " From the two former funds nothing was to be expected in aid of the General Fund, and that they did not require further aid from it was a satisfactory conclusion. But the latter, the Canal Fund, Avas merely pledged to a specific purpose — to the payment of certain amounts, and, that done, was at liberty to reimburse the General P\ind its liberal donations, and the long use of some of its richest revenues. To this period the Comptroller has accustomed himself to look with deep and anxious interest, and he had believed that if, by a light tax, the ordinary expenses of the government were })aid, until the canal debt, the only debt the State then owed, should l)e discharged, the dilapidated capi- tal of the General Fund might be effectually repaired by the receipt of its contributions to the canals, and be thus put in a situation to meet, by its revenues, the ordinary exjDenses of the government, without the aid of a tax. This, he believed, might be done without materially diminishing that portion of the reve- nues from the canals which the Legislature might be disposed to apply, when disehai'ged from their present pledge, to the further prosecution of similar works in other sections of the State; but he did fear that if the entire capital of the General Fund should be consumed in defraying the expenses of the government, and to postpone the time when a tax must be levied, another and Life and Times of Silas Wuight. 159 similar fund iniglit not be instituted, and that taxation might become not only heavy in amount but permanent in duration. " The Legislature, however, has pointed out a ditterent policy, and that body will dictate the course for the future. Were it not made the express duty of the Comptroller to suggest plans for the impro\ ement of the public revenues, he W(»uld here leave this to})ic; and certainly any suggestions he may make, seeming to conflict with the honest judgment of previous Legislatures, will be made with all possible i-espect for those independent representatives of the people. Unable, however, to a})preciate the wisdom of the policy which is thus speedily to consume entirely a fund instituted with the institution of the State govern- ment and designed for its support, he is compelled to renew his former recommendation of a tax sufficient to sup])ort the govern- ment, to provide for the payment of the del)t charged upon the General Fund, and to prevent from furthei" diminution the capital of this fund, until the recei|»t of its dues from the Canal Fund shall I'cnder it equal to the demands upon it." Tliese views, altlioiigli clear, forcible and unanswera- ble, (lid not secure the favorable action which th(4r wisdom demanded and sound i)olicy required. Tlie Legislature hesitated, talked right and acted wrong. The debt-contracting policy was attended with much less present responsibility among voters than the more wise and honest one of taxation and prompt payment. There is little labor in contracting debts, but much in their paym(?nt. It is far easier to leave a legacy of debts for our children to pay, than to delve and meet our expenses as we go along, and leave them unincumbered estates. Mr. Wuight' s financial policy was like John Handolph's theory of becoming rich, which he said was fully devel- oi)ed in foui- monosyllables, "-Pay as you go.'' This is as much the best and wisest for States as it is for indivi- duals. Thrift and debts are neither relatives nor ordi- nary friends. IVIr. Wright personally practiced upon his own financial theory throughout life. 100 Life and Time is of Silas Wkight. Chapter XXXIX. ELECTED TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. At the election in November, 1832, William L. Marcy, then representing the State of New York in the Senate of the United States, was elected Governor of the State, and soon after resigned his senatorship. This created a vacancy to be filled by the Legislature, which met on the 1st of January, 183:3. Public affairs at Washington had assumed an alarming aspect. Nullification had taken deep root in South Carolina, and the tree of secession had bloomed and seemed about to produce poisonous fruits. A harvest of treason was strongly indicated. Sympathy, more or less deep, was springing up in other southern States. Resistance to the laws of Congress for the collection of duties on imports was imminent. The (crisis demanded, in the councils of the nation, our wisest and most patriotic statesmen to consider and act upon it. Although then comparatively a young man, all eyes were turned to Mr. Wkight, as the most suitable person to fill the vacant seat in the Senate. Although the friends of the Chenango bill, against which he had, in substance, reported, did not favor it, he was nominated, and, with- out any agency whatever of his own, appointed by a large majority on the 4th of January, 1833. He resigned the office of Comptroller and immediately proceeded to Washington, and, on the 14th of January, 1833, took his seat in the Senate, with Charles E. Dudley for a colleague. This brought two of the celebrated "seventeen" State Senators of 1824 together in the highest legislative body in the United States. Mr. Wright remained in the Senate — he having been Life and Times of Silas Wright. XQ\ twice re-elected — until the 3()tli of November, 1844, a period of nearly twelve years, when he resigned in con- sequence of having been elected Governor of New York. Henry A. Foster was then appointed, by Gov. Bouck, to fill his place, who served until after the meeting of the Legislature, which, on the 18th of January, 1845, appointed John A. Dix to serve out Mr. Weight's unexpired term — to the 3d of March, 1849. Mr. Tall- madge also resigned, having been appointed Governor of Wisconsin by President Tyler, and on the same day the Governor appointed Daniel S. Dickinson in his place, to serve until tlie 3d of March, 1845. On the 18th of Janu- ary he was elected for a full term of six years, which he served out. 11 ■#» 1(52 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XL. ENTRANCE INTO SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. Weight entered the Senate and took tlie oath, of office on the 14th of January, 1833. The Senate then consisted of the following members: John Holmes and Peleg Sprague, of Maine, Samuel Bell and Isaac Hill, of IN'ew Hamj^shire, Nathaniel Silsbee and Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Nehemiah R. Knight and Aslier Robins, of Rhode Island, Samuel A Foot and Gideon Tomlinson, of Connecticut, Samuel Prentiss and Horatio Seymour, of Vermont, Charles E. Dudley and Silas Weight, Jr., of New York, Mahlon Dickerson and Theodore Freling- huysen, of New Jersey, George M. Dallas and William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, John M. Clayton and Arnold Naudain, of Delaware, John Tyler and William C. Rives, of Virginia, Bedford Brown and Willie P. Manghim, of North Carolina, Stephen D. Miller and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, George M. Troup and John Forsyth, of Georgia, George M. Bibb and Henry Clay, of Ken- tucky, Hugh L. White and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, Josiali S. Johnston and George A. Waggamon, of Louis- iana, William Hendricks and John Tipton, of India-na, George Poindexter and John Black, of Mississippi, Elias K. Kane and John M. Robinson, of Illinois, William R. King and Gabriel Moore, of Alabama, Thomas H. Benton and Alexander Bucknor, of Missouri. Mr. Weight, then thirty-seven years of age, was the youngest man in the Senate. He carried with him a reputation which few men acquire at that age. Although he fully appreciated, in all their aspects, the condition of our public affairs, he did not attempt to lead off in SILAS WRIGHT IN THE U. S. SENATE. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 163 their correction, but chose to follow the action of the experienced and venerable men by whom he was sur- rounded. His views in relation to the Union and its dan- gers were fully presented in letters published at the time in the Albany Argus, which we give in the next chapter. They attracted more attention than anything which had met the jDublic eye. They clearly pointed out the dan- gers ahead and the necessity of pursuing a course which would avoid them and insure safety to the public. Until the appearance of these letters, many at the north were inclined to treat the nullification movements in South Caro- lina with a degree of levity and as of little public import- ance. Although the federal government was in the safest possible hands, with Andrew Jackson at its head, Mr. Wkight was not for subjecting its strength to one of those violent tests which would produce, spread and intensify the disunion feeling, if it did not end in actual civil war, with all its fearful and fatal consequences. He preferred that course of action which would allay, if it did not wholly ol)viate, all discontent. Such a course, eventually pursued by Congress, was sustained by his vote and met the approbation of his constituents and the American people. 164 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XLl. MR. WRIGHT'S LETTERS CONCERNING NULLIFICATION. Upon entering the Senate of the United States, Mr. Wright availed himself of every opportunity to ascertain the real condition of the nnllitication question at the south. The information thus obtained he communi- cated, in private letters, to Edwin Croswell, then editor of the Albany Argus, who published them without the signature. The following, from internal evidence, are believed to be from him. The only surviving person engaged at that time (1833) in the management and publication of The Argus is clearly of the opinion that Mr. Wright was the author of both. They were then, and especially the second one, attributed to him by newspapers and the public generally, without dissent by him or his friends. Letter to the Editor of The Argus, dated Washington City, January 16, 1833. "De/vR Sir. — The executive message, calling on Congress for the means of executing the laws of the Union against South Caro- lina nullification, was received to-day, and after some debate was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. The message is worthy of the man, the occasion and the people. Full, without prolixity, clear and distinct, it breathes the purest spirit of patriotism and expresses the most ardent devotion to rational liberty. "With the whole subject before Congress, on that body devolves the duty to see that justice is done to the injured — that peace and the Union be maintained. Will Congress be equal to the emergency ? I fear they will not be able either to reduce or equalize the taxes; and, if they cannot rise to their Life and Times of Silas Wright. 165 duty, little should be expected of good from any measure they may adopt. " You may not, but I consider this state of things civil war. The arms and munitions are prepared, the men on both sides enlisted, and each waits that the other may strike the first blow. Such is now the case, and this message asks only certain enact- ments. But let no man suppose that this is a season of peace. I do not point out the course of the future. That course is too evident. If the taxes are not reduced and equalized, there will be no peace until, as the French minister said, ' the Russians are victorious and order reigns in Warsaw.' " One short year since, when the present state of things was predicted, all was treated as a ' delusion,' a chimera; and so fast have these revolutionary events hurried on, that men suppose we are at peace in the midst of battle. And now, when they are pointed to the future, that also is too bad to be possible, and therefore is denied. Yes, the truth has become too dangerous to be uttered, and the man who dares to publish it must be abused as if he caused what he is forced to see and cannot prevent. "Now, I repeat it, if anything wise or good or safe for the republic is done, it must be done by the people." The situation of public matters at the south had arrested the attention of thoughtful men at the north. A public meeting was called at Albany, after the receipt of the foregoing letter, to consider them. It was held on the 24th of January, 1833, two days after its publication. At this meeting Chief Justice Savage presided, assisted by Benjamin Knower and Jesse Buel as vice-presidents ; John Townsend and Rufus H. King were secretaries. The Committee on Resolutions consisted of James McKown, Tennis Van Vechten, John N". Quackenboss, Peter Wendell, f'rancis Bloodgood, Charles R. Webster and John S. Van Rensselaer. They reported three resolutions ; the first, in a gingerly manner, refused to give up the protection provided by the tariff law; the second approved Gen. Jackson's recent message, condemning nullification and calling 166 Life and Times of Silas Wright. upon Congress to provide the means necessary to enforce the custom-house hiws tliroughout the United States ; the third, in substance, said to our Senators and members in Congress "do what you think best on tliis interesting subject." There was not in Albany, at the time of this meeting, as much harmony of opinion on this subject as was expected. The real condition of things at the south, and the feelings and wishes of the people in the different States, were not well understood prior to the publication of Mr. Wright's letter of the twentieth of January, when a more harmonious feeling prevailed. The Argus of the 28th of January, 1833, contains the following editorial notice, and a letter known to have been written by Mr. Weight, to show his friends at Albany the real state of things at Washington and the south. " To show that we do not exaggerate the state of things at Washington and in South Carolina, and that the republicans of this city have nut acted under erroneous impressions in that respect, we venture to subjoin extracts from a letter received here on Saturday, from one in whom tlie people of New York have confided, and who has never betrayed and never will betray their confidence. It was not designed for publication, but the times demand that even the private views of public men should be brought out if they can be supposed to contribute to the general welfare. &^ " ' Washington, Janncm/ 20, 1833. " ' The state of things here is in every sense critical ; though I do not by this mean to be understood as saying that immediate indications of force, of rebellion, of civil war, or disunion have strengthened, since my former letter, in any other manner than that we are approaching the time set by South Carolina for nulli- fication of the laws of the government, without any evidence of an intention to delay her acts or to let them remain passive. " ' Some of the soundest of ihe Virginia delegation seem to think that Virginia will stand firm against nullification, and that they must finally come off from the present troubles better than Life axd Times of Silas Wright. 1(37 indications at present would seem to promise; but they say tliis hope is based upon the belief that they shall be able to adjust the tarifl" this year, or that such strong indications will be aiiorded of a disposition to do it as will enable their true and well-mean- ing men to satisfy the people that it will be done, or some- thing will be done by the next Congress. Without this, they say Virginia will join the south in any measure to effect it, for that their people have become as determined on it as South Carolina, and only differ by being determined to do it peaceably and constitutionally. "'Every information to be obtained here shows that Georgia is just about in the situation I have described Virginia to be; that North Carolina yet stands more firmly than either, but entertains deeply the same common feeling upon this subject ; and that Alabama and Mississippi are inclining strongly to the same feeling; while I am assured that Tennessee, when her venerable patriot shall cease to hold the reins of the government, if not before, will certainly take the same side of the controversy, and with equal feeling. " ' The impression of reflecting and judicious men in Virginia is, that harmony may be preserved, or at least a dangerous alter native avoided, if a proper disposition is manifested in the House of Representatives to do something at the present session, eithei immediately or prospectively. The same impression is entertained as to Georgia and tlie other States by some of their representa- tives; but all agree that the existing laws must be so modified as to bring the duties to the revenue standard, or that peace and quiet cannot be restored, and that disunion and division must follow any other course. Wlien I say this, I mean to say that it is the judgment pronounced by such men as * * * * * of Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee delegations. " ' You will remark that in this enumeration I have omitted to mention the Union men of South Carolina. Upon the main question their opinions and feelings are those 1 have described ; but as to immediate or jDOstponed action they stand wholly in a different rela- tion. They look upon the first of February as the period after Avhicli they are to stand by their arms, and after which they are 168 Life and Times of ^ilas Wright. to enjoy the liberty and right of conscience of free citizens of this happy republic only by periling their lives for those privi- leges. Whether mistaken or not, they honestly expect that resistance to the revenue laws will be made ; and that, under the legislation proposed by the President in his late message, they will be called upon to enforce those laws, and that if so must meet force, the first blood must be that of citizens of their State taking the lives of each other. They are ready for this point, and are fully determined to meet the crisis manfully and patriotically ; but they say, with at least some force of reason, for what are we thus to put our lives in jeopardy, and to call upon our faithful constituents to fall by our sides ? For the enforce- ment of laws which we consider as unwise, as impolitic, as unjust, and as oppressive as those with whom we are called to meet in deadly combat ? The proper remedy against the oppres- sion is the only question between us ; and about that Ave shed the blood of our neighbors and friends, while our common feeling for the common oppression is the same, and we, with them, would gladly unite in all constitutional measures to redress. Such appeals must reach the feelings and the heart of every man, and for that cause may warp the judgment. I, therefore, leave the reasoning and feeling of these men out of the question, in giving you the facts presented here, as to the great question, and from which our opinions and actions are, in a great degree, to be taken.' " Life and Times of Silas Wright. 169 Chapter XLIL NULLIFICATION AND C0MPR(3MISE MEASURES. The tariff of 1828 is now conceded to have been more a political than revenue measure, and deeply affected the then pending presidential election. It served a purpose, though highly distasteful to the south, whose Represen- tatives and Senators in Congress generally resisted it by their speeches and votes. Although somewhat modified by the act of 18B2, its leading features remained and highly exasperated those upon whose interests it bore with a heavy hand, if not by a crushing weight. This tariff. legislation, and its injustice, formed the staple of the argument used in South Carolina for exerting its power to nullify its provisions within the limits of the State. The constitutional right to do this was denied by Gen. Jackson in a proclamation of December 11, 1832, and ill his message of January 16, 1833, in which he was sustained, at the time, by the entire north and west, and by a large majority of every State, except South Carolina. Congress proin2:)tly acted upon the subject at this session, at which tv/ o measures came before the Senate bearing upon the nullification question raised in South Carolina, and which Mr. VViught feared might excite the sympathy of other States and involve them in sustaining its action: the revenue collection bill, often called the "force bill," a measure intended to sustain the majesty and dignity of the law, and to cause it to be fully executed, and to punish those infringing and resisting it. Mr. Wright sustained and voted for this act, which was severely denounced at the soutli. Its leading provisions were short-lived, and died at the end of the next session of 170 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Congress, and have never been revived. He took no part in the discussions on this bill. The other measure, the tariff, was largely discussed. In this debate he participated. He proposed amend- ments, and sustained some of those presented by others. At the time of its passage Mr. Wright briefly assigned the reasons why he felt it a duty to vote for it. He said: " He rose to give, very concisely, the views which he enter- tained in regard to this measure. His objections to it were strono-, and under any other than existing circumstances would perhaps be insurmountable. He thought the reduction too slow for the first eiglit years, and vastly too rapid afterwards. Again he objected to the inequality of the rule of reduction which had been adopted. It will be seen at once that on articles paying 100 per cent duty, the reduction was dangerously rapid. There was uniformity in the rule adopted by the bill as regards its operation on existing laws. The first object of the bill was to efi'ect a compromise between the conflicting views of the friends and opponents of protection. It purports to extend relief to southern interests, and yet it enhances the duty on one of the most material articles of southern consumption — negro cloths. Again, while it increases this duty it imposes no corresponding duty on the raw material from which the fabric is made. "Another objection arose from his mature conviction that the principle of home valuation was absurd, impracticable and of very imequal operation. The reduction on some articles of prime necessity — iron, for example — was so great and so rapid that he was perfectly satisfied that it would stop all further production before tlie expiration of eight years. The principle of discrimi- nation was one of the points introduced into the discussion, and as to this, he would say that the bill did not recognize, after a limited period, the power of Congress to afford protection by discriminating duties. It provides protection for a certain limited time, but does not ultimately recognize the principle of protection. The bill proposes ultimately to reduce all articles which pay duty to the same rate of duty. This principle of revenue was Life and Times of Silas Wright. 171 entirely unknown to our laws, and, in his opinion, was an unwar- rantable innovation. Gentlemen advocating the principle and policy of free trade admit the power of Congress to lay and collect such duties as are necessary for the purposes of revenue; and to that extent they will incidentally afford protection to manufac- tures. He would, upon all occasions, contend that no more money should be raised from duties on imports than the govern- ment needs, and tliis principle he wished now to state in plain terms. He adverted to the proceedings of the free-trade con- vention, to show that, by a large majority (120 to 7), they recog- nized the constitutional power of Congress to afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures. They expressly agreed that the principle of discrimination was in consonance with the Constitution. " Still another objection he had to the bill. It proposed on its face, and, as he thought, directly, to restrict the action of our successors. We had no power, he contended, to bind our successors. We might legislate prospectively, and a future Congress could stop the course of this prospective legislation. He had, however, no alternative but to vote for tlie bill, with all its defects, because it contained some provisions which the state of the country rendered indispensably necessary. "Tliis brought him to the consideration of the reasons which would induce him to vote for the bill. Upon what circum- stances, Mr. President, are we called upon to vote for a bill thus imperfect? Is the occasion one of ordinary character, and one which can be lightly regarded ? He might render himself obnox- ious to the charge of legislating under the influence of fear. But are there considerations of a proper nature which operate \n favor of this measure ? What are they ? There is, in some parts of the country, a strong and deep expression of discontent at our legislation on the subject of the tariff. These discontents, it was not to be concealed, had risen to such a height as to threaten the peace of the country and the integrity of the Union. The hostile attitude assumed by a sister State towards the country had induced us to do what we are now bound to do, and a i-efusal to do which would have endangered the integrity of the Union. The blow was aimed at the fiscal resources of the country — at the purse, 172 Life and Times of Silas Wright. which was a troublesome thing to manage, though without it the government could not exist. The measui-e proposed would restore harmony to the country, and he believed it to be just and proper to yield much for the purpose of effecting this object. The time was come when the revenue should be reduced, even the revenue derived from protected articles. This single measure for effecting a reduction was presented to him for his acceptance or rejection, and, defective as it was in many respects, he would take it as a satisfactory concession to all that portion of the south which believed the existing laws to be unjust and oppressive. " It was unnecessary to say that the whole country was strongly impressed with the necessity of reducing the revenue gradually to the wants of the government. It was the details of such a measure, as it was the rule by which we should reach the proper standard, upon which members of this body and the people gen- erally differed. If no better measure than that before us would be agreed upon, he should feel it to be his duty to support it. He had now given the reasons which would induce him to vote for the bill. Tlie principal reason Avas that a sister State of the Union was highly exasperated at the course of federal legislation, and was on the eve of having recourse to a desperate remedy for what she considered as her wrongs. Thinking this measure to be necessary for the peace of the country, all its defects sunk out of sight." After a few remarks by Mr. Bibb and Mr. Clay, and a few words from Mr. Wright, the vote was finally taken upon the bill, and it passed the Senate by ayes 29, 7iays 16, and subsequently became a law. Mr. Wright's remarks and vote met the warm concurrence of his con- stituents, although they were not supported by the vote of his colleague, Mr. Dudley, who was also a democrat. The vote on this and on the force bill, against which there were only seven votes, — Bibb, Calhoun, King, Mangum, Miller, Moore, Troup and Tyler, — was not one involving party fidelity. Nor was it sectional. Both democrats and whigs were divided, as were nortliern and southern men. Local interests and feelings, to a very considerable Life and Times of Silas Weight. 173 extent, had their effect in occasioning many of the votes. But pure patriotism and sincere regard for the integrity of the Union controlled otliers, and averted the dangers which threatened it. This law was, at the time, called the "compromise act." It allayed the irritated and excited feelings of the south, and restored peace and harmony throughout the Union. 174 Life and Times of >Silas Weight. Chapter. XLIIL CASE OF ELI8HA R. POTTER, CLAIMING A SEAT AS SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND. At tlie commencement of the session, in December, 1^38, two persons — Elislia R. Potter and Aslier Robbins — claimed a seat as Senator from Rliode Island — the former a democrat, the latter a whig. Mr. Robbins was directed to be sworn in by a strict party vote. On the second day of the session Mr. Wright offered a resoln- tion to refer the claim of Mr. Potter to a seat to a select committee. Tlie consideration of the resolution was postponed, and on the next day, after being amended so as to require the Senate, instead of the Vice-President, to appoint the committee, it was adopted. Mr. Weight resisted this change in the practice of the Senate, but was defeated by a party vote. The Senate appointed a committee, consisting of Messrs. Poindexter, Rives, Wright, Sprague and Frelinghuysen. The chaiinian and two last-named members, making a majority, were whigs and opposed to Mr. Potter's claim to a seat. They prepared and presented a report, sustaining Mr. Robbins' claim. Mr. Rives, having been appointed Minister to France, resigned his seat. His opinions harmonized with Mr. Wright's on this subject. The right of tlie latter to make a minority report, although fiercely resisted, was iinally assented to, and he prepared and presented one, which was printed. The facts in the case were not the subject of much difference. Legal or constitutional questions were the matters in controversy. In those days the Rhode Island Legislature were elected for only half a year, and then gave place to others. Mr. Robbins Life axd Times of Silas Wright. 175 had been a Senator and liis place was about to become vacant. The Legislature, a majority of whom were whigs, extended the term of their own existence, and during that extended term elected Mr, Robbins for six years, from the 3d of March, 1833. The next Legislature was democratic, and believing that the acts of the pre- vious Legislature, under the extension, were nullities, pioceeded to elect Mr. Potter to represent the State in the Senate. The question of power of the State Legislature to extend its constitutional term of existence was the only one involved of any importance. The majority of tlie committee claimed that it had this power, and could and had lawfully exercised it. The minoritj^ repoit denied the existence of any such power, and insisted that it had not been rightfully exercis«'(l. It was conclusive upon tli(^ subject. The ability with whicli Mr. Wright argued the question presented elevated him in the public estima- tion as a logician and constitutional lawyer. The conclusions of the nuijority report were adopted by the vote of every whig present when it was taken. At this day no one of either ])ai-ty would probably seriously declare that Mr. Robbins was lawfully entitled to a scat in the Senate. At the instance of Mr. Wright the Senate ordered that Mr. Potter should be j^aid, like other Senators, while awaiting the final action of that body. This vote was not, like the other, based upon party fix^lings and policy, but upon a prin('iple recognized by both Houses of Congress — ^ to ])ay those who present prima facie evidence of election, and act in good faith in claiming a seat. 176 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XLIV. REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS FROM THE UNITED STATES BANK. The Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, and a bill extending its charter passed both Houses of Congress in 1832, and was vetoed by President Jackson. The revenues of the government had been deposited in it at Philadelphia, and in its branches elsewhere, as far as practicable. By its charter the Secretary of the Treasury had the power to remove them and to make deposits in other places. The laws of Congress had provided a Sec- retary of the Treasury Department and a Treasurer, but no treasury proper. As the bank would soon expire, and ought to prepare for that event, Gen. Jackson came to the conclusion that further deposits ought not to be made in the bank, and those in it should be drawn out as the exi- gencies of the government might require. He announced his determination to his cabinet on the 22d of September, 1833. Roger B. Taney, appointed Secretary of the Treasury when William J. Duane, who had previously held that office, refused to perform this duty, immedi- ately set about carrying out the President' s directions. The fact of this change in the disposition of the public revenues was communicated to Congress by the President in his annual message at the commencement of the ses- sion, December 2, 1833. But the reasons for it and the details of the measure w^ere subsequently presented in a report made by the Secretary of the Treasury. This change occasioned a violent and prolonged debate in both Houses of Congress, as well as caused severe newspaper criticisms. Many State Legislatures, and among them Life and Times of Silas Wright. 177 that of New York, passed resolutions approving the action of the President and Secretary. Others denounced the removal as illegal or impolitic. Those passed by New York were presented to the Senate by Mr. Weight, January 30, 1834. When doing so, he addressed to that body the following remarks : " Mr. Wright submitted to the Senate resohitions of the State of New York, approving of the course of the Secretary of the Treasury with regard to the removal of the deposits. Mr. W., in presenting the resohitions, addressed the Senate as follows: " I hold in my hand, Mr. President, and am about to ask leave to present to the Senate, certain proceedings of the Legislature of my State, in which that body expresses its sentiments in regard to the removal (as it is called) of the public moneys from their deposit in the Bank of the United States, made by order of the Secretary of the Treasury; in regard to the recharter of the Bank of the United States, and in regard to the existing pressure upon the money market in some portions of the country, with its views of the character and causes of that pressure ; and in which, also, the Legislature expresses its pleasure as to the course which the Representatives of the State, upon this floor, shall pursue when called to act upon these questions. " In presenting, a few days since, the proceedings of limited portions of the people of their respective States upon the same subjects, honorable Senators took occasion, no doubt properly, to inform the Senate of the number, character and standing, politi- cal as well as personal, of those whose sentiments they laid before us; to tell us as well who they were, as who they were not. I beg the indulgence of the Senate, while, following the example set me, I detail some facts in relation to the body whose proceedings it has become my duty to present, tending to show the extent to which the proceedings themselves claim the respect- ful attention of Congress. " The whole number of members allowed by the Constitution of the State of New York to its Legislature is 128 Members of Assembly and 32 Senators. The members of Assembly are 12 178 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. apportioned to the fifty-five counties of the State according t© their respective popuhition, and the whole territory is divided into eight districts for the election of Senators, each district having four, and electing one of the four every year. The pro- ceedings which I am about to present were passed in the House of Assembly by a vote of 118 for, to 9 against, and in the Senate by a vote of 23 for, to 5 against them; thus showing the very unusual occurrence, that of the 160 members elected by the people to that Legislature, 155 were present and acting upon these interesting and impoi-tant questions. "But, sir, if this unexainpled strength and unanimity of expression be entitled to weight, and it surely must be, while authentic evidence of public opinion is allowed an influence in our deliberations, that weight is greatly enhanced by the peculiar circumstances attending the expi'ession. All these members of the popular branch of that Legislature, and eight of the thirty- two Senators, were elected during the first week in November last, one full month after the removal of the deposits, while the vote shows that more than thirteen to one of the members of Assembly voted for, while but one of the eight Senators thus elected voted against, the resolutions. Still, the strength of this vote, taken as an expression of public opinion, will be much increased by an examination of its territorial distribution. " It is well known here, and throughout the country, that the extreme western district of the State of New Yoi-k has been unhappily, but most severely, agitated, in consequence of an out- rage several years since committed against the liberty, and probably upon the life, of a citizen. The effects of this outrage have been, not only the engendering of the most bitter domestic feuds, but the partial establishment of a geographical line of separation in feeling between that and the other sections of the State. It is, however, a source of high gratification to myself to be able to state, as I trust it will be of pleasure to liberal-minded men to learn, that this unnatural warfare of feeling is most rap- idly subsiding ; that the deep wounds which have been created by it, in the social relations of that otherwise highly-favored sec- tion of the State, are healing fast, and that the time is not distant when the evidence of its existence and effects will entirely Life and Times of Silas Weight. 179 disappear. In this section of the State, howcvei*, not an expres- sion of complaint, as to the pecuniary pressure, has been heard, and from the best advices I believe that, at this moment, its busi- ness relations of every description are in a more prosperous and easy condition than they have ever before been. Yet to tlie west and north-west must we look for every vote against the resolu- tions, and to this section alone for eleven out of the fourteen of tiiese votes. The remaining three are, with one exception. Sena- tors not elected at the election of November last, but in previous years, and all are located beyond the reach of the present pres- sure — in the agricultural, not in the commercial sections. In those portions of the State embracing our great commercial emporium (and which I think I may, without arrogance or pre- sumption, style the commercial emporium of the United States), and the extensive cities of Hudson, Albany, Troy, Schenectady and Utica, and an almost endless number of incorporated trad- ing towns and villages, all surrounded by a dense, intelligent and watchful population, amounting together to at least 1,800,000 souls, there was not found a single member of the popular branch of that Legislature absent from his seat, or not with cheerfulness and alacrity recording his name in favor of the resolutions. Of the 128 members composing this branch of the Legislature, it is worthy of remark that the city of New York alone elects eleven, and that every representative from that city, in either branch of the State Legislature, responds to the resolutions which I now lay before the Senate. " Of the members of this Legislature, personally, it is not my intention to speak. The situations they hold, and their 2)ublic acts, are the legitimate evidence of the ca)>acity and respectability of the individuals. It is as the organ, upon this occasion, of this deliberative body, representing as they do 2,000,000 of freemen, nearly the one-sixth part of the entire population of the Union ; a population, too, as commercial — nay, sir, I may say more com- mercial — and cmijloying more capital than any other portion of the country, and collecting and paying into the national treasury full one-third of its whole revenue; a people having as deep a stake, pecuniary and otherwise, in the prosperity of this country, and as firmly and ardently devoted to its welfare as any other equal por- 180 J^^FE AND Times of Silas Wright. tion of its citizens; it is as the organ of such a body, representing such a people, that I submit to the Senate this part of their public proceedings — that I ask to place their almost unanimous opinions as to the conduct of the President, of the Secretary of the Trea- sury, and of the United States Bank, upon your files, by the side of similar expressions from the States of Ohio and New Jersey ; also by the side of different expressions from portions of the people from Boston and New Bedford, in Massachusetts ; of Salisbury, in North Carolina, and Newark, in New Jersey, and such other expressions of opinion as are, or as may come, before the Senate upon the subjects ; and at this interesting crisis in the affairs of our common country, I respectfully solicit from the Senate that consideration for these proceedings of the Legislature of my State which a liberal, just and unprejudiced estimate of the views and feelings of any respectable portion of the citizens of the country may demand, and no more. " Here, sir, I might resume my seat, and I should do so with pleasure, were it not that a part of what I have felt to be an imperative duty upon this occasion remains to be performed. " In presenting the proceedings of a meeting of a portion of the town of Boston, the honorable Senator from Massachusetts availed himself of the occasion to express his own views as to the existence of a public pressure, of its cause, and of the appropriate mode of relief. He went further, sir, and called upon all, and especially upon those who sustain the administration upon this floor, in relation to the change of the deposits, to give their views as to the future as well as the present posture of the pecu- niary affairs of the country. As an individual, and as one con- sidering it one of ray highest duties to sustain the administration in this measure, I am ready to respond to the Senator with entire frankness ; but in thus accepting his call, I must not be under- stood as for one moment entertaining the vain impression that opinions and views pronounced by me, here or elsewhere, will acquire any importance because they are my opinions and my views. I know well, sir, that my name carries not with it author- ity anywhere ; but I also know that, so far as I may entertain and shall express opinions which are or which shall be found ir? Life and Times of Silas Wright. 181 accordance with the enlightened public opinion of this country, so far they will be sustained, and no farther. " Following, then, Mr. President, the example which has been set for me, I shall abstain from a discussion of controverted points, so far as that can be done, and enable me to state, unre- servedly, my opinions, and to make my views intelligible. "First, then, as to the fact of an existing pressure upon the money market : I believe that the recent extensive and sudden curtailment, by the Bank of the United States, in the facilities for credit, which had before been lavished upon the community, has caused very considerable embarrassment to those in our com- mercial cities, who had extended widely their moneyed opera- tions, and who had made themselves dependent upon these facilities ; but, at the same time, I believe that these inconvenien- ces have been, in an unimportant degree, either directly or con- sequentially, extended to other classes of citizens. I therefore believe, further, that the extent of the pressure has been greatly exaggerated, and that the motives for that exaggeration are to be found, primarily, in the belief that the present administration may be brought into disfavor with the people, and may be ovci- thrown through the agency of the panic which is attempted 1<> be gotten up ; and, secondarily, in the hope that the same panic, if successfully produced, may subserve the interests of the insti- tution by which it has been and is to be raised. " Secondly, as to the immediate cause of the pressure, I concur fully with the Senator from Massachusetts, that it is an error to attribute it to the mere fact of the change of the deposits. The reasons he has assigned for that opinion are sufficient. They might be amplified and enforced, but it is unnecessary upon the present occasion. Past experience, concurring facts, and the nature of the transaction, all combine to demonstrate that such a change would not necessarily draw after it such a result. I con- cur also with the honorable Senator [Mr. Webster] in the position that the evil complained of is to be attributed to the change which has taken place in the positions which the government, the Bank of the United States, and the State banks, have hereto- fore occupied relatively toward each other, and to the acts which have followed that change. These positions, as at present exist- 182 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ing, are pronounced by the honorable Senator' to be false. That the attitude which the Bank of the United States has chosen to assume towards the government and the State banks is a false position, I most cheerfully admit ; but that there has been any- thing in the conduct of either the government or the State banks to justify or even excuse that attitude, I deny, and hope to have an opportunity to attempt to disprove. From the government directly no loans could be obtained or were expected, and it was well known that the State banks, which have been selected as the fiscal agents of the government, had extended their loans many millions, and to the utmost limit authorized by the public depo- sits in their vaults. It is neither shown nor pretended tliat the other State banks have curtailed their loans in consequence of the change of the deposits, except when the curtailments by the Bank of the United States and its branches have compelled them to do so. We have, however, record evidence from itself that the Bank of the United States has curtailed its loans, since the first day of August last, and up to the first day of December last, to the enormous amount of $9,697,000 ; and all this curtail- ment has taken place in the entire absence of any revulsion in trade, of any scarcity in the country, or any other peculiar cause of embarrassment existing or anticipated. We need not, tlien, grope in the field of speculation for the cause of the present pressure. It stands before us recorded in letters and figures which cannot lie, and which leave us -without excuse for misun- derstandino- or for afi^ectinaj to misunderstand it. " Thirdly, as to the motives for this conduct on the part of the bank, I have already said, I deny that a justifiable one is to be found either in the conduct of the government or of the State banks towards it ; and I repeat the assertion. Whether or not this curtailment of its business has been rendered necessary on the part of the bank, in consequence of former mismanagement, I need not inquire, inasmuch as the bank itself, and all its friends and supporters, here and elsewhere, most strenuously deny that its present condition furnishes any necessity for increased means. I have looked carefully into the instructions originally given by the Secretary of the Treasury to the State banks in relation to the course to be pursued by them towards the Bank of the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 183 United States, and I find there notliing to warrant an apprehen- sion that any disposition existed on the part of the government to injure the bank, or to embarrass it in the prosecution of its lawful business, I have examined, with equal care, the instruc- tions eiven in regard to the transfer drafts, and the circumstances under which they were to be and were in fact used. And these acts of the government, taken in connection with the large amount of money still left in the bank, and which, upon a differ- ent supposition, would assuredly have been also withdrawn, I hold to furnish undeniable evidence that no disposition was entertained or manifested on tlie part of the government to wrong this institution. The only design evinced was to exercise a legal right, reserved by the charter, to change the deposits, and to continue an uncompromising, to be sure, but constitutional opposition to the renewal of the charter of the bank. Tiiat for these constitutional and legal acts it has pleased the bank to wreak its vengeance upon the community, I neither allege nor believe ; that the State banks have made the slightest hostile movement against it, neither is nor can be pretended. What, then, is the motive for this rai»id curtailment? I liave not the slightest doubt, Mr. President, that, in the language of the reso- lutions I hold in my han pi-o- duce pecuniary distress and alai-m, and in exercising its jiower with a view to extort a renewal of its charter from the fears of the people.' So much for the pressure and the causes of it. " T w ill now consider the remedy for the evil which the Senator proposes. Leaving the discussion of everything constitutional, political and expedient, the Senator, with his usual tact, goes directly to the matter in hand ; and with the iitmost confidence he tells us that the remedy is not to be found in the restoration of the deposits, but in the recharter of the present bank. What- ever else may be said of this avowal, it must, at least, be admitted that it does credit to the candor of the Senator. For mys -If, I thank him, and the country will thank him also. It is time, Mr. President, high time, that things should be calley that act only, the full power of Congress over the whole subject lias ])een restored. "If, then, the powers of the secretary are too broad, as the law now stands, it is the duty of Congress to restrict them ; while, if the powers of the executive branch of the government are not now fully adequate to the making and executing of all need- ful orders, rules and regulations for the safe-keeping and con- venient management of the public moneys, it is equally the dut y of Congress to legislate further upon the subject. And whether Congress do or do not legislate in either case, is a matter wholly between its members and their constituents, for which the Sec- retary of the Treasury is in no way responsible. "But, Mr. President, while I am prepared to give to this effort of the government — to make the State banks our fiscal agents for the safe-keeping and convenient disbursement of the public moneys — a full su])port and a fair experiment, any effort, (-ome from what quarter it may, to return to a hard-money currency, so far as that can be done l)y the operations of the federal government and consistently with the substantial interests of the country, shall receive from me a cordial and sincere support ; and no one would more heartily rejoice than myself to meet vvith propositions which would render such an effort in any degree practicable. "Still, we are told by the Senator from Massachusetts that things cannot remain as they are ; that unless something which, according to his views of tlie subject would afford relief be 188 Life and Times of Silas Wright. done, the pressure, the distress and the agitation will continue. I have ali-eady stated the source from which, and from which alone, in ray judgment, the present pressure proceeds. I have stated, also, without reserve, the object which is, in ray opinion, intended to be accomplished by it. Of the correctness of my conclusions, the Senate and the country must judge. If they are, as I believe them to be, well founded, it is undoubtedly in the power of the bank to continue the pressure, and consequently the agitation of the public mind, to some extent, so long as it shall think it to be for its interest, and not incompatible with its safety to do so. It is not for me to speak as with a knowledge of its intentions in this respect, and the Senator from Massachu- setts disclaims all information upon the point. I can, therefore, only state my opinion; and it is, that the bank has not entered upon this bold measure without the deepest consideration, and that it will not abandon it, the design not being accomplished, but upon the most stern necessity. " Yet, Mr. President, I trust in God that the necessity will soon, very soon, be made manifest, by the attitude which the nation will assume toward this daring and dangei-ous institution. The glorious American Revolution was but resistance to moneyed power ; yes, sir, to the exercise of a moneyed power, without the consent and beyond the reach of the people of this country. To this our fathers opposed a stern and uncompromising resist- ance. Appeals were made to their fears. Distress in their pecuniary affairs was pictured to them in colors to have deterred any but the pure spirit of patriotism and love of liberty which led them forward. Then the pictures were not imaginary, but real ; the distresses were not fancy, but fact. The country was not then strong and rich and prosperous, but weak and poor and disheart- ened ; and still their march was onward. They armed themselves upon the side of their country, and stood by their government ; and when their hard and perilous services were paid in paper, worth a fortieth or sixtieth part of its nominal value, the repre- sentative of the dollar was the dollar to them, for it gave liberty to the people, and freed them from the rule of avarice. And have we, their immediate descendants, so soon lost their noble spirit ? Are we to fold our arms and obey the dictates of a Life axd Times of Silas Weight. 189 moneyed power, not removed from our soil, and vvielded by stronger hands, but taking root among us; a power spoken into existence by our breath and dependent upon that breath for life and being ? Are our fears, our avarice, our selfish and base passions to be appealed to, and to compel us to recreate this power, when we are told that the circulation of the country is in its hands — that the institutions established by all the independent States of the confederacy are subject to its control, and exist only by its clemency — when we see it setting itself up against the govern- ment and vaunting its power, throwing from its doors our repre- sentatives placed at its board, and pronouncing them unskillful, ungenteel or incorrigible — nay, Mr. President, when it lays upon our tables in this chamber its annunciation to the public, classing the President of the United States with counterfeiters and felons, and declaring that, as kindred subjects, both should receive like treatment at its hands, — I say, sir, are we to be driven by our fears to recharter such an institution, with such evidences of its power, and of its disposition to use that power, lying before us authen- ticated by the bank itself? Are we to do this after the question has been referred to the people of the country, fully argued before them, and their decision pronounced against the bank, and in favor of the President, by a majority such as never before in this government marked the result of a contest at the ballot- boxes ? " Gentlemen talk of revolutions in progress. When this action shall take place in tlie American Congress, then, indeed, will a revolution have been accomplished — then will your Constitution have been yielded up to fear and favor, and your legislation to be the sic volo, sicjubeo of a bank. But, Mr. President, I do not distress myself with any such forebodings. I know the crisis will be trying, and I know, too, that the sj)irit and patriotism of the people will be equal to the trial. As I read the indications of public opinion, I see clearly that the true question is under- stood by the country, and that it is assuming an attitude towards the bank which the occasion calls for. Be assured, sir, whatever nice distinctions may be drawn here as to the share of influence which expressions of the popular will upon such a subject are entitled to from us, it is possible for that will to assume a consti- 190 Life and Times of Silas Wright. tutional shape which the Senate cannot misunderstand, and, understanding, will not unwisely resist. The country, Mr. Presi- dent, has approved of the course of the executive in his attempts to relieve us from the corrupt and corrupting power and influence of a national bank, and it will sustain him in the experiment now making to substitute the State institutions for such a fiscal agent. I have the fullest confidence in the ultimate and complete success of the trial; but should it not prove satisfactory to the country, it will then be time enougli to resort to the conceded powers of Congress, or to ask from the people what, until every other expe- riment be fairly and fully tried, they will never grant, the power to establish a national bank." The removal of the deposits was long agitated in the country and tlie subject of ardent discussion in Congress. In the Senate, Mr. Clay took the lead in condemning the removal. On the 26th of December, 1833, he offered the following resolutions and proceeded to discuss them : "1. Eesolved, That, by dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury because he Avould not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, remove the money of the United States in deposit witli the Bank of the United States and its branches, in conformity with the President's opinion, and by appointing his successor to effect such removal, which has been done, the President has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the Constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. " 2. Eesolved^ That the reasons assigned by the Secretary of the Treasury for the removal of the money of the United States deposited in the Bank of the United States and its branches, communicated to Congress on the third day of December, 1833, are unsatisfactory and insuflScient." A large number of Senators participated in the debate that followed, which was characterized by great ability, zeal and warmth, and often with exceeding bitterness. Mr. Wright, except in an occasional explanatory remark, did not participate. Mr. Clay's attack was ably sup- Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 191 ported by Messrs. Calhoun, Clayton, Ewing, Southard, Webster and others. The action of the administration was defended with great force and ability by Messrs. Benton, Brown, Forsyth, King, of Alabama, Tallmadge, White and others. Mr. Clay's resolutions were referred to the Committee on Finance, of which Mr. Webster was chairman, who, on the 5th of February, made a report of such length that it occupied an hour and a half to read it. The com- mittee reported Mr. Clay's second resolution. On the 28tli of March, 1834, the resolution thus reported by the committee was adopted by the following strict party vote : " Yeas — Messrs. liibb, Black, Culhouii, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Frclinghuysen, Hendricks, Kent, King, of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, Mangnm, N aiidain, Foindexter, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbhis, Silsbee, Smith, Sonthard, Sprague, Swift, Tonilinson, Tyler, Waggaman and Webster — 28. " Nays — Messrs. Benton, Brown, Forsyth, Grundy, Hill, Kane, King, of Alabama, Linn, McKeaii, Moore, IMorris, Robinson, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tipton, White, Wilkins and Wkigmt — 18." Mr. Clay then modified his first resolution so that it read as follows : '■^Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceed- ing in relation to the public reveiuie, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." Upon which the same vote was given, except Messrs. Hendricks and King (of Georgia) changed and voted in the negative, so that it stood twenty- six affirmative and twenty negative. This session is still distinguished by many as the "panic session." The opponents of Gen. Jackson were in the majority in the Senate and his supporters had con trol in the House. The concentrated money-power of 192 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the Bank of the United States, then struggling for a recharter, operating upon other banks, and especially those selected by the Secretary of the Treasury as depo- sitories of tJie public money, and upon the business of the country, was confessedly great, and produced distress among those dependent upon bank facilities for the easy and prosperous management of their business. This distress, with much exaggeration, was claimed by the friends of the bank as occasioned by the refusal to grant a recharter and the assumed removal of the public depo- sits. Tins was strenuously denied by the opponents of that institution. They claimed that the distress was mostly imaginary, or grossly magnified ; that, as far as it existed, it was occasioned by the expansions and sud- den contractions of the bank and institutions acting under its control, or in concert with it ; in a word, that it was the result of the labors of politicians struggling for the ascendancy and control of the government. Peti- tions for the restoration of the deposits and the recharter of the bank, and remonstrances against both, were pre- sented in Congress, with thousands of names and many rods long, without changing a vote in either House of Congress, and few, if any, in the country. Soon each House contained a majority sustaining Gen. Jackson's views, and these questions gave place to those deemed equally important and vital to the welfare of the country. The bank was soon so far forgotten that its great friend, Mr. Webster, spoke of it as an " obsolete idea," and was so considered for some thirty years. Speech of Mr. Weight, m Executive Session, Delivered 27th of February, 1834. Under the charter of the Bank of the United States a certain portion of the directors were to be appointed by the President of the United States, with the consent of the Senate, to represent the government's stock, amount- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 19|j ing to one- seventh. These directors had reported certain of the acts of the majority of their brethren and the officers of the bank, which Gen. Jackson and his friends loudly condemned. He renominated them to fill their own vacancies. The fiiends of the bank opposed their confirmation and they were rejected. During the discus- sion, Mr. Wright addressed the Senate in the following- terms, which he carefully reported with his own hand. The debates, being in secret session, have never been reported and published. This remarkable effort of the young Senator, which accidentally came into the hands of the author since Mr. Weight's death, gives all that can now be ascertained of that great debate. It is a valuable chapter of the history of those times. The Senate being in executive session, and the nomina- tions by the President of Peter Wager, Henry D. Gilpin, John T. Sullivan and Hugh McEklery, as directors of the Bank of tlie United States, being under consideration, Mr. Wkight said : " These nominations liad, on a previous day, been laid over upon liis motion ; that his object then was to present to the Senate the views which would govern his vote ; that he now proposed to perfonn that duty, though he feared it would be done tediously to tiie Senate, and he was sure it Avould be so to himself. " Before he proceeded, however, with what he considered the main argument, as applicable to the question, he would make a few preliminary remarks in reference to the individuals who were in nomination and in answer to suggestions which had fallen from several members of the Senate upon former days when these nominations had been under (consideration. Pie believed that the Senate had ordered that the question upon each nomina- tion should be separately taken ; but if he should be in order he proposed, as to their official conduct, to consider them all collec- tively, and therefore he would, at present, take the individual notice which he had indicated. "Mr. Wager stands first upon the list, and his recollection was 13 194 Life and Times of Silas Wright. that upon a former day, while all admitted that he was a careful, prudent and discreet business man, who had accumulated a for- tune by his own exertions, it was objected by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing] that he was not a man of superior intelligence, and therefore was not as perfectly qualified for a directorshijD in this bank as some men might be. He did not, however, at the time, nor did he now, suppose that the Senator intended that any objection of this description would justify the Senate in the rejection of the nomination. He rather supposed the remark thrown out, in the freedom of these debates, to inform the Sen- ate fully as to the individual than to influence its action. No objection, other than to his ofticial conduct, had met his hearing against Mr. Wager, " Mr. Gilpin stands next, and all admitted that he was a man of the first respectability, of more than ordinary talents, and in every way well qualified to perform the duties of the oftice, and the only personal objection which had been made to him had come from the Senator from Kentucky [Mr, Clay], which was that he now held an oftice from the government, and that it was wrong in principle to duplicate ofiices. He, Mr. W., believed it was true that when Mr. Gilpin was first appointed a director of the bank, by the President and Senate, he held the oftice of district attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and he believed that he still held the same oftice. Yet he could not see the force of this objection, as appli- cable to the oftice now about to be conferred. The duties of a director of the bank were highly responsible, arduous and unde- sirable, and no compensation whatever was allowed for their performance, unless it was such a compensation as he hoped no director appointed by the government would ever receive, that of pecuniary accommodations from the bank. It, therefoi'e, appeared to him not only not to be objectionable, but to be proper, to devolve these duties upon a person holding a lucrative oftice under the government, when that could be done, and the services of a competent and faithful director be thus secured. This would enable the person appointed to attend to the duties without sufiiering from the patronage bestowed upon him, and without being compelled to accept of the accommodations Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 195 of the bank in return for his time and services. Pie conceded that the practice of multiplying offices in the same hands, as a general rule, was bad ; but he also believed, that like all other general rules, there were proj^er exceptions, and that the case under consideration was one. He would not, therefore, believe that the action of the Senate upon Mr. Gilpin's nomination would be influenced by this objection. " Mr. Sullivan's name was found next upon the list, and as to him undefined personal objections had been made, but he could not suppose that gentlemen who made the suggestions either intended or expected that suggestions so vague should influence the minds of those members of the Senate, who, like himself, were wholly and entirely ignorant of the facts upon which the excep- tions rested, or what were the accusations alluded to. For himself, he could never pei-mit vague and undefined suggestions, unfavor- able to the private character of an individual, to influence his action there ; that he must have the charges specified, the delinquencies fully set out and the proofs exhibited, before he could pass sentence of condemnation upon the candidate ])re- sented for his vote. That had not been done as to Mr. Sullivan, nor (lid any Senator seem willing to do it. lie did not undertake to say that the objections were not sufficient to govern the action of those who knew the facts, had seen and examined the proofs and applied them to the charges; but he did say that they would not ask tliat he should be thus influenced, while he was in perfect ignorance both as to the charges and the proofs. So far from it, he liad, since the suggestions were made, entered into some inquiry among the acquaintances of this candidate, and lie could not find any one wlio would admit his character to be bad. He had found one, an honorable member of the House of Represen- tatives, who had authorized him to say that Mr. Sullivan had been elected by the people of Fhiladel])hia a member of the common council (he believed it was called) of tlie city, since he had held the office of a government director of the bank. In that, the place of his residence, such was the evidence as to his char- acter and worth. He therefore felt fully authorized to assume that the action of the Senate upon the nomination of this indi- vidual could not be governed by anything appearing before it of 196 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright, a personal character. Of Mr. McEldery, the remaining director in nomination, he had heard nothing from any quarter, other than comphiints as to the manner in which he had discharged his duties as a director for the last yeai*. " He therefore supposed liimself fully authorized to consider the position established, that the action of the Senate upon these nominations was to be governed solely by its judgment as to the official conduct of these gentlemen in the discharge of their duties during their former term ; and he felt the more strongly assured that he could not be in error in this conclusion, because all these individuals had been presented to the Senate one year ago, and had met its approbation, and because the Senate had, but a few days ago, refused to inquire into the character of these candidates. " Entertaining these impressions, he would proceed to inquire into the official charges upon which the rejection by the Senate of the nominations, if made at all, must rest. The first was that these directors had mistaken their character and relations and duties; that they had considered themselves as officers of the government, when, in fact, they were but directors of the bank. He would inquire how far these persons were mistaken upon this point, and whether the mistake did not lay upon the other side altogether. Sir, said he, these directors receive their appoint- ment from the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and if we refer to the Constitution we shall see what persons can be so appointed. The second clause of the second section of article two of the Constitution of the United States, giving the powers and duties of the President of the United States, says : 'And he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall he estab- lished by law. But the Congress may, by law, vest the appoint- ment of such inferior officers as they think proj)er in the Presi- dent alone, in the courts of law or in tlie heads of departments.' "Congress, said Mr. W., has by law established the office, but the Constitution determines the mode of appointment and the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 197 character of the offices. It proves that these directors are ' officers of the United States,' for no others can he appointed by the President and Senate. But, again, said Mr. W., Congress did not consider these 'inferior' officers, whose appointments could be properly conferred upon the President alone, or upon the heads of departments. It retained the power over their appoint- ments in the President and Senate, and thus declared them supe- rior officers (I speak only as to the importance and responsibility of the offices), and to be appointed as all such officers are appointed. Have, then, these gentlemen made a mistake in sup- posing that they were ' officers of the United States ?' It Avould seem to him they had not, but that they had taken the clear con- stitutional view of their positions and relations to the govern- ment ; and if they had appeared to feel proud, or even vain of their distinctions, gentlemen surely would not impute this to them as a crime, for which they should feel the heavy condemnatory sentence of that body. They were as much public officers of the government as we who act upon their nominations ; nor would they be found alone in entertaining a just pride at their eleva- tion ; and even if it shall be determined that they have been mistaken in this impression as to their true official character, there is certainly ground to believe that the mistake was honestly made, when it is seen that a large portion of the Senate, after careful examination, entertain the firm opinion that they were not mistaken. But, sir, said Mr. W., with these views as to the offices they held, these directors further supposed that they were, equally with the other directors of the bank, charged with the safe and careful management of the affairs of the bank generally, and that, as 'officers of the United States,' they were charged with the interests of the government in that institution especially. In this, too, it is said they have been mistaken. What is the correct conclusion ? The United States hold 17,000,000 of the stock of this bank, and during the last year, while these individuals have been the government directors, the public deposits have frequently amounted to a much larger sum. This is an immense interest in a single bank, and were these public 'officers of the United States' especially charged with its safe-keeping, prudent management and proper expenditure ? 198 Life and Times of Silas Wright. For what other purpose are they appointed by the government, and for what other purpose are they placed at the board of direc- tion of that bank? Will gentlemen tell us that these officers are so appointed for the sole purpose of sitting with their col- leagues, and giving their votes and action as the inclinations of the directors appointed by the stockholders shall dictate ? Sir, if that were their only duty, why were not all the directors left to be appointed by the individual stockholders of the bank ? Where was the utility of making this distinction in the mode of appointment of persons who were to act together, and whose duties and responsibilities were to be exactly the same ? Is it not plain that the government did not intend to embark its large interests in this institution without directors aj^pointed by itself to overlook and guard those interests ? Sir, but one answer can be given to these inquiries. " In the discharge of their duties, thus understood, these direc- tors have attempted to prevent the expenditure of the money of the bank, and especially of that portion of those moneys which belonged to the public, for objects which they thought improper. Tlie people are interested to the amount of one-fifth in all the profits of the bank, and all expenditures from those profits are, so far as one-fiftli, expenditures of the money of the people. The government directors, therefore, considered it their particular duty so far to inquire into these expenditures as to enable them to determine the character and propriety of the payments made. "Proceeding in these inquiries, they found that a power, in extent equal to the Avhole means of the bank, and in practice wholly without accountability, had been, by the board of direc- tors, placed in the hands of the president of the bank, to expend money for printing and other purposes. For proof of this fact reference is made to the communication made to the public by the bank itself, which communication has been laid upon the tables of the Senators. Mr. W. said he read from pages 38 and 39 of that book, and the language was as follows: "On the 30th November, 1830, " 'The president submitted to tlie board a copy of an article on Banks and Currency, just published in the Araericaa Quarterly Review of tliis city, containing a favorable notice of this nistitution, and suggested the expedi- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 199 ency of making the views of the author more extensivel}' Ijnown to the public than they can be by means of the subscription list ; whereupon it was, on motion, " ' Resolved, That the president be authorized to take such measures in regard to the circulation of the contents of the said article, either in the whole or in part, as he may deem most for the interest of the bank.' "On the 11th of March, 1831, " 'The president stated to the board tliat, in consequence of the general desire expressed by the directors at one of their meetings of the last year, subsequent to the adjournment of Congress, and a verbal understanding with the board, measures had been taken by him, in the course of that year, for printing numerous copies of the reports of Gen. Smith and Mr. McDuffie, on the subject of this bank, and for widely disseminating their contents through the United States ; and that he had since, by virtue of the authority given him by a resolution of this board, adopted on the 30th day of Novem- ber last, caused a large edition of Mr. Gallatin's Essay on Bunks and Cur- rency to be published and circulated in like manner, at the expense of the bank. He suggested, at the same time, the expediency and propriety of extending still more widely a knowledge of the concerns of this institution, by means of the republication of other valuable articles, which had issued from the daily and periodical press. " ' Whereupon, it was, on motion, " 'Resolved, That the president is hereby authorized to cause to be pre- pared and circulated such documents and papers as may communicate to the people inforuvdion in regard to the nature and operuUons of the bank.'' "And, finally, on the 16tli of August, 1833, the following reso- lution : " ' Resolved, That the board have confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the president, and in the propriety of the resolutions of the 30th of November, 1830, and 11th March, 1831, and entertain a full conviction of the necessity of a renewed attention to the objects of the resolutions ; and that the president be authorized and requested to continue his exertions for the promotion of said objects.' " This, sir, said Mr. W., is the authority conferred upon the president of the bank, as given to the public by the bank itself. No room, therefore, is left to doubt the fact stated by the govern- ment directors. They discovered the existence of the two first resolutions, in the course of the discharge of their duties as direc- tors of the bank, and they also discovered that the president was proceeding to expend large sums of money under them. They 200 Life and Times of Silas Wright. thought it tlieir duty to remonstrate, and they did remonstrate against the expenditures and against the existence of such a power in the hands of any officer of the bank. Sir, did they do this disrespectfully, or in any manner improperly? They made their remonstrances to the board of directors of the bank, at a regular meeting, by offering, for the adoption of that board, the following proceedings : " 'Whereas it appears, by the expense account of the bank for the years 1831 and 1833, that upwards of $80,000 were expended and charged under the liead of stationery and printing, during that period; that a large portion of this was paid to the proprietors of newspapers and periodical journals, and for the printing, distribution and postage of immense numbers of news- papers aud pamphlets ; and tliat about $30,000 were expended, under the resolutions of 30th November, 1830, and 11th March, 1831, witliout any account of the manner in which or the persons to whom the same were disbursed. "'And whereas it is expedient and proper that the particulars of an expenditure so large and unusual, whicli can now be ascertained only by the examination of numerous bills and receipts, should be so stated as to be readily submitted to and examined by the board of directors and tlie stock- holders. '' ' Eesulved, That the cashier furnish to the board, at as early a day as possible, a full and particular statement of all these expenditures, designating the sums of money paid to each person, tlie quantity and names of the documents printed by him, and his charges for the distribution and postage of the same ; together with as full a statement as may be of the expenditiu-es on orders, under the resolutions of 30th November, 1830, and 11th March, 1881. " ' That he ascertain whether expenditures of the same character have been made at any of the ofBces, and, if so, procure similar statements thereof, with the authority on whicli they were made. '"That the said resolutions be rescinded, and no further expenditures be made under the same.' "Among other objections coming from the directors who had consented to confer this dangerous power upon the president of the bank was that of an implied disrespect towards that officer, and almost as soon as the proposed proceedings had been read a substitute for the whole was offered, in the following form: " ' Resolved, That the board have confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the president, and iu the propriety of the resolutions of the 30th of November, 1830, and 11th of March, 1831, aud entertain a full conviction Life and Times of Silas Wright. 201 of the necessity of a renewed attention to tlie object of those resolutions, and that the president be authorized aud requested to continue his exertions for the promotion of that object.' "This substitute being evidently acceptable to the majority of the board and about to be adopted, the government directors, still desirous to learn the character of the expenditures wliicli had been made under the resolutions of iSTovember, 1830, and March, 1831, and to put an end to similar expenditures in future, and to the existence of such a power in the hands of any single officer of the bank, proposed the following in place of the sub- stitute, and also in place of the original proceedings offered by them : " 'Besolmd, That while this board repose entire confidence in the integrity of the president, they respectfully request him to cause the particulars of the expenditures made under the resolutions of the 30th of November, 1830, and nth of March, 1831, to be so stated that the same may be readily sub- mitted to and examined by the board of directors aud the stockholders. " 'Resolved, That the said resolutions be rescinded, and no further expendi- tures made under the same.' " These resolutions were promptly rejected; the substitute, con- ferring still broader powers upon the president of the bank, and urging him to still further and hirger expenditures, was adopted, and the original proceedings offered by the government directors and asking for a statement of the expenditures which had been made, and for a repeal of the resolutions, were thus shut out and refused. Here, then, the words of the bank itself show what was the official conduct of these candidates, and the Senate and the public must judge whether it furnishes cause for their rejec- tion when again nominated by the President to those offices. " But again, said Mr. W., these directors found that large sums of money liad been expended by the president of the bank, under these resolutions, and of this they complained. That the fact was as they supposed and have stated to the President, I refer, for proof, to the communication, before spoken of, made to the public 1)y the bank itself. In tliat communication those expendi- tures, for the years 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833, are classified as follows: 202 Life and Times of Silas Weight. " 'For printing and circulating reports to Congress: 1830 $5,085 67 1831 2,650 97 1832 4,395 63 1833 0,000 00 $12,132 27' ' ' ' For printing and circulating speeches in Congress, and other miscella- neous publications : 1830 $2,291 47 1831 19,057 56 1832 22,183 74 1833 .-. 2,600 00 ri t $46,132 77 " This is the statement of the expenditiires under these resolu- tions, made by the bank itself, said Mr. W., and I will soon show the Senate for what purposes a large portion of the money was paid. Another large portion will appear to have been paid upon orders from the president of the bank witliout any other voucher, and, therefore, even directors of the bank cannot tell to whom or for what purpose the expenditures were incurred. The one- fifth of all these sums being money of the people, the directors appointed by the government considered it their duty to learn the character and objects of the payments, that they might know whether the public moneys in the bank, and under their imme- diate charge, as officers of the government, were properly expended, and for proper purposes. They did examine, as far as the vouchers and papers on file with the bank would enable them to do so; and as to those payments, the objects of whicli were not shown by these papers, they respectfully asked from the board of directors, as we have just seen, that the proper officers of the bank might be directed to make a statement showing the facts. In this request they were refused by the board of directors, and accompanying that refusal was an enlarged authority to the president of the bank to increase these expenditures. " The directors allege that their examination satisfied them that these expenditures had been made for political objects, and Life a^d Tuies of Silas Wright. 203 for printing matter calculated and designed to influence the elec- tions of officers of the government. To sustain themselves in the correctness of this conclusion they make the following state- ment of the character and objects of these payments, so far as those facts were shown from the vouchers on file ; and of the amount of those payments, the character and objects of which were not shown, but which had been made upon the order of tlie president of the bank without vouchers. In their letter to the President of tlie United States, of the 19th August, 1833, and commencing with the expenditures of the first half of the year 1831, they say : '"Among other sums was one of $7,801, stated to be paid on orders of the president, under the resolution of lltli Marcli, 1831, and the orders them- selves were the only vouchers of the expenditure which we found on file — some of the orders, to tlie amount of about |1,800, stated that the expen- diture was for distributing Gen. Smith's and Mr. McDuffie's reports and Mr. Gallatin's pamphlet ; but the rest stated generally that it was made under the resolution of the 11th of March, 1831. " ' There were also numerous biUs and receipts for expenditures to indivi- duals, among them of Gales & Seatou, $1,300, for distributing Mr. Galla- tin's pamphlet ; of William Frj^, for Garden & Thompson, $1,675.75, for 5,000 copies of Gen. Smith's and Mr. ^IcDuffie's reports, etc. ; of Jasper Harding, $440, for 11,000 extra papers ; of the American Sentinel, $125.74, for printing, folding, packing and postages of 3,000 extras ; of William Fry, $1,830.27, for upwards of 50,000 copies of the National Gazette and supple- ments, containing addresses to members of the State Legislatures, review of Mr. Benton's speech, abstracts of Mr. Gallatin's article from the Ameri- can Quarterly Review, and editorial article on the project of a treasury bank ; of James Wilson, $1,447.75, for 25,000 copies of the reports of Mr. McDuffie and Mr. Smith, and for 25,000 copies of the address to members of the State Legislatures, agreeablj- to order, and letters from John Sergeant, Esq. ; and of Carey & Lea, $2,850, for 10,000 copies of Gallatin on banking, and 2,000 copies of Professor Tucker's article. " ' During the second half year of 1831, the item of stationery and printing- was $13,224.87, of which $5,010 were paid on orders of the president, and stated generally to be under the resolution of 11th of March, 1831, and other sums were paid to individuals, as in the previous accounts, for printing and distributing documents. " 'During the first half year of 1833, the item of stationery and printing- was $12,134.16, of which $2,150 are stated to have been paid on orders of the president, under the resolution of 11th of March, 1831. There are also various individual payments, of which we noticed $106.38 to Hunt, Tardlff 204 Life and Times of Silas Wright. & Co., for 1,000 copies of a review of Mr. Benton's speech; $300 for 1,000 extra copies of tlie Saturday Courier ; $1,176 to Gales & Seaton, for 20,000 copies of "a pamphlet concerning the bank," and 6,000 copies of the minority report relative to the bank ; and $1,800 to Matthew St. Clair Clarke, for " 300 copies of Clarke & Hall's bank book." " 'During the last half year of 1832, the item of stationery and priming rose to $26,543.72, of which $6,350 are stated to have been paid on orders of the president, under the resolution of 11th March, 1831. Among the specified charges we observe $821.78 to Jasper Harding, for printing a review of the veto ; $1,371.04 to E. Olmstead, for 4,000 copies of Mr. Ewing's speech, bank documents and review of the veto ; $4,106.13 to William Fry, for 63,000 copies of Mr. Webster's speech, Mr. Adams's and Mr. McDuffle's reports, and the majority and minority reports ; $295 for 14,000 extras of the "Protector," containing bank documents; $2,583.50 to Mr, Kiddle, for printing and distributing reports, Mr. Webster's speech, etc. ; $150.12 to Mr. Finnall, for printing the speeches of Messrs. Clay, Ewing and Smith, and Mr. Adams's report; $1,512.75 to Mr. Clarke, for printing Mr. Webster's speech and articles on the veto ; and $2,422.65 to Mr. Hale, for 52,500 copies of Mr. Webster's speech. There is also a charge of $4,040, paid on orders of the president, stating that it is for expenses in measures for protecting the bank against a run on the western branches. " 'During the first half year of 1833, the item of stationery and printing was $9,093.59, of which $2,600 are stated to have been on orders of the president, under the resolution of the 11th March, 1831. There is also a charge of Messrs Gales & Seaton of $800, for printing the report of the Exchange Committee.' " Does the Senate require stronger proof that this printing was political, and designed to affect the pending presidential election ? Look at the extra newspapers, the editions of speeches, and, to any one who recollects the history of the last four years, the proof is demonstration. ' Articles on the project of a treasury bank,' ' pamphlets concerning the bank,' ' reviews of the veto,' ' reviews of Mr. Benton's speech,' and other similar publications, mark, too strongly, the character of this printing to permit a doubt to exist in any mind as to the correctness of the opinion upon the subject entertained and expressed by the government directors. Were they, then, wrong in complaining of these expenditures — in asking an account of these, where the objects of the payments were not shown by the papers of the bank — in proposing to the board of directors to rescind resolutions under which the money of the people had been paid for purposes such Life and Times of Silas Wright. 205 as those which they name? And are their nominations to be rejected for this part of their official conduct ? " But, Mr. President, said Mr. W., these gentlemen further com- plain that, in the course of the discharge of their official duties as directors of the Bank of the United States, they found that a large and important portion of the business of the bank was not managed by the board of directors, as the affairs of the bank are by the charter required to be managed, but by a small com- mittee of directors appointed by the president of the bank. They further state that this committee was appointed and acted in direct violation of the established by-laws of the bank, and that upon both grounds they remonstrated against this mode of managing the affairs of the bank, as being a violation of the charter and of the long-established by-laws. In speaking of the proceedings of the board of directors upon this subject, in their memorial laid before Congress at its present session, at page thirteen of the printed copy from which I read, they state the following facts : " ' Oiu- remonstrances, however, were not without effect. They led to a determination on the part of the majority to give some sanction to tlieir course, by adopting new rules and abolishing those long in existence. A new set of by-laws was prepared in accordance with the actual practice. They were submitted to the board in the month of April last. When tliey were under consideration, we requested " that the standmg committees might be appointed from the board in rotation " — this was rejected, and the presi- dent was authorized himself to select tlie two of most importance, that on the offices and that on exchange. We then requested that the powers of the Committee on Exchange " might not be extended to the business of discounts" — tliis too was rejected. Desirous that, if these powers were thus to be exercised by a committee selected by the president, tiie other directors might at least be reguhu-ly informed of its proceedings, we then requested that they " should lay before the board, at every slated meeting, a statement of their proceedings, which should be read before the discounts of the day were settled" — this too was rejected. All these being refused, we requested that, among the business of the day, the board might have submitted and read to it a " report of W\q final proceedings of the commit- tee," since the previcms stated meeting — this too was rejected. In a word, the system of late years acted upon was formally sanctioned by a majority of the board. It is now a portion of its by-laws, as before it was of its practice.' 206 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " These facts are not denied or controverted in the commiini- cations coming from the board of directors, nor have they been denied here or elsewhere to my knowledge, while, if true, they show conclusively a change of the by-laws of the bank to conform them to the practice in respect to this committee; and, also, that this committee does make discounts and do other important busi- ness of the bank, and that its proceedings are not now required to be laid before the board of directors. "The sxovernment directors further state that all of them have been wholly excluded from this committee. I will not trouble the Senate with proof of the truth of this assertion, inasmuch as it is not only stated by these directors, but is admitted in terms by the communication from the bank itself from which I have before read. They complained of this fact as putting it out of their power to understand the manner in which that portion of the business of the bank intrusted to the management of this committee was managed, and therefore Avhether the interests of the institution, as a whole, and especially the interests of the government in it, were in a safe state and properly conducted. Has this been their offense, and are they to meet tlie rejection of the Senate on account of this [)art of tlieir official conduct? " Mr. W. said rumors had reached the President of tlie United States of these instances of bad management of the affairs of the bank and of this system of improper expenditures, and he, as the chief executive officer of the government, and bound officially to look to the public interests in every quarter, hay the State banks as capital, and that they made dis- counts and did business upon them as such; and this was given to us as one of the merits of such an institution. This was and is true as to the notes of that bank, but is equally true as to the notes of any solvent State bank. Tho banks all consider the notes of their solvent neighboring institutions in their vaults as specie, and they do business upon them as such ; nor does it make any difference as to what bank issued them, provided they be notes current at their counter. "Why, Mr. President, should it not be so? Such notes are convertible into specie at will, and, therefore, are safe capital. " But, sir, suppose all this $5,000,000 of bank notes held by the Safety Fund banks of New York were the notes of the Safety Fund banks themselves, would it injuriously affect the standing of this ao-ffrearate account of all these banks? No, sir: it would show that the account was well made up. Take an instance: the Bank of Ithaca, in its statement, debits itself with the whole amount of its bills out, without reference to the place where they are, and credits itself with its means to meet those bills when they are called for. Ten thousand dollars of those bills are in one of its neio-hborino- banks, and, in making its account, it credits itself with these ^10,000 of Ithaca notes as a part of its means. Now, the charge in the one case and the credit in the other counter- balance each other, and, so far as the general summary statement of all the banks is concerned, the $10,000 of bills are redeemed. This is the nature of the item to which the Senator [Mr. Clay] refers, and this must be the only explanation of which that item, in this summary, is in any way susceptible. How far it is satisfac- tory is left to the Senate. To me it seems to be perfectly satis- factoiy, because the explanation shows that, where the item consists of bills of the Safety Fund banks, the credit, as means, by one, must be countervailed by a charge as debit by another. So much for the explanation I have promised. " I must correct the Senator in another and much more import- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 225 ant errov into which he has fallen in relation to the manner in which the country banks in the State of New York do their business. The Senator [Mi-, Clay] says, when they have a cull which they have not the power to meet by the means of their vaults, they are in the habit of answering it by a draft, drawn upon the commercial cities of Albany or New York, on time. Such I understood to be the declaration of the Senator. [Here Mr. Clay signified that such was not the purport of his state- ment.] "Mr. W. continued: I will then state, Mr. President, distinctly what I did understand the Senator to say, and he will surely cor- rect me if I am wrong. I did understand him to allege that the banks in the interior were in the habit of making drafts upon the commercial cities before named, to answer calls which they had not tlie means to answer at their counters, without having, at the time, funds in those cities to meet such drafts. Whether or not he said the drafts were made upon time, is immaterial to my pur- pose. Am I right in this understanding ? [Mr. Clay said the Senatoi- had better go on.] "Mr. W. continued : Sir, I speak from personal knowledge, when I say no such drafts are made. It is the practice of those banks in the interior to keep nearly the whole of tlieir surplus funds in the cities. There these banks meet the great portion of their liabilities, and there they most need those funds; there, also, they obtain an interest upon those funds, and there- fore, as a matter of profit, as well as security, they are kept there. " Their usual and almost universal course is, to make an arrange- ment with some solvent city bank ; and these arrangements are made either in Troy, Albany or New York, and they receive an interest, I believe, as a general rule, varying from four to five per cent, the stipulation being always accompanied with the con- dition, either that notice of the draft shall be given, the drafts be made upon time, or that the amount in deposit shall exceed a certain stipulated sum, before interest is chargeable. I have recently understood that a very few of the western banks have made their arrangements with stockbrokers, and keep their accounts with them, but these cases only form an exception to 15 226 Life and Times op Silas Weight. the general rule. The solvent city banks are the general deposi- tories of these funds, " Sir, these country banks would not, if they had it, keep large amounts of specie on hand, in ordinary times, and when business was regular and undisturbed by any unusual excitement ; they would transfer it to the cities, where they would be most likely to need it, and where it would earn an interest, until they should require its use. What, then, can be inferred from the exhibit made by the Senator of the condition of these banks, so far as their specie funds in their vaults are concerned ? I say, confi- dently, nothing. Their funds are not kept idle in their vaults, but are placed where they are more needed, and where they can be usefully employed when not needed. I am asked, Avhat are those funds ? I will answer. The bank accommodates the mer- chant; he wants to use the accommodation in the city, and does so, and the bank meets the payment there. When the time of payment comes, the merchant sends to the market some com- modity, out of which he makes the money, and deposits it to the credit of the bank at the place in the city where the account of the bank is kept. This replaces the amount subtracted for his accommodation, and thus the fund in the city is kept good. No country bank draws upon the city bank, but upon funds previ- ously placed there to meet the draft ; I say, none. There may be cases where such drafts are made, but never without previous arrangement for their acceptance ; and I hazard nothing in saying tliat there is not a country bank in the whole State whose draft would be accepted, but upon funds placed in the city to meet it, or upon an arrangement for its acceptance. There is no drawing upon time, or upon the contingency of a general credit. " The honorable Senator tells us that certain brokers in New York have sent a quantity of country bank notes to Albany to be redeemed, and that their redemption was refused. Sir, I know not from what authority the gentleman speaks; but this I do know, that if the bills of any country banks were sent to Albany for redemption, and the banks which issued the bills had not funds in Albany for the purpose of their redemption, they would, of course, not be redeemed by the Albany banks. Why should they be ? Upon what principle could the banks at Albany be Life and Times of Silas Wright. 227 expected to redeem notes not their own, and without funds from the banks which issued them ? Surely upon none which belongs to the principles of safe and correct banking. "Again, Mr. President, we are told that large sums of money belonging to the Canal Fund of the State of New York have been, by the bank commissioners of the State, withdrawn from the banks in New York, where these moneys were drawing an interest, to be applied to redeem the notes of the Safety Fund banks. I have no doubt the honorable Senator [Mr. Clay] has been informed and believes this statement ; but from what source he derives his information I know not. I will tell him, however, what I do know, derived from personal and official knowledge, and it is, tliat his assertion cannot be true ; that the bank com- missioners of the State of New York have no more power over the moneys belonging to the Canal Fund of the State of New York, than the honorable Senator himself has. Those moneys are in the care of entirely different officers — officers holding the most high and responsible offices in the State. They have always been loaned where they were considered perfectly secure, and would command the highest rate of interest, and they never have been changed or withdrawn when so invested to consult the wants or interests of any bank. The law would not allow the officers having the charge of them to dispose of them from such motives, and those officers have not done so. They have, during the last year, and as I think ver}^ wisely, xised every effort to sink these moneys in the redemption of the stocks which they are destined to redeem ; and they have, to a great extent, succeeded. Those efforts are still making, and notwithstanding the great cry we hear in this body of distress and ruin, and scarcity of money, and almost starvation, overspreading the Avhole land, such is the state of things that the guardians of this fund cannot purchase these stocks (five per cent stocks, redeemable in 1 845) at a lower rate than about sixteen per cent above their par value. "Mr. President: I regret exceedingly to have been compelled to enter into an incidental debate of this character ; and I would not have done so had I not considered myself called upon to explain allegations made in reference to the business affairs of my own State, and to transactions which no members of this 228 Life and Times of Silas Wright. body but my honorable colleague and myself could be supposed to understand. I have done this, and will merely reply to a remark or two made by the honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing], when I will resume my seat. The gentleman has denounced, in no measured terms, the Safety Fund system of my State, as applied to our banks. He thinks, as others have thought, that the safety of the banks is endangered by it ; but he seems wholly to overlook the security afforded to the com- munity, to the billholders and depositors. He seems to suppose that because the fund is not large enough to redeem all the bills in circulation, of all the banks at once, he proves that the secu- rity is fallacious. Sir, he is mistaken. The billholder, the depo- sitor and the whole community, with the exception of the stock- holder, is ultimately perfectly safe, unless every bank subject to the system be broken and destroyed. The fund may not be large enough in j^i'esenti, but the contributions must continue until the claims of the billholders and depositors are fully paid. What, then, is the difference between this system and the ordi- nary system, where there is no such security ? I hold the notes of an insolvent bank which has stopped payment. I cannot, in either case, get coin for my notes ; but if they be Safety Fund notes, I will eventually get dollar for dollar, and if they be not, I will get nothing. This is the simple difference, and this is the system which the gentleman thinks so mischievous and dangerous. I am not disposed to discuss with him the question whether these banks, by being made thus measurably responsible for each other, are more or less safe. I will only say that, if it be proper for legislation to consult any other object than that of filling the pockets of the stockholders, any portion of safety transferred from a bank to the billholders, the depositors and the community in general, is not objectionable to me. Such is the object of the Safety Fund system of New York ; and I verily believe that, in consulting the safety of the public, it has, in the best manner, consulted the greatest safety of the banks. [Mr. Ewing having made some reply to what had been said by Mr. W.] "Mr. Wright said he would relieve the gentleman.. He did not answer his main argument because he could not believe that it required an answer. The argument was, that making these Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 229 Safety Fund banks mutually responsible for each other prevented them from keeping that salutary guard over each other's transac- tions, and especially over each other's issues, which banks in no way connected with, but acting as rivals to each other, would keep. The statement of the proposition seemed to him to be a sufficient answer to the ai'gument drawn from it. What, sir ! will a bank at this capital watch with less care the operations of a bank at the other end of this avenue, when it is fully responsible for all the notes of that bank, than when it has no connection witli or ]-esponsibility on account of it V If that be the effect of such a responsibility, Mr. W. said he had mistaken the influence which the interests of men had over their actions. The motive to increased watchfulness was direct and palpable, and that such a motive would have the effect to destroy that watchfulness, he could not see or believe. " While up, he would say one word in answer to a suggestion which had fallen from the honorable Senator when he first addressed the Senate, and to which he had intended to reply. The Senator [Mr. Ewing] seems to suppose that the circulation of the notes of the banks of New York has been less extensive and less broadly diffused, since the establishment of the Safety Fund system, than before that time. He mistakes the fact. Mr. W. said he spoke from knowledge when he asserted that, from about one year after the establishment of that system, the public confidence had increased greatly as to the security of the notes of the Safety Fund banks, and that the circulation of those notes out of and beyond the limits of the State had been two or three times as great as at any former period. Yes, sir, they flew over into the territory of the Senator's own State, and even beyond it. He [Mr. W.] had himself known instances where remittances had been directed to be made to Kentucky, in the notes of the Safety Fund banks, when the notes of the other banks of the State, entirely solvent, but not subject to the Safety Fund law, would not be received. "At first, said Mr. W., fears were entertained. The banks were fearful, and the bankers and politicians wrote and spoke against the plan, but time soon convinced all that the system was most valuable. The most experienced bankers of the State 230 Life and Times of Stlas Weight. yielded then* assent to it, and the old banks came in and took new charters subject to the law. He did not feel disposed to institute a comparison between the science and skill and prudence and success of the bankers of his State and those of other States, but he was willing that their history, from the institution of banks in the State to the present time, should be examined, and he believed they would not be found to have been the least suc- cessful of all the bankers of the country. These men are now the warmest and strongest friends of the Safety Fund system. Indeed [Mr. W. said], he verily believed, if the honorable Sena- tors themselves [Mr. Ewing and Mr. Clay] would examine the legislation of New York upon this subject, not as politicians, but as intelligent lawyers, as they are, they would yield their full assent to its wisdom and safety." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 231 Chapter XLVL VIEWS CONCERNING LEGISLATIVE INQUIRIES INTO THE DUTIES OF GOVERNMENT OFFICERS. Mr. Poindexter had offered various resolutions con- cerning the public lands, and for the appointment of a committee to make sundry inquiries, and among them one in relation to the recorders and receivers of the land offices, and how they had performed their duties. Mr. Shepley moved an amendment to the effect that, when an inquiry involved the legality of their acts, they should be notified and have leave to present their defense. This amendment was resisted by Mr. Clay and others. Mr. Wkight sustained the amendment, and presented his views of the duties of committees of inquiry when not specially instructed. Under the resolutions, as modi- fied, he would have presumed that notice would be given. He said : "He was, however, now at liberty to make this presumption, becaxxse it had been distinctly declared by the honorable Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smith], and intimated by several other members, in the course of their remarks, that it would not be the duty of the committee to give any notice to any accused officer; that the committee were a mere inquest; that they were to act as grand jurors, and in no other character; that they were not to hear exculpatory evidence, if offered; but they were to act exclusively in an ex parte and accusatory character. This was presenting the duties of the standing committees of this body in a new light to him. Were they mere bodies of inquest, mere ex parte examiners of the subjects referred to them ? He had not so understood the matter. He had understood that the duty of a standing committee of the Senate was to examine the merits of the questions referred to them, and to advise the Senate Life and Times of Stlas Wright. as to its final action. Now it seemed that they were mere bodies of ex parte inquiry; and what, he would ask, was to be done with such a report when it came in? What was this ulterior and final action of which gentlemen spoke ?, Was it to refer the report back to the same committee, with instructions to examine the other side of the subject '? What else could it be ? If the Senate Avas not to obtain full information through its committees, how was that information to be obtained '? What was the course of the committees upon ordinary subjects? Was it merely to make ex parte inquiry ? If so, where was the testimony upon the other side to come from ? Mr, W. said, the position was a mistaken one. The committees of this body are not placed in the situation of grand jurors. It is not their duty to make ex parte examinations, but to inquire into the merits of all subjects referred to them, and to make a report advising the Senate as to its final action. Until, therefore, he could receive some informa- tion that this committee would so consider its duties, that it would feel bound to notify such officers as might be accused before it, and to give them an opportunity to be heard in their own defense, he could not vote for the resolution, as modified by the honorable mover, but must vote for the amendment which made that an express duty. He could not believe it was the intention of the Senate to make the duties of this committee under the resolution accusatory only ; to put wliole classes of officers within their power for the purpose of having them report to the Senate, and spread before the public ex parte examinations and accusations which the persons accused had no opportunity to answer or explain. Still, such had been the practical effect of the opinions and views expressed by the honorable Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smith], and, as he understood, assented to by others, and, until counter indications should be given by the committee, he must be in favor of the amendment. " Mr, Wright said, the second resolution refers to the combi- nations and companies to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] alludes. To those persons he did not ask that notice should be given. He cared not what the result of an investigation might be to them. They were not public officers, and had acted upon their private responsibility only. But if the Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. honorable Senator had cast his eyes over the third resolvition, he would have seen that he was widely mistaken in supposing that the express direction to the committee was not to inquire into the official conduct of every land office in the whole United States. He would read the resolution. It was as follows : '''Resolved, That the said committee be instructed to inquire wlietlier tlie registers of the land otfices, and the receivers of public moneys, at any of the land offices of the United States, or either of them, have, in violation of law, and of their otficial duties, demanded or accepted a bonus or premium from any pui'chaser or purchasers of the public lands at public or private sale, for the benefit of such officer or officers, as a condition on which such purchaser or purchasers should be allowed to enter or purchase any tract or tracts of land offered for sale by the United States; and, also, whether any register or receiver, as aforesaid, has been guilty of fraud or partiality in the sales of public lands by adopting rules and regulations, in their respective offices, inconsistent with the laws of the United States.' " Here was a positive direction to inquire into the conduct of these officers, and into their violations of the laios of the United States, and to make those inquiries only. It was to such officers that he thought notice sliould be given. He did not believe that they should be condemned unheard. If the lioiiorable Senator woixld look further, he would find that the fourth resolution con- tained the same direction, confined to the land offices in tlie State of Mississippi, and to a particular description of illegal acts. [Here some Senator remarked that this resolution had been so modified as to extend to all the land offices in the United States.] Mr. W. proceeded. He said he stood corrected; that he was told this resolution also had been made as broad as the third, and it only strengthened the ground for wliich he con- tended. " Tlie Senate would see that he could feel no interest in these inquiries. The land offices were so far removed from his State that neither himself nor his constituents knew much about them or the officers who occupied them. That abuses might exist was more than likely ; and he hoped to be believed when he said that no member of the Senate was more willing or anxious than he was that where they existed they should be ferreted out and the guilty punished. Still, he was unprepared to say that ex parte accusations should be spread before the public against any 234 Life and Times of Silas Wright. officer of the government. All ought to be heard and to have an opportunity for explanation and defense, and his present object was to cause the question before the Senate to be clearly under- stood, that every member might vote as his judgment should dictate. For his own part, after the distinct declaration of the honorable member of the committee [Mr. Clay], that notice ought not to be given, that he, as a member of the committee, should not feel bound to give such notice, but should consider it improper to give it, he [Mr. W.] had no alternative but to vote for the amendment, which required that notice should be given to any accused officer, and that he should be allowed to cross-examine the witnesses against him and to make his defense." The principles thus presented it seems difficult to con- trovert, although not assented to by a majority of the Senate. A man' s character may be easily destroyed by ex parte evidence taken down and sworn to, and pre- sented by a legislative committee, to the public, and printed. This is more especially so when the movement has its origin in partisan considerations, and its execution is designed to secure a particular result. The rule for which Mr. Wright contended, if fairly carried out in practice, would defeat the possibility of such results. Those whose acts could bear the test of scrutiny would have an opportunity for self-defense, while justice only would be meted out to those whose conduct should be indefensible. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 235 CHAPTER XLVIL EXTENDING THE CHARTER OF THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. The friends of the Bank of the United States were persevering in their efforts to renew its charter. Numer- ous speeches were made in Congress in favor of it, and widely circulated throughout the country. Its opponents were not idle in their efforts to defeat that object. On the 18th of March, 1834, Mr. Webster asked leave to introduce a bill, in the Senate, to modify and extend the charter for the period of six years. His motion, unex- pectedly to him, brought on a spirited discussion by the ablest debaters in the Senate, which induced him, on the twenty-fifth of March, to move to lay his motion on the table, which was carried. Among those opposed to extending the charter of the bank was Mr. Wkight, who, on the 20th of March, 1834, delivered the following well- considered and effective speech : " Mr. Weight said it was not his purpose to enter into a dis- cussion of the great pruiciples involved in the passage of the bill upon the table. His object in obtaining the floor, upon a former day, had been to reply to some things which had fallen from the honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Leigh], and to notice a few remarks made by the honorable chairman of the Committee of Finance [Mr. Webster], when he offered the bill. He must, he said, however, be permitted to congratulate himself that the Senate had now i-eached what he had, from the commencement of the session, considered the true question before Congress and the country ; the question of ' bank or no bank ;' the question whether the present Bank of the United States should be rechai*- tered for any period of time, or whether any National Bank should be created by the authority of Congress, after the expi- 236 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ration of the charter of the present bank. These questions, he considered, must be involved in the present discussion ; and he must be permitted further to congratulate himself that, as to the constitutional power of Congress to pass the bill now under con- sideration, or any bill to charter a bank similar to that now existing, the opinions of the honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Leigh] and his own perfectly coincided. The honorable Senator did not believe, nor did he himself believe, that Congress possessed any such power, and therefore, so far as their action was concerned, no such bank could exist after the year 1836, -when the charter of the present bank will expire by its own limitation. " Mr. W. said he would not attempt to repeat the arguments which the honorable Senator had so happily used, in his clear and strong manner, to establish the correctness of their opinions. Any attempt by him to do so might weaken Avhat had been so well and so concisely said by the Senator, but he would detain the Senate to add one view of this subject, which had not been taken by the honorable Senator, and which had struck his mind with great force. Upon all former occasions, wlien the power of Congress to charter a bank had been under discussion, reference had been made to that clause of the Constitution which reads in the following words: " ' The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be neces- sary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of tlie United States, or in any department or officer thereof.' " All, Mr. W. said, as he understood, had formerly argued that this necessity must be shown before the power could be inferred, and he had also understood that all had admitted that this consti- tutional necessity must be a necessity growing out of the wants of the government, and not out of the wants of business ; that it must be a necessity arising from the collection, distribution and disbursement of the ptiblic revenues, not out of the wants of the commercial interests, the mercantile interests, the manu- facturing interests, or any other branch of labor and enterprise; that it must be a necessity growing out of the wants of the public treasury and the administration of the finances of the Life and Times of Silas Weight. 237 country, and not out of the wants of the individual citizens. What, Mr. President, said Mr. W., have we heard urged as con- stituting this necessity, in the wliole course of this debate, in all the various shapes and forms in which it has been carried on in this body for now about four months ? The wants of ordinary business, the demand for capital, the regulation of exchanges, the importance of a uniform paper currency ; not tlie wants of the treasury. These last, sir, have not been mentioned in the comparison, while the former are made the indisputable evidence that a bank is necessary. Sir, said Mr. W., the wants of the treasury, and the wants of the treasury alone, can constitute this constitutional necessity. The wants of business cannot be the legitimate subjects of consideration for those who seek to derive the power to charter a bank from this provision of the Constitu- tion. He said he was one of those who did not believe that any power whatever was granted to Congress by this provision, much less the power to charter a bank; but he must believe that those who did imply such a power from it would, at least, admit the necessity must be such an one as the Constitution contemplated, and that the Constitution could not have contemplated any othei' than a necessity connected with the collection, distribution and disbursement of the revenues of the government; not the ordinary necessities of trade and exchange. These last were the wants which gentlemen feared the State banks could not su[»})ly, though they were willing to engage to collect and distribute the j)ublic moneys upon the same terms that the United States Bunk liad done it. He begged the Senate to look at this view of the case before they permitted a necessity, imaginary or real, unknown to the Constitution, to influence their action. "But, said Mr. W., the honorable Senator and myself have no difticulties of this sort to contend with. To our minds it is clear that the power to pass this bill is not granted by the Constitution. Having come to this conclusion, the honorable Senator inquires, in his impressive manner, if the present disposition of the public deposits with the State banks is to be continued. Sir, said Mr. W., I will avail myself of a privilege belonging to my country- men, the Yankees, and answer the gentleman by asking him a question. What disposition will he propose to make of tliese 2S8 Life and Times of Silas Wright. deposits ? What plan will he recommend for their future dispo- sition ? We agree that the charter of the Bank of the United States is unconstitutional, and it cannot, therefore, be extended beyond its present limit. I say that, in the absence of such an institution, the State banks present to the government the best and most convenient fiscal agents of which the nature of the case is susceptible. I have said upon a former occasion, and I repeat, that I think them perfectly safe agents. I have said, and I repeat, that I think them fully competent to discharge all the duties required by the government in the collection and disburse- ment of the public revenues; fully competent to answer every constitutional necessity of the treasury. I now say, further, that I am not alarmed at the power which is placed, by law, in the hands of the President and the Secretary of the Treasury over these deposits. It is the same power which was placed by Con- gress in the hands of the first President and first Secretary of the Treasury, at the formation of the government, under the Consti- tution; it is the same power which existed in the hands of those officers from 1789 up to the year 1816, when the charter of the present bank was granted. During all that period the liberties of the country were not endangered by it ; the people were not then taught to believe that the exercise of that power was usurpa- tion or tyranny. No dangcu- was then seen or apprehended, nor were we told that the purse and the sword of the country were united in one hand. Sir, said Mr. W., these laws have undergone no material alteration from the tiine of the first Congress to the present day, except the alteration made by the provisions of the present bank charter, and these alterations cease to be applicable when the deposits cease to be made with that institution. Where, then, is the ground for all this alarm, all this apprehension for our liberties ? Still the honorable Senator expresses, no doubt most sincerely, the greatest apprehension. Will he not, then, tell us what is to be done ? Will he not propose what, in his judg- ment, shall avert the dangers he fears? Sir, I wish to be dis- tinctly understood upon this point. I do not contend that these laws may not be beneficially amended, but I merely say that they are just what they have been from the organization of the govern- ment, with the single exception I have before mentioned, contained Life and Times of Silas Wrwrt. 239 in the bank charter. If they are bad, alter and amend them. If the powers over the public deposits conferred upon the Executive Department are too broad, limit and confine them. No one doubts or questions the power of Congress over the whole matter; no one resists the action of Congress upon it. Surely, then, it does not become us to find fault with the executive officers of the government for executing the laws as they are, while we do nothing to modify tlie law and make it what we would wish it to be. Our duty, as legislators, is not to point out the defects in the laws merely, but to apply the proper remedies for those defects — to examine the laws as they are, that we may make them what they ought to be — not to spend our time in deploring those defects, for which we offer no remedy. Sir, said Mr. W., I have not allowed myself time to make sucli an examination of the laws of Congress as enables me to say whether any, and what, alterations are required in those relating to the Treasury Depart- ment, and the management and disposition of the public deposits. That changes for the better may be made is more than probable; and I declare myself ready, at any period, to act upon proposi- tions having this for their object, come from what source they may. J am sure, however, gentlemen will see that Congress should discharge its duty before we are at liberty to complain of the laws as they are. Mr. President, said Mr. W., we all know, and know well, that it is easy to find fault; that it is easy to com- plain of existing evils, when it may be very difficult to propose remedies which will even suit ourselves, and much more difficult to propose those which will meet the approbation of Congress. I have said that I am not prepared to make propositions; and 1 venture the ])rediction to the honorable Senator that he, and those gentlemen who, with him, are so deeply dissatisfied with the existing law, will find it much more difficult to legislate upon this subject, in a safe and proper manner, than they now seem to suppose, and that they will find the changes which can be bene- ficially nuide in the existing laws much less extensive than they, by their complaints, would indicate. Still, sir, I repeat, gentle- men should turn their attention to this subject. If we are to have no Bank of the United States, some disposition must be made of tlie public deposits. I say, place them in the State V 240 Life and Times of Silas Wrwbt. banks; but if, as tlie remarks of many honorable Senators would seem to indicate, the State banks are not to be used, they are surely bound to inform us what disposition they intend to make of them. I am aware, Mr. President, that these remarks address themselves less appropriately to those Senators who believe we ought to have a national bank, and propose such an institution as their remedy for the evils of which they complain, than to those who, With the honorable Senator from Virginia and myself, believe that the Constitution does not give us the power to charter- such_ a bank, and that, therefore, it is a remedy beyond our reach; but, sir, these are considerations which should address themselves to the serious reflections of all. They are considerations con- nected with our duties as legislators, and in reference to which it is now most likely we shall be soon called to act. " Mr. W. said the honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Leigh] had told us that the present year might throw new lights upon this subject, and might develop, in his own State, at least, a new condition of public feeling in reference to the recharter of the bank. The State of Virginia, he said, might see that the present bank was to be destroyed merely to make room for another national bank, in a greater degree subject to execu- tive influence, and located in the city of New York. Well, sir, said Mr. W., what then ? Suppose Virginia does so see (which I think she will not), what can be the efiiect upon her action ? She has pronounced the charter of the present bank unconsti- tutional, and she must, therefore, be held to have pronounced its recharter, or the chartering of any similar bank, wherever located, equally unconstitutional. Will she then call upon her representatives here to vote for a law, which she declares to be a violation of the Constitution, to prevent a change in the loca- tion of a national bank? No, sir. With all deference, I say tlie people of Virginia do not change their constitutional opinions for such reasons, or govern their constitutional action by such motives. She will not give her voice for a bank which she believes to be unconstitutional, to secure its location or to pre- vent its location anywhere. " But again, the honorable Senator says, the State of Virginia may see that the State banks are to be continued as the fiscal Life and Thies of Silas Wright. 241 agents of the treasury, and that, in that event, the control of the exchanges, and to some extent of the currency of the coun- try, must pass to the city of New York. He assigns as the grounds of this opinion, that the position of New York, its natu- ral advantages and great capital, have hitherto forced a large portion of the foreign trade of the country to center at tliat point ; that this will continue to be the course of that trade ; and that, therefore, commercial men in all parts of the country must have money current in New York to carry on their opei-ations. Sir, said Mr. W., I neither affirm nor deny the gentleman's posi- tions, but, for the sake of the argument, suppose them to be well taken; and does he believe that the State of Virginia will invoke the aid of the legislation of Congress, and that too by the passage of a law which she herself believes to be unconstitu- tional, to deprive the city of New York of the advantages which nature has given it — to deprive it of the advantages which the enterprise and industry of its citizens have acquired for it ? Does the Senator believe it possible that the State of Virginia will call upon her representatives here or elsewhere to vote to recharter a bank which she has solemnly pronounced to be an institution existing in violation of the Constitution, for the mere purpose of forcing out of New York the regulation of the exchanges of the country ? Sir, the Senator himself does not so intend. He told us, in the course of his remarks, that he rejoiced at the prosperity of every State in the Union, and entertained not the least invidious feeling toward any. It must be, there- fore, either that I have misapprehended the force of tlie remarks of the honorable Senator, or that he did not sufficiently develop liis ideas to give us their true bearing. I can never believe that the State of Virginia will ever seek to do injustice to a sister State ; I am sure she Avill never do what she pronounces a viola- tion of the Constitution of the country to effect such an object. " The lionorable gentleman proceeds, again, to say that tlie State of Virginia may see, in the course of this year, that the confederacy cannot sustain the destruction of this bank ; that its destruction may involve the dissolution of this Union. He refers to the territorial distribution of the debt due to the bank, and intimates that much the largest portion of that debt is due from IG 242 Life and Times of Silas Wright. citizens of the western States ; and then, in that impressive lan- guage in which everything reaches us coming from the honorable gentleman, he asks, vs^ill these citizens consent to have their houses sold from them, and themselves and their families to be reduced to poverty and want, for the sake of the destruction of the bank ? It is not my purpose, Mr. President, said Mr. W., to speak of the pecuniary condition of the citizens of the western States. My information does not enable me so to speak. One thing, howevei', I do know, sir, and am most happy to be able to say, that no portion of the citizens of this republic have hereto- fore, and up to this period, been more patriotic, more devoted, more disinterestedly devoted, to the safety and perpetuity of our civil institutions, and to the integrity of our Union, than the citi- zens of the west ; none have more willingly or more severely suffered to secure these objects than they have. I doubt not that the same spirit and patriotism still prevail among them ; and while I know not the extent of their indebtedness, or their means of payment, I hope and believe they have not arrived at that state when the power of a creditor moneyed corporation is paramount with them to their attachment to the Constitution and laws of their country. " But, sir, the effect upon the action of Virginia is the question I projDose to consider. Will that patriotic State instruct her Senators to vote for a law which she has adjudged a violation of the Constitution, because the debtors of a bank, created by an unconstitutional law, cannot discharge that indebtedness ? Will the State of Virginia admit that a Bank of the United States, with a charter not authorized by the Constitution, and with seventeen years of life only, has the power to destroy the con- federacy of the States and dismember the Union, and then, by her own voice and action, give that bank further life and further power ? I cannot think so ; and I am convinced, if the honorable Senator [Mr. Leigh] reviews the tendency of his remarks and conclusions, and the important results which may follow the decision of the question now before us, he will not, he cannot feel that indifference, as to the action of Congress upon the bill now under consideration to reoharter the bank, which I under- stood him to express when giving his sentiments to the Senate. Life and Times of Silas Weight. 243 " Mr. W. said the honorable Senator had, for the second time, alluded to the subject of the transfer drafts, with which he had upon both occasions, coupled the transactions of the Post-office Department ; and in that way he had presented to the Senate, with his characteristic clearness and force, a case of misraanatre- ment of the public funds, which, upon the Senator's first exhibition of it, had perceptibly an effect upon all sides of the House. The Secretary of the Treasury, as the head of one of the execu- tive departments of the govei-nment, had been presented to us lending money from the public treasury gratuitously, and without interest, to the State banks, to enable them to sus- tain themselves; while the Postmaster-General had been brought in, upon the other hand, as the head of another of these execu- tive departments, borrowing money for the use of the govern- ment and paying an intei-est of six per cent for the loans so made. Upon this presentation of the case, and especially with the vivid coloring which the honorable Senator imparted to it, he, Mr. W., was ready to admit that attention was justly excited. He had, therefore, taken some pains to inform himself as to the facts, and he would attempt to give them to the Senate in an intelligible form, and leave to the judgment of the body the degree of blame which should be considered fairly imputable anywhere from the transactions. The first and great error in the gentleman's case was the connection of the Post-office with the Treasury Department. If he had taken the trouble to examine the subject, he would have found that the Secretary of the Treasury could no more pay money from the public treasury to answer the wants of the Post-office Department, without the authority of a law of Congress, than he could pay money for the wants of the private business of the honorable Senator or him- self. If he had examined the laws of Congress upon the subject, he would have found that no appropriation of money from the public treasury for the use of the Post-office Department existed, which had not been promptly and fully paid. The idea, there- fore, that the Secretary of the Treasury might have taken the money on deposit in the Bank of the United States, to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, and appropriated it to the wants of the Post-office Department, is fallacious and deceptive. 244 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Without a direct and palpable violation of the law, and of liis official powers and duties, he could not have made any such dis- position of these moneys; and surely, at this time, when the Secretary of the Treasury is so broadly accused of constitutional as well as legal violations, the gentlemen who make the accusa- tions will not be disposed to censure him for not having violated the law in this instance. Mr. W. said he did not intend, by any expression he had made or might make, to convey the most dis- tant impression that the honorable Senator had designedly con- veyed an erroneous impression as to the relations between these two departments of the government. Considering both as equally public interests, he had, undoubtedly, omitted to turn his attention to the want of legal authority to make the payments, which the import of his remarks went to show ought to have been made, from the moneys remaining in the treasury. It will be seen, however, said Mr. W„ that the imaginary connection between these two departments, which gave to the Senator's rela- tion the most point, as an instance of executive mismanagement, lias no legal existence whatever, and therefore wo have the Post- office Department, and its management and administration, wholly separated from the operations of the treasury. How, then, stands the loans to the State banks of which the honorable Senator speaks ? On the first of October last, tlie Secretary of the Treasury came to the conclusion to change the deposit of the public moneys, thereafter to be received, from the Bank of the United States and its branches to various State banks which had been selected by him for that purpose. He was aware that, in consequence of the deposits having been previously made in the Bank of the United States and its branches, large balances must have accrued in favor of the deposit bank and branches against the State banks, in the principal commercial cities, because the revenue collected in those cities must have been paid by the whole trading population, Avho must derive their means of pay- ment from all the banks, while those means, applied to those payments, must go into the single bank or branch in which the public moneys were kept; he was further apprehensive that the United States Bank would assume a hostile attitude towards the banks which should consent to receive the deposits of the public Life and Times of Silas Wright. 245 moneys in lieu of that institution, and would call for any bal- ances which might exist in its favor against any of those banks, and would require the payment in specie, before time would be allowed for the banks to receive any benefit from the deposits ; he also knew that, by a law of Congress, the public revenue was payable in the bills of the Bank of the United States and its branches, while those bills could not be converted into specie, in case the bank should choose not to redeem them at the points where they should be received, except by causing them to be presented at the bank or office which issued them, or where, upon their face, they might be made payable; he also knew that, by an order of his department, a certain description of paper put into circulation by the bank and its branches, and known by the appellation of ' Bank Drafts,' but which Mr. W. said he believed the highest court in the country had decided were neither ' bills ' nor 'notes' of the bank, were made receivable in payment of the revenue, which drafts, if the bank sliould refuse to i-eceive them as money, at the place where taken in payment, could not be converted into specie, or even into bills of the bank, but by presentment at the bank or office upon wliich they were drawn. The knowledge of these facts showed the Secretary that, should the bank be thus disposed, it could exert a double power of injury against the State institutions which were to take tlie deposits, by instantly calling for the payment in coin of any balances in its favor, and by refusing to take in payment of those balances the notes and drafts of the bank itself, not made payable at the bank or branch where the payment was to be made. In this way, and by this double power of oppression, the State institutions might be severely injured, and perhaps ruined, and that, too, when the balance to be paid had accrued solely from the payments towards the public revenue, and when the notes and drafts, refused in payment, had also Ijeen received in collections of the public revenue. To guard against this contingency, the Secre- tary gave to a few of the banks, in the large cities, the transfer drafts in question, which drafts were made upon the United States bank, or the branch at the point where the oppression was apprehended, and in favor of the State bank upon which it was anticipated the attempt might be made. In all cases precise 246 Life and Times of Silas Weight. instructions were given that the drafts should be returned to the department, without presentment, unless tlie balance before spoken of should be hastily demanded in coin, or unless the bank or branch at the point should refuse the notes of other branches, or the branch drafts, as money ; but in either of those contingencies the drafts were to be presented, and the amount taken from the public money left with the bank or branch was to be transferred to the State bank and passed to the credit of the public treasury there. The honorable Senator has selected the Manhattan Bank of New York to illustrate the abuse he supposed to exist. In that case the balance was demanded, and the notes of other branches of the bank and the branch drafts were refused to be received in payment, or passed to the credit of the bank offering them ; the draft from the department was presented and paid, and soon after the bank changed its course and consented to receive all its notes and drafts, which should be taken in payment of the public revenue, as money. Some of the other drafts were presented, and others were returned to the department without presentment. These are the facts as to what the honorable Senator has so significantly termed loans to the State banks. How far they deserve that appellation, Mr. W. said he would most cheerfully leave it to the Senate and the public to judge. But, says the honorable Senator, the loans were made without interest. Has the honorable gentleman over- looked the fact that the money was standing to the credit of the Treasurer, in the Bank of the United States, without interest ; that the transaction was a mere transfer of the amount of the draft from the credit of the Treasurer, without interest, in one bank, to the credit of the Treasurer, witliout interest, in another bank ; that the draft did not take one dollar from the treasury ; that the money, when placed to the credit of the Treasurer in the State bank, was no more a loan to it than when standing to the credit of the Treasurer, in the Bank of the United States, it was a loan to it ; and that, in either situation, the amount was equally subject to the drafts of the Treasurer at pleasure ? "I am bound, said Mr. W., to give to the honorable Senator from Virginia my unfeigned thanks for according to me sincerity in the declaration, made on a former day, that my opposition to Life and Times of Silas Wright. 247 the Bank of the United States did not pi-oceed from a desire to transfer the location of that institution to my own State ; I at the same time expressed my most firm conviction that the oppo- sition of that State proceeded from no such motive. Sir, said Mr. W., I was sincere in both declarations. The republicans of New York do not oppose this great moneyed power upon the narrow ground of selfish or local interest, much less from a desire to transfer its influence within the limits of their own State. Their opposition proceeds from higher motives and is maintained for nobler purposes. They believe it to be a power dangerous to the government, dangerous to the purity of our institutions, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. Many of them believe it to be a power unknown to the Constitution, while others believe the constitutional power to create it may exist, but that it is a power which ought not to be called into exercise. Expe- rience, which is claimed here to prove the necessity of such a bank, has proved to them that such an institution ought not to exist in a free country, and their resistance to its recharter is based upon these high grounds of principle, and not upon any consideration of personal or local interest. The honorable gentleman's apprehensions, therefore, that this bank is to be destroyed merely to make room for another, similar or more powerful, to be located in New York, are without foundation. "Mr. President, said Mr. W., am I required to adduce proof of this assertion ? I need not better than the memorials from New York, almost daily laid before you, and, nearly without an exception, if coming from the opponents of the administration, praying for the recharter of the present bank. It is a fact, which does not admit of contradiction, that there is not, at this moment, in this Union, not even in the city of Philadelphia itself, a body of men more earnest, more active and more untiring in their efforts to effect a recharter of the present bank, with its present location, than a large portion of the merchants and business men of the city of New York. The honorable Senator has told us that New York desires the regulation of the exchanges of the country, that her citizens may profit from the purchase and sale of bills. Sir, a very large proportion of the individuals to whom this position of the gentleman would apply, in case those who 248 Life and Times of Silas Wright. best understood the subject thought it applicable, — a very large proportion of the exchange brokers and great money dealers of New York are foremost in the cause of the present bank, and are using their utmost exertions to produce a recharter. Need 1 stronger evidence to show that no concerted local movement, nor any perceptible local interest, is governing the course of that State upon this great question ? " Mr. W. said he must now detain the Senate, while he very briefly replied to a few of the remarks of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster], made upon the presentation of the bill to the Senate. And first, the honorable gentleman had stated that the Safety Fund banks of New York were under the supervision of a political commission appointed by the government. He, Mr. W., must express his profound regret that he should so often meet with statements upon this floor, in relation to the Safety Fund banks of New York, which were errone- ous in fact and in conclusion, because gentlemen had not made themselves acquainted with the laws of that State regulating those banks. He had hoped that this would not have been the case with the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, but that he would have made himself familiar with that Safety Fond system before he made it the subject of remark here, and certainly before he passed sen- tence upon it as a political system. He had not done so, however, as was evident from the remark above referred to. The Bank Commissioners of the State of New York are three in number, and they are the officers whose duty it is to supervise the banks subject to the Safety Fund law. So far from being a political commission, appointed by the government of that State, as the honorable Senator has supposed, but one of the three commis- sioners is so appointed, and the remaining two are appointed by the banks themselves The one is appointed upon the nomination of the Governor, and by the advice and consent of the Senate of the State, as officers of this government are appointed by the President and Senate; and this commissioner may be considered as more especiallj^ the representative of the State, and of the public interests in the board of commissioners. The State is divided into two districts for the appointment of the other two commissioners, and each is appointed by the banks of his dis- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 249 trict — every bank voting upon :i uniform rule, according to tlie amount of its capital stock. Tliese commissioners, thus appointed, are the exchisive representatives of the banks themselves, though the law makes no discrimination as to the powers and duties of the different members of the board. This is the true constitu- tion and mode of appointment of that commission, which tlie honorable Senator has denominated ' a political commission appointed by the government.' Sir, his mistake must have pro- ceeded from his inattention to the law of which he was speaking, for he did not intend to produce an erroneous impression as to the character of these officers. He may, if lie chooses, consider the commissioner appointed by the State a political officer. I will not occupy the time of the Senate to point out the injustice of such a conclusion; because, when I find that officer guarded ui»on each side by an officer of equal powers, and charged with the same duties, and deriving, in both cases, their official character from the banks themselves, I sufficiently divest the board of the political character which the gentleman has ascribed to it. I cannot be mistaken in this conclusion, unless the honorable Sena- tor shall contend that the banks select politicians as their repre- sentatives in the commission. If such be the ground he intends to assume, I can tell him, if the position were established, he, and not myself, would have occasion for joy that the commission was made political. It is a fact, Mr. President, which no one acquainted with the subject will deny, that a very large majority, I doubt not full two-thirds, of all the stocks of all the Safety Fund banks in the State of New York, are owned and lield by the political friends of the honorable gentleman, — by persons opposed in politics to the present administration. The plain democrats of New York, sir, are not rich; they hold few stocks; they live not by banks, but by the labor of their hands. Surely, then, if this bank commission, constituted as I have related, two of the three commissioners deriving their appointments from the votes of the holders of the stocks of these banks, be a political commission, it must represent the politics which the Senator himself approves, and it is not for him to complain of its char- acter. But, Mr. President, the honorable Senator is mistaken ; this commission is not a political commission ; the banks in New 250 Life and Times of Silas Wright. York are not political banks, nor do they attempt to exert a political influence. The citizens of that State, of whatever political party, do not invest their capital in the banks for politi- cal purposes ; they understand their interests too well to do so ; they make their investments for the profit to be derived from them, and the banks are conducted with a single view to this object. I wish, sii*; I had the power to persuade honorable Sena- tors to permit their minds to be undeceived upon this point. They lead themselves into many mistakes, upon the subject of the New York banks, by adopting this error, and reasoning from it, without a proper acquaintance with the law or the facts, from which correct opinions would be formed. The banks of New York are not political institutions. Their object is to make money; and if they can do that, and if the laws be such as to protect their rights, and to facilitate their operations directed to that object, they care not who rules, what political party triumphs or what politician succeeds. I owe it to candor to say, Mr. President, that in former years, and before the establishment of the present system of banking in that State, I had heard of a very few instances in which banks were charged, with too much appearance of truth, with interfering in the politics of the State ; but I am happy to be able to say that those instances, so far as my information extends, have been ' few and far between,' while I believe time has shown that every bank against which this charge was strongly supported has turned out to be insolvent. " The honorable Senator again tells us that the representatives from New York here express great fears of the power and influ- ence of the Bank of the United States, and asks if that State, with its league of banks, comprising together a capital of between $22,000,000 and $23,000,000, has cause to fear this institution. [Hei-e Mr. Webster explained that Mr. W. had misapprehended his remark; that he had not said that the New York banks had no cause to fear the Bank of the United States, but that his argument was, that the Senators from that State expressed great fear as to the power and influence of the Bank of the United States, with a capital of $35,000,000, extending its operations over the whole Union, while they expressed no fear whatever of the power and influence of the sixty-nine banks of their own Life and Times of Silas Wright. 251 State, embodying an aggregate capital of more than $22,000,000, and leagued together by legal provisions.] Mr. Weight resumed. He said he owed it to the Senator to say, that he had misappre- hended the force and direction of his remark, and he would con- form his answer to his present understanding of its application. This, said Mr. W., will make it necessary for me to inquire how far the Safety Fund banks of New York are, in the language of the honorable Senator, leagued together, so as to be properly viewed as one consolidated moneyed power. The only common interest between them, Mr. W. said, was their obligation to con- tribute to a common fund, which fund was taken possession of by the State, and held for the security of the public — the bill- holders and depositors of the banks first, and for the benefit of the banks ulteriorly, in case it should not be expended on account of failures of the banks. To what extent could this contribution be carried, because that was the measure of the league between the banks? In the first instance, to a yearly payment of one-half of one per cent upon the amount of the capital stock of each bank, which yearly payment was to be extended over the term of six years, and to amount, in the aggregate, to three per cent upon the aggregate capital stock of all the banks subject to the provisions of the Bank Fund law. These contributions were to constitute the fund, the man- agement of which remains with the State during the continuance of the charters of the banks, but the net annual income of which, over and above expenses, is distributed to the banks in the pro- portion of their respective contributions. The fund is a trust fund for the benefit and security of all who may have demands against the banks other than the stockholders, and the State is the trustee; but, if those demands are discharged by the banks themselves, the fund is theirs, and is to be returned to them at the close of their respective charters, according to their respective interests in it; and, in the meantime, as I have before remarked, the annual earnings of the fund, lawful expenditures from it being first deducted, are annually paid to the banks. This is the first step of the league. Now for the second. In case a bank, subject to the Bank Fund law, fails and the capital of the fund be reduced by the redemption of its notes — which are made redeemable at 252 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the Treasury of the State so long as there are moneys belonging to the Bank Fund in the treasury to redeem them with — then the contribution of one-half of one per cent upon the capital stock of all the banks subject to the law again commences, and continues until all obligations against the failing bank, in favor of bill- holders and depositors, are fully discharged, and until the capital of the fund is again restored to an amount equal to three per cent upon the aggregate capitals of all the banks making the contributions. This completes the liability of the New York Safety Fund banks for each other; and this is the whole extent of all the provisions of the laws of that State creating such liability. Do they, then, deserve the appellation of ' leagued banks,' in the general acceptation of those terms? The contribu- tion cannot, in any case, exceed the one-half of one per cent per annum upon the capital stock of the bank upon which the liability rests ; there is no community of capital ; no community of dividends ; no community of management, for each bank is managed by independent officers and by an independent board of directors, o-ivino; to the business of the institution such a direction as they please, without any control from or necessary consulta- tion with its neighboring institutions subject to the same law ; nor is there any community of liabilities further than has been before mentioned, and it will be seen that nothing in those liabilities extends any community of security to the stockholders of the separate banks, or any community of risk and hazard beyond the obligation to contribute the one-half of one per cent upon their capital stock yearly, in case misfortunes to other institutions should make such a call necessary. Are we, then, to be told that this connection between independent banks consti- tutes a moneyed power to be feared, as is the power of a single bank of 112,000,000 greater capital, wielded by a single board of directors, by a single set of officers, and the whole force and influence of which, for any purpose, may be directed to a single object and to a single point at pleasure ? Sir, said Mr. W., I do not see the analogy. The New York banks are about seventy in number, embodying in the aggregate less than $23,000,000 of capital ; each owned separately by separate stockholders ; each having separate objects and separate governments ; all " \ Life and Times of Silas Wright. 253 the iuclucemeiits to healthful rivalship open to each as agamst all the others ; with no common interest or band of luiion but the contingent liability to the trifling contribution before stated ; a liability, to say the most, not greater than is required to restrain ruinous competition. Are these banks such a moneyed power as to deserve a comparison with the Bank of the United States, with its $35,000,000 of capital, wielded by a single hand ? The republicans of New York think not, and hence they choose their own system as much the lesser evil, and seek to rid them- selves and the country of the power and influence of a single institution which they consider dangerous to liberty. This is my answer to the honorable Senator's remark that we seem to be inconsistent in professing to fear the power of the Bank of the United States, while we say nothing as to the power of our State banks. " Mr. President, said Mr. W., it has been said, here and else- where (I do not now refer to any remark of the Senator from Massachusetts), that this contribution from the State banks of New York might, by repeated failures, become perpetual, and might dangerously weaken those institutions. Sir, said Mr. W., if I am not in error, the State of Massachusetts imposes a per- manent tax upon all the banks chartered by that commonwealth of one per cent per annum for the support of the government. This tax is just double the contribution which can be imposed upon the Safety Fund banks, and is perpetual without con- tingency ; it is, too, a tax for the sui>i)ort of the State govern- ment, in which the banks can have no interest subsequent to the payment, while the contributions from the New York banks inure to the benefit of the banks themselves, if a failure of some one of the institutions does not consume the fund. May I not, then, believe that apprehension upon this point will be no longer entertained ? "The honorable Senator entered his protest against what he called the war waged by the President against the bank. I pro- pose, Mr. President, to examine the facts in relation to this con- troversy, and I feel great confidence in being able to satisfy those wlio hear me that this protest comes from the wrong quarter ; that the protest, if one is to be made, should come 254 Life and Times of Silas Wright. from the other side. In what manner has the President of the United States waged war upon the bank ? This inquiry will be answered by a reference to his various messages, but I will not trouble the Senate further than to read from a single one. I find, in the annual message communicated to Congress on the 8th day of December, 1829, the following notice of the bank : " 'The charter of the Bank of the United States expires in 1836, and its stockholders will most probably apply tor a renewal of their privileges. In order to avoid the evils resulting from precipitancy in a measure involving such important principles and such deep pecuniary interests, I feel that I cannot, in justice to the parties interested, too soon present it to the delibe- rate consideration of the Legislature and the people. Both the constitu- tionality and the expediency of the law creating this bank are well questioned by a large portion of our fellow-citizens ; and it must be admitted by all that it has failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound cur- rency.' " This is the mention of the bank made in the first message of the President, and what is it '? Not an attempt to interfere with the chartered rights and privileges of the institution, but a timely expression of doubt as to the propriety of its recharter, conveyed in the mildest language, and proceeding from the best of motives, to wit: 'to avoid the evils resulting from precipitancy in a measure involving such important principles and such deep pecu- niary interests.' Was this a declaration of Avar against the bank ? Was it an act of hostility to that institution, thus to warn it to prepare in time for its final close ? Was it wrong in the Presi- dent to say, Avhat he knew to be true, that ' both the constitu- tionality and the expediency of the law creating this bank are well questioned by a large portion of our fellow-citizens ?' Was it waging war against the bank to question the expediency of its recharter ? Sir, the bank has chosen so to consider it; and in a publication recently made by its board of directors, the paragraph I have just read from the message of 1829 is termed an ' assault ' upon the bank. Notices of a similar character, in substance, were taken of the bank in the two following annual messages; and in 1832, when both Houses of Congress passed a bill to recharter the institution, the President refused his assent to it, and in a respectful message communicated his reasons for that refusal to this body. This is all the war he has waged against Life and Times of Silas Wright. 255 the bank; and the hoiiovable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], upon a hxte occasion, told us that these messages were all ' non- committal ' documents ; that they did not even make known to Congress and the country the opinions of the President in relation to the bank. Permit me now, Mr. President, said Mr. W., to examine the other side of this controversy. Immediately after the publication of the message of the President, in December, 1829, the bank commenced its efforts against his re-election. By its own showing, its expenditures, for the printing and distribu- tion of matter calculated and intended to influence public opinion, commenced at that period, and were continued in an increasing- ratio through that whole presidential term. It made itself a political instrument, and acted in open and avowed hostility to the President. Who does not know, sir, that the immense sums paid for printing were so paid for printing political matter? Who does not know that the speeches made in this body upon the veto message, in July, 1832, were calculated and intended to influence the elections of the coming fall ? I mean no disresi)ect, sir, to any individual by the remark. The speeches upon that occa- sion could not fail to have that tendency, nor can any one doubt that they were reprinted and broadly distributed by the bank because they were of that character. It is also abundantly shown to us that it caused to be printed, and ^pead over the whole country, newspapers and other political publications, with a pro- fusion never before witnessed upon a similar occasion. These were the first steps in the war waged by the bank against the President. Upon a recent occasion, its board of directors have issued to the public, and laid upon our tables, a communication, in which, as if to mark the character of their hostility, they class the President of the United States with the persons who counter- feit their notes, and tell us that, as kindred subjects, they have received, and will receive, kindred treatment at the hands of the bank. Is not this, sir, waging war against the President? And who, then, should protest? I pronounce that the war is not one waged by the President agamst the bank, but a Avar waged by the bank against the President, and, as such, I protest against it. The country will protest against it ; the people who have elected the President do and will protest against it. 256 Life and Times on Silas Wright. " The honorable Senator intimated, in the course of his remarks, tliat I had, upon a former occasion, made an appeal to the prejudices of the people against banks. Sir, I have made no such appeal. I did appeal to their good sense, as applied to the information before them, in relation to the conduct of this institution to which I have just referred ; to its interference with the election of officers of the goverinnent ; to its open and avowed political action ; to its treatment of the President of their choice. I did appeal to the patriotism and love of liberty of the people against this bank for having thus exerted its immense moneyed 2:>ower to corrupt the press, endanger the safety of our free institutions and conti'ol the government. This appeal I did make; and I understood the honorable Senator, in the earnest- ness of debate, to permit himself to characterize it with the harsh appellation of a fraud. Sir, this may be the honorable gentlemen's opinion, but, in mattei's of this sort, opinion is every- thing. Entertaining the opinions I entertain, it is the imperious duty of every representative of the people, here or elsewhere, to make and reiterate these appeals, not to the prejudices, but to the intelligence of our citizens ; to expose the profligate conduct of this bank ; to point out the danger to our free institutions of its continued existence, and to mark the progress of its moneyed power, ' withering, as with a subtle poison,' that purity and truth which are the only safeguards of freedom. Sir, had I, with my opinions, made declarations from my place here, calculated to produce alarm in the public mind ; to shake the confidence of the people in the public officers of their own choice ; to create distrust toward the local banks ; to unsettle dependence upon the credit and currency of the country generally ; and to produce a feeling of agitation and panic, I ought not to have been surprised even if the strong charge of an attempt to practice a fraud upon the public had been made against me. Entertaining the opinions I do, were I to attempt to convince the free citizens of this republic that the country cannot get on without the aid of an immense moneyed incorpo- ration; without the aid of a bank large enough to control all our moneyed operations; large enough to control the government itself, and to convince them that the continuance of their liberties Life and Thies of Silas Wright. 257 are dependent upon such an institution, I should subject myself to the accusation of an attempt to lead them into error. I do not intend, Mr. President, in making these remarks, to impute any but the most honorable intentions to any member of this body, and I make them to show how very differently we view the same act; how very different our opinions are in reference to this bank, I think the honorable Senator could not have given suffi- cient weight to this consideration when he spoke of the course of any individual as fraudulent towards the public. It is my design, upon this as upon all occasions, to extend to others that charity I ask for myself, and while I claim sincerity of purpose for ray own language, and my own acts, I as readily accord it to those who differ with me in opinion. " Another remark of the honorable Senator appears to me to deserve a similar reply. He told us, in his usual emphatic man- ner, when speaking of appeals to the people, that he knew such appeals, sometimes, made little men great, but that great men never resorted to such expedients. I have before remarked that opinion, in matters of this sort, is everything. Now, without the least design to impute to the honorable member any motive which is not strictly pure, I must be permitted to say to him, that too ardent a friendship for an institution such as I, in my conscience, believe the Bank of the United States to be, may not make great men greater. " The honorable Senator urges that this bank, having been chartered, and having incorporated itself and its transactions with the business of the country, ought not now to be thus sud- denly destroyed. Is it right, sir, to call the destruction sudden ? Did not the President, as long ago as in December, 1829, give it the most emphatic warning to prepare for its final close? Has he not done so annually, from that time to the present ? What, Mr. President, was the effect of that warning ? The whole debt due to the bank in December, 1829, wlien the first message of the President was transmitted to Congress, expressing doubts as to the constitutionality or expediency of a recharter of the bank, was, I think, about $42,000,000, perhaps $44,000,000, as I speak from memory, and cannot pretend to be precisely accurate. In May, 1832, this debt had increased to the enormous amount of 17 258 Life and Times of Silas Weight. more than $70,000,000, thus showing a constant and rapid exten- sion of its loans as the final termination of its charter approached. Did the bank supjDOse that the grant of the monopoly to it for the period of twenty years gave it a right to expect or demand a continuance? Its constant extensions of its business as it approached the close of its chartered term would seem to indi- cate such an opinion; but I respectfully submit that the reverse ought to have been its conclusion. The privileges granted to it were of immense value, and a proper sense of the justice of Con- gress should have induced the stockholders to believe, even if the existence of a similar bank was to be continued in the coun- try, that they would not be made, for a second term, the exclu- sive recipients of this great bounty. " There is, Mr, President, said Mr. W., another view of this subject which strikes my mind with great force, and which, in my judgment, justifies the charge against the bank of a violation of one of its highest duties. The period of its existence was distinctly fixed upon the face of its charter, and it owed it to the country, as its highest duty, to prepare for that period in a man- ner which should enable it to go out of existence without a shock to any great national interest. The government conferred upon this institution privileges and benefits inestimable, and, in return for that libei'ality, it was its duty to come into exist- ence, to pass its prescribed terra, and to meet its close without being the cause of any convulsion in trade, or credit or currency. The bank was a creature of the law, and with the law it should have prepared itself to die quietly. This it has not done, but, on the contrary, as the termination of its legal existence approached, it has exerted its utmost power to strengthen its claims to a new existence. It has spread abroad its immense resources, and drawn within its vortex thousands of citizens, who, when the warning was given to it by the President to prepare for its disso- lution, were free from its influence and independent of its power. It has pursued a course in direct contradiction to the dictates of interest, if it had intended to submit to the contract between it and the government, and to terminate its existence at the pre- scribed limit. Do I, then, said Mr. W., do injustice to the bank when I infer that this course has been adopted to force an exten- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 259 sion of its charter? Other motive for the adraitted conduct cannot be assigned. " Still we are told that this bank must not be thus suddenly- closed, because the shock given to trade and commerce, and the call upon debtors, will be greater than the country can sustain; and the bill before us proposes to extend its charter for the term of six years, to enable it to close its business. Sir, did not the President give to this institution more than six years' notice, that it must close its affairs with the expiration of its pi'esent charter ? Did it accept that notice and prepare itself for the event ? So far from it, its business was at once extended, and by its own acts its final close rendered more and more difiicult, without dis- tress to the country. Grant it the time proposed by the bill before the Senate, and what assurance have we that, at the expi- ration of the first four years of the period, its debt will not be extended to $100,000,000, instead of being reduced below $55,000,000, where it now stands? A rapid curtailment has taken place for the last five months, a curtailment so rapid as to embari'ass and distress the whole country, and to derange all its business operations, and still the debt due to the bank is more than 112,000,000 greater than it was in December, 1829, when the President, by his message to Congress, warned it to prepare for its final close at the expiration of its charter. I must, Mr. Presi- dent, be permitted to express my full conviction, drawn from these facts, that it is not the design of the bank to discharge its duty to the public by a quiet close of its affairs, but that, on the contrary, it is its settled purpose to force a re-existence, to overrule the government, coerce public opinion and compel a recharter. " We are told, Mr, President, by the honorable Senator that we must have a national bank; and what, sir, is the reason urged, as conclusive upon us, to establish the position ? It is the existence of the present pressure upon the money market of the country, said to exist in contemplation of the winding up of the present bank. Sir, said Mr. W., this proves to me merely not that we want a bank, but that we have a bank. Whence does the distress and pressure complained of proceed ? It, no doubt, has its origin in a complication of causes, among which a general system of over- 260 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Weight. trading and the change of the revenue laws are among the most important ; but I cannot doubt tliat by far the most powerful cause, at this time in operation, is the hostile attitude which the Bank of the United States has thought it for her interest to assume toward the State banks. We liave it in evidence, among the documents of Congress, upon the oath of the chief officer of the bank, Mr. Biddle himself, that that institution has the power to crush the State banks at its pleasure; that they exist by its clemency alone, and not because it has not the power to shut their doors. The evidences of a disposition to exert that power have, for the last few months, been strong and numerous. Have we not heard it predicted, Mr. President, from all sides of this chamber, that the State banks would be compelled to stop specie payments within a short period of time ? Have we not seen the bank press calling uj^on the community to make runs upon those banks; telling the poor laborer, who had a five-dollar note of a State Bank, to call and get the specie for it before it became a valueless rag in his pocket. Can these indications have been mistaken, sir '? In the State which I have the honor, in part, to represent here, I am happy to know that they have not either been mistaken or disregarded, and I hope I may not find myself mistaken in the belief that the banks of that State are prepared to meet the blow intended for them. From the latest advices I have received, I am authorized to suppose that they have with- drawn from circulation and redeemed from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 of their notes, within the last sixty or seventy days. The effect of this extensive curtailment upon the merchants, and, indeed, upon all classes of the community, must be severe, but self-protection and self-preservation require the course at the hands of the banks, and they have no volition. It would be madness for them not to prepare for their defense, when they are publicly told that this immense moneyed power, with $35,000,000 of capital at command, is about to aim a deadly blow at them ; when they know it has vaunted its power over them, and proved upon oath that its forbearance was the tenure by which they held their existence. The banks, then, cannot extend themselves while this all-powerful enemy stands ready to take the first advantage of their exposure, and to push it to their ruin. Sir, is Life and Times of Silas Weight. 261 thei'e any other cause for this rapid curtailment, and this close defensive position assumed by the State banks ? I know of none. There can be none. Thei-e is no peculiar demand for specie grow- ing out of the state of trade, and the condition of exchange; but, on the contrary, the reverse is, to a greater extent, true, than it has been at any former period of our history. Specie is, at this moment, abundant in the country, and its flow is to, and not from us. " I cannot, then, be mistaken, when I say that if the Bank of the United States would cease its efforts for, and its hopes of a re-existence, and would endeavor to perform its duty to the country, by closing its affairs with as little injury as possible to any individual or public interest, the State banks would be able to extend their loans, confidence would be restored, and the pressure upon the money market would soon cease. Apprehen- sion, a just apprehension of the hostile movements of this great institution, is the most powerful cause of the present scarcity of money. This scarcity must exist so long as this apprehension continues. How, then, is it to be allayed, would seem to be the pertinent inquiry. The honorable Senator from Massachusetts answers us by the bill upon your table. Plecharter the bank ; appease the monster by prolonging its existence and increasing its power. I say no, sir; but act promptly and refuse its wish ; destroy its hope of a recharter, and you destroy its inducement to be hostile to the State institutions. A different interest, the interest of its stockholders, to wind up its affairs as profitably to themselves as possible, becomes its ruling object, and will direct its policy. The more prosperous the country, the more plenty the money of other institutions, the more easily and safely can this object be accomplished ; and every hope of a continued exist- ence being destroyed, that this will be the object of the bank is as certain as that its moneyed interest governs a moneyed incor- poration. Mr. President, this is unquestionably the opinion of the country. Look, sir, at the files of memorials upon your table, and however widely they may differ as to their views of the bank, they all hold to you this language, ' act speedily, and finally settle the question.' " But we are told, sir, that the country cannot sustain the wind- 262 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ing up of the affairs of this bank. Is this so ? What does experi- ence teach us upon this subject ? The old bank of the United States, within four months of the close of its charter, was more extended in proportion to the amount of its capital than the present bank is at this moment, and still it is almost two years to the close of its charter. The old bank strusaled as this does for a re-existence ; the country was then alarmed ; memorials in favor of the bank were then as now piled upon the tables of the members of Congress; the cries of distress rung through these halls then as distinctly as they now do ; nay, more, gentlemen were then sent hei'e from the commercial cities to be examined upon oath, before the committees of Congress, to prove the exist- ence and the extent of the distress ; business was then in a state of the utmost depression in all parts of the Union ; commerce was literally suspended by the restrictive measures of the govern- ment ; trade was dull beyond any former example ; property of all kinds was unusually depressed in price ; and the country was on the eve of a war with the most powerful nation in the world. Still Congress was unmoved and the old bank was not rechartered. Such is the history of that period, and, with the final action of Congress, all knowledge of the distress ceased. Who has ever heard of disasters to the business of the country proceeding from winding i;p of the old bank? I, sir, can find no trace of any such consequences. I do find that, in a period of about eighteen months after the expiration of the charter, the bank disposed of its other obligations and divided to its stockholders about eighty- eight per cent upon their stock. "It is now admitted, on all hands, that the country is rich and prosperous in an unusual degree ; property of all kinds is abun- dant; commerce is free and extensive,' and flourishing, and business of every description is healthful and vigorous. If then we cannot, in this condition of things, sustain the closing of the affairs of this great moneyed incorporation, it is safe to assume that the country will never see the time when it can do it. Grant it longer life and deeper root, and in vain shall we try, in future, to shake it from us. It will dictate its own terms and command its own existence. Indeed, Mr. President, the whole tendency of the honorable Senator's argument seemed to me to be, to prove the Life and Times of Sjlas Weight. 263 necessity of a perpetual bank of this description, and we have been repeatedly told, during the debate of the last three months, that this free, and rich, and prosperous country, cannot get on without a great moneyed power of this description to regulate its affairs. The bill before the Senate proposes to repeal the monopolizing provisions in the existing charter, and the honorable Senator tells us that this is to be done, that Congress may, within the six years over which this is to extend the life of the present bank, establish a new bank to take its place, and into which the affairs of the old may be transferred so as to be finally closed without a shock to the country. Sir, this is not the relief I seek. My object is the entire discontinuance and eradication of this or any similar institution. We are told the distresses of the country will not permit this now. When, sir, will it ever permit it better ? When will the time come that this odious institution can be finally closed with less distress than now ? Never, while cupidity obeys its fixed laws. " This distress, Mr, President, did not exist when we left our homes ; we heard not of it then ; it commenced with the com- mencement of our debates here, and I doubt not it will end when our debates end, and our final action is known, whatever may be the result to which we shall arrive. It must necessarily be tem- porary, and it does not prove to my mind the necessity of a bank, but the mischiefs a bank may produce. I care not whether it be, or be not, in the power of the bank to ameliorate the evils now complained of. That it can cause them in any manner, is proof that, if the disposition exists, it can cause them at pleasure ; and this very fact is the strongest evidence, to my mind, that no insti- tution, with such a power, ought to exist in this country. " Sir, the subject of our present action involves two great prin- ciples: one of constitutional power, and one of governmental expediency. Upon neither should our action be governed solely by considerations of temporary derangement and distress in the money market. Revulsions in trade and business, and in pecu- niary affairs, will happen. They must be temporary ; the country will restore itself, and money will again be plenty ; but the set- tlement of important principles must involve consequences of an endurit>g character, consequences which will exert an influence, for good or for evil, through all time." 264 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter XLVIII. DEFENSE OF GENERAL JACKSON'S PROTEST. The Senate had passed resolutions on the 28th of March, 1834, condemning Gen. Jackson for the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States, and on the fifteenth of April he sent to the Senate a protest against their power to sit in judgment upon his conduct and their proceedings to condemn him unheard. The friends of the bank objected to receiving the protest and entering it uj^on the Senate journal, claiming that the protest was a breach of the privileges of the Senate. The motion against receiving and recording it was carried by a vote of 27 in its favor. On the 5tli of May, 1834, Mr. Weight thus addressed the Senate : " Mr. Wright arose and said, he had to thank the Senate for its indulgence in permitting him now to extricate himself from the unpleasant position in which he had, for several days, been placed in relation to the pi'esent debate. When he obtained the floor, four days ago, his jjrincipal and almost only object was to I'eply to some of the remarks which had on that day been made by the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay]. Although time had been given to him for further reflection, he still could not consider it his duty materially to alter that course. The proceedings of the morning had evinced to him a strong disposi- tion in the Senate to close the debate, and he hoped not to occupy so much of their time as to show any other inclination. In answer to a suggestion which had fallen from some honorable Senator in the course of the morning, he believed he could say that the time which had elapsed since he had been entitled to the floor would not induce him to extend his remarks, or to make a larger draft upon the time of the body than he should have done Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 265 if he had been permitted to succeed the honorable Senator more immediately. The delay had been unpleasant to him, but he had tried to improve it to condense rather than to extend his remarks. " The question before the Senate was the disposition which should be made, by that body, of the paper upon the table, denominated the President's protest. "The paper complained that the Senate had passed a sentence against the President, in its nature and character judicial, while the provisions of the Constitution had not been observed in the proceeding. It complained that the Senate had virtually consti- tuted itself the impeaching body by the course it had taken, whereas the Constitution had conferred the sole power of impeach- ment upon the House of Representatives; that it had proceeded to final judgment and sentence against the accused, without allowing him a trial upon the accusation, or the privilege of being heard in his defense; that the laws for the organization of the Senate in such cases had not been observed, inasmuch as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had not been called to pre- side over its deliberations, and as no ' oath or affirmation ' had been administered to the individual Senators, — a qualification which the Constitution expressly required to enable them to sit in the high court for the trial of impeachments. And it further complained that the sentence of the Senate had been pronounced and made a perpetual record, by entry upon its journal, without having received the vote of two-thirds, required by the Constitu- tion to authorize the Senate to enter a judgment of guilty against any public officer. " Mr. W. said it was not his purpose, at this time, to examine the justice of these complaints. Upon a former occasion, and when the resolution complained of was before the Senate, he had been indulged with the opportunity to submit his views upon all the important questions involved in the paper now under consid- eration. The deliberate conviction of his own mind then was, that the resolution was, and must be considered, judicial in its character; that its passage must be held as a final judgment upon an impeachment for the oifenses specified in it, and that all the moral consequences of such a judgment, upon the officer against whom it was directed, might follow its record upon the journal 266 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the Senate. He had not, however, then been fortunate enough to convince the majority of the Senate that his positions were well taken, and he had no hope that a repetition of that effort would be attended with any better success now. Upon a careful review of the argument he had then made, he could not promise himself that he could mend or strengthen it by a repetition, and he would not consume the time of the Senate by an attempt to do so. He said he should hold himself excused from the discus- sion of these questions upon the present occasion, even if he had not attempted to establish them by argument when the resolu- tion was under discussion, because the communication of the President argued them at large, and, in his humble judgment, that paper was its own best defense upon these points. He had not heard its material facts impugned, or its reasoning success- fully assailed; and surely it was unnecessary for him to attempt to defend that which was already sufficiently defended. By any attempt to strengthen what seemed to him impregnable, he might impair a defense which did not call for his support. "Mr. W. said his object would, therefore, be to give to the Senate, as concisely as he might, his views of the immediate ques- tions presented for their decision, and then to proceed in his replies to the honorable Senator from Kentucky. In order, how- ever, that the whole subject might be clearly understood, he con- sidered it his duty, before he proceeded further, to correct one mistake which several gentlemen seemed to have fallen into at the early part of the discussion. He referred more particularly to both the honorable Senators from New Jersey, because their remarks were more clearly impressed upon his memory. They had spoken of the protest as embracing and complaining of the passage of both the resolutions offered by the honorable member from Kentucky. This was a mistake of fact, important in its bearing upon the discussion. It had been seen, upon the first appearance of the paper, that it was important to those who had sustained the resolution complained of, to show that it was con- nected with the legislation of the Senate, and was calculated to lead to legislative action. In their ardor to show this, gentlemen had carelessly blended the two resolutions, and had discussed the communication of tlie President as referrino- to both. This was o Life and Times of Silas Wright. 267 not so. One of the resolutions merely pronounced upon the official conduct of the President, while the other declared the reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury for the change of the public deposits from the Bank of the United States to the State banks ' unsatisfactory and insufficient,' in the judgment of the Senate. The latter resolution might lead to legislation, and, per- haps, was calculated to do so ; for, if the reasons for the change of the deposits were considered unsatisfactory, the Senate might consider it proper to originate a law or joint resolution directing their restoration. This would be within the conceded jurisdic- tion of the Senate ; and he had not heard that either the Presi- dent or any one else denied the power of the Senate to take that course, or the propriety of its doing so. The protest, surely, contained no such denial, nor did it contain any reference whatever to this last-mentioned resolution. Its complaints were all directed to the first ; to that resolution which pronounced the President guilty of unconstitutional and illegal acts, without any reference to legislation. The paper left no room for misconception or mistake upon this point, for it recited at length the resolution to which alone it referred. He must, therefore, insist that this point should be clearly understood hereafter; and that the Presi- dent's communication should not be either condemned or pro- nounced erroneous and false for complaining of an act of the Senate to which it did not contain the most remote reference. The resolutions were entirely independent of each other, and contained expressions of opinion upon separate and entirely independent subjects ; and the President had only complained of that one Avhich criminated him. Of that which simply pro- nounced upon the reasons of the Secretary he had said nothing. " The points presented for the decision of the Senate, as the subject presented itself to his mind, Mr. W. said, were three : " 1st. Had the President a right to send the protest to the Senate? " 2d. Is it the duty of the Senate to receive it ? " 3d. Is it the duty of the Senate to enter it upon its journal? " Mr. W. said, in the course of the debate frequent reference had been made to the duty of the President, found in the Con- stitution in the following words : 268 Life and Times of Silas Weight. "'He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.' " And the question had been confidently asked, and more confi- dently repeated, ' Where is the authority in this provision of the Constitution for the President to send to the Senate a paper of this character?' He did not consider the communication now under discussion as having any relation whatever to the clause of the Constitution he had just read. It was not, in any sense, a communication giving ' information of the state of the Union,' nor did it recommend any measure to the consideration of Con- gress, nor was it a communication to Congress of any description. It was a communication to the Senate alone, simply remonstrating against a proceeding of that body condemning the ofticial conduct of the President, and pronouncing him guilty of an impeachable offense. Mr. W. said he did not know that his views upon this point were correct, but he considered the right of the President to make this communication the same which every citizen of the United States possessed by the Constitution to address either or both Houses of Congress in a respectful manner, upon any subject in which his individual or official rights and interests are involved. What, said Mr. W., is the character of the com- munication before us ? It states that a proceeding of the Senate has infringed upon the constitutional rights of the executive branch of the government ; that we have pronounced the Presi- dent, as such, guilty of an impeachable offense, and have thus visited upon his character and fame the moral effects, so far as our pronunciation may have weight, of a conviction for a high crime, although the legal consequences of a regular sentence, after a trial upon an impeachment, do not follow. Hence he feels himself aggrieved, both personally and officially, and he sends to us his remonstrance and protest against the injury. This is the paper, conceded on all hands to be respectful in its language and manner, and addressed to the justice of the body which has inflicted the injury. That any private citizen, who might feel himself aggrieved by the action of the Senate, would possess the right thus to remonstrate, will not be denied ; and has the President lost that right because he happens to hold LiFh: AND Times of Silas Wright. 269 the lirst oiFice in the gift of the people? Is the possession of a public office to deprive the citizen of his constitutional right to protect his public and private character, or even of the humble rio-ht of complaint, when he shall consider his character and acts unjustly assailed ? He, Mr. W., did not understand that any such limitation to the right of petition or remonstrance had been pre- scribed by the Constitution ; he had not been able to find any such disability annexed to the possession of an honorable and responsible office, and he called upon honorable Senators to pause and reflect before they attempted, by their action in this instance, to establish a rule which might not only bind themselves, but take from them one of their most dear and invaluable rights. This was his view of the right of the President to send this paper to the Senate, and he could not but consider it as clear and indisputable as the right of any citizen of the country to petition the Senate for any purpose whatsoever. " Is it, then, the duty of the Senate to receive the paper? His answer to this question was, that the duty of the Senate, as to the receipt of this paper, is the same with its duty as to the receipt of any petition or remonstrance, respectful in its language and manner, and addressed to the bod)^ He could see no possi- ble distinction ; and surely, if he had succeeded in establishing the right of the President to send the paper to the Senate, upon the ground upon which he had put that right, there could be no distinction. Either was the constitutional right of the citizen; and that the injury complained of in this instance had a double bearing — that the President's character, in an official as well as in a private sense, had been unjustly assailed and deeply injured, and that the remonstrance and protest reached and exposed the injury in both respects — could not affect the right to present the paper, or the duty of the Senate to receive it when presented. Mr. W. said he had already remarked that the communication was admitted upon all sides to be respectful in its language and manner, and he would not anticipate any objection to its receipt, founded upon exceptions in these particulars, so long as no such exceptions had been taken. His acquaintance with parliamentary rules was very limited ; but he did understand it to be the duty of every legislative body, especially of the legislative bodies of this 270 Life and Times of Silas Wuianr. country, to receive every petition and remonstrance, addressed to them in language respectful to the body and to its individual members, and, until this character should be denied to the paper before the Senate, he must consider it the imperative duty of the Senate to receive it. " This, Mr. W. said, brought him to his third point : Is it the duty of the Senate to enter the protest of the President upon its journal ? This question he considered addressed itself to the jus- tice of the Senate, and the entry of the paper upon the journal became a duty or not, as the Senate she aid or should not think its entry there an act of justice to itself and to the individual from whom it came. For himself, he could entertain no doubt that justice to the President, to the Senate and to the public, required that it should be made a perpetual record, by an entry upon the journal. The Senate had entered upon that journal, and pro- nounced to the world, the high charge against the President of a violation of the Constitution and laAvs. They had not given to the President any opportunity to ofter his defense to their accusations, but, without notice to him, they had made them a part of their recorded proceedings ; and their journal, laid upon his table, and showing to him his conviction, was his only notice of their action. Feeling aggrieved personally and officially by the sentence itself, which he considers unjust, and by the manner in which it was pronounced, without notice to him, and without any opportunity on his part to defend himself, and, by exhibiting the truth, to defeat a conviction, he now makes this communica- tion, setting forth the injustice of the proceeding of the Senate toward him, and presenting his defense to the charges made against him, so far as any such charges have been specifically set fortji. This, his defense and exculpation, he respectfully requests maybe entered upon the same journal ujDon which the Senate has recorded his guilt, in order that the record, which carries down to future ages the resolution condemning him, may carry along with it his justification. Is not the request a reasonable one ? Is it not an act of duty to the high officer accused that he should thus be permitted to perpetuate his defense against an irregular and informal condemnation by the Senate ? Is it not just to the President that his defense should be spread upon our journal by Life and Times of Silas Wright. 271 the side of that condemnation which we have voluntarily pronounced against him, and that both should be embraced in the same record, and be thus left together for the inspection anrobable amount that would be necessary to i>lace the naval defenses of the United States (including the increase of the navy, uavy- yards, dock-yards and steam or Hoating batteries) upon the fooling of strength and respectability which is due to the security and to the welfare of tlie Union.' " Tims it will be seen at a single glance tliat the object is not to prepare, temporarily, for an impending or contemplated Avar, bill for the permanent and durable defenses of the whole country against all dangers which may assail its peace and disturb its quiet, wliether foreign or domestic, whether having their rise from without or from within. The pledge is general for the ' perma- nent security ' of the country, and the inquiries are as broad as the whole Union, and cover all its great interests in reference to defense of coast, lake, gulf and land frontier, and every internal means of 'general defense and permanent security ' of armories, arsenals and arms. They also cover the naval defenses of the country, and constitute, in contemplation, a permanent and durable system, in every sense in which I am able to compreliend that sucli a system could be adopted, with proper regard to the respective interests and perfect security of the whole country, and of all its great interests, external and internal. They do not, either in language or design, contemplate immediate war, but they look to a state of defense and security against any and every Avar wdiicli may come upon the country in all future time. "For the accomplishment of this great and paramount national object, the resolutions rely upon the surplus moneys in the trea- Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. 361 suiy, after the ordinary and necessary appropriations for the support of the government in its various departments shall have been paid, including the ordinary appropriations for the gradual improvement of the navy, and for the gradual progress in the con- struction and completion of the fortifications already commenced, and not any interference with those appropriations. Their object is to hasten the completion of perfect and secure defenses, by the application of moneys in the treasury not required for any other national object, but not to interrupt the course of the gov- ernment in any of the other great interests for which the ordinary annual appropriations are made. They propose to pledge, not the revenue, but so much of the surplus revenue as may be necessary to this great object. " The resolutions, then, Mr. President, or rather the first reso- lution, is, I apprehend, in the precise shape in which it should remain to meet the object the mover of the resolution had in view, and which I have in view in supporting them. This reso- lution is designed to act upon the surplus revenue only — upon that portion of the public moneys which shall remain in the treasury after all the ordinary calls upon that treasury have been fully answered ; and it proposes to pledge so much of that sur- plus, ' as may be necessary for the purpose,' to the great object of permanent national defense and security. Am I right in my construction of this resolution in its present shape ? If so, the amendment of the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton], to strike out the word ' surplus,' ouglit not to prevail. That amend- ment will, to my understanding, change the whole character of the resolution, and destroy entirely the pledge designed to be made. The object is to set apart and apply to the general defense and permanent security of the country so much of the surplus of the revenues of the nation as may be necessary for that object ; and if the form of the resolution be so changed as to apply its action to the revenues generally, and not to the sur- plus, it may be so construed as only to contain an expression that we will appropriate, for the present year, so much of the public money to the various purposes of defense as we may think pro- per and necessary, and nothing will be 'set apart' for defenses which is not actually appropriated by the appropriation bills of -362 Life and Times of Silas Wright. tliL' ve:u-. Any surplus wliicli may then remain in the treasury will he open to any other disposition which Congress may choose to make of it, without any infringement upon the pledge given hy the resolution. This I do not understand to be in accordance witli the object of the resolution. That object is to set apart a riin.l, such as may be necessary, to be exclusively applied to the defenses of the country, naval and military, and to constitute that fund of the surplus which shall remain in the treasury after the ordinary appropriations of the present and of each succeed- ing year shall have been paid. In other words, I understand the object to be to carry on the business of putting the country in a complete state of defense, internal and external, as rapidly as the means in the treasury will allow, without interference with the usual and necessary annual appropriations, in case the moneys wliich maybe applied to this object can be economically and use- fully expended as fast as they accumulate ; but, if they cannot, that a permanent fund be ' set apart ' from these accumulations, sufficient to accomplish the end in view, at the earliest practicable period. Surely, then, the word ' surplus ' should be retained in the first resolution, that the pledge may be made effectual and operative, and that the means to accomplish this vital object of national defense may be secured from the surplus moneys in the treasury, before any other disposition shall be made by Congress of the present or any future accumulation of means beyond the ordinary annual wants of the country. " I have said, Mr. President, that I would vote for the resolu- tion, whether this amendment should or should not prevail. I still retain the same opinion, but I am bound in candor to say that, when the amendment was first proposed, I did not think it at all important, and rather derived the impression that, if it could be considered as changing the character of the resolution at all, it must be held to go beyond the object of the mover, and more rapidly than he proposed to go. Upon reflection, I am satisfied that I did not correctly appreciate the force and bearing of the word ' surplus,' proposed to be stricken out, and that, without that word, we shall merely resolve that we will appro- priate for this single year so much of the money in the treasury as a majority of this body shall believe ' may be necessary and Life and Times of Silas Wright. 363 cjin be usefully expended towards the general and permanent defenses of the country,' while the surplus, if any, in the trea- sury will not he 'set apart' or pledged to this great object, but will remain subject to any disposition which Congress may choose to make of it, without an infraction of our resolution. Our purpose to defend the country will be declared, but the means to do it will not be ' set apart ' by our expression. For these reasons I hope the proposed amendment may not prevail, and that the first resolution may retain its present form. " There is, Mr. President, another amendment proposed to this resolution, upon which I must trouble you with a single remark. I refer to the proposition of the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston], to strike out the whole resolution after the word ' Resolved,^ and to insert the following : "'That such appropriations as maybe necessary for the purpose ought to be made, to carry on the system of general defense and permanent pro- tection of the country.' " This amendment, if adopted, will make the resolution much more vague and unmeaning than to adopt the amendment of the Senator from Delaware, to strike out the word ' surplus.' Indeed, if I rightly comprehend this proposition, it merely declares that we will, for the present year, make the same appropriations for the defense of the country which have been regularly and uni- formly made from about the close of our late war with Great Britain to the present time, the appropriations of the last year being alone excepted. Is it, then, Mr. President, necessary for us to declare, by a resolution, that we will not now stop the ordinary appropriations for defense which have been regularly made for nearly twenty years last past ? Does any member of this body contemplate, for a moment, that those very limited appropriations will be either suspended or diminished ? Surely, then, we cannot be asked to adopt this amendment. The reso- lutions under debate propose to accelerate our progress in the work of defense, by the application of the surplus revenues of the country to that work. This amendment proposes to ' carry on the system' as it now exists, and has been carried on for the period I have mentioned. The resolutions propose to extend our system of defense, and make it universal and applicable to all 864 -^^^^ "^^^ Times of Silas Wriqmt. dangers, external or internal. The amendment proposes to carry- on 'the system' now in progress, without extension. I need not say more to satisfy the Senate that the adoption of this amend- ment would be an entire defeat of the resolutions offered by the Senator from JVIissouri. "Mr. President, if the resolutions retain their present shape, they are, as has been said by the mover of them, antagonist to the proposition of the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], to divide the surplus revenue among the States. Both propositions act upon the same money, and propose very different dispositions of it. The former proposes to expend it, or so much of it as may be necessary, for the great object of national defense. The latter proposes to give it to the States, to be expended at their pleasure, not for national, but for State objects. They are, therefore, directly antagonist. I think the resolution, also, equally antago- nist to the measure introduced by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], and known here by the designation of ' the land bill.' It is not now my purpose to inquire how far the principles of this measure and of that proposed by the Senator from South Carolina are the same, and wherein they may differ. They both propose a distribution to the States of a sum equal to the whole surplus in the treasury. They both act upon the same money ; and the resolution before us, proposing to set apart so much of that sur- plus as may be necessary to be expended upon the national defenses of the country, must be equally antagonist to both, because it proposes to apply in a different manner, and for a very different purpose, a part, or the whole, of the fund upon which both the other propositions act. " Much has been said by several gentlemen, in the course of the debate, as to the amount of this surplus. I have, Mr. President, used my best efforts to inform myself truly upon this point, and I will now give to the Senate the result of my inquiries. I sought the information at the Treasury department, because I knew of no other place where correct and certain information could be obtained upon the point; and the statement I am about to make is one prepared from information communicated from the head of that department, and rests upon the authority of the accounts of receipts and expenditures kept in that office, with very trifling Life and Times of Silas Wright. 365 exceptions, which will be seen to be matters of estimate. I have found it necessary to give this result in the dry form of figures and arithmetical deductions; but I have compressed it into as small a compass as was possible, and in that form I will give it to the Senate : "The money in the treasury, on the 1st January, 1835, was $8,892,858. "The collections of the first three quarters of the year 1835, as ascertained before the Secretary's annual report was made, were $23,480,881. "The collections of the fourth quarter of 1835, as far as those collections have been yet ascertained, are 110,919,852. " In addition to these sums, the Secretary now estimates that there will remain, to be added to the receipts of the year 1835, as part of the collections of the fourth quarter, not yet ascer- tained, $230,000. "This will show an aggregate of means, for the year 1835, of $43,523,591. "Deduct from this aggregate the expenditures of the first three quarters of the year 1835, as ascertained before the annual report of the Secretary was made, 1 1 3,370,141. "Deduct also the actual expenditures of the fourth quarter of 1835, as now ascertained with sufficient accuracy for this calcula- tion, $4,050,000 — $17,426,141. " And then there-will remain an apparent surplus of $26,097,450. " From this apparent surplus, the following deductions must be made to ascertain the real surplus, viz. : " 1st. The unavailable funds in the treasury, which constitute a part of the balance remaining in tlie treasury on the first day of every year, as sliown by the accounts, $1,100,000. " 2d. The amount of outstanding appropriations, being sums appropriated by law, but which have not been called for at the treasury at the close of the year. This amount is an estimate, but it is arrived at by making a deduction from the whole amount of outstanding appropriations of all such portions as are sup- posed likely not to be called for, and, consequently, to pass to the sinking fund. It is, therefore, in all probability, sufiiciently small — $7j595,574. '?)C)C) Life axd Times of Silas Wright. "3cl. The estimate of expenditures for the fourth quarter of 1835 was $4,800,0()(». Tlie actual expenditures of the quarter, as ascertained and above given, have only been $4,050,000, leaving :i balance of llie estimate over the expenditures of $750,000, As the estimate is made from claims known to exist against the treasury, the reason for this difference between the estimated and the actual exj)enditures for this quarter has groAvn out of the fact that an amount of these claims, equal to the difference of $750,000, has not been presented for payment within the quarter, which, it was anti('ii>atod, would be presented and paid. The claims, how- ever, reiii.iiii, and must be paid in 183G, and therefore this amount of outstanding ajipictpriations, not having been included in tlie general estimate of outstanding appropriations last above given, because it was not expected they would be outstanding at the close of tlie year, should also be deducted, $750,000; making $9,445,574. "'I'hcse sums deducted, leave the true surplus of money in the treasury mi tlie 1st day of January, 1836, that being $16,651,876. " It is (bie to the Secretary of the Treasury that I should, in tliis phice, give to the Senate his explanation of the very great difference between the revenue anticipated and the actual revenue received, tur tlie fourth quarter of the last year. "The actual receipts into the treasury, as already ascertained • luring that (piarter, are $10,919,852. "The Secietary estimates that there has probably been col- lecti'il, and not yet ascertained at the department, a further am. Hint, (luring tlie same quarter, of $230,000. "Showing the Avhole probable receipts of the quarter to be $11,149,852. " Tu his animal report on the state of the finances, the Secretary estimated the revenue of this quarter at $4,950,000. " ^^ liich sum, taken from the now ascertained and estimated receipts of the quarter, will leave an excess beyond his anticipa- tion of >;U, 199,852. " The receipts from the sales of public lands during the fourth (luarter of 1835, beyond any reasonable anticipation formed upon past experience, account for a very large share of this excess. There was paid into the various land offices, during the last two months of that quarter, tlie following amounts: Life and Times of Silas Wright. :]()7 "In the month of November, 1835, $1,776,000; in the month of December, 1835, $2,340,000; making a total of receipts from the sales of land alone, during those two months, of $4,116,000. "These immense sales, too, were made when no important public sales were advertised to take place, or did take place. The payments which constitute this great total were almost exclu- sively made upon lands purchased at the government minimum price; in other words, taken, as I believe the phrase is, at private entry. The proceeds from lands for these two months, thus obtained, have more than equaled many former years, and have by far exceeded the receipts of any two former months, and any- thing which could have been anticipated in the absence of important public sales. " Another cause of the excess of receipts over the estimate for the fourth quarter of 1835, given by the Secretary, is, that the apprehension of a war with France, and of consequent commercial interruptions and disturbances generally, produced an increase of importations within that quarter far beyond any anticipation entertained by him, and far beyond any former example. The actual collections of duties at the port of New York alone, not including the bonds taken and not falling due within the quarter, I think the Secretary assured me, amounted to full $5,000,000, a sum almost equal to an ordinary half year's collection of revenue at that port. These two sources of revenue, so immensely and so unexpectedly swelled Ijeyond any former precedent, have prin- cipally produced the excess of $6,000,000 in the revenues of the last quarter of the last year. " To return now, Mr. President, to the resolutions. Having seen what are the means in our hands to give them force and application, what, let me ask, are the considerations which call upon the Senate for their adoption ? The first and most promi- nent, and one which appears to my mind entirely controlling, is the defenseless state of the country. That the country is defense- less seems now to be conceded by every Senator who has addressed the Senate upon this subject. We have the fact before this body, from sources entitled to our peculiar confidence. The chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs [Mr. Southard] gave us, in the course of his remarks, a detailed account of the :JG8 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ron \vi c .litinn of the navy, and of our force afloat and in service. Sir, it .l..c's not amount to a navy at all, compared to the extent of the coast we liave to defend, and the immense and wide-spread commerce we have to protect : a single ship of the line, I believe, two or three frigates, and a few schooners and sloops of war. I not pretend to be accurate in the enumeration the honorable hairman gave us, but I must say it was almost equivalent to no force at all upon the ocean, in comparison with what will always be required for defense and commercial protection. We have received also, from the honorable chairman of the Committee on iMilitary Affairs [Mr. BcntonJ, repeated accounts of the condi- tion of our fortifications and land defenses : but one commercial town in the whole country, at the most, in any condition to be defended against an attack by sea : with one or two exceptions, not a gun in any of your forts, and no preparations for mounting them if they were there; nearly all the public works which have been commenced for the purpose of defense remain in an unfin- ished state, and cannot be made useful and secure without further large expenditures; the militia of the country badly armed, or entirely without arms, and all those portions of the Union most exposed to savage incursions or domestic insurrection, without armories and arsensals, from which arms may be obtained in cases of emergency and danger. Such, sir, is my recollection, very briefly sketched, of the picture we have often had presented frona the chairman of the committee of this body more especially charged witli tlie subject of our land defenses. Surely, then, if an entirely defenseless condition, both by sea and land, can urge us onward in the great work to which the resolutions invite us, we have a consideration here for their passage stronger than any friend to them could wish. " Mr. President, so clear and so palpable to the mind of every statesman, and to the feelings of every patriot, was the truism conveyed by the words of the Father of his Country, 'in peace prepare for war,' that those words have grown into a maxim will, h has ivinaiiicd undisputed for half a century. If the prin- ciple conveyed in this maxim be sound, and was ever practically applicable to any government upon the earth of which history gives us any account, with how much more force does it apply Life and Times of Silas Wright. 3^9 to the government of the United States at this moment ! Sir, what is our pecuniary condition ? Without a dollar of debt ; in the midst of jjrosperity in every department of business, so abundant as almost to endanger plethora ; at peace with all the nations of the earth, and only momentarily disturbed by an Indian insurrection of limited extent, the danger from which has undoubtedly subsided before this hour ; with sixteen and a half millions of dollars in the national treasury, upon which the ordi- nary wants of the government make no call. This is our con- dition ; and shall we resist this call for the nation's defense, made under circumstances such as I have described ? We cannot — we shall not. " Applicable to some portion of this body, Mr. President, is another consideration, which I feel bound to notice, and which appeals strongly to those to whom it is applicable for the passage of the resolutions, and the carrying out, to their full extent, the principles expressed by them. The present administration has been extensively complained of, in the course of the debate, for not having, during the six or seven years of its existence, put the country in a state of defense. The honorable Senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton] met the question fairly, and placed his complaint upon the ground that the administration had adopted the principle that the national debt must be paid in preference to the conversion of the surplus moneys of the treasury to an increase of the navy and other works of defense. This is so, sii\ T am aware there is a wide difference of opinion between the l)olitical parties of this country in relation to the policy of pay- ing off and finally extinguishing the national debt. The admin- istration has adopted the democratic policy, that plain policy which governs every prudent citizen in the management of his private affairs ; and has considered itself bound in honesty and honor, so far as the laws of Congress left the money of the gov- ernment to its disposition, to apply every dollar of that money, not required for the necessities of the country, to the payment of the public creditors. To discharge the country from debt has been its first and highest pecuniary object; to put it in a state of defense and security against external and internal danger stands next in the course of its policy. It is not my object, Mr. 24 370 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Piusident, at tliis time, to discuss the question whether the pay- ment of a national debt be or be not a wise and sound policy. It is the policy which meets my most earnest and lively appro- bation. It is the policy of the Constitution ; for the language of that instrument is, 'The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.' For what, Mr. Presi- dent? First, 'to pay the debts;' second, 'to provide for the common defense.' These are the constitutional uses to which the money of the people, in the national treasury, may be applied ; and this is the order in which those purposes are mentioned in that sacred instrument. " The honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Leigh] inquired, why did not the friends of the administration, when they had the power of the Senate, and the power of the formation of the committees of the Senate, make these provisions for the defense of the country, if they were considered so necessary ? My answer to the Senator has just been given. The administration and its friends considered their first duty to be to pay the national debt. In that duty they proceeded as rapidly as the funds of the government and the legislation of Congress would permit them to go ; but, before it was accomplished, and the debt paid, the power of this body passed from their hands, and with it the power of forming its committees. " Mr. President, among the objections to the passage of these resolutions, which the debate has drawn forth, none has been heard by me with so much surprise as that made by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], that 'to arm is to declare war.' I believe, sir, this principle was laid down by that honor- able Senator in reference to a rupture with France, which, at the time he spoke, we all had some cause to apprehend ; but is it sound, as applicable to the condition of our country then as now ? Is it a principle which should govern the statesman, as applicable to any country at any time, and under any circumstances ? I contend it is not, but precisely the reverse is the truth ; that to arm and fortify, and be prepared for defense, is to preserve peace. What country is most liable to attack in the conflicts and colli- sions which will arise between rival nations ? That one whose defenses are strong and adequate, or that one which is exposed Life and Times of Silas Wright. 371 and defenseless '? It surely requires no great skill, as a states- man or diplomatist, to answer so plain a question ; and the answer must establish my position, and overturn that of the Senator. " I will next proceed, Mr. President, to reply to some remarks which have fallen from the honorable Senators, touching the extent to which appropriations for defense ought to be carried. "The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden], whom I do not now see in his place, treated these appropriations as local, and calculated merely to benefit the portions of the country where the moneys are to be expended. Pursuing this train of argument, he said he was not willing to devote the whole surplus to defenses, to the construction of fortifications, to the building of ships, to the supply of ordnance, to purchase of swords and pistols; that he could not consent to yield all to the coast and frontier, while the interior, and the State he had the honor in part to represent here, was to receive nothing; that he could not grant all for war; but a portion must be reserved for the pur- poses of peace. Was the gentleman correct in considering appro- priations of money for the defense of the nation as local appro- priations? as appro})riations partial in their character, and calcu- lated only to benelit the small districts of country wherein the moneys are to be expended ? Will he, upon reflection, persist in governing his action by this rule '? Is not our whole country one conntry ? Are we not one people ? Is not the blow of an enemy, strike where it may, a blow at us all ? And is not the defense of any point equally, to that extent, a defense for the whole conntry ? Are approj^riations for building ships local appropriations, becaiise those ships are to traverse the ocean, and not the interior of the country ; because they are to meet and beat off an enemy before he reaches our soil, and not to meet him in the heart of the country '? Has the gentleman considered the two acts we have passed during our present session, making appropriations toward the expenses of the Indian war at this moment waging in Florida, as local appropriations for the benefit of Florida? The assault of the enemy has been local, as the assault of any enemy ever must be; but is not the offense national, and the work of defense national and general ? I am sure, Mr, President, the Senator will see the impropriety of this objection, and abandon it. 372 Life and Times of Silas Weight. "The Senator further spoke of a demand for the plow-shares ,,f Lis constituents to be converted into swords, and said they could not surrender them for that purpose. He mistakes the calls of the resolutions. Their object is not to convert the plow- shares of Kentucky into swords, but so to defend the country that the worthy husbandman of that and all the other States may hold their plows and till their grounds in peace and security, without danger from a foreign or domestic enemy. That is their object, and the money is now in the treasury of the nation to accomplish this great national and constitutional object; and the true question is, sliall it be appropriated for that purpose, or shall it be expended for the gentleman's purposes of peace ? He did not specify what purposes of peace he had in view, but I inferred from his remarks that roads, canals and other works of internal improvements were what he intended. Is it wiser to neglect our national defenses for these objects, or first to use the money of the nation to put the whole country in a state which will enable it to defend these works against an invader when they shall be made ? I consider the most effectual appropriations for purposes of peace appropriations for defense; and I again repeat, what I have already attempted to show, that the surest way to preserve peace, to an extensive, rich and prosperous country like ours, is to be prepared to defend ourselves promptly and effectually against war, come from what quarter it may. "Again: the Senator says the country has not been hitherto defended by fortifications and a navy ; and he asks, with much emphasis, were not the people of former days as patriotic as we are ? Let me ask the Senator, does he suppose that our fathers of the Revolution, that the old Congress, if they had sixteen and a half millions of dollars at their command, would have proposed to divide it out among the colonies, 'for purposes of peace,' instead of applying it to the national defenses ? " Docs he suppose that the brave men of the late war, who interposed their persons and lives against the march of an enemy upon our soil, would have neglected the business of permanent defense, if the country had been in the possession of means to prosecute that work ? Does he believe that his brave and gallant constituents (and I most cheei-fully concede to them bravery and Life and Tuies of 8ilas Wright. 373 gallantry and patriotism, not surpassed by the citizens of any State in the Union) will call upon him to divide to them the small portion of this surplus revenue which may fall to their share, and will agree, in return for that bounty, to make breastworks of their persons when the hour of need shall come? They have done this upon a former occasion, when the country had not the means to prepare defenses. Now the debt of the Revolution, the debt of the late war, are paid and discharged, and the national treasury full to overflowing; and who will advise to postpone provision for the general defense, to the hazai-d of the lives of our citizen soldiery, if not of our national inde- pendence, that we may distribute the money to our respective constituents ? " Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing] told us he would vote liberal appropriations for the defense of the country ; but most unfortunately for our condition, he assumed to prove to us that the appropriations for that object, which had been made in years past, were greater than we have the ability to expend. To establish his position, he read to us from a report of the head of the Engineer department, made to Congress at some former session, stating that there were not, in the service of the government, a sufficient number of engineers of skill and experience to superintend the public works already in progress, in a manner to secure the economical expenditure of the moneys appropriated, or to insure the proper construction of the works. I have not taken the trouble to look at the report to which the Senator referred, nor is it my object to impeach in any way the statements of the officer who made it. The report was necessarily confined to the engineers belonging to the corps of the government; and does the Senator suppose that all the science, all the skill, and all the experience in engineering which exists in the country is confined to that corps? Has he made himself believe that, if money be appropriated for the construc- tion of forts, the arming of our fortifications, the building and equipment of vessels of war, the manufacture of arms, and the erection of armories and arsenals, the government cannot expend it, for the want of engineers of proper skill and experience ? Give the money, sir, and call for their services, and you will have 374 Life and Times of Silas Wright. comt ipetent engineers, who will constitute an army of themselves. If you do not, you will be much less fortunate than any State has been which is expending large sums upon public work requir- ino- the most skillful and experienced engineers; and still no State has an organized engineer corps constantly in its service. :\Ir. President, the apprehension of the Senator is unfounded; for if money appropriated cannot be expended, in case the law makino- the appropriation be not too much restricted to reach the object designed, that fact will, I venture to say, be new in the history of government. " But, as the gentleman relies upon the authority of the head of the engineer corps for this objection to an increase of appro- priations for defense, and goes to a report made to a former Congress (upon what subject I know not), if he had been fortunate enough to have examined, with equal attention, the communications from that same officer made during our present session, and to be found upon our files, confined to the subject of defenses, he would have discovered what his opinions really are as to the appropriations for fortifications alone, which the state of the country requires and demands from Congress; he would have found that officer telling us that, in addition to all the appropriations recommended in the general annual estimates, which are much larger tlian the estimates of former years, there is required for the year 1836, for the single object of commencing new fortifications for the defense of the sea-coast alone, the sum of $2,503,800. And are we to believe that an officer of the standing of this one would recommend to us this large increase of our annual appropriations for a single object, when he knew the moneys ordinarily appropriated for fortifications could not be profitably expended ? Surely, sir, we cannot be asked so to consider the recommendations from that quarter. "The Senator supposes he has also discovered that the ordinary annual appropriations for the navy cannot be expended, and have been unnecessarily large in past years. In proof of his position, lie refers to a single item in a report made by the Secretary of the Navy to the House of Representatives, of the fourth instant, stating that the balance on hand of the moneys heretofore appro- priated for the 'gradual improvement of the navy,' on the thirty- Life and Turns of Silas Weight. 375 first day of December last amounted to $1,415,000, and adds, as it were in triumph, ' here is ahuost a million and a half of dol- lars of the appropriations of the last year yet unexpended.' Now, Mr. President, neither the Congress of the last year nor the last Congress, by any act of theirs, appropriated one dollar of this money, or of any money, for 'the gradual improvement of the navy.' All these appropriations are made by a law approved March 3, 1827, appropriating annually, for a term of years, 1500,000 for this object, which law was continued and extended by another law, approved 2d March, 1833. The expenditure of this money is confined, by the acts appropriating it, to the pur- chase of materials for ships, to the preservation of live-oak tim- ber and to the improvement of the navy-yards, and can be expended for no other purposes whatever. Neither the Secretary of the Navy nor the Navy Commissioners can put two sticks of timber together, or do any other act toward the building, arm- ing or preparing a ship for service out of this money. I know I shall be asked here, admit this appropriation to be thus limited, and are all the materials purchased which are now or may here- after be required, that this large balance is suffered to remain unexpended? I will show presently that it is not unexpended, though it yet remains unpaid ; but, to cause the subject to be fully understood, it is necessary to precede any explanation upon this point with the statement of the fact that the Navy Com- missioners, who are the officers having charge of the expenditure of the money appropriated for ' the gradual improvement of the navy,' are prohibited, by the positive provision of a law of Con- gress, from anticipating in any way these appropriations. They cannot make a contract or a purchase in anticipation of the coming appropriation under this permanent law, much less may they contract any debts, or incur any liabilities, in anticipation of any future action of Congress. They must, therefore, wait until the appropriation is in fact made, and the money placed to their credit at the treasury, before they can even issue proposals for contracts. That is done, as I assume, from looking at the two acts, on the third of March in each year. After that date, then, they must call for proposals, by public notices, published in the newspapers for the period required by law. When that period 376 I'^^^ ^^^ Times of Silas Wright. has expired, they must examine their propositions, give notice to the bidders scattered over tlie whole country that their bids are accepted, and obtain, as soon as they may, the execution of the proper contracts. Tlien, and not till then, the work of fulfill- ment, on the part of the contractors, can commence. And who does not see that a large portion of the current year must have passed, in every instance, before this point can possibly be reached ? Is it strano-e, therefore, lliat large amounts of contracts should remain unclosed at so late a period as the few first days in the second month of the year succeeding that in which they are made ? " With these explanations of the laws of Congress, and the powers of the Commissioners under them, I proceed to show, from the report of the Commissioners themselves, the actual condition of this unexpended balance of $1,415,000. I refer to ducument L, appended to the annual report of the Secretary of the Navy to the President, and by him communicated to Congress with his annual message at the commencement of the present session ; and I cannot but observe that, had the Senator been fortunate enough to have had his attention turned to this docu- n;ent before he made his remarks, he would have saved me this tedious exposition of his error. The Commissioners, in the docu- ment referred to, give a summary of all their doings, under the act referred to making this permanent appropriation for ' the gradual improvement of the navy,' from the time of the pass- age of the act of the 3d March, 1827, up to the close of the third quarter of the last year. They conclude this statement by giving the whole amount of the appropriations under these acts, up to 1st October, 1835, at $4,500,000, and the payments actually made out of this sum at $3,002,755.80; leaving a balance of $1,497,245.20. And then proceed to say: " ' Of which there remahied in the treasury, on the 1st of October, 1835, the sum of $1,454,316.46. The l)ahince, supposed to be in the hands of navy agents, is $42,929.34; making a total, as above, of $1,497,245.20. " ' Of this sum there will be required, to meet existing engagements under the contract, about $616,000; leaving for other purposes about $881,245.20. Adverliscments have been issued, inviting offers for furnishing the live-oak frames for five ships of the Hue, six frigates, five sloops of war, Life and Tjmes of Silas Wright. 377 five schooners and three steamers; which, if contracted for, will probably require about $000,000 of the balance remaining, after meeting existing engagements.' " Such, Mr. President, was the condition on the first of Octo- ber last, of this unexpended balance of money appropriated for the improvement of the navy ; between $600,000 and $700,000 of it due upon outstanding contracts, in reality expended, but not in fact paid. Of the balance, 8600,000 more was then set apart to make payments upon contracts, propositions for which had been called for, and were coming in, which proj^ositions might come in so much higher than the anticipations of the Com- missioners as to consume the whole sum. It is perfectly evident that, while the Commissioners are forbidden by law to anticipate future appropriations, they must, in all cases, when inviting pro- posals, keeji themselves somewhat below the full amount of moneys in hand, so that, if their estimates of prices shall prove to be under those at which they can obtain offers, they may still be able to contract without a violation of the law, or without the inconvenience and delay consequent upon a rejection of all propositions, and an offer for new proposals based upon a new estimate. This is surely but a reasonable precaution, which would suggest itself to all faithful disbursing officers, scrupulous in their observance of the law, and anxious to promote the pub- lic service. So much for the facts; and now, Mr. President, for the argument drawn from them. '* By the laws of Congress as they are, and in consequence of the restrictions imposed by those laws upon the navy board, moneys appropriated, at the usual period of each year, for the gradual improvement of the navy, cannot be expended and the accounts closed within the same year, so as to prevent the appearance, in the accounts with the treasury, of an apparent unexpended bal- ance on the first day of the following year. Therefore, the Sena- tor infers, the appropriations for this object have been excessive, and greater than could be economically expended. Does this conclusion follow the premises ? The delay in the expenditure has no connection with the amount to be expended, but arises solely from the advanced period of the year when the appropri- ations are made; the restrictions imposed, and, in my judgment, :378 Life and Times of Silas Wright. most properly imposed, upon the disbursing agents, against antici- pating funds not actually appropriated ; the forms required to be observed in making contracts, and the nature of the expenditure and the extent of the country in which it is to be made. Is it not, then, most palpable that the same time must be required, whether the expenditure be large or small ? Does anybody doubt that the amount of contracts for timber, and any other materials for ships, might be extended to almost any limit in this country, if the means of payment were placed at the disposition of the Commissioners ? Might they not as safely invite proposals, under tliis head of expenditure, for $5,000,000 as for |500,000 annually? Aii.l will any one believe they would fail to receive propositions covering all the money they should propose to expend ? Most certainly not. The question, then, is not one of amount, but sim- ply of time; and, thus resolved, I am sure that I shall not be contradicted when I say that offers may be invited, propositions received, examined, accepted or rejected, and contracts executed for an amount of $500,000 or of $5,000,000, without any mate- i-ial variation in the time required to go through either process. Til us far as to expenditures for ' the gradual improvement of the navy,' confined, as those expenditures are, simply to the purchase of materials for ships, to the preservation of our live-oak timber, and to the condition of our navy-yards. " But this is, by no means, the extent of the question presented. Ships are to be built, armed, manned and fitted for service; a bx-anch of expenditure not included in the appropriation I have been discussing; a branch of expenditure now altogether unpro- vided for by any appropriation. May not such appropriations be expended simultaneously Avith the appropriations for the purchase of materials, without causing additional delay in time ? Most certainly they may. "Am I not, then, authorized to conclude, Mr. President, that we are not in the condition supposed by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing], and that the country is not, from necessity, to remain exposed and defenseless for half a century to come, not because we have not the means to put it in a state of defense, but because we cannot expend the money if Congress appropriate it? May I not hope that the resolutions will no Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 379 longer be opposed, or appropriations withheld, on account of such an apprehension ? " I here take my leave of the resolutions, and a very few addi- tional remarks shall conclude what I propose to say further. "The subject of the loss of the fortification bill of the last session, and that of the $3,000,000 appropriation for immediate defense, added by way of amendment in the House, and rejected in this body, have constituted prominent topics in this debate. Notwithstanding my particular relation to those subjects, as a member of the Committee on Finance, and of the Committee on Conference, I do not feel called upon to enter into that portion of the debate at the present time at all. The action of both the Senate and House upon that bill and the proposed amendment, has long been matter of history before the country. The vote of every member of both Houses is shown by their respective journals, and the divisions had been given to the public through the whole press. The public judgment, as I think, was per- fectly formed upon the propriety or impropriety of the votes given, and the course pursued by each individual, before we commenced a debate here upon the subject. Remaining perfectly satisfied, as I do, with my course and my votes, I have no disposition to attempt now to defend them. Were it otherwise, I should have no hope, at this day, to change, by anything I could say here, the deliberate and settled opinion of the public mind in the mat- ter. I must, whether willing or not (and I hope and believe I am willing to do so), abide that judgment, and, so far as my action upon that subject is concerned, stand or fall by it. I voted for the three million amendment in all the shapes in which it was presented to me for my support here, and I most deeply regretted that it did not meet the approbation of this body. Of any action, out of this chamber, upon either the bill or amend- ment, it is not now my purpose to speak. " It now becomes my duty to reply to one or two remarks which fell from the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Mangum], in the course of his impassioned address to the Senate upon these resolutions. That honorable Senator, from what authority I know not, constituted me the representative of the Albany regency here. I know well, Mr. President, the individuals who are 380 Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. understood to be included in that designation, and I know them to l»e citizens of the higliest standing, honest, talented and patriotic ; men who serve the public faithfullj^ and capably. The trust thus conferred upon me is an important and responsible one; and I will only tell the Senator that, while I continue to discharge it worthily, I shall stand firmly by the country, and the whole country, and by its interests and honor ; and that I shall vote the appropriations necessary for its entire defenses, before I vote to give away its funds to be expended upon doubtful schemes of internal improvement, "The gentleman seems further to be occasionally deeply ti-<)ul)k'(l ill his mind by some imaginary body or association of intn which he terms the " spoils party." He is not alone in this. Other honorable Senators have manifested equal apprehension fiMiii the dreaded influence of this party, and none of them have If ft me in doubt as to the political party in this country upon which this term of opprobrium is attempted to be fastened. It is applied to the great democratic party of the Union. I will use my best efforts, Mr. President, to calm their apprehensions, by telling them that this party has been hitherto, with very few exceptions, enabled to keep the public opinion of the country ujion its side ; that it has done so by following, and not attempt- ing to govern, the popular will ; and that I have the fullest con- fidence it will be honest enough and wise enough to pursue the >:\u\v course, and fortunate enough to meet with the same success in future. In any event, I think I may safely assure these gen- tlemen that, however greedy this party may be for the honors and emoluments of office, as it never has so it never will find it necessary to make a change in the organic law of the States where it has control, to enable it to retain office or power. " I am now impelled, Mr. President, most reluctantly, to notice a topic introduced into this debate by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Ewing], with how much relevancy I leave him to determine. That gentleman felt it to be his duty, in the course of his second address to the Senate upon these resolutions, to refer to the instructions given to Mr. McLane, when our minister at the court of St. James, and to anmiadvert upon these instructions with great severity. Notwithstanding this, had he chosen to Life and Times of Silas Wright. 381 confine himself to the mere expression of his own opinions in relation to the instructions, he would have called forth no reply from me; but when he felt himself at liberty to call to his aid the majority of the Amei'ican people, and to declare that they had sanctioned the views he expressed, that the instructions con- tained matter degrading to the character of our country, I was no longer at liberty to remain silent. [Here Mr. Ewing asked leave to explain. Mr. Wright yielded the floor, and Mr. E. said the gentleman had misunderstood him; that he had not used the expression imputed to him, that a majority of the American people had agreed with him in opinion in relation to the instructions. He had said nothing about the majority of the people, but had confi- ned himself to the expression of his own individual opinions.] Mr. W. said, I have then done with the subject. Mr. Presi- dent, I understood the gentleman to make the remark or to advance the opinion that I have imputed to him. If he did not, I have no desire to reply at all to this part of his argument. It was by no means my purpose to open a debate upon the propriety of these instructions, as I consider that a question settled beyond the propriety of debate here; nor did I intend to make a single remark which could irritate the feelings of any member of this body, but merely to set the Senator right in reference to the decision of the people upon the question. As, however, I misunderstood him, and he did not lay down the position I sup- posed, I have not a remark further to make upon this part of the subject. " In the course of this very protracted debate, Mr. President, one other position has been assumed by several Senators, upon which I must ask your indulgence to a very brief reply. The position is, that the great and extended popularity of the Presi- dent of the United States is a matter of danger to our institu- tions, and to the permanency of our republic. But for the gravity which has characterized all the remarks upon this point, I should have been compelled to doubt the sincerity of the gentlemen who have urged them upon us. The popularity of the President a matter of danger to the republic, sir! The popu- larity of the present chief magistrate dangerous ! How has that popularity been acquired and maintained? Has it been by some yH2 -^^^'^' ^^^'^ Times of Silas Wright. instantaneous and violent impulse given to the public mind, whic-h may, and sometimes does, sweep away the judgment, and make it subject t«» tlu' government of passion ? We are now far ;i.l\aiicod in the seventh year of the administration of this same chief magistrate. Has any man ever administered the affairs of this government against the efforts of a more talented, vigilant MTid uiit iring opposition V Has any administration, since the com- mencement of our national existence, presented to the people so great a number of immensely important and vitally interesting questions, connected with the principles and policy of our govern- ment? . Have questions of this character, at any former period of our history, been so distinctly, emphatically and ably argued before the electors of the Union ? Has any opposition to any former administration commanded more popular men, more high taU'ut and character in the estimation of the country, more favor- able opportunities to act upon the public mind and the public passions and prejudices, or more jjowerful aid of every character and description, than have favored the opposition to the President of the United States, from the first year of his administration to the present hour? I think, Mr. President, our opponents can give but one answer to these interrogatories. I then ask, further, has ever an administration, since the days of Washington, been more uniformly, more strongly, more generally, more ti'iumph- antly sustained by the people? Has not its popularity, and the popularity of the President, regularly increased with every new assault and upon every new trial ? The answer to these ques- tions must be affirmative. Is, then, a popularity thus acquired and thus sustained to be considered dangerous to the country, and an omen of the speedy dissolution of our happy and prosper- ous confederacy ? Is the approbation of an overwhelming majority of the American people, obtained after more full and able and long-continued discussions before them than have liilhertu been known to the politics of the country, to be set down as a popularity dangerous to liberty, and threatening its speedy overthrow? Sir, 1 cannot subscribe to opinions so injuri- ous to the integrity and intelligence of the free people of these States. " How, Mr. President, was it in the days of Gen. Washing- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 383 ton ? He was twice elected President of the United States, and passed through both of his official terms without even the form of an opposition. Has any man, from his day to this, ventured to pronounce his popularity dangerous to our existence as a nation? Was danger apprehended at the time by the patriots of the Revolution who surrounded him ? They did apprehend danger from desperate and disappointed ambition, and from the madness of party excitements, but none from too much harmony in the public mind. I have heard of no fears growing out of the too great popularity of the President then; I feel none now." 384 Life and Times of Silas Wright, Chapter LV. SPECIE PAYMENTS. In tlie palmy days of the Bank of the United States, it was claimed by its admirers that its bills were as valuable as specie, and some insisted they were better. In those days many valued State bank notes higher than specie. But there has ever been a large number of our people who have given gold and silver a j^reference over all bank bills. Among these Co!. Benton — ^ often called " Old Bullion" — stood prominent. He was a leading advocate of "mint di-ops," as he called gold coin, and allowed few opportu- nities to escape unimproved of calling attention to his preferences. A bill was before the Senate for the payment of pen- sions, and he offered an amendment in the following words : "Sec. — . Avd he it further enacted, That no bank note of less (lenominaliou than twenty dollars shall hereafter be offered in payment, in any case whatsoever, in which money is to be paid by ihe United States or the Postoffice department; nor shall any bank note, of any other denomination, be so offered, unless the same shall be payable and paid on demand, in gold or silver coin, at the place where issued, and which shall not be equiva- 1 'lit to specie at the place where offered, and convertible into gold or silver upon the spot, at the will of the holder, and with- out delay or loss to him." >rr. Wright, in the course of the discussion, on the 28fh of March, 1836, presented his views on the subject as follows : " Mr. Wright said the object of the mover of the amendment to restrain the excesses of the present paper system of the country, Life and Times of Silas Wright. . 385 and infuse into our circulation a greater proportion of gold and silver, met his cordial and sincere approbation. He had labored, and was willing to labor in that cause, with that powerful and worthy leader; but he must say he was sorry that he had felt it to be his duty to make the bill now before the Senate the one upon which the principle of his amendment was to be tried. He was sorry, also, that the Senate was called upon to act upon this proposition until another bill which was now before the House, and which he soon hoped to see here, should have been acted upon by this body. He referred to the bill to repeal that pro- vision in the charter of the Bank of the United States which compelled all the receivers of money due to the government, for any consideration whatsoever, to receive the bills of that bank. The charter of the institution expired, by its own limitation, on the fourtli day of the present month ; but two years are allowed by the charter, after that day, to enable it to close its business ; and a question has arisen whether the clause of the charter mak- ing its bills receivable for debts due to the government expired with the expiration of the charter, or extended itself througli the two years given to close the concerns of the bank. The head of the Treasury department has applied to Congress to solve the doubts by a repeal of that section of the charter, and a bill had been under the consideration of the House containing the desired provision. But, Mr, W, asked, would it be just to the deposit banks, or proper in itself, to impose upon them this restriction in paying our appropriations, while we compel them, by an express provision of law, to receive all the notes, of all denominations, of a particular institution, and that, too, after the charter of that institution has expired, and while measures are being taken, by those who have the management of its affairs, which are directly calculated to make the notes in circulation of a less value than par at every point but one in tlie whole country? He pre- sumed his honorable friend from Missouri [Mr, Benton] was not aware of the course of policy adopted and adopting by the late Bank of the United States to continue the notes of that institu- tion in circulation throughout the country, and to press them into the hands of the agents of the government, and consequently into the deposit banks, by the force of this legal privilege 25 386 ^^^^ ^^'^^ Times of Silas Wright. extended to those notes, to the exclusion of all other notes of any bank in the country. It was his present object to inform the Senate and the country as to the policy pursuing in this mat- ter ; and to do so he would read parts of a correspondence with the Secretary of the Treasury, which had been put into his hands as a member of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, to show the necessity of the speedy passage of the bill to which he had referred. " The officer in charge of the deposit bank at Boston wrote to the Secretary to know whether he was considered legally bound to receive these bills in payment of dues to the government, after the expiration of the charter of the bank. The Secretary, in his answer, inquired of the officer of the deposit bank how and in what case the question could arise and become important to the institution under his charge, telling him he presumed the pay- ments for duties there had been and would continue to be made, chiefly, if not entirely, by checks on his own and the other banks of the city. To that suggestion the officer replied as follows : "' Heretofore, the branch bank in tliis city has redeemed the bills of the United States Bank, drawn here by regular course of business; consequently making them equal to the city bank bills, being, therefore, no difference in value; the payments to government have been made generally in checks and bills of the city banks. But this branch of the United States Bank now refuses to redeem any bills but of their own issue, and, consequently, every other city bank refuses to receive them. This depreciates in value all the United States Bank bills issued elsewhere, and they must be nego- tiated by brokers, and purchased for the purpose of paying debts due the government; the rate of exchange will probably cause them to be remitted from one city to another, when money is scarce, and to be placed in the hands of the bond-payers, to whom they will be equal to specie; although, payable at a distant part of the country, and for all other purposes, of less value. It was to guard, if possible, against this probable contingency that I addressed the department. '"Respectfully, " ' CHARLES HOOD, Caslmr: " The letter from which this extract is taken bears date ' Com- mercial Bank, Boston, March 18, 1836.' Here, Mr. President, we see that notes of this bank, not issued by the Boston branch, but by distant branches, are finding their way into the hands of the debtors of the government, in that town, and through them Lii^E AND Times of Silas Weight. 387 into the deposit bank there, while the other banks of that city will not receive them at par at their counters, and the branch of the bank there will not redeem them. Hence they constitute a depreciated currency, and still our agent is bound by law to take them at par. Ought we, then, while our law imposes this burden and loss upon the deposit banks, to add, by our own voluntary act, the further restriction proposed in the amendment under discussion? Mr. W, said, he thought not. It seemed to him enough that we were compelling the deposit banks to receive a depreciated currency, and to account to us for it at par, without prohibiting them from making payments on our account in their own notes, which are at par, of denominations similar to the depreciated notes they are, by our law, obliged to receive. "But, Mr W. said, this is not all. The Secretary of the Treasury, having obtained this information as to the course pui'- suing in Boston to force these notes upon the government, made a call upon one of the directors of the Bank of the United States, appointed by the government, for further information as to the course taking by the late bank, and by its successor, in reference to its notes in circulation. The correspondence was very short, and he would read it to the Senate. The following is the letter of the Secretary : " ' Treasury Department, March 23, 1836. " ' Sir. — I will thank you to inform me what disposition is made of the bills of the Bank of the United States as they are redeemed — are they kept oa file, or destroyed — or handed over to the new bank, and by it reissued. And, also, to state who are the agents for the branches of the old bank; and whether these agents have been directed to redeem all the old bills or checks presented in the usual course of business, or only those issued by the branch for which they act. " ' I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, '"LEVI WOODBURY, " ' Secretary of the Treasury. " ' Henry Toland, Esq., Philadelphia.' " Mr. Toland's reply is in these words : " ' Philadelphia, March 25, 1836. " ' Sir. — In reply to your letter of the twenty-third instant, I beg leave to inform you that the circulation of the old Bank of the United States is 388 Life and Times of Silas Wright. reissued by the new bank, and that no new circulation under the present charter has been prepared; that no one of its branches is considered as havii;!! any legal existence after the fourth instant; and that all the notes of the bank and its branches are considered as payable at the Bank in Philadelphia. " ' I am, very respectfully, " ' HENRY TOLAND. " ' Levi Woodkury, Esq., " ' Secretary of tJie Treasury.^ " Here, ^Ir. W. said, is the present condition of things. We compel the deposit banks by law to receive at par, in payment of debts due to us, the notes of the late Bank of the United States, notwithstanding its charter has actually expired, and the institu- tion no longer possesses banking powers. By a regulation of the directors, all those notes, no matter where issued, or by what branch, are to be redeemed at Philadelphia, and at no other place in the United States. This must depreciate the value of the notes, for all other purposes but that of payments to the govern- ment, at all points distant from Philadelphia. The deposit banks receiving them must send them to Philadelpliia to be redeemed, or to convert them into current funds. They do receive them, and do so send them to the dead institution. Are they then dis- charged from further expense, and trouble, and loss, on their account? No, sir; the correspondence shows that another insti- tution, to w^hich this government is a stranger, immediately reissues, and returns to the place from whence they came, these same notes, to be again paid into tlie deposit bank as a depre- ciated currency, and again returned to Philadelphia at their cost, that they may exchange them for money. Who does not see that, by this process, these notes may for ever circulate as the legal currency of the treasury, and that they may be issued and diffused over every foot of our territory, to be purchased up, by those who owe the government, to the full extent of all the pay- ments to be made to it ? These notes, therefore, must constitute the deposits of the government in the deposit banks, and, by the amendment proposed, Ave prohibit their payment from those banks to the creditors of the government, and thus make them unavailable funds in their hands until they can be sent to Phila- delphia, and their equivalent returned. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 389 " Of this, Mr. W. said, he did not complain, as he did not wish that any creditor of the government should be compelled to receive, in payment of his demand, depreciated paper. Indeed, as he understood the law now to be, no creditor of the govern- ment was under obligation to receive anything but gold and silver, and that the acceptance of bank notes from the govern- ment, in any case where they were accepted, was the voluntary act of the person receiving them. He must say, however, that, until we ceased to compel the State banks to receive this depre- ciated paper, he could not believe that we ought to interdict them from the circulation, in their capacity as agents of the government, of their own notes, which are at par value, unless those notes were of the denomination of twenty dollars. If these notes of the Bank of the United States were to be, in this disad- vantageous manner, but once redeemed by the deposit banks, they might be able to sustain themselves under the unreasonable burden; but when it was seen, by the correspondence he had read, that they were to be continued in circulation, that a single redemption was merely furnishing to another institution addi- tional means for a reissue, he must express his apprehensions that if, in addition to these burdens imposed, other and important privileges were denied to them, or greatly restricted, they might be driven to refuse their services to the government, and thus lay the foundation for a new argument for a recognition and employ- ment, if not a direct charter, of this new and dangerous State bank by Congress. "His apprehensions upon this subject were by no means diminished by finding some of the most zealous friends of the late Bank of the United States advocating this amendment. These gentlemen, so satisfied with the safety and superior value of a paper currency, when that bank had existence, and its notes constituted that currency, had now become too sudden converts to the dangers of bank paper, and too hastily attached to a metallic circulation, to gain his confidence. What were their reasons for this great change ? Did they desire, in this way, to prove that their former opinions as to one great bank were sound, and that such an institution alone could transact the public busi- ness and preserve the currency ? Did they wish to embarrass the 390 Life and Times of Silas Wright. deposit banks, at the moment when alarms as to their solvency were sounded from tliis chamber ? Did they hope that such a course would compel the State banks to surrender their agencies, and thus produce a necessity for another national bank ? Or had they become converts to the true, sound, democratic doctrine, that a metallic currency, for circulation among the people, was the course of wisdom and safety ? " He impugned no man's motives, and he would hope the latter was the true solution of his inquiries. He knew that was the patriotic object of the mover of the amendment, and he would go with liim, in heart and by his vote, as far as he could believe tliat safety or prudence would permit; but he did believe this amendment proposed too rapid a change. We had gone to the extreme in the paper circulation. We must retrace our steps gradually, and with care and caution, if we would avoid a con- vulsion dreadful in its effects, and much more dreadful in its con- sequences. The effects time might repair or efface, but the mea- sures which might grow out of the agitations and disasters might ingraft themselves too strongly upon our institutions ever to be shaken off. Experience spoke to us upon this point in a voice of warning which no one should disregard. Great abuses, such as he believed a Bank of the United States to be, always took their rise from public distresses, and he feared too hasty changes in our present currency would jDroduce these distresses and their consequences. "Mr. W. said he wished the bill to which he had referred might be acted upon here, before the princii^le involved in the amendment should be adopted. He repeated, he would go as far as he could think safety would permit; but he hoped our progress would be gradual, that it might be sure. If we could relieve the deposit banks from the legal obligation of receiving the notes of the late Bank of the United States, he thought we then miirht safely make some advance toward limiting them in their pay- ments of their own paper to the creditors of the government; but, until that was done, he was sorry to be compelled to act upon the proposition. [Mr, Davis here made an inquiry as to the amount of notes of the Bank of the United States in circulation.] Mr. W. said it was impossible for any person not possessed of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 391 the books and papers of the new United States Bank, chartered by the State of Pennsylvania, to answer that question. He spoke from memory, and without confidence in his correctness, when he said he believed the last return of the Bank of the United States to the Treasury department showed some twenty or more mil- lions of their paper in circulation; but that was no standard for the present time. The Senator did not seem to have understood the purport of the correspondence he had read. [Mr. W. here again read the letter from Mr. Toland, above given.] From this letter the gentleman will see that these notes, as they came in, are immediately reissued by another institution. How, then, can the question be answered as to the amount in circulation ? And the answer to-day would be no answer for to-morrow. He wished further to state, what he believed to be the fact, that since the expiration of the charter, on the fourth instant, no returns of any description had been made to the treasury from the late bank; and it was to be presumed the directors considered themselves no longer bound to make the returns required by the charter. This, Mr. W, said, was the existing state of things, and gentle- men must see that hundreds of millions of these notes mi^ht be thrown over the country, but he feared that they could not so well tell what institution was to redeem them. " '^[)2 Life and Times of Silas Wright. CHAPTER LVI. DISTRIBUTIOX OF THE PROCEEDS OP THE PUBLIC LANDS. Tlie plethoric condition of the treasury invited plans for disposing of the surplus beyond the ordinary expenses of the government. A large portion of this excess was being derived from the public lands. On the 29th of December, 1835, Mr. Clay introduced the subject of dis- tributing the net proceeds of the public lands among the States and Territories. This 23roposition was referred to a committee, who reported a bill to carry it into effect, which underwent a long and spirited discussion. How far this movement Avas intended to influence the pending presidential election each will judge for himself. The debate was continued, and, on the 20th of April, 1836, Mr. Wright addressed the Senate, at great length, upon the subject. His remarks were so pertinent, clear and conclusive, and full of historical information, that they are copied entii-e. The labor of preparation for this argument was herculean, which few would have under- taken. " Mr. Wright said he had proposed to offer some views to the Senate upon tlie bill under consideration, before the question should be taken upon its engrossment ; that the observations he intended to make had no relation to the ."amendments which were the immediate question under debate ; but that, as the course of debate had seemed lo indicate that the general merits of the bill might be properly discussed in the present stage of the proceed- ings upon it, he would go on at present, unless the very late hour should make it the pleasure of the Senate to postpone the subject until a future day. " Before lie could enter upon the argument he had proposed to Life and Times of Silas Wright. 393 make, Mr. W. said he found himself bound to notice some few of the remarks which had fallen from the Senator [Mr. Southard] who had just resumed his seat. That Senator had informed the Senate, at various stages of his argument, that he intended to discard all partisan feeling and partisan remarks, and to discuss this important, and, in his judgment, most desirable measure, as a national, not a party proposition, — as a measure of general and universal interest, not as one promoting the temporary advance- ment of a particular class of politicians, or of a favorite candi- date, but of the whole country. " Mr. W. said he most cordially responded to the feelings of the Senator, as thus uttered and repeated, so far as any connec- tion of partisan politics with the discussion was involved; and, although differing widely from him upon the benefits to be derived to the public from the passage of the bill, he fully and entirely agreed with him in the position that the measure was not partisan in its character, and ought not to be made so in the debate. "It was his desire, at all times, to confine himself, in every discussion in this body, to the subject before it, and upon the present occasion he had supposed that subject was ' the land bill,' so called. Still he could not fail to notice that the Senator [Mr. Southard] had commenced his speech by a discussion of the rail- road bill, and closed it by a dissertation upon the insecurity of the deposit banks. He would not assign motives to the remarks of this character, which have recently been heard in the Senate from various quarters, and as strongly from the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Southard], at the close of his speech upon the land bill, as from any other quarter. He did, however, upon this occasion, consider it his duty briefly to notice those remarks, and the effects which they were calculated to produce. The present, he said, was a time of severe pecuniary pressure upon the large mercantile towns. The merchants were struggling to preserve their credit, and to raise the means necessary to carry on their business and meet their engagements. The struggle was severe and dangerous, but, if left to themselves, he had strong hope it would be successful and triumphant. The suspi- cion and distrust calculated to arise from such a state of things. 394 I^^P^ ^^'^ Times of Silas Wright. among capitalists and commercial men, are the strongest grounds for fear and apprehension. " CoiiUi it, then, be wise or just to attempt here to shake confi- dence anil destroy credit? Could it be beneficial to any national interest, ur to any individual interest, to proclaim from this hall that those institutions of the country, from which alone the mer- chants can exi^ect immediate and efiicient relief in the present emergency, are unsound, irresponsible and rotten ? Could it answer any end of })atriotism or philanthropy, by declarations and denujiciations of this sort, to produce runs upon these insti- tutions, and thus put it out of their power to afford the merchants that aid which the crisis demands ? Could it, in short, serve any valii;il)l(' purpose to add a panic to the present pressure, and by destroying confidence in all quarters to render certain the bank- ruptcy and ruin which was now merely threatened ? If the honorable Senator [Mr. Southard] could see any benefits likely to result from such a course, he could not. If that gentleman felt bound to act such a part, at such a time, he did not. He held his seat upon this floor for the performance of no such office, and in; must express his deep regret that any others should thus construe their high duties here. "He had seen no unusual cause for distrusting the banking institutions of the country, and certainly none for distrusting those which were strengthened by the possession of the public deposits. The statements made upon the subject were fallacious and deceptive. They were mere comparisons of the instant means of the institutions with the whole amount of their liabili- ties, a comparison which rejects entirely the item of ' bills receivable,' always the most important item in calculating the property and security of a sound and well-conducted bank. Let gentlemen add that single item to their statements, and they will show every deposit bank in the Union sound and secure. " Mr, W. said he was sorry the Senator had not been able to close his remarks as he had commenced them, in a spirit of candor and mildness, and unaccompanied by those expressions of partisan prejudice and partisan passion which too frequently characterized his addresses before the Senate. He had appeared at the commencement to be fully conscious of the propriety and Life and Times of Silas Wright. 395 policy of such a course in the present debate, and had avowed an intention to pursue it, and he, W., had witnessed his adherence to the intention, until near the close of his speech, with unfeigned pleasure; but the force of partisan feeling had got the better of the judgment of the Senator, and he could not bring himself to a conclusion without visiting upon the venerable man, now at the head of this government, his accustomed paragraph of denuncia- tion and abuse. He, Mr. W., would say to the Senator, that he thought this portion of his remarks had better have been omit- ted; that his going thus out of the way to pour abuse upon the President, would not, even with his immediate constituents, add anything to the moral force of his argument, upon a subject which did not call for political i-ecrimination. " It was not his purpose to reply to the Senator, and these few remarks were all he proposed to offer, in reference to his observa- tions, except, perhaps, to notice in passing, one or two of his positions which connected themselves with the train of reasoning- he had proposed to pursue. " He would, therefore, proceed with the observations he had intended to offer to the Senate, and, in doing so, he would attempt to show, " First. That the bill is, in effect, a bill to distribute, not the ' net proceeds of the public lands,' as its Janguage imports, but the revenues of the treasury generally. " To establish this proposition, it will be necessary to show what have been the gross proceeds to the treasury of the public lands, from the commencement of the sales to the present time, what have been the expenses from the treasury, justly chargeable to the lands, and, in that way, to ascertain the ' net proceeds ' now resting in the treasury. As the latest date to which the documents before the Senate would enable him to state these facts, Mr. W. said he had taken the 30th of September, 1835, because the accounts on both sides had been brought up to that date, and not, with any precision, to a later day. 396 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " ' The gross amount of money paid into the treasury for the purchase of the public lands, from 1796 to the SOtli of September, 1835, inclusive, has been $58,619,523 00 •' 'To this sum the following items are added in the state- ment appended to the report of the Committee on Public Lands of the Senate, which they claim to be also proceeds of the public lands, viz. : " ' Certificates of public debt and army land warrants $984, 189 91 " ' Mississippi stock 2,448,789 44 " ' United States stock 257,660 73 " ' Forfeited land stock and military scrip, 1,719,333 53 5,409,973 61 " 'Thus showing a total of gross proceeds thus ascer- tained of $64,029,496 61' " Mr. W. said it seemed to him that there were items in this account whicli ought not to be there, but they were, in all cases, so blended with items which he supposed proper, that it was impossible for him to distinguish the amounts, which, in his judg- ment, ought to be deducted from the above gross sum. "To illustrate his meaning: The first item was money paid into the public treasury; and, in the statement of an account between that treasury and the public lands, there could be no doubt that it should be debited to the former and credited to the latter. The second item was designated as ' certificates of public debt and army land warrants.' From what he had been able to learn, the ' certificates of public debt,' so far as they had been paid in lands, were properly chargeable against the treasury in an account with the lands, because their payment, in that manner, must have relieved the treasury from the payment of so much money. The amount, however, could not be ascertained from the statement, in consequence of the blending of these certifi- cates with the 'army land warrants.' These latter he supposed to be 'warrants' for revolutionary bounty lands, and he could not see the propriety of valuing these lands and charging them against the treasury in the statement of this account. If he was mistaken in his supposition in relation to these warrants he hoped some Senator would correct him, but if he was not, the debts against the government were debts contracted for the conquest Ltfe and Times of Silas Wright. 397 of the lands, and properly chargeable against them; they were payable in land, and not in money from the treasury, and having been so paid, the lands had, to that extent, discharged the debt, but not secured a claim against the treasury. The amount of these warrants, therefore, as he understood the subject, ought to be deducted from the $984,189.91, which constitutes the second item charged as proceeds of the public lands. What proportion of that item was made up of ' army land warrants,' and what of 'certificates of public debt,' he had no means of determining, and, therefore, he could not make such a statement of the amount as he should consider just. The third item was designated as ' Mississippi stock.' This stock, Mr. W. said, he understood to have grown out of the celebrated Yazoo claim, and that the Government of the United States had become a party to the transaction, in consequence of having stipulated with the State of Georgia, as one of the considerations upon which that State consented to make her cession of the public lands to the United States, to indemnify her against the Yazoo claimants. The stock was payable in land, and was considered in the nature of land scrip; it was the consideration of the lands out of which it was to be paid, and the amount here set down, is the amount of the lands conveyed to cancel the same amount of the stock. It was, therefore, a debt against the lands, and, to this amount, was paid by the lands and canceled the debt to that extent. It did not, however, raise a claim in favor of the lands against the treasury, because the lands merely paid for themselves. This amount, therefore, $2,448,789.44, ought, most clearly, to be deducted from the statement above given of the gross proceeds of the public lands. "The fourth item is ' United States stock.' This is supposed to have been stock issued for loans of money for the support of o-overnment, and to carry on the war of the Revolution ; its pay- raent was chargeable upon the public treasury, and so far as the holders of it consented to take lands in payment, and did do so, the value of the lands is, most manifestly, a proper charge against the treasury in favor of the lands. This item, therefore, is believed to be properly included in this account. " The fifth item, designated ' forfeited land stock and military •398 Life and Times of Silas Wright. scrip,' is again supposed to consist partly of a proper and partly of an improper charge against the treasury. The ' forfeited land stock,' so called, Mr. W. said, he Avas informed had accrued in this way : Formerly the government sold the public lands upon a credit of five years, the purchase-money being payable in yearly installments, with the condition in the cerLiticates, or contracts of purchase, that, in case the purchaser did not perform the contract by making the payments at the times stipulated, he forfeited all payments made prior to his default. During the practice under this system a large amount of forfeitures accrued, and the government resumed the possession of the land, the payments made by the respective purchasers, prior to their for- feitures, still remaining in the public treasury. The amounts thus paid and forfeited were so large as to cause the subject to be brought before Congress, and laws were passed directing a stock or scrip to be issued to the various individuals who had made the payments thus forfeited, or to those claiming under them, authorizing tlie holder of the stock or scrip to locate, at the minimum price of the government, a quantity of the public lands equal to the value of the stock so held. This, therefore, was in effect a mere sale of so much land for money paid into the treasury in advance, and, to the extent of the 'forfeited land stock,' is a proper charge against the treasury in a just statement of the account between it and the public lands. " The other part of this item, designated ' military scrip,' Mr. W. said he supposed to be scrip issued for military bounty lands to the Virginia line of the army of the Revolution, and to be subject to the same objections as a charge in this account, which he had previously urged against the 'army land warrants.' It was most clearly a debt against the government payable and paid in lands, and as the lands were conveyed to this government by all the States 'as a common fund ' ' for the use and benefit of the several States, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditures,' it was impossible to conceive how a debt of this character, assumed by this govern- "'^ ='s one of the considerations of the cession of the lands by Virginia and paid in the same lands, can now be considered a proper charge against the common treasury, upon a settlement Life and Times of Silas Wright. 399 of accounts between it and those lands, with a view to ascertain their net proceeds now in that treasury. " Mr. W. said this was a heavy item, amounting to 11,719,333.53, and he deeply regretted that he was not able to determine and to inform the Senate what portion of this sum consisted of ' for- feited land stock,' and what portion of ' military scrip,' because it put it out of his power to make a precise statement of this part of the account in a manner which he could assent to as accurate and just. "These remarks, however, went as far as it was in his power to go, to purge the statement made by the Committee on Public Lands, as to the gross proceeds from the public lands properly chargeable to the national treasury. He would not attempt to bring down a sum, because the two compound items in the account, the second and the fifth, in the order he had observed in their examination, rendered it impossible for him to do so with accuracy, and it had been and should be his object to adhere to facts, as far as he could possess himself of them, and when conjecture must be resorted to, to yield all to the friends of this bill. "In consequence, therefore, of his inability to separate the improper from the proper portions of these two items, Mr. W. said he would allow the whole of both to the lands, and present a result stated upon that basis. It will be as follows : *' ' The gross amount before given, as stated by the Com- mittee on Public Lands, was $64,029,496 61 '"Deduct from tliat amount the single item designated " Mississippi stock" 2,448,789 44 " ' And will leave a balance of. $61,580,707 17 ' " This balance is larger than the true gross proceeds of the public lands, calculated from this statement, by the whole amount included in the second item, under the designation of ' array land warrants,' and in the fifth item, under the designation of ' mili- tary scrip ;' but as neither of these amounts can be ascertained from the documents before the Senate, although they are known to constitute a large majority of both the items with which they 400 Life and Times of Silas Wright. are connected, amounting together to 12,703,523.44, tliey will be overlooked, and the balance last given, including the ' army land warrants' and the 'military scrip,' will, for the purposes of this argument, be considered the correct amount of the gross pro- ceeds of the public lands. " Mr. W. said it followed, of course, that his next duty was to show the amount of expenses properly chargeable against the lands, and consequently to be deducted from the gross proceeds, as above ascertained, in order that he might arrive at the ' net proceeds ' in the treasury on the thirtieth of September last. "To do this from authority, and in a manner calculated to carry conviction to the mind, he must refer to two reports from the Secretary of the Treasury, made to the Senate in obedience to calls for the purpose, or rather to a call, as the one report was supplemental to, and amendatory of, the other. He referred to Senate documents upon the executive file, Nos. 65 and 80. The first, in the order of numbers, though the last in fact made, showed that the money paid from the treasury on account of the Cumberland road was $5,956,024. The second, as numbered, although the first and principal report, to which the former was a supplement, showed the following expenditures on account of the public lands, viz. : " 1. For expenditures under the head of the Indian depart- ment, which Mr. W. said he understood to be the expenses of Indian treaties, for the purchase of Indian titles to the public lands, the purchase- money paid to the Indians for those titles, the annuities in lieu of purchase-money, the expense of the removal and subsistence of Indians, and perhaps some other small items, incidental to the administration of our Indian affairs, amounting in all to $17,541,560.19. " 2. For the purchase of Louisiana, by the convention with France of the 3d of April, 1803, $15,000,000, and the interest paid upon the stock issued for the payment of the purchase- money, from the time of the issue until its final redemption, $8,529,353.43, amounting together to the sum of $23,529,353.43, " 3. For the purchase of Florida, by the convention with Spain of 22d February, 1819, $5,000,000, and the interest paid upon the stock issued for the payment of the purchase-money, from Life and Times of Silas Wright. 401 the time of the issue until its final redemption, $1,489,'768.66, amounting together to $6,489,768.66. " 4. Payments to the State of Georgia as a part consideration for the lands ceded by that State to the United States, including, in the sums charged, the value of the arms furnished to the State under the compact of cession, $1,250,000. " 5. The amount paid from the treasury to redeem that por- tion of the Mississippi stock (Yazoo claims) which was not can- celed by the grants of land in extinguishment of the stock, as before referred to; and here, Mr. W. said, was the strongest argument he could desire to show the propriety of the deduction he had made of the amount of the Mississippi stock, paid in lands, from the gross proceeds of the public lands, as given by the committee which reported the bill. Here was a charge by the treasury against the lands of $1,832,375.70, for so much money paid to redeem that portion of the stock which had not been canceled by the grant of lands, and one or the other propo- sitions must unavoidably be true, to wit : Either this charge by the treasury against the lands, on account of the redemption of this stock, is wrong and ought not to be made, or the charge made in the statement of the committee of $2,448,789.44 against the treasury and in favor of the lands, in consequence of the redemption of so much of the stock by grants of land, must be erroneous. Which proposition, then, can be sustained? To determine this question, it is only necessary to inquire how this indebtedness against the government attached, and upon what consideration it was incurred? The answers to these inquiries have already been given. " The consideration to this government was the cession of the public lands by the State of Georgia, and the debt attached when this government stipulated, as one of the conditions of the compact of cession, to indemnify the State of Georgia to the extent of these payments, against the Yazoo claimants. The treasury of the nation received nothing, and should pay nothing; but the claims grew out of the lands ceded; were a part of the consideration of the cession; were, by this government, made payable out of the lands ceded; and if money was called from the treasury to cancel those claims, it was so called for and paid 26 402 Life and Times of Silas Wright. oil account of the lands, and formed a proper charge against thon. Ikiice tlic })r()priety of the item now under considera- tion, cliarged by the treasury against the lands, for the redemi> tion of ' Mississippi stock,' while the establishment of this charge in favor of the treasury, by the most natural and necessary con- sequences, rejects the charge against the treasury and in favor of the lands, for that portion of the stock paid in land, and not in money, from the treasury. " 6. The salaries and expenses of the General Land Office, amounting to 1797,748.64, which are paid from the treasury. " 7. The salaries of the several registers and receivers at the local land offices, which are separate from their commissions upon sales, and amount to $91,153.39. These salaries are paid from the treasury. " 8. The salaries of Surveyors-General and their clerks, and the expenses of commissioners for settling private land claims and of surveying the lands claimed. The treasury has paid for these services and expenses the sum of $860,567.78. " 9. Payments on account of the surveys of the public lands from the public treasury, $2,780,630.97. "This, Mr. W. said, brought him to the statement of the account between the public treasury and the public lands, as follows: " 'Charge against the treasury, the gross proceeeds of the public lands, as before settled $61 , 580 ,707 17 " 'Then credit the treasury with payments on account of the lands, accoi'ding to tlie items as above settled, viz. : " ' Payments for the Cumberland road $5,956,024 00 "'Expenses under the head of Indian Department 17,541 ,560 19 Sum paid for Louisiana, and interest 23,539,353 43 Sum paid for Florida, and interest 6,489,768 66 " ' Sum paid to tlie State of Georgia 1,250,000 00 "'Yazoo claims, paid in money at the treasury 1 ,832,375 70 " ' Expenses of the General Land Office. . . 797,748 64 " ' Salaries of registers and receivers of pub- lic lands 91 , 153 39 Carried forward $57 , 487 , 984 01 $61 , 580 , 707 1 7 LiEE AND Times of Silas Wright. 403 Brought forward $57,487,984 01 $61,580,707 17 " ' Salaries of Surveyors-General and sur- veys, and settlement of private land claims 800,567 78 "'Payments for surveys of the public lands 3,780,630 97 61,129,182 76 " 'This will leave, as the whole " net pro- ceeds" of the public lands in the treasury, on the 30th day of Septem- ber last, the sum of $351 ,525 41 ' " It will be seen that this statement of the account excludes from the charges against the treasury the single item of ' Mis- sissippi stock,' amounting to $2,448,789.44, and also excludes, upon the other side, from the charges against the lands, the sum of $2,479,049.13, being money received for land by the receivers, and not paid into the treasury, but retained for commissions and other expenses pertaining to the register's and receiver's offices. Both these items balance themselves ; the first being a debt contracted for the lands and paid in lands, and the second money received for the lands, and paid out for exjjenses on their account. Neither has brought anything into the public treasury or taken anything from it; and as this statement is between the public treasury and the public lands, both items are excluded. " Mr. W. said he found another statement appended to the report of the Committee on Public Lands, giving as the entire amount paid by purchasers for public lands, $67,578,949.73. This exceeds the amount given by the committee in the statements before referred to, and made the basis of the preceding calcula- tion by $3,549,453.12. It of course embraces the $2,479,049.13, retained by the registers and receivers, and excluded from the foregoing statement of the account, as not having come into the treasury. This will account for so much of the excess in this last statement, because this is made up, not of the money paid into the treasury as proceeds of the lands, but of all the money paid by purchasers for public lands. There will still remain an excess of $1,070,403.99, for which Mr. W. said he had not been able to account, as none of the documents he had discovered 404 Life and Times of Silas Weight. gave any information how this amount was paid, or to what uses the payments had been applied. One thing, however, was cer- tain. It had not come into the public treasury, because all the statements, both from the committee and from the Treasury dc'partment, agreed that $58,619,523 was the whole amount of money which had ever been received into the national treasury from the sales of the public lands, up to the 30th of September last. That sum he had taken in his statement of the proper charges against the treasury in favor of the lands. It was pro- bable, therefore, that this excess had been expended for the lands before it reached the treasury, or that its payment had been made, not in money, but in satisfaction of some description of claims against the lands themselves. " If, then, he was right in these calculations, the Avhole ' net proceeds ' of the public lands in the treasury, on the 30th day of September, 1835, only amounted to $351,524.41 ; and, were the bill general and applicable to the whole of the net proceeds of those lands, from the commencement of the government to that day, it would act upon and distribute among the States but this amount. " It was, however, his intention, Mr. W. said, to place this view of the subject upon grounds which could not be contra- dicted, and, therefore, for the sake of the argument, he would suppose he was mistaken in every instance in which he had attempted to correct the account upon the one side or the other, and see how it would stand, assuming the highest sum given as the gross proceeds of the lands, and deducting from that sum the gross payments, shown by the documents from the Treasury department to have been made on account of the lands. " ' The whole sum paid by purchasers of public lands, including the military land warrants, certificates of public debt, Mississippi stock, United States stock, forfeited land slock, military scrip, and all other pay- ments of every description whatsoever, is given by the committee at $67,578,949 73 The whole payments for account of the lands are stated, in the two documents referred to, at 63 , 608 , 231 89 ' This mode of stating the account will show a balance, as the "net proceeds" of tlie public lands in the trea- sury on the 30th day of September last, of $3 , 970 , 717 84 ' ( ( ( Life and Times of Silas Wright. 405 "This result, Mr. W. said, he considered entirely erroneous, as embracing an amount of more than tliree millions of dollars on account of military land warrants, Mii^-sissippi stock, and military scrip, not properly chargeable against the treasury. Yet it would appear in the sequel that the position he had taken, that the bill, in effect, would not distribute the ' net proceeds ' of the l^ublic lands only, but also the revenues of the treasury derived from other sources, would not be affected, whether the one state- ment or the other of the account should be adopted as the true statement. " Hitherto, Mr. W. said, his remarks had been predicated upon the supposition that the bill was genei'al and applicable to the net proceeds of the public lands in all past years, and upon that basis he trusted he had shown that the sum which remained in the treasury on the thirtieth of September last, subject to distri- bution among the States according to its provisions, was less than $400,000, and certainly less than $4,000,000. " He would now proceed to examine the bill as it is, and its practical effect upon the moneys in the treasury on the day refer- red to. The bill is not general, but confined in its operation to a specific number of years, to wit : Its action commences with the commencement of the year 1833, and terminates with the termi- nation of the year 1841, extending over a period of nine years. By its language it purports to distribute the ' net proceeds ' of the money received into the treasury from the sales of the pub- lic lands for those years. He would not attempt to give a con- struction to the bill, but would take, in this particular, tlie practical construction given by its friends. Most, if not all of them, have exhibited to us in figures, and sums of money to be divided, the whole amounts received into the treasury from the sales of the public lands. They have made no deductions for expenses beyond those made before the money reaches the public treasury. In holding up this golden prize to the acceptance of the States, they have told us nothing of the cost to the public treasury of their acquirement, or of reclaiming them from the possession of those natives, whose inheritance they were, until purchased by the moneys of the nation. The bill is retrospective and prospective. The arguments in its favor have depended 406 Life aad Times of Silas Wright. mainly, for their moving force, upon the suras received into the treasurv tor tlie years 1833, 1834 and 1835, from the Lands, while [\\v prospective arguments for the years 1836, 1837, 1838, 1839, 1840 and 1841, have received all the embellishments of an imagination excited, in a pecuniary sense, by the contemplation of millions, with a familiarity with which the mind of the indus- trious citizen contemplates dollars, until the expansion of imagi- nary wealth has reached almost beyond the bounds of arithmetical enumeration. The picture thus drawn has not been shaded by the expenses paid from the common treasury on account of the public lauds, while its foreground has been fully and perspicu- ously occupied by the receipts into that treasury from the exhaust- less resource of the public domain. " Taking this picture as the true practical construction and operation of the bill, Mr. W. said he would endeavor to impress upon the Senate its effect upon the general revenues of the coun- try. From the table appended to the report of the Committee upon Public Lands, marked No. 1, it would be seen that the receipts into the treasury from the sales of public lands, from the commencement of the year 1833 to the 30th September, 1835, had been as follows : '"In the year 1833 |3, 967, 681 55 " ' lu the year 1834 4,857,600 69 " ' In the year 1835, to the 30th September 9,166,590 89 (t ( Making a total of receipts during the period refer- red to of $17,991,873 13' " If the construction given to the Ijill by its friends be correct, this sum is to be distributed immediately upon its passage. Compare this amount with tlie whole ' net proceeds ' of the pub- lic lands in the treasury on the day when this account of receipts closes. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 407 " ' The receipts upon which the bill is intended to act, are as above stated $17,991 ,873 13 " 'The whole "net proceeds" of the public lands in the treasiuy, by a comparison of receipts and payments for account of the lands, from the commencement of the government to the 30th September last, believed to be more favorable to the lands than the truth will warrant, are only 351 ,524 41 " ' Thus showing that the practical operation of the bill will be to distribute to the States, of the money in the trea- sury on the 30th September last, over and above the whole net proceeds of the public lands then in the treasury, a sum equal to $17 , 640 , 348 J^ ' " But it may be objected that this statement of the ' net pro- ceeds ' of the public lands is erroneous, and that the sum above specified is not the true 'net proceeds ' in the treasury on the day referred to. Mr, W. said it was his anxious desire to avoid all questions as to facts, that the results and consequences he desired to present might have their full force. He would, therefore, pre- sent the same result, taking the amount of net proceeds of the public lands, upon the day given, from the most favored calcula- tion toward the lands which could be made from any of the data furnished by the Committee on Public Lands. The receipts for the period covered by the bill, up to the 30th September, 1835, as above given, were $17,991,873 13 The net proceeds of the public lands in the treasury on the sanie day, by the calculation most favorable to the lands, were 3,970,717 84 i i i ( C ( ( i ( This will leave a balance of revenue to be distributed, by the practical operation of the bill, not a part of the " net proceeds " of the public lands, but derived from other sources, equal to $14,021,155 29 ' " From this examination of the provisions of the bill and of its practical operation, Mr. W. said he could not doubt that he had established the proposition with which he had set out, viz., that the bill, should it become a law, would have the effect, not to distribute the ' net proceeds ' of the public lands in the treasury alone, but also large amounts of the public revenues derived 408 Life and Tuies of Silas Wrigbt, from other sources. The only question seemed to be whether the bill would tiike from the treasury, of the revenues deposited there prior to the 30th of September, 1835, $1'7,000,000 or $14,000,000 not derived from the sale of public lands, but from the other revenues of the country; and he could not see that the principle involved would be varied, whether the one amount or the other should prove to be the true sum thus subtracted. " So much for the retrospective action of the bill. The pro- spective action would now demand consideration. The calcula- tions which have preceded, have only brought the account up to the 30th of September, 1835. The bill, upon its face, canies its action six and a quarter years beyond that time, to the close of the year 1841.* If the construction given by the friends of the bill to its retrospective action, is to be the construction which is to govern its prospective action also, then the expenses justly chargeable upon the lands, with very unimportant excep- tions, are, for the six years to come, to be charged upon the other revenues of the government, while the proceeds of the lands are to be distributed to the States, as tliey come in to the public treasuiy. In other words, the ' net proceeds ' of the public lands for each yeai*, after paying the expenses justly and properly chargeable ':o them from the gross proceeds, are to be distributed, and a further sum, equal to those expenses, f derived from cus- toms, or other sources separate from the land, is also to be dis- tributed in the same manner, and by the same ratio. " Is not this, Mr. W. said he would ask, the fair operation of this bill, which purports to divide among the States the net pro- ceeds of the public lauds ? What difference can there be whether the whole proceeds of the public lands, which reach the treasury, * " The bill was introduced by Mr. Clay to extend from the 1st January, 1833, to the 31st December, 1837. The Committee on Public Lands reported an amendment to extend it to the 31st of December, 1841. This amend- ment of the committee was adopted by the Senate in Committee of the Whole, and was a part of the bill when Mr. Wrigut made his speech. Subsequently the amendment was negatived by the Senate, and the bill restored, in this respect, to its original form." t " The bill originally used the general terms, ' net proceeds of the public lauds,' but since Mr. Wright's remarks were made, has been so amended, Life and Times of Silas Wright. 409 are distributed as the bill proposes, and the expenses of the lands, of their purchase, of obtaining possession of them, and placing them in a condition to be sold, be made a permanent charge upon the treasury, that the whole avails of the sales may be dis- tributed; or whether those expenses, necessary and indispensable to acquire the ownership of the lands, and to put them in a marketable condition, be paid out of the proceeds of the lands, and a proportion of the other revenues, equal to those expenses, be taken for the distribution ? It would be difficult for human ingenuity to point out a difference to the treasury, to the public interests of this government, to the States who are to receive the dividends; and, in his judgment, equally difficult to point out any difference in principle between this bill having this practical operation, and a bill upon its face proposing to make the same distribution of the surplus revenue generally. " Mr. W. said it was not his purpose, upon this occasion, to discuss the constitutionality of this bill, or of any distribution of the revenues of this government to the respective States, but he had felt bound to make this suggestion for the consideration and reflection of all who expected to support this bill, and might have any scruples as to the power of Congress to make a dis- tribution of the revenues generally, or of any other portions of our revenue than those derived from the public lands. He must believe he had shown that this bill, if it should become a law, and should receive the construction given to it by its friends here, would operate to distribute millions from the treasury which could not, by any exhibition of facts, or any form of reasoning, be made the 'net proceeds of the public lands,' but as, in substance, to adopt the construction he here contemplates. It now provides that the not proceeds shall be ascertained by deducting from the gross proceeds the expenses of the General Land Office, of the registers' and and receivers' offices, of surveys and of the five per cent payable to the new States; but propositions to deduct also the purchase-money paid to the Indians for the lands, annuities in lieu of purchase-money, the expense of treaties with the Indians for the purcliase of the lands, and the expenses of the removal of the Indians from the lands, were expressly rejected by deliberate votes of the Senate." 41 Life and Times of Silas Wright. must be admitted to be the proceeds of revenues derived from otlier sources. "lie liad not been able, from any documents before him, nor had time permitted him to obtain from the proper department the information necessary to determine what had been the net proceeds of the public lands for the years 1833, 1834 and 1835; but it was enough for the purpose of his argument to know, and to have shown, that until the year 1835, and until far into that year, the lands were, and in all former time had been, heavily in debt to the treasury, even without any claim for interest upon the advances made, beyond the sums of interest actually paid upon the stocks issued for thejiurchase of Louisiana and Florida. There was not, therefore, in the treasury, prior to the latter part of 1835, any such thing as 'net proceeds' arising from the sales of the public land; but a deficit of gross proceeds to meet the expenses which the treasury had incurred on account of the lands. To attempt, therefore, to take money from the treasury, Avhich came into it from the lands before that period for the purpose of distribution, will be to attempt to take money which is not there, which had been expended before it came there; and if money be so taken, it will be money derived from other sources of revenue, aTid not 'net proceeds of the sales of the public lands.' It will be a distribution, not of the proceeds of the lands, but of the revenues of tlie treasury generally. " Mr. W. said he proposed, in the second place, to attempt to show that if the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, for the years named were taken from the national treasury, and dis- tributed to the States, that treasury, at the present rates of the revenues from the customs, could not meet the ordinary expenses of tlie government, and carry on any system of national defense more vigorous or expensive than that whicli had been pursued for the last twenty years. " To come to a determination upon this point, he had examined with care, the expenses of the government for the last nineteen years, from 1817 to 1835, both inclusive; and for the sake of brevity, he had averaged the expenses of each four years for the first sixteen years of the series, giving the averages, including the payments towards the national debt, and also exclusive of Life and Times of Silas Whight. 411 those payments. For the years 1833, 1834 and 1835, the expenses of each year are stated separately. The results, discarding minor fractions, are as follows : Average including Average exclusive paj'uients on debt, of payui'ts on debt For the years 1817 to 1820, inclusive 30 4-5 millions. 15f millious. For the years 1821 to 1824, inclusive 21 do. Hi do. For the years 1825 to 1828, inclusive 23 9-10 do. 12| do. For the years 1829 to 1832, inclusive 28i do. 14 do. Expenses for 1833 24^ do. 22f do. Expenses for 1834 24f do. 18f do. Expenses for 1835 no debt. 17| do " From the above it will be seen that the average expenditures from 1817 to 1832, both inclusive, separate from any payments towards the national debt, were about. $13,500,000 per annum; that in 1833 they appear to have been increased more tlian 18,000,000 beyond those of the preceding year, and 19,000,000 beyond the average of the sixteen previous years. " Mr. W. said he held in his hand a comparative statement between the expenses of the years 1833 and 1834, prepared for the purpose of showing whence arose the great difference of $4,000,000 between the expenditures, exclusive of payments upon the debt, in those two years. The analysis was long and tedious, and he had already wearied the patience of the Senate with too many figures and arithmetical calculations, to trouble them with this statement. He would merely remark that a very large pro- portion of the expenses of the Indian war, known as the Black Hawk war, were paid in 1833 ; that the amount paid for pensions in 1833 exceeded the same payments in the following year by more than $1,200,000, arising, as he presumed, from the fact that the pension law of 1832 would be lilu'ly to call heavily for pay- ments in 1833, not only for the accruing pensions of the year, but for arrears back to the date prescribed in the act ; that the expenses of Indian treaties were $1,000,000 in 1833 more than in 1834; and that the indemnities from Denmark, amounting to $600,000, passed through the treasury in 1833 and were paid to the claimants, and, therefore, appear to swell the expenses of the year to that extent, although the government had, at no time, any interest whatsoever in the money received and disbursed. 412 Life and Times of Silas Wright. There are various other items of expenditure which varied, some the one way and some the other, in tlie comparison between the two years ; but the four above named, and the large amount of duties refunded in 1833, $600,000 beyond the amount in 1834, in consequence of the conflict of the various tariff acts, constitute the most prominent and important causes of the very great increase in the apparent expenses of the former year. " The expenses for the years 1834 and 1835 had averaged about $18,000,000, exclusive of any payments towards the national debt. This would be seen to be a diminution, from the expenses of 1833, of about $4,000,000 and an increase of from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 beyond the ordinary expenses of the years men- tioned prior to 1833. He would not attempt to account for this increase, any further than to remark that appropriations by Con- gress had been, most palpal)ly, becoming more liberal, if not extravagant, since the national debt was apparently rapidly approaching its final extinction, and the treasury remained full to a fault. It was not the private claims and private applica- tions alone which met with an easy success unknown in former legislation, but public and permanent appropriations were in- creased and increasing. He would instance the munificent appro- priations for this District, the late pension laws, the increase of the pay of the navy, and many similar laws of the last few years. These instances were, by no means, particularized as wrong in themselves, or censurable in our national legislation. No opinion upon the measures is called for, or intended to be expressed; but the laws are referred to as prominent instances of the char- acter of our late acts, carrying with them, from necessity, a material increase of the ordinary annual expenses of the govern- ment. From causes of this character, our ordinary expenses for the last two years have averaged about $18,000,000, and that, nothwithstanding the fact that not one cent was appropriated to the fortifications for the last year. What, then, can be fairly assumed as the amount of our ordinary expenses for the future ? Will any one believe that they can fall far short of the average of the two last years ? Must they not vary, according to the peculiar exigencies of different years, from $16,000,000 to $18,000,000? Mr. W. said, his examinations had satisfied him Life a.\d Times of Silas Wuight. 413 that they must, and that $17,000,000 was as low an average as should be contemplated, especially when we M^ere inquiring as to supplies for the common treasury. He believed a careful inspec- tion of the expenses of past years, and of the several laws of a late date, making permanent appropriations, would bring the mind of each Senator to the same conclusion to which his had been brought by the investigations to which he had referred. " Having thus settled, as far as that could be done by analogy and experience, the amount required for the ordinary expenses of the government, Mr. W. said it now became his duty to com- pare that amount with the revenue from customs, to enable the Senate to form a judgment upon the soundness or unsoundness of the proposition he had laid down. This he had done in the same manner in which he had examined and presented the expend- itures, and for the same years, and he would give to the Senate, in as concise a form as possible, the results presented by the documents. To make the comparison more simple and perfect, and to give it less of the dry detail of figures, he had in this comparison, as in the statement of the expenses, grouped periods of four years for the first sixteen years of the examination, and would present separately each of the three last years. In this way the two statements might be compared with each other with convenience, and without possession of the mass of calculations which led to the results. The comparison follows : YEARS. Average gross expenditures. Average reve- nue from cus- toms. Deficit of cus- toms to meet expenses. Excess of cus- toms over ex- penditures. 1 For the years Millious. Millions. Millions. Millious. 1817 tolS20 30 4-5 21 23 i)-10 28>^ 24X 24>^ 17% 19% 16 8-10 21.V 24 !i 29 lliM 19>^ 10% 43€ 2% 4X '8% 4% l;^ 1821 to 1824 1825 to 1828 182!) to 1832 1833 1834 1835 " The foregoing comparison, Mr. W. said, afforded the ground for several most useful inferences in relation to the former policy and practices of this government. Some of those inferences he must bring to the notice of the Senate and the country, as he thought they would be useful in all time to come. 4J4 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " The first which he would draw was that, in the nineteen years last preceding the present, the revenue ivoin customs had exceeded the expenses of the government in but two years, and those two Avere years when peculiar circumstances, occasioned either by our own legislation, or by the condition of our foreign relations, most satisfactorily accounted for the excesses of reve- nue from this source. The first was the year 1833, when the greatest excess appeared. The high tariff of 1828 ceased its operation on the third of March in that year, but the long credits allowed under that act necessaril}^ extended the collections of the customs, which accrued under it, over the whole of that year. In the meantime, the tariff act of 1833, known as the compromise act, was passed, and commenced its operation on the same day on which the act of 1828 ceased to operate. This compromise act introduced the system of short credits and cash duties, now a part of our commercial policy. From this state of facts every one must see that, during the last three-quarters of the year 1833, double collections of the revenue from customs must be con- stantly making; first, the revenue upon the importations of 1832 and the first quarter of 1833, thrown into the three last quarters of 1833 by the long credits allowed under the tariff act of 1828; and secondly, tlie revenue upon the importations of 1833, so far as the cash duties and short credits prescribed by the compromise act made the duties upon those importations payable within that year. Hence it was that the revenue from customs in that single year exceeded $29,000,000, and that without anything unusual or extraordinary to affect the course of trade, or give to the importation of dutiable goods an unnatural increase. "Mr. W. said it ought further to be remarked that the great excess of the revenue from customs over the gross expenditures of this year, notwithstanding the causes he had mentioned which conspired so vastly to increase the collections of revenue from this source, was to be accounted for in the fact that the payments toward the public debt, during the year 1833, were very trifling in amount, and far less than in any one of the sixteen years which had preceded it. Tlie excess, therefore, was a result not only necessary, but natural. Great accumulation from peculiar causes on the one side, and an almost entire failure to make pay- Lim AND Times of Silas Wright. 415 mentsupou om- (lel)t, from causes equally peculiar, but to which he would not allude, ou the other, could not fail to produce au apparent excess of revenue. If, however, gentlemen would take the trouble to compare the receipts and payments, and the revenue from customs of this with the next succeeding year, they would require no further explanation of the excess from customs in 1833. The accounts of 1834 will show that heavy payments were made during that year upon the national debt; indeed, that the balance of that debt, with exceptions wholly unimportant, was entirely paid off and discharged; and that the revenue from customs fell down to less than 116,250,000, and left a deficiency in the revenue from this source, to meet the expenses of the year, of more than $8,250,000, "The next year, and the oidy other one which presents an excess of the revenue from customs over the expenditures, is 1835. In reference to the small excess of this year of $1,500,000, two considerations only need be suggested. The first is, that the peculiar state of our relations with France during the last year, and especially during the last quarter of that year, gave just alarm to the commercial men of the country that disturbances might grow out of those relations, and that interruptions might be experienced in our commercial relations, growing out of those dis- turbances. Hence they were induced, toward the close of that year, to increase their importations to an almost unexampled extent. This single consideration is believed to have swelled the amount of revenue from customs during the last year much beyond the whole amount of the excess which appears. The second consideration referred to is, that the ordinary appropria- tion bill for the fortifications of the country failed to pass the two Houses of Congress during our last session, and, therefore, the expenses of 1835 were diminished by the usual amount of appi-opriations for those objects. Had that bill passed in the shape insisted upon by the House of Representatives, all know that the expenses of the year would have been increased much beyond the excess of the revenue from customs; and Mr. W. said he believed, had the bill passed as agreed to by the Senate, that excess would have been more than consumed by the expendi- tures it would have authorized. 416 Life and Times of Silas Wright. "After these considerations, he could not believe that the excesses in the revenue from customs over the expenditures, for the years 1833 and 1835, would be relied uj^on anywhere, or by any one, as evidence that the revenues from that source were more than equal to our current expenses. " The next inference he would draw from this comparison between the revenue from customs and the expenses of the ffOA'ernment was, that Congress had not, as has been often and broadly alleged, imposed duties without regard to revenue, or to the wants and liabilities of the government. A very few sug- gestions, he thought, would make this position clear and indis- putable. "From the existence of the government until the year 1835 we had been in debt, and any amount of revenue, come from what source it luiglit, after paying the ordinary appropriations, would be absorbed in payments upon that debt. Hence duties had been imposed beyond the calls growing out of the ordinary oxjienses of the government, and the surplus of revenue had been applied to the debt of the nation. As peculiar interests had, at certain periods, favored an increase of duties upon imports, the rates of duty may have gone, and at one period unquestionably did go, to an excessive height; but the revenues consequent upon this mistaken policy diminished the more rapidly the common debt, and thus hastened the time when high duties could find no favor, or even apology, with the people or with Congress. " Mark the sequel. Tlie national debt was diminished with a rapidity theretofore unprecedented, during the years 1829, 1830 and 1831, and it became apparent, not only to every statesman, but to the whole country, that the period of its final extinction was near at hand. What was the course of the national Legisla- ture? Immediately to revise and reduce the tariff. The very protracted session of Congress of 1831-1832 is not more fresh in the recollection of all than is the fact that a readjustment of the rates of duty upon imports, and a consequent reduction of the revenue from customs, was the principal, if not the sole cause of the unusual length of that session. The result was the passage of the tariff act of 1832, to take effect on the 4th of March, 1833. Such, however, was the feeling of the country, that further legis- Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 417 lation, in the session of 1832-1833, was demanded of Congress, and the compromise act arrested and qualified the act of 1832, and provided for further and graduated reductions, under the distinct understanding that, upon the final payment of the national debt, the public revenues were to be reduced to the economical wants of the government. The reduction was made as rajndly as it was supposed the important interests connected with the subject would permit, while all expected that no very- considerable accumulation in the treasury would be experienced under the operation of the law of 1833. It will hereafter be shown that these anticipations were entirely reasonable, and that their disappointment has proceeded from the unprecedented sales of the public lands within the few last years, and mostly within the last and the present year, and from no other cause of suflS.- cient importance to deserve a notice in this view of the subject. These facts he held to be sufticient to show that the legislation of Congress, in regard to the revenue from customs, had been with peculiar reference to the wants of the public treasury, and had been intended to be measured by those wants. " The remaining inference from the comparison referred to is, that the revenue from customs is not, as at present regulated, more than sufficient to meet the ordinary expenses of the govern- ment, and is not sufficient, unaided by the revenues from the public lands, to authorize any extraordinary appropriations for public defenses of any description, naval or military. "The revenue from customs for the year 1834 has been shown to have been sixteen and a quarter millions, and that for 1835, ninteen and three-eighths millions, while the average expendi- tures of the government for the same two years, separate from any payments upon the national debt, are proved to have been more than $18,000,000; and it is worthy of repetition that in the expenditures of 1 835 is not included anything for the fortifica- tions of the country, as the fortification bill of that year was lost between the two houses of Congress. " It has further been attempted to be shown that the average annual expenditures of the government, separate from any extra- ordinary appropriations for the public defense, cannot for the future be estimated at a less sum than $17,000,000. Compare, 27 418 Life and Times of Silas Wright. then, the revenue from customs for the years 1834 and 1835, when the compromise bill fully regulated that revenue, with this esti- mate of expenditure, and see the result. The average of the revenue from that source for the two years is seventeen and four- lifth millions, while it is shown that that revenue for 1835, was increased by the apprehensions of a French war, from one to three millions. This will reduce the average of the two years, placing them upon the basis of ordinary and uninterrupted com- mercial intercourse, below the estimate for the ordinary expenses of the government. " Connect Avith this view another important consideration growing out of the compromise act, which is, that at the com- mencement of the present year, a reduction in the rates of duty of ten per cent upon the existing rates, took effect; which, by the lowest estimates, will reduce the revenue from customs a full million. Take, then, the year of excessive importations of 1835 as the rule, and the revenue from customs will exceed the amount estimated as required for the ordinary expenses of the govern- ment by a sum too small to be made the dependence for any extraordinary appropriations. This inference, then, is fully sus- tained; and the revenue from customs at the present time is shown to be no more than equal to the ordinary expenses of the government. " But the Inll under consideration is perspective, and reaches forward in its action to the close of the year IS-tl. During this period, its construction, as given by its friends, charges the whole expenses of the land system upon the treasury. It becomes important, therefore, to inquire what those expenses are, and probably may be. The mere expenses of the present system of sales will be omitted, and those of a more material character examined. What, then, are those expenses annually ? The amount of money proposed to be appropriated by the bill mak- ing the regular annual Indian appropriations for the pi-esent year, is $573,000, and the appropriations provided for in it, as will be seen by an examination of the bill, are in their character perma- nent, for a longer period than the prospective operation of this bill. The principal items are the payment of annuities, the sup- port of farmers and mechanics, and other provisions stipulated Life and Times of Silas Wright, 419 by existing treaties to be made for the various Indian tribes. Nothing is included in this appropriation bill for the expenses of additional Indian treaties, for the removal of Indians, or for any- other new expenditure under the head of the Indian department. " The expenses, therefore, of the purchase-money to be paid to the Indians for lauds, of the annuities stipulated by future treaties, of the making of such treaties, of the removal of the Indians from the lauds purcliased under them, and of all other things incident to our Indian affairs, and to the perfection of title and possession to the lands in the government, remain to be provided for from revenues other than those derived from the lands on account of which the expenses are incurred. Our pre- sent policy is to expedite, to the utmost extent of our power, the extinction of the Indian title to all the lands east of the Missis- sippi, and the removal of the Indians west of that river. In pursuance of that policy, we are constantly making new pur- chases and new treaties, and the expenses of holding Indian treaties, and for the purchase-money of new lands, are constantly and rapidly increasing. The expenses of the removal of the Indians from the lands, and of their subsistence west of the Mis- sissippi, are necessarily increasing in the same ratio, and if these accumulated expenses are to be cast upon the treasury, while the revenues from the sales of lands are to be subtracted from it, the consideration becomes one of serious import, whether the reve- nue from the customs, the only source of revenue remaining, when that from the lands shall be taken away, will sustain the treasury against these accumulated calls, and how far this source of revenue will bear the reduction provided for by the compro- mise act, and still supply the treasury. " It will not be forgotten that a reduction of ten per cent in the revenue from customs took effect, by the provisions of that act, on the first day of the present year; that a further similar reduction is to take place on the first day of January, 1838; that a still further reduction of ten per cent is to take place on the first day of January, in the year 1840; and that at the close of the year 1841, every rate of duty then above twenty per cent ad valorem is to be reduced to that rate, without regard to the amount of reduction. Mr. W. said he believed it was conceded 420 Life and Times of Silas Wright. on all hands that this last reduction alone would diminish the revenue from customs full 15,000,000 beyond the intermediate and graduated reduction periodically provided for in the bill. "Mr.W. said he was aware he should be answered that, after the year 1841, the revenue from the lands was, by the pro- visions of the bill under discussion, to be restored to the treasury. This answer was specious and plausible; but was it efficient and solid ? Look at the comparison which had been made between the revenue from customs and the expenses of the government, as both were shown to exist at the present time. The difference in favor of the revenue, if anything, was too trifling to be made matter of account, while nothing was allowed for extraordinary appropriations for the defense of the country. Allow, then, for the reduction of ten per cent in that revenue for the present and the next year, and it will not meet tlie ordinary expenses at their present rates. Carry on the calculation until you reach two fui'ther similar reductions, and where is the treasury to look for the means to answer the ordinary calls upon it ? From whence are to be drawn the moneys to extend and complete our navy, to fortify our commercial towns, to defend our extensive coast, to garrison our Indian frontier, to arm our militia and to perfect our other works of national defense projected and proposed by the executive departments of the government? Could he be wrong in saying that the means foi' these expenditures would be wanting, and that these valuable and most essential national objects could not be accomplished, in case this bill should become a law, and this branch of the public revenue should be diverted from the legitimate uses of the public treasury ? " To illustrate and demonstrate more clearly the soundness of this position, Mr. W. said he would review, in the most condensed manner possible, the revenue derived to the treasury from the public lands, for the series of years covered by his former examinations, in reference to the expenses of the government, and the revenues from customs. The statement had been derived from the Treasury department, and was authentic. " The following table shows the receipts of money received into the treasury, from the sales of public lauds, during the years mentioned : Life and Times of Silas W right. 421 " 1817 |1 ,991 ,326 00 1818 2,606,304 00 1819 3,274,423 00 1830 1,635,871 00 1831 1 ,313,966 00 1823 1 , 803 , 581 00 1833 916,533 00 1834 984,418 00 1835 1 ,316,090 00 1836 1,393,785 00 1837 1,495,845 00 1838 1 , 018 , 308 00 1839 1 ,517 , 175 00 1830 3 , 339 , 356 00 1831 3 ,310 , 815 00 1833 3,633,381 00 1833 . 3,067,683 00 1834 4,887,600 00 1835 14 , 757 , 600 00 " A sliirlit examination of this statement will show the fluctua- tions in the sales of the public lands. The period embraced by tbe statement cotnraences as the country was emerging from the embarrassments and derangements in its pecuniary affairs, grow- ing out of the then late war with Great Britain. In 1817, the receipts into the treasury were a trifle short of $2,000,000; in 1818, more than $2,500,000; and in 1819, more than $3,000,000. From tliis time to the year 1829, a term of ten years, the receipts from this source did not, in any one year, exceed, by any con- siderable amount, $1,500,000, and in two of the years fell short of $1,000,000. In the year 1830 they rose to $2,250,000 ; in 1831 to about $3,250,000, and in 1832 fell back to about $2,500,000. With the year 1833 commenced the great increase of sales which have caused the principal accumulation of money in the treasury at this moment. During that year the receipts into the treasury from the sales of lands were $3,875,000, in 1834 $4,800,000, and in 1835 $14,750,000, almost $10,000,000 beyond the receipts of any former year ; a net increase, in a single year, more than twice as large as the whole receipts of the most extravagant year which had preceded it. " Who, Mr. W. said he must ask, could expect a continuance 422 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of sales at this rate for any length of time ? Who were the purchasers who Iiad paid these immense amounts for the public domain in a single year? Settlers, actual settlers? No, sir; speculators ; men who have purchased to sell to settlers ; men who, before the present year shall close, will come into the mar- ket in competition with this government, and take from it its customers. What lands, Mr. President, do these men purchase ? Your very best and choicest lands. They j)urchase for specula- tion, and every consideration of inducement to the settler is fully regarded in their purchases — location, advantages of navigation, of water-power and of timber, are no less carefully secured than first qualities of soil. The government sells lands for cash in advance only, and these purchasers will sell upon credit. How long will it be, with these advantages, before they will draw the emigration from the land offices of the government to theirs, and take the market from us ? Once taken away, it is impossible that we can recover it until these lands, purchased upon specula- tion, are fully settled, as we cannot hope to induce settlers to purchase inferior lands and pay the money in advance, while superior lands are offered to them upon credit. What, then, are we to expect from our revenue from the public lands, as soon as the present fever for speculation in them shall subside ? Can we hope that those revenues, postponed until the year ]841, will compensate for the then reduced rates of the revenues from cus- toms, and thus afford to the public treasury the means to meet the ordinary and extraordinary calls upon it ? Mr. W. said, it seemed to him most clear, that if the revenues from the jjublic lands were diverted from the treasury for the period proposed by tlie bill, and the revenues from customs were reduced, as by the operation of the existing laws they must be reduced, both sources together would not, after the expiration of the year 1841, be equal to the Avants of the public treasury. " That our country was rapidly increasing in population and extent, and consequently and proportionably in its ordinary expenditures, must be apparent to all; and that, with a fixed tariff, the revenue from customs might be expected to increase with the increase of expenses, would be equally apparent ; but, wlien our i-ates of duty upon imports were diminishing at a rate Life and Times of Silas Weight. 423 per cent greater than the increase of our population and business, the dependence for means to supply the treasury upon that source of revenue must be destroyed, unless the revenues from it could now be shown very far to exceed the present wants of that trea- sury. This had not only not been shown, but he trusted the comparisons he had made between the revenues from customs and the expenses of the government, for the last nineteen years, and more especially for the last two years, had clearly shown the reverse, and had proved to the satisfaction of the Senate that the present revenues from the customs were no more than equal to the ordinary expenses of the government, without any extra- ordinary appropriations for any purposes whatsoever. Mr. W. said he felt bound to notice, in this place, that the revenues from the lands were, in this sense, a much more calculable dependence for the treasury than those from the customs. The receipts and expenditures from the former, the value of the lands being fixed by law, might be safely assumed to be regulated and gradu- ated by the increase of population and business of the country, while the rates of duty which were to graduate the latter were periodically undergoing so rapid a reduction, and the free articles were increasing so vastly upon the dutiable articles in our im[)or- tations, that very little certainty could be anticipated in calcula- tions of the amount of revenue to be derived from the latter source. He would give the Senate the amount of free articles imported for the last four years, to show the immense changes which the present revenue laws had produced in our trade in reference to the revenues from customs: " In the year 1832, tlie importation of articles free of duty amounted to $14,249 , 453 " In tlie year 1833, the importation of articles free of duty amounted to 32,447,950 " 111 tlie year 1834, the importation of articles free of duty amoimled to 68,393,180 " In the year 1835, tlie importation of articles free of duty amounted to 77,443,236 " From this comparison it is seen that this description of importations has almost dotibled, in each successive year, since the passage of the tariff act of 1832; and that, during the two 424 Life and Times of Silas Wright. last years, the value of the importations free of duty has been more than four times the vahie of the same articles imported in the two preceding years, and has come to exceed the whole value of dutiable importations. "Take away, then, from the public treasury, the revenues received into it from the public lands, and, Mr. W. asked, who could tell how soon it would want means to meet the demands upon it? He called upon gentlemen, and especially upon the parties to the compromise act, to give their careful attention to this part of the argument. If revenue should be wanted, did those gentlemen doubt what course would be taken by Congress to raise it? Did they doubt that resort would be instantly made to an increase of the rates of duty upon imports? Was any one wild enough to suppose that a dii-ect tax would be resorted to to supply the deficiency in the revenues, or that loans would be made upon the credit of the government, and a new national debt be created for this purpose ? He was sure no one who heard him could anticipate either of the last-mentioned modes of supplying the treasury ; and an increase of the indirect taxation, by an increase of the customs, was the only remaining measure within the power of Congress. He must further caution gentle- men to remember that this was a mode of raising revenue not likely to be unjjopular with a very large section, if not an entire majority, of the Union. He made this reference to peculiar local interests, not with pleasure, but with deep reluctance, and he could not be induced to do it from any other than a most lively conviction that the measure before the Senate was eminently cal- culated again, and that speedily, to revive agitations which had so recently shaken the country to an extent unknown to its former history, and had more strongly threatened the integrity and perpetuity of the Union than any other questions Avhich had ever before occupied the attention of Congress. He must, there- fore, again assure the friends of this bill that its passage, and the subtraction of this portion of the public reveimes from the national treasury, would bring that treasury to want; and that, in that event, its wants would be supplied by an increase of the duties upon imports, an increased tariff. " To give greater force to this part of the argument he would Life and Times of Silas Weight. 425 take another view of the probable revenue from customs in the year 1842, after the reductions provided for in the compromise act shall have been fully made. The importations of goods pay- ing duties for the last four years have been as follows: " In the year 1832, the value of dutiable goods imported was 168,000,000 " In the year 1833, the value of dutiable goods imported was 63,000,000 " In the year 1834, the value of dutiable goods imported was 47,000,000 " In the year 1835, the value of dutiable goods imported was __6M00,0()0 "These importations form an average of about $61,000,000 per annum. Suppose the increase of population and business by the year 1842 increases the amount of importations to 170,000,000 of goods paying duties; all duties are then to be reduced to the standard of twenty per cent ad valorem, or under. This rate of duty upon $70,000,000 would be $14,000,000 of revenue, in case all duties were at the maximum rate of twenty per cent; but it must be borne in mind that the duty upon a large class of articles is now only twelve and a half and fifteen per cent; and that, from that cause, the revenue to be derived from $70,000,000 in value of dutiable importations in 1842, if the present laws continue in operation, cannot be estimated at more than about $12,000,000. Compare this amount with the sum demanded for the ordinary expenses of the government, and who will believe that the revenue from customs, at the period in contemplation, even with the then reduced revenue from the public lands added to it, will be equal to those expenses? Who does not see, if the present surplus in the treasury be given away to the States, and the revenue from the lands be taken from the treasury for six years to come, that the tariff must be raised, if not before the year 1842, at least as soon as the vast reduction of the present tariff, required to be made at the close of 1841, by the provisions of the compromise act, shall take effect? If figures and experi- ence can be relied upon, such a result must follow the passage of this bill. [Mr. Weight here gave way for a motion to adjourn.] 426 Life axd Times of Silas Wright. "Thuesdat, April 2\, 1836. " Mr. Wright said, when addressing the Senate yesterday, he had attempted to establish the propositions — "1. That the whole amount of 'net proceeds ' of the public lands in the treasury on the ?fith of September, 1835, could not, bv the most extended and liberal calculation, equal 84,000,000, and was more truly but a trifle over §350,000; while the opera- tion of this bill would be to disti-ibute as ' net proceeds ' of the public lands almost §18,000,000 of the money in the treasury on that day ; thus, in fact, distributing from $14,000,000 to $17,000,000 of money not derived from lands, but from other sources of revenue. " 2. That the revenue from customs, as ascertained from a comparison between that revenue and the expenses of the govern- ment for the last nineteen years, and from an examination of the present revenue laws and their influence upon the revenue to be collected under them, will only be equal to the ordinary expenses of the government and cannot bear any extraordinary appropriations for any branch of the public defenses. " 3. That this branch of the public revenue (the only source of revenue remaining to the treasury, if that from the lands shall be taken from it) vrill fall far short of meetins: the ordiuarv expenses of the government, before the close of the year 1841, at which time the revenues from the public lands are again to be restoi-ed to the public treasury, because it is only equal now to those expenses, and, by the existing laws, is to undergo a reduc- tion at about the rate of five per cent per annum until 1840, and, at the close of the year 1841, an arbitrary reduction to twenty per cent ad valorem of all duties above that rate. " 4. That the restoration of the revenue from the public lands at that period will be wholly inadequate to supply the treasury, because the revenue from customs will be reduced to some $12,000,000, or at most $14,000,000, while the ordinary expenses will be about $17,000,000; and because, from the sales of all the valuable lands, the revenues from that source will be greatly diminished, if not reduced to the simple expenses incurred on account of the lands. " Mr. W. said, before proceeding with his argument further, he Life and Times of Silas Wright. 427 •woulr] notice two positions of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr Southard], which had been presented by him in a new shape, as justifying- two imj^ortant provisions of this bill. " The first to which he alluded was the grant of 500,000 acres of land to certain of the new States, the avails of which wei'e to be expended in projects of internal improvements; and the reason for the grant was said to be that those States had exempted the public lands from taxation. This argument, Mr. W. said, he had always supposed was fully answered by the articles of com- pact which had accompanied the admission of those States into the Union. The five per cent granted to the new States, out of the proceeds of the sales of lands within them respectively, he had always understood was the equivalent for this exemption of the public domain from State taxation, and that it had been so accepted by those States in the compacts referred to. If he was correct in this understanding, he could not see why this further o-rant of half a million of acres of land to each was to be made upon that consideration. But the Senator further urged that this grant was to be justified upon the principle that the improve- ments to be made by the State from the avails of the land would cidiance the value of the remaining lands, owned by the govern- ment in each State, to an extent equal to the value of the 500,000 acres granted to make the improvements. This argu- ment can avail little, unless the present minimum price of the pub- lic lands is to be raised. All the lands, after having been once offered at public sale, are subject to be taken by any purchaser at the price established by law of one dollar and a quarter per acre, and at that price they now sell with too great rapidity. Surely, then, it cannot be wise in Congress to make these immense grants with a view to enhance the value of the remain- ino- lands, if it be designed to continue the sales at the present established price, because, however much the value of the lands may be increased by the operation, that value to the government is not changed. The money to be paid for the lands will be the same without as with the improvements. Is it intended to raise the minimum price of the public lands ? He supposed not. He had heard no friend of the bill avow such an intention, and he felt confident he sliould not hear any such purpose avowed; 428 Life and Times of Silas Wright. though he must say that many of the arguments in favor of the bill, as well as the one he was now considering, seemed to him to bear strongly in that direction. " The second consideration to which he referred was the Senator's defense of that provision of the bill which gives to each of the new States ten per cent of the proceeds of the sales within them respectively, over and above their full shares of the balance, according to the rate of distribution adopted by the bill, as applicable to all the States. This was justified upon the ground of the rapid increase of population in these States since the last census, upon which the general distribution was to be made. It was not his object, Mr. W. said, to attempt to show that this provision would give too much to the new States, but that the rule assumed was arbitrary and unequal. He knew that some of the new States were increasing in population with won- derful rapidity, and he also supposed that some of the old States might not have any greater, and perhaps not as great a popula- tion now as in 1830. These would form the extremes, while other States, both old and new, were increasing at a rate which would form the mean between them. It could not, then, be equal or just to take from all the old States equally, or to give to all the new equally, on account of the increase or diminution of population since the last census, as all must see that the same ratio of increase or diminution will not be applicable to any two States, new or old. If a standard of distribution, different from that of the census of 1830, is to be taken, that standard ought to have reference to the actual population of all the States. It was a fact, unquestionable in his ojDinion, that some of the States, denominated old States by the classification made in the bill, had added more to their federal numbers within the five years past than many of the new States, and yet ten per cent of the fund to be divided, and which is now the common property of all the States in precise proportion to their federal numbers, is to be taken from the former and given to the latter before a o-eueral distribution is made. It was not material to his purpose to attempt to show what States would lose or what ones would gain by this unequal and partial provision. It was enough to have shown that its application must and will be unequal, partial and Life and Times of Silas Wuight. 429 unjust, to establish the position tliat it cannot be a constitutional rule for the distribution of a common fund, " Mr. W. said he would notice here what he considered the most extravagant anticipations of the honorable Senator [^Ii-. Southard] as to the probable avails to the public treasury from the public domain. He found he had misunderstood the Sena- tor, and had supposed him even more extravagant in his antici- pations than he really was; but he had been corrected, and still was compelled to think that the sum, in fact, assumed, gave much stronger evidence of a free indulgence of a lively imagi- nation than of a familiarity with the facts upon which any con- clusion should be founded. To test the correctness of his impressions he had resorted to facts, and proposed to lay them before the Senate almost without comment. The Senator had told us that the public lands were to bring into the national treasury 11,250,000,000. How much of this is imagination, and how much reality ? The sales of the public lands, as a system, commenced in the year 1796. Up to the 30th day of September, 1835, thirty-nine years and three-quarters, the whole sum paid into the treasury from the sales of the public lands is $58,500,000. What has been sold to produce this sum, and what calculations as to the product of future sales, can be safely made from our past experience. " There has been paid into the treasury, as the avails of sales of the public lands in the State of Ohio, from the com- mencement of the land system to the thirtieth of Sep- tember last $10, 780, 177 " There remain to be sold in that Slate, subject to private entry, and not entered on the thirtieth September hist, 4,310,366 acres, which, estimated at the minimum price, are worth 5,387,958 " Making an aggregate value for the public lands in Ohio, of $22,168,135 " This estimate must be sufficiently accurate for so general a calculation, inasmuch as the fact that lands in that populous State remaining subject to be taken at the minimum price of the government, and not taken, must go far to prove that their value in the market does not materially exceed that price. 430 Life and Times ob Silas Weight. " Mr. W. said lie would then make the State of Ohio, known to be one of the largest and most valuable in jjoint of soil of the new States, the basis of a calculation of value for a portion of the public domain. " The value of Ohio, as has been seen above, is $33,168,135 " Assume that Indiana, Iliinois, Missouri, Louisiana, Mis- sissippi, Alabama, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arl^ansas and Florida are each to bring into the treasury, from the sales of the public lands, as much as is to be real- ized fi-om those sales in the State of Ohio, and this Avill produce an aggregate of 331 , 681 , 350 " And will present a total value for these seven new States and four large Territories, of |343,849,485 " Deduct, then, the amount 5 already received, as follows: "From sales in Ohio $16,780,177 " From sales in Indiana 9,510,481 " From sales in Illinois 5,355,611 " From sales in Missouri 3,886,334 " From sales in Louisiana 99!J,087 " From sales in Mississippi 6,837,770 ' ' From sales in Alabama 10 , 097 , 347 " From sales in Michigan, including Wis- consin 3,959,896 " From sales in Arkansas 636,643 " From sales in Florida 556,383 58,619,518 " And there will remain to come into the public treasury, from the entire sales of these seven States and four Territories, the sum of 185,389,967 " The estimate of the Senator is $1 ,350,000,000 " Take from it what remains to be received from the sales j'et to be made in the country mentioned 185,339,967 *' And there will remain a balance for the Senator to realize, from sources, Mr. W. said, to him unknown, of . . $1 , 064 , 770 , 033 " So far, facts miglit furnish us with some guides in reference to these swollen anticipations; and, Mr. W. said, he was sure that no one, not even the most sanguine and enthusiastic, would doul)t that the calculation he had made was much more favor- able to the treasury than future experience would realize. He Life and Times of Silas Wright. 431 did not himself believe that any single State or Territory he had named would bring into the treasury from the sales of lands an amount equal to the State of Ohio; but, however that might prove' all must know that no such amounts are to be expected from Louisiana or Florida, nor can any such amount be expected from the entire sales in Michigan. The estimate must be many millions beyond what can be reasonably anticipated; and yet that estimate, tor the eleven large divisions of country, seven of Avhich are now States, and the remaining four rapidly approaching that condition of political existence, falls short of one-fifth of the amount anticipated by the Senator to be brought into the treasury from the avails of the public domain. That he must have included in his flattering estimate the whole country guaranteed by this government to the Indian tribes west, and now daily moving west of the Mississippi, is most palpable; but that any reasonable esti- mate of that country, and of all the acres of the Kocky Moun- tains in addition, must have failed to produce his sum total, Mr. W. said, seemed to his mind equally palpable. "He would now proceed Avith his argument as originally intended, and would examine the surplus in the treasury, with the view of showing that the estimates of the friends of this bill in regard to it were about as extravagant as those of the honor- able Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Southard] in reference to the proceeds of the public lands. The calls upon the Treasury department for the balance of moneys in the treasury had been frequent, and he thought he might say, at least, monthly, since the commencement of the present session of Congress. The last had been received at too late a perio4. To improve the harbor at St. Louis, Missouri. 174. To continue the Cumberland road from Vandalia to the Mississippi river. 175. To continue the Cumberland road from the Mississippi river to Jeffer- son City. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 433 Bill No. 192. To erect a mariue hospital at Wilmington, Delaware. 301. To purchase sites and commence new fortirications. 203. For the navy-yard at Charleston, S. C. 215. Expenses of tlie Indian war in Florida, second bill. 216. Civil and diplomatic expenses for 183(5. 217. Outfit to Charge d'Affaires at Prussia. 225. Prize-money to the captors of tlie frigate Philadelphia. 234. Compensation to Commodore Barron for use of patent. 254. Erection of new treasury building. 259. Annual appropriations for the military academy. 268. Salary of the judge of the Orphans' Court, Washington. 272. Arrears of pay to Gen. Macomb. 273. Compensation for Indian depredations. 279. To pay tlie Connecticut militia in service during the late war. 307. Appropriations for harbors already commenced. 321. Compensation to the heirs of Marshtd Rochambeau. 323. For making and improving roads. 335. For repairing and improving the public buildings and grounds in Washington. 332. For the care and preservation of the Potomac bridge. 348. To refund certain duties on a Belgian vessel. 352. To make good the depreciations to the Rhode Island brigade of liie Revolutionary army. 363. For the erection of light-houses, light-boats, beacons and buoys, and for the survey of certain rivers and liarbors. 374. To construct an arsenal in the State of j*^ortli Carolina. 370. For the purchase of Bell's patent for elevating and pointing cannon. 375. For the erection of an armory on the western waters. 377. For tl.e purchase of Hall's patent for rifles. 406. For the better protection of the western frontier. 415. To remove a bar at the mouth of the Mississippi river. 418. To remove a bar at the entrance of Pensacola bay, and for coustiaict- ing a liydraulic dock or inclined plane at that place. 437. Further appropriation for the Indian war in Florida, third bill. 431. To construct a road from Milwaukie to the Mississippi river. 432. To improve the mail road from Louisville to St. Louis. 446. To erect a marine hospital at New Orleans. 454. To provide for additional clerks in the departments. 457. For the better defense of the Arkansas frontier. 483. To construct a road from Helena to Jackson, in Arkansas. 485. To improve the navigation of certain rivers. 492. To try experiments as to Brown's fire-ship. 518. To erect a marine hospital at Newport, Rhode Island. 28 434 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Bill No. 528. To commence the improvement of harbors for which no appropriations have been heretofore made. 538. For repairs lo the wharves and the erection of a new public store at Stateu Island, New York. Bills on the Files of the Senate. 13. To improve the navigation of the Wabasli river. 32. To increase the pay of the clerks in the Navy department. 54. To open roads in Arkansas. 63. To complete the road from Lime creek to the Chattahoochee. 81. For the support of the penitentiary at Washington. 82. To construct roads in Florida. 98. To purchase Boyd Reilly's patent for vapor bath. 112. For the relief of the cities of Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown. 131. Pay of Missouri militia in the Black Hawk war. 135. To pay the passage of Gen. Lafayette from France. 142. To erect a depot of arms on the western frontier of Missouri. 146. To complete improvements already commenced upon certain roads and rivers in Florida. 311. To construct certain roads in Arkansas. " Mr. W. said the House bills above enumerated were fifty-six, and pro- posed to appropriate the gross sum of $33,312,854 •' The number of Senate bills brought into the statement was thirteen, which proposed to appropriate the gross sum of 3,456,785 " Since this statement had been prepared, the general navy appropriation bill, sent from the House, had been reported to the Senate by the Committee on Naval Affairs of this body, with recommendations of amendments, adding to the amount originally proposed by the committee of the House, to be appropriated by the bill, the sum of 1 ,845,407 " Thus showing an aggregate of appropriations of a public character, recommended by the proj^er standing commit- tees of the two Houses of Congress, and, if made, to be taken from the moneys in the treasury, of. . . ... $37,515,416 " Mr. W. said he must so far explain these statements as to say that the file of the bills of the House was first examined, and the list of hills of a public character prepared ; that, upon the subsequent examintiou of the Senate file, a very large number of similar bills for the same objects, and of the same purport and Life and Times of Silas Wright. 435 amouut, were found upon that file ; that all such duplicate bills had been rejected from the statement, which accounted for the very small number of bills embraced as Senate bills, and the very- small comparative amount of appropriations recommended by the committee of the Senate. Had the bills upon that file been first examined, and the duplicates upon the House file been rejected, the apparent recommendations, with the exception of the ordinary annual appropriation bills, which always originate in the House, would have been substantially reversed. It had required much care to avoid embracing the same appropriation twice, in consequence of the duplicate repoi'ts in the respective Houses ; but as the examination had been made by himself personally, he spoke with great confidence when he said that no instance would be found in which this had been done, although a similarity of titles in one or two cases might lead to that sus- picion. " Let us then, said Mr. W., state the account with the treasury, and see what surplus we liave which is not called for by the wants of the fed- eral government. He had, he said, assumed the amount of money in the treasury to be $33,000,000 " Deduct the appropriations before mentioned, some of which had, in fact, been made, and all of which had been dis- tinctly recommended by the proper standing committees of one or both Houses of Congress 27,515,046 " And there will remain in the treasury an apparent sur- plus of 14,484,954 " This would be the state of the treasury upon tlie suj^position that the appropriations proposed by the bills which had been enumerated, and no other, should be made during the present session of Congress. " Mr. W. said he did not intend to be understood as expressing the opinion that all the bills he had enumerated would pass, and much less that no appropriations other than those contained in those bills would be made. The above was the result upon that supposition ; but while he did not expect that result would be exactly realized in that way, there were strong grounds for believing that a result not more favorable to the treasury, and to a surplus for distribution, ought to be produced, and would 436 Life and Times of Silas Wright. be produced by the action of Congress during its present session. The grounds for this belief it would be his next duty to give to the Senate. The whole number of bills upon the House file when he made the examination was 554, of which the statement he had made embraced but fifty-six, leaving 498 of those bills not embraced in the estimate of appropriations. The whole number of bills upon the Senate file at the same time was 221, of which but thirteen were named, leaving 208 of those bills out of the estimate. Every member of the Senate would well know, what every other person who would take the trouble to examine the bills before the two Houses of Congress at any session might see, that more than ninety in one hundred of all those bills pro- pose an appropriation of money to a greater or less extent. Here, then, were 775 bills, sixty-nine of which recommended the appropriation of more than $27,500,000, and the appropriations covered by the remaining 706 were not estimated at all, but were known to be, at least nine-tenths of them, bills proposing to appropriate money, and in amounts varying from the very smallest sums to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of thein, Mr. W. said, were entirely public in their character, but did not specify the sums they proposed to appropriate. Of these he would particularly refer to the following : Bills upon the file of the House of Kepresentatives. Bill No. 104. For the increase of the engineer corps. 142. Proposes to erect custom-houses at forty different ports. 207. To put into active service all the vessels of war in ordinary and upon the stocks. 212. Proposes to extend the present pension laws to all who served for three months in the war of the Eevolution, and to the widows of such deceased pensioners as were the wives of tlie pensioners at the time the service was performed. 297. Provides for the payment of the Connecticut militia who were in ser- vice durmg the late war, with interest upon their respective claims from the time of the service. 385. Directs tlie survey of certain roads, rivers, etc. 427. Extends to the widows and orphans of militia killed in service, dying in service or on their return home, or from wounds received wliile in service, the half-pay for live years allowed by the existing laws to regulars serving in the infantry. Life and Times of Sjlas Wright. 437 Bill No, 459. To extend and repair the arsenal at Charleston, S. C. 469. Reorganizes the General Land Office, and extends the force employed in it. 474. To authorize a surveying district west of Lake Michigan. 542. To remit or refund tlie duties upon the goods burned at the late confla- gration in New York. BrOLS UPON THE FILE OF THE SENATE. 33. Arrears of pay to Commodore Hull. 37. To establish a Surveyor-General's ofHce for the State of Illinois. 52. To increase the corps of topographical engineers. 70. Payment to the heirs of General Eaton 100. To pay the Vermont militia wlio served at Plattsburgh. 113. To purchase the stock of the Louisville and Portland canal. 185. To add three regiments to the army of the United States. 220. To provide moral and religious instruction for the army. " Here, Mr. W. said, were nineteen of the V06 bills not included in the estimate, because they did not name the sums which would be required to carry them into operation ; but the slightest exami- nation of the titles only will satisfy every one that these nineteen bills alone, were they to become laws, would require more money from the public treasury than the whole balance above shown to remain, after deducting the amount proposed to be specifically appropriated by the sixty-nine bills before enumerated. He was aware it might be said that these bills would not become laws, and lie did not pretend to assume that all of them would, although he believed several of them had passed the one or the other House of Congress during the present session. What he intended to say was, that they were bills of a public character, that their passage had been recommended by the appropriate committees of Congress, and that, to that extent, they were to be considered as calls which might probably be made upon the treasury, and which ought, at the least, to be considered before we come to the con- clusion that we have millions of money, which is not called for by any wants of the government, and which we must give away to get rid of it. "Mr, W. said, it Avould probably still be contended that so many of the bills to which he had referred would fail to pass and become laws, that, after a deduction of the amounts appro- 438 Life and Times of Silas Wright. priated by all which would pass, there would remain a large amount of money in the treasury unappropriated. In reply to any such suggestions, he must call to the recollection of the Senate some other facts, directly and importantly affecting the moneys in the treasury. There is a constant heavy balance of outstanding appropriations, which form a direct lien upon that money. The amount of these apj^ropriations, on the first of January last, was, according to his present recollection, not less than $7,000,000, and probably at this moment cannot be less than $5,000,000. "The three bills which have already passed, making appro- priations to defray the expenses of the Indian war in Florida, have, taken together, appropriated but $1,620,000, while it is estimated that that war, if now terminated, will cost the treasury full $5,000,000. Here, therefore, are at least $3,500,000, which will be wanted, and must be had during the current yeai", no part of which is embraced in any of the bills which have been mentioned. " After deducting all the bills iipon the files of the two Houses which have been particularly named, eighty-eight in number, there will remain 687 bills, nearly all of which propose to appro- priate- money. Mr. W. said he would not attempt to estimate the amount ; but all would admit that many of those bills were to pass, and that the amount of money which would be appro- priated by those wliich should become laws would be large. "There was another very important item of probable appro- priation which he was bound to notice in this place, but of which the rules of the Senate did not permit him, at present, to speak in so intelligible a manner as he could wish. He supposed, how- ever, he might say he referred to certain Indian treaties now before this body, two of which, if confirmed by the Senate, as he believed they ought to be, and hoped they would be, would require payments from the treasury of at least $7,000,000, The Senate would understand, from this reference, the particular subjects to which he alluded. "It seemed to be conceded by all that the great work of national defense, in all its branches, ought to command the peculiar attention of Congress during its present session. In the Life and Tibies of Stlas Weight. 439 public bills to which he had referred, very limited appropria- tions for any of these objects were proposed. In the bill pro- posing appropriations for the navy, nothing was embraced for an accelerated increase of our naval force, for the procuring of additional materials, the construction of additional ships of wai-, or tlie arming, equipping and putting into actual service those now partially completed, beyond the ordinary annual appropria- tions for those objects. One bill, proposing to appropriate about 12,500,000 for new fortifications, was the principal, if not the only extraordinary appropriation included under that head. There were not included any appropriations for the erection of new arsenals, except in one single instance, or any appropriations for arms and ordnance beyond the ordinary appropriations for those objects. "He must ask the friends of the bill to look at these facts, at the public wants developed in their exhibition, and to compare the condition of the treasury and its means, abundant as they choose to consider those means, with these public calls, and then to say how this bill is to be executed and the public wants answered. "The balance in the treasury, at the close of the first quarter of the present year, at the very higliest estimate from the proper department, was less than $33,000,000 " We have, then, seen public appropriations recommended by the committees of Congress, amounting to more than 27,500,000 ' ' Leaving a surplus at this time of less than $4,5 00,00^ "We then find nineteen public bills, which, if passed into laws, will require millions to carry them into execution; a regular amount of outstanding appropriations of from $5,000,000 to $7,000,000; the expenses of the Florida war, not yet provided for, amounting to at least $3,500,000; the large number of 687 bills upon the files of the two Houses of Congress, not included in the above estimate of those bills, and almost all of them pro- posing appropriations of money; provisions for Indian treaties, requiring, at the least, $7,000,000 ; the increased appropriations for tlie public defense, beyond the partial ones made in the bills enumerated. Take, then, the bill before the Senate, which 440 Life and Times of Silas Wright. proposes to distribute the proceeds of the public lands from the commencement of the year 1833, onward. Those proceeds, received into the treasury up to the 30th of September, 1835, have been shown to be a very trifle short of $18,000,000. It is now ascertained, by reports from the Treasury department, that the receipts into the treasury from the lands, for the last quarter of 1835 and the first quarter of the present year, will amount to full $10,000,000. Pass this bill, then, and see the effect. " The money in the treasury, on the first of the present month, was about ; $32,000,000 "The money to be distributed under this bill, up to the same date, is about 28,000,000 "Leaving on that day, in the treasury, to be applied to all the objects of appropriations which have been before examined, about $4,000,000 ' " Mr, W. said we should be told here that the revenues of the year were to be received, and would be applicable to, and suffi- cient for, these appropriations. How is the fact ? The receij^ts for the first quarter of the year are included in the above balance of moneys in the treasury on the first day of the present month. The revenue from the public lands, if this bill passes, is to be reserved for distribution, and is not applicable to any other appropriations. The means of the treasury will then be the $4,000,000 remaining in it as above shown, and the revenue from customs for the last three-quarters of the year. Suppose that revenue to equal the highest estimates of the friends of the bill, and to be $5,000,000 per quarter, or $15,000,000 for the last three-quarters of 1836, we shall then have $19,000,000 for the service of the present year for all purposes, ordinary and extra- ordinary, a sum just about equal to or exceeding by $1,000,000 only, the average ordinary expenses of the government for the last two years. With what rapidity can the public defenses be prosecuted with a fund of $1,000,000 per annum ? " Mr. W. said it would be asked, what shall be done with the large amount of money in the deposit banks, if this bill be not passed and that money distributed to the States ? For himself, he was ready to answer, he would appropriate for the wants of Life and Times of S/las Wright. 443 the government, and especially for the public defenses of every description, and in every quarter, all that can be economically and profitably expended, and the balance, whatever it may be, he would invest in securities, the payment of which, with interest, is guaranteed by some one of the States. In that way he would preserve whatever surplus revenue there may be for the present, and would not give it away until time had been allowed to com- plete the permanent defenses of the nation, and to see, from the practical operation of our present revenue laws, whether any surplus would remain after these heavy expenditures shall have been incurred. "Mr. W. said a very brief notice of two other suggestions should relieve the Senate from his very tedious remarks. "The first suggestion to which he referred was the probable effect upon the States of this Union, of dividing to them the revenues of the national treasury, from whatever source the reve- nue to be divided may have been derived. Our system is com- plex, and a full and independent preservation of all its parts is indispensable to its healthful action. The federal government is but the agent, the organ of the States — is constituted by them, and, without their concurrence, countenance and support, cannot exist. Still it is, for some purposes, superior to the governments of the States, and within its sphere, its action, if coming in colli- sion with the action of the State governments, is to prevail. How important then that it should be the constant care and interest of the respective States to keep this government most strictly within the sphere marked out and prescribed by tlie Constitution of the Union. And what will more strongly tend to change the feelings of the States, to put to sleep their watchful- ness and care and jealousy of the powers of this government, than to accustom them to depend upon its treasury, or its tax- ing power, for the means of their support, of their internal improvements, of their general education and the like? He did not intend to express distrust of the patriotism of the States ; he certainly did not feel any such distrust ; but is there not danger — great danger — in this blending of govern- ment interests between the nation and the States? Is there not danger that such a disposition of the national treasure 442 Life and Times of Silas Wright. may make taxation popular ? We must not forget that we are the representatives of the States ; that their will is, or should be, the law for our government in our seats here. May not the dis- tribution of millions from the national treasury excite expecta- tions of future bounty, which will induce the States to undertake works of internal improvement requiring years for their comple- tion, and means far beyond those now in our treasury to meet the expenditures ? May not the anticipations thus excite^l of future dividends be disappointed, and the necessity be thus pro- duced of raising additional revenues for the uses of the States, either by themselves or by us ? In such a state of things where would taxation be likely to fall? Would the Legislatures of the States impose direct taxes upon their immediate constituents, or would they, much more probably, instruct their agents and representatives here to raise, by the indirect taxation within the power of this government, the revenues the States require ? May not a condition of things of this description render taxation here popular at home, and thus convert this government into a mere power to raise revenue for the expenditure of the State govern- ments, until either the independence of the State governments is merged in their dependence upon the federal government for money, or until the unequal action of such a system shall break our bond of union, and thus destroy the power which oppresses one portion for the benefit of another portion of its common citizens, possessing a common right to its protecting care ? " May there not be danger, also, that the institutions of this government will be suffered to languish ; that the proper appro- priations for their support will be withheld ; that the army will be neglected ; the navy destroyed ; the fortifications discontinued; and even the civil and judicial departments be insufficiently sus- tained ; that the fund to be distributed may be enlarged ? " Mr. W. said he must say he felt great danger in this view of the action of this bill. His apprehension arose from no ungene- rous distrust of the patriotism of the States, but from a full and perfect knowledge that our local interests, in the different sec- tions of the Union, conflict with each other, and that no system of taxation which can or will be adopted, for purposes such as he had indicated, will act equally upon all the States. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 443 "The other suggestion, Mr. W. said, which he proposed to make, was in relation to that provision of tlie bill which declares that the distribution under it to the States shall cease, in case the country shall be involved in a foreign war. It is worthy of remark, preliminarily, that this provision excluded those wars to which we were more peculiarly and constantly exposed, — the wars with the Indians within the limits of the States and upon our borders. Whatever may be the expenses of those wars in future, the distribution provided for is to continue, and the expenses of such wars are to be cliarged upon revenues to be derived from sources other than the public lands. What would be the effect of this provision upon the States, in case just cause of war v^^ith a foreign power should arise ? Would it be the expression of an unjust suspicion of their patriotism to say that they would find in the action of this bill a direct temptation to resist any such war ? It was most apparent that war must, at all times, embarrass the commerce and business of the people of the States ; and if, in addition to these objections to a state of war, their dividends from the national treasury, rendered more necessary in time of war, were to be suspended by the occurrence of war, was it wrong to suppose that this principle of distribution, accompanied by such a condition, might induce them to resist a declaration of war, even at the hazard of the interest and the honor of the nation ? Mr. W. said he feared the action of the bill in this respect, and, if the distribution must take place, he wonld prefer that this condition should not be retained, but that the whole subject should be left open for the future action of Congress, whenever any emergency shall arise calling for a change." On the 27th of April the bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, by a vote of 25 to 21, and was sent to the House. After a spirited discussion in that body, on the 22d of June it was laid on the table by a vote of 104 ayes and 85 nays. 444 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LVIL THE BILL FOR PURCHASING SITES AND MATERIALS FOR FORTIFICATIONS. On tlie 12tli of January, 1836, Col. Richard M. Jolinson reported, from tlie Military Committee of the House, a bill making appropriations to purchase sites and mate- rials for the construction of fortifications. This was iinderstood to be antagonistic to the whig policy of dis- tribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. This bill occasioned a discussion which called forth the best talent of both parties. The bill passed the House, and in the Senate was debated until the 26th of May, when it passed by a vote of yeas 31 to nays 9. On the 19th Mr. Weight addressed the Senate, in favor of the bill, as follows : " Mr. Weight said, when the subject was last before the Senate ho had moved an adjournment, with the intention, more particu- larly, of making a reply to some of tlie remarks of tlie Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], who had then just addressed the body against the bill. So much time, however, had elapsed that the reply intended had been principally abandoned ; and, as he did not see that Senator in his seat, and understood he was absent upon official duty, he should only notice such of Jiis observations as were material to the views he proposed to pre- sent upon the merits of the bill. "On the eighteenth of February last, the Senate came to a final vote upon a resolution offered, at an early day of the session, by the honoi-nble Senator from Missouri [Mr. Benton], upon the subject of appropriations for the public defense. All would recollect the declaration of the mover of the resolution, made at the time of its introduction, that he considered it as antago- nistic to the two propositions then before the Senate for the Life and Timeh of Silas Wright. 445 ea- distribution, among the States, of the public moneys in the tr sury; the first the Land bill, and the second the ])n)positi()n of the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] so to amend ihe Constitution of the United States as to authorize an entire distri- bution, for a series of years, of the surplus revenues, from what- ever source derived. None could have forgotten the protracted debate upon that resolution, or the views entertained and ex- pressed by those who took part in the debate. Upon the one side, the. declarations of the honorable mover were sustained and enforced, and upon the other side the policy of a, system of forti- fications was resisted by some, while others admitted and advo- cated the policy and expediency of such a system but denied that the land bill was antagonistic to the proposed appropriations. The subject occupied the principal attention of the Senate for some four weeks, and a very slight modification only was adopted. "The palpable and declared object of the resolution was to present to the Senate the great and vital question, whether the surplus revenues in the national treasury should be given away, as gratuities to the States, before the public defenses were pro- vided for, or whether those defenses should first command the attention and favor of the national Legislature. The resolution, as drawn and offered, related to the surplus, and necessarily pre- sented this question. The modification merely removed the application of the resolution from the surplus revenue to the whole revenues of the government, and made the pledge more broad than the mover of the original resolution had proposed. In its amended shape, it stood in the following words : '■'■'■ Besolved^ That so much of the revenue of tlie United States, and the dividends of stock receivable from the Bank of the United States, as may be necessary for the purpose, ought to be set apart and applied to the general defense and permanent security of tlie country.' " In this shape it was voted upon by the Senate ; and, upon a call of the yeas and nays, every Senator then in his seat, to the number of forty-two, out of the forty-eight members of the body, recorded his name in favor of it. " Mr. W. said he thought he had a right to ask whether this vote ought not to have been considered a pledge to the country, on the part of the Senate, that all necessary appropriations for 446 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. the public defense should be first made out of the public moneys in the treasury before any other disposition should be attempted to be made of those moneys ? He thought the inquiry could not be considered impertinent or improper ; and lie called the atten- tion of those Senators who had voted for that resolution to its fair implication, and to the measure now under discussion. This was the first measure for general public defense, which had been presented for the action of the body, since the passage of the resolution. Were the defenses it proposed necessary, so as to bring it within the pledge contained in the resolution ? "To answer this inquiry, it would be proper to look further into the resolution itself, and into the information it had elicited. In addition to the general pledge before quoted, it contained a call upon the President, and, through him, upon the proper departments of the government, as to the appropriations neces- sary and proper to be made for the various branches of the pub- lic defense, naval and military. An answer to that call, most full and satisfactoiy, had been given, and for his present purpose it was only necessary to refer to the clear and strong letter from the Secretary of War, to whose department that branch of the public defenses provided for by this bill particularly pertained. The Secretary speaks with especial reference to the bill under discussion, and therefore his remarks are susceptible of the most clear and unquestionable application. The bill was reported from the Committee on Military Affairs, recommending appro- priations for the commencement of new fortifications at nineteen new points upon the sea-coast. The Secretary had adopted twelve, and, for the present, rejected the remaining seven appro- priations. He had recommended delay and further examination merely as to the latter class; while he had, in the most clear and unequivocal language, urged action — prompt, full and efficient action — as to the former class. " Mr. W. said, as attempts had been made to cast doubt and obscurity over the opinions of the Secretary in this matter, he should speak for himself. He would read from the nine- teenth and twentieth pages of the report, and the language was as folloAvs : Life and Times of Silas Wrwiit. 447 " ' It cannot be doubted but that fortifications at tlie following places, enu merated in this bill, will be necessary : At Penobscot bay, for the protection of Bangor, etc. At Kennebec river. At Portland. At Portsmouth. At Salem. At New Bedford. At New London. Upon Staten Island. At Soller's Flats. A redoubt on Federal Point. For the Barancas. For Fort St. Philip. "' These proposed works all command the approach to places sufficiently important to justify their construction under any circumstances that will probably exist. I think, therefore, that the public interest would be pro- moted by the passage of the necessary appropriations for them. As soon as these are made, such of the positions as may appear to require it can be examined, and the form and extent of the works adapted to the existing circumstances, if any change be desirable. The construction of those not needing examination can commence immediately, and that of the others as soon as the plans are determined upon. By this proceeding, therefore, a season may be saved in the operations.' " Such, Mr. President (said Mr. W.), are the expressions and the opinions of the head of the department, upon which the call has been made, on this important subject of fortifications. Are those expressions and opinions equivocal ? Has not the Secre- tary told us that he believed ' the public interests would be pro- moted by tlie passage of the necessary appropriations for them ?' Has he not told us that, by making these appropriations now^ ' a season maybe saved in the operations?' Where, then, is the doubt ? Where the equivocation ? The bill originally contained provisions for nineteen new works. The Secretary selects and recommends, unequivocally, appropriations for tw^elve of the nineteen, and as unequivocally recommends a postponement of appropriations and further surveys and examinations as to the remaining seven. He meets fairly and fully the whole bill, and gives his opinions and his reasons as to every part of it. Whence, then, the pretense that his recommendations are obscure, and his opinions doubtful, as to the works still embraced in the bill? 448 Life and Times op Silas Wright. The Committee on Military Affairs, since the receipt of the report of the Secretary, have considered his views, and made their bill conform to them. They have recommended that the appropri- ations for the seven works, for which the Secretary does not recommend immediate appropriations, should be strickn from the bill, and the Senate has unanimously agreed to the amendments. They have been made, and the bill is now precisely what the Secretary tells us the public interests require that it should be. Whence, then, Mr. W. said, he again asked, these attempts to prove that the opinion of the Secretary was doubtful as to the remaining twelve new fortifications? The answer was clear and conclusive, and he should only repeat what had been already said by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston] when he gave it. Gentlemen had taken the expressions of the Sec- retary, applicable to the seven works for which he recommended the suspension of immediate appropriations, and had applied them to the twelve works in reference to which he had given the opinion that the public interests would be promoted by the passage of the necessary appropriations for them. Any one who would read with care the report of the Secretary would detect thi^ error, and absolve that officer from all obscurity or equivocation. "It should be further remembered that the President, upon whom the call was made, has especially and fully indorsed the recommendation of the Secretary of War. So far, therefore, as the information and opinions of the executive departments can establish a necessity for the Avorks for which the ])ill under con- sideration provides, we are able to pronounce, without doubt or hesitation, that they are necessary to the public defense. "What, then, Mr. W. said, he must ask, is the condition of the Senate in its action upon this bill, after the pledge given to the country in the resolution above quoted ? Were we at liberty to refuse the appropriations, unless we disputed the necessity of the works ? It seemed to him not. It seemed to him we were estopped by our own acts, unless we were prepared to assert and show, in opposition to the report of the Secretary, and the con- curring opinion of the President, that the works proposed to be constructed are not necessary to the national defense, within the fair scope and meaning of our own resolution. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 449 "He must, then, appeal to the Senate, and to every individual Senator, to know whether there is one member of that body \v\m will deny, or even question, the necessity of one of the woi-ks now proposed by the bill. He did not believe he should hear a Toice raised in doubt, much less in denial, of the necessity of each and every one of these works. How, then, was the Senate to refuse the appropriations, and presei-ve the pledge it had given to the country, that the public defenses were first to occupy its attention, and that provision for these defenses, so far as such provision might be necessary, was tii-st to be made from the public moneys in the treasury, and the public revenues to be received into that treasury. "Objections to the bill, however, had been made, and Mr. W. said he would detain the Senate for a few moments, to examine some of those objections. "The first in order which he would notice was, that new dis- coveries in the art and science of defense might supersede the present propositions; that the power of steam and its application to the defenses of a nation were yet little known and had been little tried, and that future experience might prove that this power would furnish a preferable substitute for the permanent defenses proposed by the bill. In answer to this objection, he would merely ask, in sincerity and candor, whether a single member of the Senate had brought his mind to the belief that our important commercial towns, our principal and most useful harbors, and the mouths of our great navigable rivers, which Avere susceptible of perfect defense by permanent, stationary and durable fortifications, were to be left to any description of movable and floating defenses, whether moved and governed by steam or by the natural elements ? Did any man, who had in the slightest degree examined this subject, delude himself with the notion that a commercial nation, with a coast more extended and exposed than any other nation of the world, and with the means in its treasury for the construction of permanent and secure defenses, was either to wait for new discoveries as to the power and appli- cation of steam, or to trust its wealth and commerce to the pro- tection of floating batteries instead of well-constructed and immovable fortifications ? For himself, Mr. W. said, his enthu- 29 450 Life and Times of Silas Wright. siasm as to modern improvements had carried his mind to no such conclusions. He had not doubted, and did not now doubt, that steam, as connected with harbor defense, was to be made a most important agent in the great work in which we were engaged, and he was prepared to go as far as experience and wisdom would warrant in providing for its use; but he would not, for one moment, admit that the important points upon our coasts susceptible of permanent land defenses were to be left to the uncertain and doubtful protection of moving batteries of any descrij^tion. He had not heard it advanced that the science of defense by fortifications was very imperfect, or that improve- ments were to be soon anticipated; and having come to the con- clusion that these were the defenses which the country required, at the points named in the bill, and that the art of constructing them had been, in all essential particulars, as perfect for centuries as it now is, he was prepared to give his support to the bill, with- out waiting the uncertainty of valuable improvements by new discoveries. " The next objection he proposed to notice was, that we want information as to some of these proposed works; that the neces- sary examinations, surveys and estimates have not been made, and that we act in the dark in making appropriations without them. This objection, Mr. W. said, he was willing to admit was specious and plausible ; but as to these particular works he thought he should be able easily to show that it was much more specious than solid and substantial. He had understood from the remarks made by the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs [Mr. Benton], when this bill was first under discussion, that all these points had been selected as points proper for the construction of permanent fortifications by the first board of engineers which ever examined our Atlantic coast with a view to its permanent defense ; that several subsequent examinations, by competent and skillful engineers, had been made for the same purpose, and that all had selected these points as capable of being defended by the erection of forts and batteries, and as of suflicient importance, either as commercial towns, or safe and convenient harbors and roadsteads, to render such defenses neces- sary to the protection of our commerce and the security of the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 451 country; and that conjectural plans and estimates ol' the works required had been repeatedly made at all the points. He now received the assent of that honorable Senator to the correctness of his understanding in these particulars, and was, therefore, not mistaken in assuming this as one ground for the immediate action of the Senate. But there was another and a stronsrer srround. A call had been made upon the War Department, upon this sul)- ject, and the answer, full, complete and apparently satisfactory to all, was before us. That department was in possession of all the information which had been collected as to the necessity and propriety of these works. No one would doubt the competency of the head of that department to form a safe and correct opinion upon the sufficiency of that information for the discreet action of Congress. What, then, does the Secretary say in reference to the fortifications provided for in this bill ? " ' It caunot be doubted but that fortifications at the following places, enumerated in this bill, will be necessary. " ' I think, therefore, that the public interest would be promoted by the passage of the necessary appropriations for them. As soon as these are made, such of the positions as may appear to require it can be examined, and tlie form and extent of the works adapted to existing circumstances, if any change be desirable. Tlie construction of those not needing examina- tion can commence immediatety, and that of the others as soon as the plans are determined upon. By this proceeding, therefore, a season may be saved in the operations.' " These are the opinions of the executive officer of the gov- ernment especially charged with these works of defense, and fully aware of all the information in the possession of the gov- ernment in relation to their necessity and propriety. Does he tell us we want more information before we can act ? No, sir. He tells us it cannot be doubted that fortifications at the points mentioned will be necessary. Does he tell us that we want fur- ther examinations, surveys and estimates, before we can hazard an ajjpropriation ? No, sir. He tells us that when the appro- priations have been made, such of the positions as may appear to require it can be examined, and the form and extent of the works adapted to existing circumstances, ' if any change be desirable.' Does he tell us that nothing is to be gained by making the appropriations now ? No, sir. He tells us that, by this proceed- 452 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ing, a season may be saved in the operations. 80 much, Mr. President, said Mr. W., for the objection that we have not infor- mation to authorize these appropriations. "Another objection is, that we have not engineers to superin- tend these works; and that, unless the corps of engineers be increased, the appropriations, if made, must remain unexpended. Mr. W. said this was an objection to this class of appropri- ations which had been frequently advanced upon former occa- sions, and he had repeatedly attempted to answer it ; in which attempt, he was sorry to say, he had been so unsuccessful that the same objection again met him here. He must repeat his former opinion, that the money of the government would command engineers of science, skill and experience; and that gentlemen were entirely mistaken in supposing that the corps of engineers, holding military commissions under the United States, monopolized all the science, experience or skill to be found in this widely extended country. But, for the sake of this argu- ment, he would admit the necessity of an increase of the corps of engineers; and what would be the effect upon the duties of the Senate in relation to this bill ? An act for the increase of that corps, to the extent recommended by the head of the corps, had long since passed this body, and been sent to the House of Representatives. We, therefore, had discharged our duty in this matter, and he was for continuing to discharge that duty in a manner consistent with our own action. It was not for the Senate to wait the passage of one of its bills through the other branch of Congress, before it would act upon another and more important public measure. Let us, said Mr. W., follow our own action, be consistent with ourselves, carry out our own measures, a7id leave the House of Representatives to their proper responsi- bilities. This objection has no foundation with us, because we have already obviated it by our legislative action, and it does not become us to assume that any other branch of the govern- ment will not discharge the same duty. "A further objection to the passage of this bill is, that if the appropriations be made, the money cannot be expended. It is asserted that the oi-dinary appropriations for the fortifications already commenced will cost more money than it is in the power of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 453 the officers of the government to expend, and tliat hence addi- tional approj^riations for new works cannot be expended. Mi-. W. said he did not see that the conclusion followed from tlie premises. If it were true that money could not be expended at one point upon our extended coast, for the want of lal)orers, he could not see that it necessarily followed that laborers could not be procured at other points. The evidence upon which this objection rests is a report from the head of the engineer depart- ment, stating that some eighty or one hundred thousand dollars, appropriated for the construction of a fort at Throg's Neck, near the harbor of New York, was not expended during the last year, because laboi'ers were not procured; that invitations to laborers were published and circulated in the city of New York, and in several of the eastern cities, without effect. The report, no doubt, states truly the facts, as far as it goes; but there are other facts required to enable us to form a correct judgment as to the inference authorized from this failure to procure laborers. What prices were offered? Were they equal to the current prices of similar labor in the cities where the invitations were circulated ? Was the season of the year that when laborers are usually disengaged and at liberty to make contracts ? Were the character and condition of the work such as the mass of laborers were competent to perform, and would be willing to engage in at ordinary wages? These and other inquiries should be answered before we are authorized to conclude that money would not command labor in the immediate vicinity of our great commercial metropolis. " Mr. W. said this objection had been repeatedly urged during the discussions of the present session, and he had himself repeat- edly attempted to answer it, — he was mortified to see how unfor- tunately, as the objection continued to be urged with undimin- ished earnestness and confidence. He must, therefore, again repeat what seemed to him to be a most perfect and com- plete refutation of the idea that money will not command labor in and about New York, to any extent to which money is offered and paid. All will remember that since we have been here, during our present session, the city of New York has been visited bv a conflascration unequaled in the 454 Life and Times of Silas Weight. history of this continent. From five to seven hundred extensive buildings, in the very heart of the city, were hiid in ashes in the course of a few hours. He had recently seen several intelligent merchants from that city, some of whom were among the suf- ferers by the fire. All agreed in assuring him that by the time he would probably pass the city on his way to his home, after the adjournment of Congress, he would almost want a guide to point out to him where the fire had extended; that new buildings were rising upon the ruins of those destroyed by the fire, with a rapidity wholly incredible ; that it almost seemed that an entii-e city was rising from the earth, as by the power of magic; that the present month would entirely complete a large proportion of the new buildings. This, Mr. President, has been mostly done in the season of winter, and a winter, too, unequaled in severity and duration. And can it be true that at that point the United States cannot command labor by money ? Can private enterprise accomplish so much in a few months, and yet the government not be able to spend a few thousand dollars upon works of defense, because labor cannot be procured for money ? Sir, the conclusion is contradicted by facts, is contradicted by experience, is contradicted by the plainest dictates of sense and reason. The government must not expect to obtain labor but by paying the current prices for the labor it requires ; and at those prices its money will go as far, be as sure to command labor, and to obtain it, as will the money of private citizens. "But, Mr. President, said Mr. W., there is another view of this subject. What is the course of these expenditures ? For what are expenses first to be incurred? The points at which the forti- fications are to be erected are fixed in the bill ; but you have acquired no title to the necessary grounds, and no jurisdiction fi-om the States over those sites, when j^ou have purchased them. Both of these steps must be taken before common prudence will warrant the commencement of the proposed erections. In all cases the purchase of the grounds must require an expenditure of money, and the grant of the necessary jurisdiction must require time for the action of the respective State Legislatures. It will not be supposed that the application will be made for the grant of jurisdiction until Congress place at the disposition of the Life and Times of ISilas Win out. 455 proper executive department the means to make the purchase of a site, in case the jurisdiction be obtained. Mr. W. said, to illus- trate his meaning, he would speak of the proposed appropriation for his own State ; because he was more fully acquainted willi the facts in that case than any other embraced in the bill, lie referred to the appropriation of $20.0,000 for the purchase of the site of Fort Tompkins and its dependencies, and for the erection thereon of fortifications to protect and defend the main entrance into the harbor of New York. This site is so plainly designated by the nature of the ground, and the formation of the harbor, that no person who ever passed the point can have failed to see and mark it. Indeed, the State, during the late war with Great Britain, and when the national treasury was destitute of means to prosecute the war, and much more to defend our coast, took this matter into its own hands, possessed itself of this site, and erected upon it three works of defense : Fort Tompkins upon the heights, to defend the outer works from approach by land ; Fort Richmond upon the water, to defend the Narrows; and Fort Hudson, an extensive water-battery, to act in aid of Fort Rich- mond, and to reach an enemy in his approach to the Narrows from the outer harbor. These works still belong to the State, but had not been kept in repair since the war. The consequence was, that they had gone into a state of dilapidation, and he was unable to say what their value might now be to the government. He had understood that they cost the State some $400,000. He knew that repeated overtures had been made by the State to this government to purchase them, with the site, and that the Legis- lature had repeatedly authorized negotiations for their sale and transfer to the United States. Nothing had hitherto been effected, and he had recently been informed that the Legislature of the State, now in session, had again authorized the sale and transfer. In this case this must be the first step, and the pay- ment for the site the first item of expenditure. So far, therefore, as that may go, no objection would be interposed that the money, if appropriated, could not be expended ; nor would it be said that time was required, or information wanted, to accomplish these objects. He did not suppose that any other point was precisely similarly circumstanced ; but he did suppose that in all cases, 456 Life and Times of Silas Wright. whether the sites were the property of the States, or of indivi- duals, a title was to be secured to the United States and paid for out of the respective appropriations ; and that the proper juris- diction, to protect the interests of the government, was to be obtained from the respective State Legislatures in the mode pointed out by the Constitution. Means, therefore, would be required, as well as time, in all cases ; and, so far as both were concerned, the application to the case of Staten Island would be measurably applicable to all the other cases embraced in the bill. "What were the next subjects of expenditure? Mr. W. said it seemed to him that the materials for the construction of a for- tification would next require the expenditure of money. The stone, brick, lime, sand, timber, iron, and all other materials, must be purchased and brought to the spot. Was there any objection to making the contracts and procuring the delivery of these materials during the time required to negotiate for the site, and procure the grant of jurisdiction ? He could see none. Would not these preparatory steps occupy time enough to allow all further necessary surveys and examinations to be made ? He was sure no one could doubt the fact ? What, then, was the strength of the objection that the money could not be expended, or that more time was required for surveys and examinations ? "But, Mr. W. said, there was another view of this objection of time, which seemed to him as absurd in practice as it must be fatal in [jrinciple to these works of public defense. He referred to that class of the opponents of this bill Avho urged the necessity of delay in making these appropriations, and at the same time pressed upon us measures for the gratuitous distribution among the States of the very moneys in the treasury with which these fortifications were to be constructed. The land bill, which had passed this body but a few days since, was one of these measures, and some gentlemen had been frank enough to put their opposi- tion to this bill upon the ground that it might interfere with the moneys proposed to be distributed under the provisions of that act. Others, and much the largest number of the friends of that measure, had placed their opposition to this bill upon the ground of want of information of surveys, examinations and estimates ; and yet they had not failed to urge, with all the ardor of the Life and Times of Silas Weight. 457 former class, the giving away to the States the very means by which alone these most important and confessedly necessary modes of public defense can be erected, when the information they seem to desire shall have been obtained. What is the value of such professions of friendship for the defenses of the country V What will be the use of the information souo-ht when the means of proceeding with the works shall have been given away ? For what valuable purpose shall we learn that the positions nanied in the bill are well selected, the fortifications wise and necessary, the plans economical, and the appropriations proposed only rea- sonable for present objects, Avhen the treasury shall have been exhausted in bounties to the States, and we have not a dollar at command to be applied to new or additional defenses ? Mr. W. said he must say that gentlemen who assumed this position sub- jected themselves most strongly to the suspicion that a division of the public moneys, and not the prosecution of works of defense, was their darling object. To the other class, who openly and frankly oj^posed the bill upon the ground that it con- flicted with the schemes for a disti'ibution of the public moneys, he must award greater fairness. They met what he considered to be the true question, openly and without disguise. He must, however, here bring to the memory of these opponents of the bill now under discussion some of the arguments used by those who opposed the passage of the land bill through the Senate. It was contended, Mr. W. said, by himself and others, that any system of distribution, such as was proposed by that bill, would tend to impede the necessary public appropriations, to arrest the prosecution of the necessary public defenses, and to embarrass the national government in all its departments, and in every branch of the public service. It was urged that such distribution would necessarily lead the States into measures involving heavy and long-continued expenditures; that the arguments, estimates and flattering calculations of the friends of that bill were emi- nently calculated to produce anticipations of future dividends which could not be realized; that the members of both Houses of Congress were the representatives of the States and of the people of the States, and must and ought to be strongly influ- enced by the wishes and interests of those whom they respectively 458 Life and Times ob Silas Weight. represented; that when disappointment as to the amounts to be divided should come upon the constituent body — as come that disappointment must — the necessities of the States, growing out of these delusive expectations, would be paramount to the neces- sities of this government with the representative bodies ; and that approj)riations for the permanent defenses of the country, appropriations for the navy, appropriations for the army, and appropriations for all other branches of the public service would be injuriously restricted or wholly refused, that the sum to be divided to the States, as surplus revenue, might be inci'eased. " Mr. W. said, when he urged these arguments, he did not even dream that he should see their correctness demonstrated before the close of the present session of Congress. He did not then believe that the evil tendencies of these plans for distribu- tion would be so soon and so boldly developed. In this he had been entirely disappointed. Already we had met, in open avowal, the influence he had feared ; and, upon this first measure of pub- lic defense which had been presented to the Senate since the passage of that dangerous bill, we had heard opposition distinctly avowed upon the ground that the appropriations might conflict with the various plans for a distribution of the moneys in the treasury. If he had before merely doubted, he should now be m.ost perfectly confirmed in his hostility to these projects, so long as any branch of the public service called for the expenditure of the public moneys on hand. " He would now, Mr. W. said, proceed to examine, very briefly, one or two of the objections offered by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] to the passage of the bill under discussion. The first objection of that honorable Senator which he proposed to notice was, the want of engineers to superintend the expenditures proposed; and he had anticipated the argument to be drawn from the action of the Senate, in the increase of the engineer corps to about twice its present strength, by the assumption that this increase would not bring engineers of experience, and would not therefore, at present, authorize an increase of appropriations. "We are, Mr. President, said Mr. W., if the position assumed by the opponents of this bill be admitted, in a condition unknown Life and Times of Silas Wright. 459 to the history of any people who have ever before existed upon the face of the earth. We have no debt. Our treasury is full to overflowing. We are defenseless in almost every respect. And yet we cannot be defended, according to the doctrines of some, because our money will not purchase the labor necessary to con- struct the defenses we need. According to others, we cannot be defended, because we have not engineers of skill and experience to direct the expenditure of the money, if we appropriate it. An increase of our engineer corps will not aid us in this particular, because such an increase will not bring with it the requisite skill and experience; and, as a necessary consequence from these con- clusions, we must not increase the engineer corps, because, with- out an increase of appropriations for fortifications, we shall have nothing for the engineers to do, who may be added to the corps. Was ever, Mr. President, so helpless a condition of any people before known ? Money in the treasury to an excess, but nobody will work for it ; defenses of every description imperatively required, but men of skill and science cannot be found to super- intend their construction. Therefore, we must give away the money, and wait for the defenses of the nation, until the treasury shall contain other means, until money will command labor, and until engineers can be educated to superintend the public works. " The honorable Senator put forth another objection to this bill, which was even less anticipated from that quarter than was the objection which has just been examined. It was, that the bill is in competition with the several propositions for the distribution of the surplus revenue. Remembering the constitutional opinions held and expressed by that Senator but two years since, on the subject of a distribution of the surplus revenue among the States, Mr, W. said it was impossible that he could have expected oppo- sition to this bill from that quarter upon that ground. In the Senator's speech upon the removal of the deposits, made in the Senate in January, 1834, are found the following remarks : '"There is another aspect, said Mr. C, in which this subject maybe viewed. We all remember how early the question of the surplus revenue began to agitate the country. At a very early period, a Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Dickerson] presented his scheme for disposing of it, by distri- buting it among the States. The ftrst message of the President recora- 460 Life and Tuies of Stlas Wright. mended a similar project, which was followed up by a movement on the part of the Legislature of New York, and I believe some of the other States. The pubUc attention was aroused, the scheme scrutinized, its gross unconstitutionality and injustice, and its dangerous tendency of absorbing the power and existence of the States, were clearly perceived and denounced. The denunciation was too deep to be resisted, and the scheme was aban- doned. ' "Such, Mr. W. said, were the opinions of the Senator upon the subject of a distribution of the surplus revenue to the States; and could he have expected from him an objection to the passage of a bill providing for the defenses of the country, for the more rapid prosecution of a system of defenses with which he had once been officially and closely connected, because it comes in competition with propositions for a distribution of the surplus moneys, so recently pronounced grossly unconstitutional, unjust and dangerous to the power and existence of the States ? [Here Mr. Preston remarked that his colleague was not in his seat, but detained from it by official duties, and he hoped Mr. W. would consent to suspend his remarks until Mr. C. should be in. Mr. W. replied that he regretted very much the absence of the Senator from South Carolina, as he would greatly have preferred to have replied to him in his presence ; but as he had no remarks of a personal character to make, he cotild not consent to delay the bill by a suspension of his argument.] Mr. W. proceeded: He had nothing to add on the subject of this great change of opinion on the part of the Senator, except that it had surprised and disappointed him, coming from that quarter. "Another position of the Senator was not less singular and extraordinary, and called for a veply. It was the assertion that the bill was not intended to expedite the construction of fortifi- cations, btit to retain the public money in the banks where it was now deposited; and he went so far as to say that, were the objects of the bill what they purported to be — the erection of fortifications — he would support it. Mr. "W. said, in the absence of that Senator, he would take no notice of this unjust and ungen- erous imputation upon the motives of the friends of this bill, but would examine the position, supposing it had any foundation in fact. The bill upon its face contains as direct and positive appropriations as any other appropriation bill which has been Life and Times of SitjAS Wrigut. 46X presented to congress. If passed, it will devolve ui)on the proper executive department the immediate duty of obtaining the proper sites and commencing the several works, and of pro- ceeding in their construction with all possible dispatch, so far as the means appropriated will go. Has any one suggested, or will any one believe, that any sinister intentions, on the part of those who may vote for the bill, will influence the executive officers in the prompt and faithful discharge of their duties under it? Had the Senator from South Carolina suggested, or could he suggest, any change of the form of the bill, so as to make the appropria- tions more positive and unconditional, or the duty to expend the money more imperative and urgent ? He hazarded nothing in giving a negative answer to these inquiries. Language could not improve the bill in these particulars; nor had it been inti- mated that there was either doubt or condition to be found upon its face. He would, then, leave the Senator, and the Senate, to determine how far he was sustained in placing his opposition to a proper and positive law upon the ground of his suspicion that some who support it entertain intentions unfavorable to its exe- cution. " He must present this objection of the Senator in another light, and see whether it may not be made quite as api^licable to him- self as to those who advocate and support the defense bills. His charge is, that they desire to retain the money in the dejiosit banks. What disposition does he propose to make of it? for he. is the author of a variety of propositions upon the subject. The last, and that one on which he presumed the Senator intended to rely, was, to deposit the money in the treasui-ies of the several States, without interest. But wlien, and upon what terms, is the money to be transferred from the deposit banks to the several State treasuries ? When, and as soon as, the Legis- lature of each State shall have passed a law, pledging the faith of the State for the repayment of the money upon the call of Congress. Nearly all those Legislatures have closed their annual sessions, and all probably will, before this proposition can become a law, if it is to become a law at all. Much the larger number of them do not again convene until T^ovember, December and January. The money, therefore, according to the disposition 462 Life and Times of Silas Wright. proposed by the Senator himself, must remain in the deposit banks for the whole of the present year, at the least; while, in several of the States, the legislative sessions are biennial only; and, in one State at least, it is said its Constitution prohibits the the Legislature from contracting a debt for any purpose. Mr. W. said, were he to charge the honorable Senator with a design to continue the money in the deposit banks, and assert that he had made this dilatory proposition for a different disposition, to accom- plish that design, would the Senator consider him courteous or just? Would the Senate consider the imputation of such motives to any member of the body parliamentary or proper ? It was not his purpose to make any such charge. It was not his habit to impute motives to the members of this body for acts done under their official responsibility; and he did not believe that such a charge, if made against the honorable Senator, would be founded in fact. He did not believe the Senator, in making the proposi- tion upon which he had commented, hud been actuated by any design to retain the money in the deposit banks, but the reverse. Yet he did believe that such a design imjiuted to that Senator would have precisely as much foundation in justice and truth as the similar charge preferred by him against the friends of the defense bills; and he trusted he had shown that the effect of the Senator's proposition would be to retain the money in the banks much longer, and much more certainly, than any effect to be apprehended from the passage of these bills. " Mr. W. said his intention and desire was to aj)ply the money in the treasury to a constitutional use. The money is the avails of ' taxes, duties, imposts and excises,' laid and collected by, or under the authority and direction of. Congress, ' to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.' The first great constitutional use to which the public moneys were to be applied had been fully performed. The debts had been fully paid. The second, to ' provide for the common defense,' it is the object of this bill to prosecute more vigorously and efficiently. For that reason he supported it, and most earnestly hoped it would be successful. Yet it was not for him to impute improper or unworthy motives to those who thought the Constitution and the public interests would be better served Life and Times of Silas Wright. 463 by giving away this money to the States, or what was, in his judgment, precisely equivalent, lending it to tlie States without interest, and upon a declaration upon their respective statute books that they would repay the princii)al whenever their re[)rc- sentatives in the two Houses of Congress should order them to do so. He thought, however, so long as he abstained from the imputation of motives to those who advocated such a disposition of these moneys, he was entitled to an exemption from imputation as to his own motives, in urging a use of the money such as the honor and interests and safety of the country required and demanded, and such as the Constitution not only authorized but directed in terms." 464 Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. Chapter LVIII. VIEWS CONCERNlNa CERTAIN STATE LEGISLATION IN 1836. Upon the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the United States, in 1836, the Legislature of Pennsyl- vania incorporated it as a State institution, with many peculiar and unusual powers and privileges, and, among others, autliorizing it to engage in buying and selling stocks. This attracted the attention of thoughtful men and excited their alarm. Tlie Legislature of New York chartered banks at the session of 1836, and with lavish prodigality lent its credit, with utter disregard to all fears of loss, and engaged in the construction of pauper canals, whose tolls have never paid for their repairs, attendance and other expenses. Observing and reflecting men anticipated and predicted the natural and inevitable consequences. New York promulgated excellent theories, which were counterbalanced by examples which would not bear the test of scrutiny. Mr, Wright watched these with painful anxiety. To each surrounding circum- stance he gave its full weight. The just tendency and natural influence of every act was considered, and com- municated to his trusted friends without reserve. Thomas M. Burt, Esq., then connected with the Albany Argus as a proprietor, wrote him concerning the action of the State Legislature. He had long known Mr. Burt, and had unlimited confidence in his honesty of purpose and the purity and unselfishness of his motives, and unhesi- tatingly trusted his discretion and judgment. He there- upon wrote him, in the spirit of candor and frankness, the following letter, in which he expressed his anxieties and fears concerning the action of the Legislature, in Life and Times of Silas Wright. 4(35 which he substantially predicted the paper-money explo- sion, which burst upon the country within the ensuing year : "Washington, April 8, 1836. " My Dear Sir. — Your note has remained a long time without an answer. The only excuse I can give you is ray business engagements here. Indeed, I have never found myself so unac- countably engaged at any former session of Congress as during most of the present. You ask the opinion of our friends here as to the course of Pennsylvania in the November elections. 1 have seen no one who doubts that the violent and unprincipled and corrupt course of tlie Legislature of that State, during its late session, will strengthen very much the republican vote, at the polls and the republican cause among the people; and I have heard no doubt expressed as to the result of the electoral vote of the State. It is rumored, it is true, that the Legislature, at its adjourned session in May, threaten to district the State for the choice of electors, for the purpose of saving to the opposi- tion such portion of the vote as may be saved to them in that way. This, however, would be an act of desperation which I cannot persuade myself even that bank-bought Legislature will dare to do. Should they make the attempt, there is great proba- bility in my mind that such would be the revulsion produced upon the public feeling that they would lose many of the districts which are now tlieirs. Unless this is done I have no more doubt of the vote of that State than of our own, and that it will be given by a sweeping majoi'ity. "I see by the Argus, this morning, that the Genesee canal has passed the Assembly, and that the Black River has been ordered engrossed in the Senate, in addition to the $3,000,000 Erie rail- road appropriation pending in the Senate. What does all this mean ? It seems to me that the wildness of the Pennsylvania fever (for I will not believe that the Pennsylvania corruptions prevail at Albany) has taken possession of our Legislature also. They seem to look at millions, as sober, discreet men look at dol- lars, and to be willing to embark the credit of our State when the Pennsylvanians only gave bank charters with power to gamble in stocks. Who that knows anything of the matter 30 466 ^^^'^' ^^^'^ Tjmes of Silas Wright. believes that road will ever be made as a condition precedent to the obtaining the 83,000,000 of State credit ? Who does not know that this law, if passed, will only be used to raise that stock, and to lay the foundation for scenes in Wall street which will throw into the shade all former transactions of a stock- o-;imblino- character. And who does not see that when honest men have been cheated and ruined by the wire-workers in the stock market, they will come to the Legislature, sliow that the State was a direct party to the frauds, and demand, with a justice that would sustain a bill in equity, either that the State shall make the road or pay the $3,000,000 it has promised. And who does not see farther, who has any acquaintance with legislation upon subjects of this character, that the irresistible course will be to saddle the road upon the State, and compel an expenditure of from ten to twenty millions to save the three millions now promised, when the work to be constructed will not, for a century to come, if ever, keep itself in repair after it is well made. " Such, precisely, too, will be the character of the expenditures upon the Genesee and Black River canals, if made. The State will only have borrowed from four to six millions and expended it, to saddle it upon the treasury forever, and a treasury too which is now, and has been for years, living upon credit alone, two more paupers of a more expensive character than any pauper canals heretofore constructed and now constructing. " I cannot be mistaken, when I see the startling votes in botli Houses of our Legislature upon bills like these, as to the impelling power in the rear. Banks, new banks, and the enlargement of existing banks, must be that power. Are there not, then, eleven sound men in the Senate who will cut the gordian knot, and thus destroy the combination by which these monstrous projects are about to be forced upon tlie State ? Are there not forty-two sound men in the Assembly who will come forward and do the same thing ? Are we, at this crisis in the affairs of the country, to put ourselves by the side of Pennsylvania by lending the whole power of our State legislation to plunge our State in debt on the one hand, and to swell the false bubble of excessive credits and consequent excessive and unreal speculations on the other? I must say, I most deeply fear, if this Erie railroad bill shall pass, Life and Times of Silas Wright. 467 tlie unjustifiable gambling it will jDi-oduce may throw into the shade, if it Joes not in fact justify, Pennsylvania in her course, as having given life to a corporation of somewhat greater capital, to be sure, but much more real and substantial in its character. " In connection with this subject I refer you, with the utmost gratification, to the high and patriotic example of the State of Ohio, and to the less clear but equally safe example of Virginia. I think the Argus should come out most distinctly with these worthy examjjles, and that every effort should be made by firm friends of the country, in and out of the Legislature, to concen- trate their strength against a lobby which otherwise may deluge the State with banks and with debt, each being the corrupt con- sequence of the other. " I have viewed the proceedings of our Legislature with the deepest interest on account of the State itself, and that interest has been greatly increased by the conviction that the eyes of the whole country are, at the present time, and from causes now not mentioned to you, turned upon our acts and our policy. The sincerity of our opposition to the Bank of the United States, and to the paper system, has been impeached by our opponents every- where, and doubted by honest friends in many quarters of the country. Nothing but the soundness of our policy, when pos- sessing the power of the State almost without a minority, can rebut these impeachments and dissipate these doubts. If, on the contrary, we fall into the snare which the bank has set for us by its unwise extensions and consequent promotion of the spirit of wild and dangerous speculation, we cannot expect to escape the catastrophe which must follow, nor can we expect the poor con- solation of arresting our very motives from the broadest suspicion. " I do hope you will urge these considerations upon our honest friends, and that they will joause before they take the fatal steps which seem to be threatened by the course of our Legislature. "All men here are looking forward to a sjjeedy and severe pressure upon the local banks, occasioned partly by the efforts making and to be made by Mr. Biddle & Co. to produce that state of things, and principally by the enormous extensions for speculations of every sort, and particularly in lands which cannot be converted into money to replace the capital thus 468 Life and Times of Silas Wright. invested. I entertain strongly the same apprehensions, and I do hope that our friends and our banks will be aware of the evil and guard themselves in time; and 1 more strongly hope that our Legis- lature, by its action, will neither increase the evil nor hasten the catastrophe. " I write in my seat and under an excited abolition debate, and cannot add more. Will you do me the favor to show this to Mr. Croswell, Mr. Flagg, Gen. Dix and the Governor, as I have let- ters from them all which ought to have been answered before this day, but which I cannot yet get time to answer. It will, at least, show them thit I do not forget my duty to them, if I do not do it. Remember me most kindly to your family. " Believe me, most truly yours, " SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. " Thomas M. Burt, Esq." "Senate Chamber, ) " Washington, Qth June, 1836. f " My Dear Brother and Sister. — Your letter of the twenty- ninth of May came to me this morning, and has confirmed, by the most melancholy result, our fears as to your young son. Our brother, S. D., by a letter under date of the twenty-fifth, informed us of his severe and dangerous illness, and we have watched every mail with the greatest anxiety to learn the result, striving, as poor short-sighted mortals in this world always do, to give ourselves hope. A single line from Luman, accidently opened before your letter vvas reached, gave us the melancholy result, and your letter to Clarissa gave the more distressing particulars. "What can I say to console you? I have never known the feelings of a parent, and cannot, therefore, from personal experi- ence, speak either of your attachments or your loss. I have, however, I hope, experienced the feelings of a friend, and as such can sympathize with the afilictions of a friend. As such I hope you will not doubt that I feel, as deeply as I am capable of feeling, your loss and your afiliction. The loss of a friend is severe, and tries strongly our feelings and our power of resigna- tion to the Supreme Ruler. The loss of a child must, to a parent, be much more trying, much more severe, much more painful to the heart. The loss of an only child, of all which Life and Times of Silas Wright. 469 calls forth and embodies the parental feeling, is perhaps as nearly an insupportable affliction as any which happens to us in our pilgrimage upon the earth, " Considering your sorrow, thus deep and aggravated, I thank you most sincerely for your letter, as an evidence of the most creditable, worthy and Christian-like resignation and fortitude under this heavy visitation. It is wisdom and duty so to disci- pline your feelings and to guard yourselves against desjjondency and permanent injury to your healths from unrestrained indulg- ence of grief, when the dear and loved object is beyond your reach for good or evil. Preserve the equanimity of feeling your letter so fully exhibits, and time will show you that you discharge an important duty to yourselves and to your many friends. I may seem cold in giving this advice. I do not feel so, and hope you may not think so. " Most unexpectedly to me, you had paid me the compliment of incorporating ray name with that of your darling boy. He has gone from us, and the name has ceased to exist in your fam- ily, but the kind remembrance to me is not the less valued and endeared to my feelings. That I can repay the kindness I do not hope; that I shall remember it I do believe. " Clarissa is very well, but most deeply afflicted, to day, by this news. She makes herself much more contented here than I expected she could, but has been quite anxious heretofore, and will be more anxious now, for our adjournment. I do not expect that we shall get away at an earlier day than the xourth of July, four weeks from this day, and I contidently hope we shall not be kept here to a later day. " We regret most deeply to hear that Julia's health is still bad. She has need of perfect healtli ; but you must entreat her, for your sake, for the sake of her many friends, not to let grief injure her present feeble health, but to take all pains to keep her mind as far at ease as is possible, that her health may be restored. " I write from my seat, under the hearing of an animated debate, and you must excuse all errors. In great haste, " Most affectionately yours, "SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. " Mr. Lucius Moody." 470 Life and Times of Silas Weight. Chapter LIX. PUBLIC DEPOSITS. When Gen. Jackson, through Roger B. Taney, Secre- tary of the Treasury, du'ected that no further deposits of the public moneys shoukl be made in the United States Banlv, the selection of depositaries devolved upon the Treasury Department. Secretary Taney called to his assistance Amos Kendall, then Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, who made the necessary investigations con- cerning the banks desiring to receive these deposits. On his rej)ort, the selections were made to the satisfaction of all who were not advocates of the national bank. At the session of 1835-36 a bill was introduced in and passed the House of Representatives to regulate the selection of these deposit banks and the manner of their use. In the Senate this bill gave place to another, the thirteenth section of which directed that all the moneys in the treasury, on the 1 st day of January, 1837, over and above $5,000,000, should be deposited — distributed — to the several States in proportion to their representation in the Senate and House of Representatives. This distribution — for it was one in fact — was to be made in four equal installments on the first days of January, April, July and October of the year 1837. The bill finally passed the Senate on the 6th of June, 1836, by a vote of 30 yeas and 9 nays. The latter were given by Messrs. Benton, King, of Georgia, Niles, Robin- son. Ruggles, Shepley, Wall, White and Wright. The bill passed the House on the twenty-second, by yeas 155 to 38 nays ; among the latter was the author. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 471 When this bill was bef(3re tlie Senate, Mr. Wright addressed the following remarks to that body : "Mr. Weight, iu offering his amendmeut, said he rejoiced that this interesting subject had at last come to its discussion before the Senate; and he rejoiced still more to see, as he thought he did see, a disposition upon all sides of the House to consider the bill witli a sincere desire to agree upon a law which should here- after regulate the deposits of the public moneys in the State banks. He would assure the Senate that he entered upon tlic discussion with the most earnest hope and intention that their deliberations miglit be brought to a successful termination, and that provisions might be agreed upon which would not only meet tlie assent of a large proportion of the Senators, but be satisfac- tory to the country, and quiet the complaints and remove the apprehensions which now surround the subject. " JNIr. W. said he ought further to inform the Senate, befoi-e he proceeded with the remarks he had to make, that no pride of authorship could attach to him in the amendment he had offered. The sections which related to the regulation of deposits, were the bill digested by the Committee of Ways and Means of the last House of Representatives, as he had been informed, and sup- posed to be true, witli the advice of the head of the Treasury Department, and was reported to that House, but not acted upon. He did not himself profess a sufficient acquaintance with the sub- ject to be able to frame a safe and proper bill, to regulate these deposits, which would accommodate the treasury, and at the same time be so far consistent with the interests of the banks as to induce tlieir assent to its provisions. He had not so minutely examined the provisions of these sections as to be able to pronounce the oi)inio]a that they were, in all respects, riglU in themselves, or preferable to others which might be suggested. The last two sections of the proposed amendment related to a subject distinct from the regulation of the deposits, and had been added in pursuance of recommendations made by the Secretary of the Treasury in liis last annual report to Congress. They were, therefore, propositions of the Secretary, for the temporary disposition of any aarplus which might remain in the treasury; 472 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and he had offered them to the Senate because they met much more perfectly his views than any other proj:)Ositions for the dis- position of that surplus which he had heard from any other quar- ter. He was not, therefore, the author of any portion of the amendment he had presented; and his action must not be con- sidered as influenced by any such relation to any of the provi- sions. He would go farther, and say that he was unconscious of feeling any peculiar attachment to any of the propositions he had presented, and would most cheerfully yield them and give his support to any others which he could convince himself were better suited to the objects all liad in view. " Among those objects it appeared to him that the security of the public treasure must stand first. He was not among those who entertained the least apprehension as to its entire security in its present condition, l)ut he was fully conscious, if further accumulations were to take place, that a change of that condi- tion would become indispensable. His confidence in the safety of the deposit banks, at the present time, was perfect; but he could not fail to see that, if the amounts in deposit went on increasing, a just apprehension might soon be entertained that the capital and means of the banks might not be adequate to their immense responsibilities. Some indulged this apprehension now, and he was desirous to adopt measures which should not only arrest its increase, but put an end to it for the future. " Anotlier leading object in any action upon this subject, Mr. W. said, must be the convenient use of the banks as the fiscal agents of the treasury. And here it should be borne constantly in mind that the Senate were attempting to legislate in reference to institutions not existing by the authority of Congress, not subject to the control or direction of Congress, and in no way to be affected by the action of Congress, in their character of fiscal agents, any further than their respective voluntary assents should bind them to such subjection, and thus connect their interests with the legislation of Congress. We were, in effect, Mr. W. said, merely making proposals to these institutions for a contract, in any law we might pass; and it therefore became us, while we performed scrupulously and rigidly our oflice and duty as guardians of the public treasui-e, so far to regard the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 473 interests to be consulted upon the other side as not to make our terms or proposals such as must meet the refusal of the banks, and thus deprive the treasury of their essential services. It was, in his judgment, the wisest protection of the public interests to offer to the deposit banks such terms as would make it their interest to discharge promptly, honestly and faithfully their duties to the treasury, and to keep carefully and safely the public moneys intrusted to them; and he could not consent to adopt any parsi- monious policy which would so tie down these banks as to com- pel them to make an unsafe and hazardous use of the moneys in deposit, to indemnify themselves against our exactions. Such a course would be to draw the most unsafe banks only into our service, and to excite them to a use of the public moneys danger- ous to the institutions and insecure to the public. "A third object, wliich should not be lost siglit of in the legislation under consideration, was a healthful condition of the monetary system of the country. Mr. W. said he ciould not, for a moment, doubt that the large accumulation of the public reve- nues in the banks had done much to promote the spirit of excessive speculation which, during the past year, had seemed to pervade every section of our vast country and every branch of enter- prise. The ten or eleven millions, beyond any former year, which had sought investment in the public lands, must, to a very great extent, have emanated from these reservoirs of surplus funds. The year was one of plenty and profusion in every department of trade and business ; and the capital of the banks, and in the banks, not required for tlie legitimate uses of commerce, must seek other employment. Hence, accommodations were liberal, and speculations ran wild; for, rely upon it, said Mr. W., those gentlemen are mistaken who have supposed, and have told us, that banks lock up the money intrusted to their keeping, and deprive the community of its use. Such is not the nature of these institutions. Such is not their interest ; and, as soulless existences, their interests are their only governing principle. The fault is here. They will not keep money in an unproductive state; and when the proper customers of banks, those who require loans for commercial purposes, when speedy returns are certain, do not apply for their means, they will loan them to 474 Life and Times of jSilas Weight. those who are engaged in speculations; to those who, it is known, intend to a})ply the funds obtained to the purchase of property not convertible to cash at pleasure, but dependent upon casualties which render the use hazardous to the stability of banking facilities. The commercial community are, at this moment, experiencing a severe pressure for money. Is not the principal cause to be found here ? Were the millions which have been invested in speculations upon real estate, derived from bank accommodations, within the eighteen months last past, to be returned within the reach of legitimate commercial calls, does any one su^^pose the pressure at present existing would have been felt ? Does any one believe it would continue for one day ? In so far as the great accumulation of the moneys of the govern- ment in the deposit banks may have promoted this spirit of s])eculation and encouraged these loans, it is the imperative duty of Congress, when legislating upon the subject of the public deposits, to devise some mode of correcting the existing evil and of preventing its recurrence in future. In our iise of the State institutions as the fiscal agents of the treasury, we should, as far as maj^be in our power, so regulate that use as to promote, not to disturb, the great moneyed interests of the country, and the success and prosperity of commerce, which is our principal dependence for the revenues to be deposited. "With these j)reliminary remai-ks, Mr. W. said he would proceed to consider, very generally, the bill and amendment, and to point out some of the principal differences between the two proposed measures. He should not, at this time, enter into minute details, but should confine his remarks to those differ- ences which he thought highly essential. *'The fii-st he should notice was the liberty given to the Secretary of the Treasury, by the amendment, to select additional deposit banks. The provision, in terras, authorized an entire new selection under the law, as those now used had been selected when there was no law upon the subject ; but he was most happy to be able to say to the Senate that he was not aware, nor did he believe, there was the least intention or desire on the part of the Secretary, or of any one else, in the execution of this power, to dismiss a single one of the existing deposit banks. He did Life and Times of Silas Wright. 475 not know, or believe, that any bank now employed was consid- ered an unsafe depository of the public money, or had failed in any essential particular to perform its duties promptly and faith- fully as a fiscal agent of the treasury. He did believe, however, that if the public moneys were to remain in the banks, additional selections ought to be made at some of the more important points. As he was more particularly acquainted with the condition of tilings in the city of New York, he would confine his remarks to that point. Three banks of deposit had been selected, and were now employed in that city. Two of those banks were, by their char- ters, restricted as to their amount of loans; and his recollection was, that the utmost extent to which they could go was twice and a-half the amount of their capital stock. All the other banks in the city and State of New York, with very few excep- tions, were subject to the same restriction and limitation; and Mr. W. said he did not doubt tliat the third deposit bank, from the large amount of its capital, and the known discretion and safety of its directors, was practically subjected to the same lim- itation. Hence it would be ap[)arent to all tliat an amount of public deposit must frequently accumulate in these three banks, at that point, which, connected with the capital and means of the banks themselves, would constitute a fund far beyond the amount of loans they were at liberty to make. What, he should be asked, is done with this surplus ? Is it not locked up, without use to the banks or the community? He was ready, as he believed, to answer the inquiries, and to say that it is not locked up and kept from the use of that commercial community. When such a state of things is found to exist, those deposit banks suffer balances to remain to their credit in the neighboi'ing banks of the city, upon which those banks extend their loans. He could not say that there were permanent arrangements between the banks as to these bal- ances; but he believed he could say, with perfect safety, that they constantly existed to a greater or less extent, and that, in this indirect way, all the deposits at that point were made to con- stitute, as far as these deposits could properly be made to con- stitute, capital upon which accommodations were extended to the customers of the banks. " The system, however, Mr. W. said, was, in his judgment, 476 Life and Times of Silas Wright. very objectionable. These balances, suffered to remain in the banks not selected as deposit banks, were, from the necessity of the case, payable to the deposit banks upon demand, at their pleasure. It gave them, therefore, a command over the neigh- boring institutions, which should not exist but from an unavoid- able necessity. If we so arrange the disposition of the public moneys that more banks than those now selected must be employed to use them for the accommodation of the business community, there is no reason why each bank should not be made principal in its own use, and be responsible directly to the trea- sury, and not indirectly, through its neighboring and perhaps rival institutions. Mr. W". said it gave him great pleasure to say that he had never heard of a charge of unfairness, or an unne- cessary exertion of the power possessed by the deposit banks in the city of New York over their debtor banks; but there was something invidious in so limiting the number of the deposit banks there as to create the constant necessity of permitting part of the public moneys on deposit to remain in other banks, and be used by them, or to be taken from use, and locked up in the deposit banks. It added an unpleasant responsibility to the deposit banks, because, by the arrangement, they were compelled to be answerable, not only for their own use of the moneys intrusted to them, but for the use, by neighboring and rival institutions, of portions of those moneys; and it placed the neighboring and rival institutions, which would consent to take and use any part of these moneys, in the unpleasant position of agents to their rivals, and, so far, subject to their power and con- trol. This state of things, Mr. W. said, he believed ought not to exist ; and either that the amount of deposits in the banks ought to be reduced to a limit within their chartered powers of disposition, or that the number of deposit banks ought to be increased to an extent which would produce that consequence. " The bill introduced by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] confined the deposits to the existing deposit banks, and contained a positive prohibition against the selection of others, except at points where the public service might require it, and where there was now no such bank. Of conse- quence, the exception would not afford a remedy in the case he Life and Times of Silas Wright. 477 had described ; and he did not doubt that the situation of New York must be substantially that of Boston, Philadelj)hia, Balti- more, and many other similar points, Avhere the principal collec- tions of the revenue were made. For these reasons, he preferred the amendment he had offered to the original bill, so far as this difference was concerned. " The next difference he proposed to notice, Mr. W. said, was the omission, in the amendment, of any provision for the pay- ment of interest upon deijosits. This omission, so far as his action was concerned, had been made upon the assumption that some disposition, other than that of a deposit in the banks, would be made of any surplus of the moneys so deposited, beyond the contemplated expenses of the government. Should this not be so, and should the public moneys continue to accumulate in the banks, without appropriation and expenditure, he was clearly of the opinion that the banks ought to allow a reasonable interest for their use. He was, however, so unwilling to make an invest- ment of this description, because he held it so directly, if not compulsorily, an inducement to the banks to make a hazardous, if not improvident, use of the money in deposit with them, that he would not, in this stage of the proceeding, discuss the prin- ciple involved, or express an opinion as to any rate of interest which he might think it proper to exact. He yet entertained the strongest hope that the adoption by the Senate, of the propo- sition lie had made for the investment of any surplus which might be found to exist, would entirely supersede the necessity of action upon this proposition ; and he took it for granted, if his, or any other of the several propositions for taking the sur- plus from the banks, and placing it beyond their reach, should prevail, all would concede that the use of the moneys which would remain in deposit Avould be no more than an equivalent for the services required of the deposit banks, in their characters as fiscal agents of the treasury. If none of those propositions should meet the approval of the Senate, then he might be com- pelled to consider, practically, some mode of requiring the banks to pay an interest upon the deposits, and the rates of interest which should be charged. He would not, however, at present, anticipate the difficulties which would be found to arise from any 478 LiF±: AND Times of Silas Wright. provision of this sort. A further consideration connected with th/s part of tlie subject, Mr. W. said, it became liis particular duty to bring to the notice of the Senate. He could not speak as to other States than the one he had the lionor in part to repre- sent here ; but the banks of his State, as he liad before remarked, were limited in the amounts they were permitted to loan ; and in the city of New York, it happened, as he was informed and believed, and would hereafter often happen, that the amount of public deposits in the deposit banks there, vv^ould be greater, when added to the capital and means of those banks, than they could use by way of loans. Under the present arrangement, he had described the mode in which the surplus of such deposits was made useful and available to the mercantile community. The system pursued, on the part of the deposit banks, of letting balances stand to their credit in the neighboring institutions, upon which they could make loans, reached this great and useful object ; and the fact that these balances were permitted to remain without interest, enabled the banks thus accommodated to extend to their customers nearlj^ the same liberality which could be extended by the deposit banks, were they permitted to dis- count upon the same funds. But if interest was to be demanded of the deposit banks, it was certain that they could not afford to suffer these balances to remain Avith rival institutions, without interest. They could not afford to pay interest upon funds, and give the gratuitous use of them to their neighbors. " Interest, Mr, W. said, was the governing principle of a bank, and no bank would consent to pay interest and not receive inte- rest ; much less to pay interest for the benefit of a rival bank. The deposit banks, therefore, will not pay interest to the govern- ment upon the public deposits, and suffer portions of the moneys in deposit with them to remain, in the shape of balances, in neighboring institutions, without interest. Can they, then, Mr. President, said Mr. W., jiermit them to remain upon the pay- ment of interest ? No, sir ; I think they cannot. Balances suffered to remain, under a stipulation to pay interest, would be loans in effect, and loans within the meaning and intent of the charters of the banks which should enter into such a stipulation by way of addition to the direct loans they are permitted to Life and Times of Silas Weight. 479 make. These deposit banks will be sure to use directly so much of the moneys intrusted to their care as they are permitted by their charters to use, and should more be deposited, it is impos- sible they could pay an interest upon it, and not use it ; it is certain they would not pay an interest upon it, and permit others to use it without interest; it is shown that they could not lend it to others upon interest, to be used as the basis for loans ; and therefore they could not consent to receive in deposit a greater sum than they could use under the powers granted in their own charters. " Here, Mr. W. said, he thought he had a conclusive argument to prove, either that an interest upon the deposits ought not to be charged, or that the number of deposit banks in the city of New York ought to be so increased that each bank could use, by way of loans, all the money it should be required to take upon deposit. He did not oppose the plan of charging the banks with an interest upon the deposits, in case amounts of money, beyond the current demands upon the treasury, were to remain witli them; but if this policy was to become the law of the land, he desired that it might be practically applied, so that the institu- tions and the treasury might be able to act together, in adopting it. This, he was sure, could not be done, without the selection of additional deposit banks at some of the important points. He had stated the operation at New York, and he did not doubt that the same consequences, to a greater or less extent, would be operative at several of the other important points, where the collections of tlie public revenue were large. He must here again remind the Senate that we were legislating in reference to institutions not subject to our legislation, and which were to be made subject to it l)y their own voluntary consent ; by a free, and full, and fair contract, or not at all. It therefore became us to offer to them terms which they could accept, and not so to economize our own interests as to deprive us of the aids, iraijor- tant, if not indispensable, of those fiscal agents of our treasury. For these reasons he preferred the amendment to the original bill, because it gave to the Secretary of the Treasury the power to select additional deposit banks — an exercise of which power would be indispensable, in case the principle of charging interest upon the deposits should be made a feature of the deposit bill. 480 X/i*'^ AND Times of Silas Wright. "The only other principal difference between the bill and amendment, Mr. W. said, which he proposed to notice, was, the different propositions for the temporary disposition of any sur- plus of revenue which might, from time to time, be found in the treasury. The bill offered by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] proposed to deposit it with the States, without interest, upon a mere statute pledge of repayment of the principal when Congress should call for it. The amendment offered by himself proposed simply to invest it in the stocks and securities issued by some one of the States of this Union, bear- ing a fair interest, transferable at the pleasure of the holder, and to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, at any time, when the wants of the national treasury should require it, to sell the stock so pur- chased at its market value. " Mr. W. said it would be the purpose of his remaining remarks to examine these different propositions, and assign the reasons for his preference for the one he had submitted. " The proposition he had offered, equally Avith that of the honorable Senator [Mr. Calhoun], rested ujjon the responsibility of the States; and the investments were, by the terms of it, to be confined to the stocks, or other securities, issued by a State, and carrying upon its face a pledge of the faith and credit of the State for the punctual payments of interest and the final redemp- tion of the principal. It possessed an important advantage over the proposition of the Senator, in commanding, for the money paid, an actual and transferable security — a security which might be converted into money at pleasure, without any agency or interference on the part of the State. It also secured a fair interest for the use of the money, while it should remain invested; and in this respect seemed to him to be decidedly preferable to the proposition of the Senator. " The Senator proposed to loan the money to the States, with- out interest, until wanted for the uses of the public treasury, and actually called for upon a given notice (and that, too, with- out any security possessed by the government, w^hich it could use), independently of the action of the States, His only security was a legislative pledge, which was worth nothing until made so Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 481 by the further positive action of the State Legislatures. It might, or it might not, be convenient for them to respond to the call of Congress for this money ; and all would admit that their pleasure must determine the question whether or not the money should bo repaid, as none would contend that any power existed in Con- gress, or in any department of this government, to coerce the fulfillment of this legislative promise to pay. " But by whom, Mr. W, said he would ask, was this call to be made upon the States? By Congress; in other words, by the representatives of the States here, and by the representatives of the people of the States in the other branch of Congress. The States w^ere to be made the debtors, and their will, expressed by their representatives in Congress, was to determine Avhether their respective debts should be paid, and wlien and how that payment should be made. This was the financial policy of the proposi- tion of the honorable Senator, This was the security to the national treasury to be offered for the almost countless millions which the imagination of the Senator had accumulated there, to be transferred to the several State treasuries. "Mr. W. said, he here met an objection, which he nuist examine in a manner he hoped would be satisfactory to all who would honor him with their attention. He alluded to the objec- tion tliat the mode of investment he had proposed would intro- duce into the financial operations of the country an extensive system of ' stock-jobbing;' Avould make the government itself a ' stock-jobber,' and would confound its fiscal agents with the ' bulls and bears of the stock market.' " The objection, Mr. W. said, was most seriously urged, and, therefore, deserved a careful examination. He hoped to be able to give that examination in a manner so simple, clear and intelligible that friends and opponents of the propositions would be entirely satisfied that its rejection must rest upon stronger ground thin could be found in this cabalistic scarecrow. In what securities did he propose to make the investments ? In securities resting upon the faith and credit of some one of the States of this Union. Were securities of that character the subject of stock gambling ? Would any Senator rise in his place and say that the stocks or other securities issued by his State, and dependent upon its faith for their 31 482 Life and Times of Silas Wright. filial redemption, were food for ' the bulls and bears of the stock market ?' Would any one contend that securities of this charac- ter were to be classed with the gambling stocks of the day ? "Would it be urged that the rise and depression of these stocks in the market for the last ten years had furnished the least indi- cation that they were affected by the movements of those who had been termed ' the bulls and bears of the stock market ?' He was sure he might give a negative to "all these inquiries without contradiction here ; and if so, he must be permitted to say he considered the ' stock-jobbing ' objection most conclusively answered. •' He would ask, however, what were gambling stocks in prac- tice ? Were they securities, like the State stocks, defined and certain in every element which could constitute value ? Were they certificates, or bonds, for a given amount of principal, pay- able at a given day and at a specified place ; with a given rate of interest for the forbearance of j)ayment, also payable quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly, at a given place named upon the face of the security? Could stocks or securities of this character become the subject of gambling in the stock market for any other cause than a doubt as to the payments of interest and principal ? And was any one prepared to say that the faith of any State of the Union, thus pledged, was matter of doubt or uncertainty in the reiiiutesL degree ? He thought not. Where, then, was the room for apprehension as to stock-jobbing? The amount of principal secured by the stock was liquidated and certain ; the day of pay- ment was particularly specified; the rate of interest was fixed, and the place for the payments of interest and principal was defined. Where, he would again ask, was there room for gam- bling; for stock-jobbing; for the interference of the 'bulls and bears' in investments of this character? There was none ; and the history of these stocks and securities in the market would show that they were entirely exempt from influences of the dis- ruption indicated by the objection. " These stocks would experience fluctuations in the market, but they were not the fluctuations produced by stock gambling. When money was plenty, and the legitimate calls of business did not require all the means at the command of capitalists and Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. 483 money-dealers, investments would be sought in these safe stocks, and they would rise in value. When, on the contrary, money was scarce, and capital could be safely invested at a much more advantao-eous rate than the usually low interest paid upon these stocks, the stocks would seek a market for a change of invest- ment, and the consequence would usually be a depression of price. These, and these alone, were the causes of fluctuation in the price of the State stocks; and who could suppose that these causes would produce fluctuations so great as to deserve the appellation of 'stock-jobbing,' 'stock gambling,' 'an association with the bulls and bears of the stock market ?' "What, Mr. W. said he would again ask, were gambling stocks ? They were stocks dependent upon future and uncertain results. They were stocks as to the value of which the judgment and the imagination were the guides of the purchaser. A bank is chartered, a railroad company is incorporated, or a canal is authorized to be constructed; a stock is created, and becomes the subject of purchase and sale in the market; but there is no bank, no railroad, no canal, in actual operation. The value of the stock is matter of calculation, conjecture, imagination. There are no dividends, and therefore the rate of dividend is unknown; and estimate, calculation, judgment or imagination, excitement, enthusiasm, as the case may be, direct the standard of value of the stocks, and govern the sales. These are the stocks which give rise to stock-jobbing; these are the gambling stocks; these are the stocks upon which ' the bulls and bears of the stock market' act; these are what have been denominated 'the fancy stocks ' of Wall and Chestnut streets, and the other great stock markets of the country. Would any Senator, or any citizen of intelligence and observation, attempt to class these stocks witli the certain and specified securities issued by the independent States of this IJnion, and guaranteed by their faith and credit ? He was certain he might answer, no; and that answer must put at rest forever this frightful ' stock-jobbing ' objection. "Another advantage, Mr. W. said, to be derived from the propositions he had submitted, and which ought to commend them to the favor of some portion of the Senate, was that they were antagonistic to no measure of appropriation or distribution 484 Life and Times of Silas Wright. wliic'h liad been or wliich could be presented to Congress. If adopted, tliey would merely act upon any surplus moneys which mi'dit, from time to time, be in deposit ; they would, at all times, regulate the amount of money in the banks, and prevent the mis- chiefs experienced and apprehended from an overaccumulation of funds there; they would remedy the evil which constituted the principal subject of present complaint, and would, at the same time, preserve the funds within the entire control of the treasury, in a shape to be converted into money whenever appro- priations made by Congress should require their use. " It was objected that there would be a want of these stocks to absorb the millions which the condition of the treasury would present for investment under the terms of the propositions. His answer to this objection was double. In the first place he could assure the gentleman who urged it, and the country, that the vivid and fruitful anticipations of the financiers who had pre- dicted upon the amounts of surplus revenue, would be sadly and greatly disappointed. If Congress performed its duty, dur- ing its present session, and made such provision for the immedi- ate and permanent defenses of the country as its condition and wants imperiously demanded, the amount of our surplus money Avould not be such as to alarm the statesman and patriot, or to compel the fiscal ofticers of the government to go abroad for stocks in which they could invest it. There might be a small surplus ; Init he thought it would mostly consist of unexpended balances of outstanding appropriations. Existing in this shape, it might be found wise to make temporary investments in the manner proposed, but not in amounts which would exceed the amounts of State stocks in the market. In the second place, the present amount of those securities, existing in the shape of stocks or bonds, must be some fifty or sixty millions of dollars ; and it was a fact, known to all who had paid the least attention to the legislation of the States for the past year, that a very large pro- portion of them were authorizing further loans, and the issue of new stocks or securities, to enable them to prosecute additional works of internal improvement. He did not propose to be spe- cific in any statement ui)on this point, but he would refer to the State he had the liouor in part to represent, to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Life and Times of Silas Wright. 485 Maryland, Louisiana, and many others, as having outstanding securities in considerable amounts; and the same States, Avith perhaps the exception of Ohio, together with Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, and he believed several other States, had, at the last sessions of their respective Legislatures, authorized heavy additions to their State debts. How, then, could gentle- men entertain apprehensions that there would be a want of State stocks in which to make these investments '? Even should the amounts to be invested far exceed their most flattering calcula- tions, the amount of these stocks would much more than equal the sum total of surplus ; and he hoped to quiet their apprehen- sions for the future bv the confident assurance, which the history of the times would fully warrant, that, unless a radical change in the policy of the States should be produced, the increase of State loans, and consequently of State stocks and other State securities, would far outstrip the accumulations of surplus revenue in the national treasury, " But another formidable objection had presented itself to the minds of some, in the supposition that any attempt on the part of this government to invest the surplus moneys of the treasury in these stocks would at once raise the price of stocks in the market to an extent so extravagant as to make the investments matter of important loss. He would beg gentlemen, who urged this objection, to remember against what description of invest- ments they were using the argument. Take an example : You propose to purchase a five per cent stock of one of the States, upon which the interest is payable quarter-yeai'ly, and the prin- *cipal redeemable at the expiration of twenty years. The only consideration which can make such a stock par in this country, where money is almost always worth more than five per cent for ordinary uses, is that of perfect security, and perfect punctuality in the payments of interest and pi'incipal. If you pay a premium upon such a stock, and retain it until the principal become due, the premium paid is so much deducted in advance from the accru- ing interests, while, if the stock be not retained for the whole, but a portion only, of the time it has to run, its market value is diminishing in precise proportion to the lapse of time; and, of course, the prospect of recovering the premium paid, by a resale, 486 Life and Times of Silas Wright. diminishes constantly. All these are matters of precise and per- fect calculations; and if every doubt as to the prompt and punctual payments of interest and principal be removed, as in reference to State stocks and securities they might be supposed to be, they were all the elements, Mr. W. said, which entered into the value of the given stock. How much premium, then, he would ask, could be paid ? Five per cent premium would be the whole interest for one year, or the twentieth part of all the inter- est to be paid upon the stock; and this ratio would exhibit the effect upon the interest of the purchase at any rate of premium. How was it po&sible, then, that these stocks could experience great fluctuations beyond those occasioned by the diflerent value of money at different periods? They could not; and their his- tory in the market, as he had previously had occasion to notice, had proved that they had not fluctuated materially after public confidence had become established in their entire security as investments. Indeed, he could go further, and say that the State stocks had experienced no extensive fluctuations at any period; but, on the contrary, their usual history had been a gradual rise, within certain limits, regulated by the value of money and the desire for permanent investments, in proportion as the stocks became known and their perfect safety ascertained. " Some gentlemen, Mr. W. said, seemed to suppose that the fact that the government was to become a purchaser, would, of necessity, affect the pi-ice of these stocks in the market. This he did not believe. He had had some experience in transactions of this sort, while in charge of an important fiscal oflice in his own State, and acting for the State; and that experience had taught him to believe that a public ofiicer, acting with discretion, could purchase stocks of this character upon as favorable terms as any other individual. If the officer were to give public notice, in advance, that, upon a given day, he would present himself in the market and purchase a given amount of specified stock, he would, most undoubtedly, have the price of that stock raised upon him, and would either defeat his intended purchase altogether, or compel himself to pay an exorbitant price. So with the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, under the provisions of this act ; but did any one suppose those officers would take Life and Times of Silas Wright. 487 that course in making the investments they are required to make ? No, Mr. President ; no officers or agents of intelligence and integrity will thus discharge such a trust. They will first ascertain, at the times specified, the amount of money to be invested, and will then give their instructions to trustworthy and confidential agents, stock-brokers or others, at the points where the desired stocks are to be found, to make the necessary purchases for them. Their agents go into the market as other private individuals go there; not proclaiming themselves as the representatives of the United States, but as purchasers of State stocks for investment, and proffering the money, at the market value, to those who wish to sell. Their purchases, like all others, will be regulated by the relative value of money, and of the stocks purchased; and, so far from the price being affected by the circumstance that the government is in fact the purchaser, the seller may never know that fact. He makes his transfer to the nominal purchaser, and that purchaser to the United States ; and it is only by following the transfers upon the books kept in the transfer office, that it will become known that the govern- ment has purchased the stocks. This fact may not be made known until the investments are completed, and the purchases for the government have closed. So with the sales, when the government may find it necessary to sell ; and no apprehension, therefore, can be justly entertained by reason of the connection of the public treasury with these operations. " Mr. W. said it was undoubtedly true, in case large amounts were to be invested at one time, that an appreciation of the stocks might be the consequence. It was a law of trade, of uni- versal application, that an unusual demand for any article in the market had a tendency to raise the price of that article in a ratio governed by the demand and supply; and, in reference to the investments provided for, this rule would operate in the same manner that it would upon mercantile, or any other transactions of trade. As, however, he had shown (he hoped satisfactorily to the Senate) that the amounts to be invested, as surplus beyond the appropriations made by Congress, could not be large, and that the amount of stocks in the market, of the description to which the investments were confined, was ample at present, and 488 Life and Times of Silas Wright. would increase much more rapidly than any possible increase of our surplus revenues, he thought he had answered the last two objections named, so effectually as to prevent their repetition. " Another objection had been made to the propositions he had submitted, of a ])crsonal character. It had been said that the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund were not the persons to Avhom the trust of making these investments ought to be conlided. Mr. W. said he had named these commissioners, not because he had any especial preference for those particular officers, as the trustees of the treasury, upon this particular occasion. Indeed, he did not know that he could tell who the commissioners were at the present moment; but he believed the Vice-President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury, and the Attorney-General, were of the number, if not the whole board. He must be permitted to say he had full and entire confidence in the individuals who now held these important offices, and, for himself, he would most cheerfully confide to their intelligence and integrity any trust, pecuniary or political ; but he had designated the Com- missioners of the Sinking Fund for the reason that our fathers had designated those high officers, whoever the individuals might chance to be, to discharge much more important duties in refer- ence to the great and vital interests of the treasury — the pay- ment of the national debt, and not from any personal or political attachment to the gentlemen who now filled the places. If objection was to be seriously made on account of this feature of the ])ropositions, and any Senator would name other public officers, whose duties would permit the requisite attention to the trust, and who could be less exceptionably charged with it, he would most cheerfully consent to the change. He was sure he did not mistake the feelings of any one of the officers he had named, when he said he could not render to them a more acceptable ser- vice than by discharging them from the unpleasant responsibili- ties which a faithful execution of the proposed trust might impose. He had been unable, however, after the most mature reflection upon the subject, to change the selection of trustees, and must, therefore, wait to hear the suggestions of those who found objection in this part of his propositions. He had heard Life and Times of Silas Wright. 489 the objections with patience, and he would endeavor to receive and consider any amendments with imi)artiality and candor. " Mr. W. said wlien lie had originally offered the sections of the bill upon which he was now remarking, seven millions of dol- lars was named as the sum to be left in the treasury to meet tlu' disbursements of each quarter. Before lie commenced his present observations, he had moditied the proposition by striking out the word ' seven,' and thus leaving the sum blank. He had done this because he wished the vote might indicate the sense of the Senate upon the principle contained in the section, without involv- ing objections of detail, which, it was most manifest, the fixing of this sum would involve. Tlie counter-proposition already offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. CalhounJ, Avith a much less sum (three millions) inserted, afforded conclusive evi- dence of a wide difference of opinion upon this point, and proved satisfactorily to his mind that the question between the two propositions ought to be presented to the Senate without refer- ence to this amount : that the principle of each might be disem- barrassed from this mere difference of opinion as to the amount to be left in the treasury, whether the one proposition or tlie other should be adopted. He thanked the honorable Senator for his agreement with him in this opinion, and for having modified his propositions in conformity with it, by leaving the sum blank in them also. Indeed, Mr. W. said, the fixing of this sum, in any event, ought to be the act of the Senate, and not of any mem- ber of the Senate who might choose to submit propositions as to the disposition of any surplus revenue whicli might be found iu the treasury. This position would be sound, under any circum- stances; and more especially so at this time, when appropriations to a greater extent than usual were not only proposed to be made, but conceded on all liands to be proper, and when, therefore, the amount to be retained for the uses of each quarter would be, to an unusual extent, dependent upon tlie appropriations actually made. "There was, however, Mr. W. said, a manifest difference as to the sum Avhich ought to supply the blank in the section he had offered from that which had ])een offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], because the rule of action 490 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the two propositions upon the funds in the ti-easury was wholly different. That offered by him directed the Commission- ers of the Sinking Fund, at the commencement of each quarter of the year, to estimate not only the payments, but the receipts for the coming quarter; and from that estimate to determine the average of moneys to be found in the treasury for the quar- ter, and to invest all, above the amount which was to fill the blank in question, in the manner pointed out in the provisions. Tiie antagonistic propositions of the Senator provided for annual distributions, leaving in the treasury, regardless of futui'e receipts, a specified amount to meet outstanding appropriations. " The rule of calculation was, therefore, entirely different, and the blank in each should be filled with reference to that rule. In the former case, the calculation was to be made at the commence- ment of the quarter, and the receipts as well as the expenditures of the quarter were to be brought into the estimate; while, in the latter case, a gross sum was to be left in the treasury, at the commencement of each year, which, together with the receipts of the year not estimated, was to constitute its means for the coming year. In the one case, the blank should be filled by a sum which would meet the entire payments of the quarter; while, in the other, it should be such a sum as, when added to the whole receipts of the future year, would meet the whole pay- ments of that year. It was, therefore, most appai-ent that, in acting upon the different principles proposed, this sum should be left blank, and that the blank should be filled with reference to the proposition adopted. It was equally apparent to his mind, Mr. W. said, that the sum to be inserted in either case must depend mainly upon the appropriations made, and to be made, by Congress, during its present session. The quarterly payments must surely depend upon that legislation; and the question whether the receipts of the next year will be equal to the expend- itures of that year must also depend, in a great degree, upon the amount of outstanding appropriations at the close of this year. The appropriation bills for the present year are very late. Few of them have yet passed and become laws, although the one-half of the year has nearly expired. If, then, they be greater than usual, there is the more reason to expect that the amount of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 49 J. outstanding appropriations, at the close of the year, will be unusually large. This amount, whatever it may be, is to be added to the current calls upon the treasury of the next year ; and, therefoi-e, in fixing upon a sum to be left in the treasury on the first day of the year, the amount of outstanding appropria- tions should be especially regarded. " In this view of the subject, Mr. W. said he had no hesita- tion in saying that the blank in the propositions of the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] could only be filled safely by deduction of the outstanding appropriations, separate from the sum which it might be necessary to retain in the treasury at the commencement of each year, to render it safe against all current calls. In reference to the propositions he had submitted, entirely difterent considerations might govern our legislation. In the first place, an estimate was to be made of the receipts and expend- itures of each quarter, and the sum to be invested was to be regulated by that estimate, by deducting from the moneys in the treasury, and the estimated receipts for the quarter, the estimated payments for the same quarter. That estimate, however, might be erroneous upon the one side or the other; but the consequence of error, in either case, could not be materially injurious to the public interests. If the estimate should be too favorable to the treasury, the only consequence would be that the amount of the error would remain in the treasury uninvested during the quarter. If, on the other hand, the estimate should be too sliort, and leave the treasury without means, the propositions not only authorize, but direct, the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund immediately to sell so much of the stocks in which the investments have been made as may be necessary to supply the treasury with means equal to its wants. At no time, under these propositions, are the means placed beyond the reach and control of the fiscal affairs of this government, or in a situation in which they cannot be com- manded by the action of the officers and agents of this govern- ment, to supply the wants of the national treasury. The filling of the blank, therefore, in this section, is much less important than in that offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun]. In this case, the propositions, of themselves, provide a correction for any error wliich may arise. In the other case, 492 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the money is placed in the keeping of the States ; is put beyond the reach of this government or its officers, upon the mere secu- rity of a legislative pledge for the repayment of the principal, without interest ; and cannot be reclaimed, whatever may be the wants of the national treasury, but upon the voluntary, separate, and independent action of the Legislatures of all those States Avhich shall receive their respective dividends. Hence, the far greater importance that the Senate should direct in this matter ; and that these blanks, and especially that in the proposition of tlie Senator, should be filled with great caution, and with partic- ular reference not only to the outstanding appropriations, but to such future appropriations as any measures of national policy now to be adopted may require. He had felt it to be his duty, Mr. W. said, to throw out these suggestions ; and he would content himself with their expression, until some specific motion to fill the blank in the one or the other proposition should bring the question more directly before the Senate. " Mr. W. said he had two insuperable objections to prefer against the propositions offered by the Senator from South Caro- lina [Mr. Calhoun] for a disposition of the surplus revenue. Tlie first was, that he considered tlieni, in substance and in effect, propositions to make a general distribution to the States of all the revenues in the national treasury, from whatever source derived, and, in that sense, to embrace the adoption of a prin- ciple wliich he considered more dangerous to our civil institutions, State and national, than any other which could be presented for the sanction of Congress. The taxing powers of this government were to be used to accumulate money for distribution to the sovereign and independent States of the confederacy. Those States were to be taught to look to this government for the means to supply their wants; for the money to sustain their institutions; for the funds to meet their legislative appropriations. Can rela- tions of this sort be established, and the independence of the States be preserved ? Can the government of a State feel or exercise an independence of the power which feeds and sustains it by direct and gratuitous contributions from its treasury ? Wliat step can be so eminently calculated as this to produce speedy and perfect consolidation ? Life and Times of Silas Wright. 493 "Mr. W. said he knew he should ho answered that it was not proposed to give, but to loan, tliis money to the States; to take their bonds or securities for its repayment, upon the call of Con- o-ress. It would b^ further said that the omission to charge interest was a matter of entire discretion with Congress and of justice to the States, inasmuch as the money had been collected from the people of the States, and, if not wanted for the uses of this government, ought to be submitted to the States for their use, without charge. These were specious answers, to which the form of the projiositions gave countenance; but what would be their practical eftect ? The money was to go to the States upon a rule of distribution prescribed, and claimed to be equal and just; it was to go to them for any uses they may choose to make of it, and without interest. In return for the money, the several State Legis- latures are to pass laws declaring that the State will repay the prin- cipal when Congress shall, by law, call for the payment. Does any one believe that the national treasury will ever receive back one dollar of the money distributed upon these terms ? What is the course ? The immediate relation of debtor and creditor is established between each of the States and the federal govern- ment, and the power to demand payment is left Avith the repre- sentatives of the States, and of the people of the States, in the two Houses of Congress; while the response to that demand rests with the States themselves, acting through their respective Legislatures, or otherwise, as tliey shall choose. The treasury is in want. Will the States, through their agents here, make a demand upon tliemselves to supply that want? Never, Mr. President. They may, through that channel, call for increased distributions, but never for the repayment of moneys which have been distributed and expended. "It must not be alleged, Mr. W. said, that, in making these remarks, he expressed distrust of the patriotism or faith of the States. No man entertained more confidence in both than him- self ; but the government of the States was the government of the people of the States, and the people of the States composed the vast, sagacious, enterprising business community, which all here in common represent, and of whose interests they, as an aggregate number, are quite as perfect judges as their represen- 494 Life and Times of Silas Wuiuht. tatives anywhere. He should never express a doubt of their faith or patriotism ; nor did he doul)t that they woukl, at all times, and for all proper purposes, keep the national treasury fully and richly supplied. If, however, want should come upon that treasury, the manner of answering that want would be before the people, and subject to their interests and their will. If an increase of the duties upon imports, an increase of indirect taxa tion, shall be more acceptable to the majority than a call upon the States for the momey now proposed to be intrusted to them, that mode of sujoplying the treasury will, of course, be adopted. Which — he would ask every Senator to answer to himself in can- dor and sincerity — which would be the most probable resort ? In case of a call upon the States, all would be equally interested, and all would be likely to resist. Such a call, if the rule of dis- tribution should be a proper and constitutional rule, would be, in effect, precisely equivalent to laying a direct tax to the amount, and the interests of no State or section of the country could, in any event, be promoted by it; but an increase of the duties upon foreign importations, and the consequent increase of the revenue from customs, a large majority of the people of the whole Union, as experience has shown, may easily be made to believe, if the fact be not so, that their interests will be directly and essentially promoted. Who, then, can doubt that this mode, instead of a call upon the States for the money parceled out to them, will be the mode of supplying any future wants of the treasury, so long as a resort to this indirect taxation can reach that object? If a calamitous and expensive war shall come ujDon the nation, and our commerce shall be so far interrupted or destroyed as to render any rates of duty upon imports an inadequate supply to the treasury, then, indeed, Mr. W. said, this money might be called for ; because then no other resort but to such a call, or to a direct tax, would remain to Congress. Still an important and most delicate question would, even then, be likely to govern the action of the national Legislature. Each State would calcu- late the relative effect upon itself of a call for the money, or a direct tax to raise the same amount. The interests of the States whose population shall have relatively diminished between the time of the receipt of the money and the time when a call Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 495 shall be proposed will (lictate to it, aiitl to its representatives here to favor a direct tax in preference to a call ; because its proportion of the tax mil be less than was its proportion of the money, distributed when its relative })osition among the States was higher. On the contrary, the relatively increas- ing States, those whose population shall bear a higher pro- portion to the whole when the call comes than when the dis- tribution took place, will favor a call instead of a tax, because the proportion of money falling to their share will have been less than their proportion of the tax when they shall have become relatively more populous. The preponderance of these interests will, of course, determine the action of Congress when tlie crisis shall have arrived. " If this view of the subject be sound and practical, will any one contend that the disposition of the surplus, according to these propositions, is, in effect, anything less than a general and unrestricted distribution of it to the States ? The repay- ment submitted to their action, and is subject to their pleasure ; and all the constitutional means for a supply of money to tht- treasury, sepax-ate from a call for this money, will be con- stantly as open to them and to their representatives here as they now are, and will remain, if this distribution be not made. Is, then, the position sound, that Congress will never make the call until a necessity either of levying a direct tax, or of making- it, shall exist ? And if it be, is the position of the general gov- ernment made in any respect better, by having required the pi-omise of payment as a condition precedent to dividing out the moneys of the treasury to the States ? Mr. W. said he could not see that it was; while he could see the most fearful evils which mio-ht arise from this debtor and creditor relation between the States and this government. He could foresee incalculable evils which might grow out of the conflicting and contrary interests of the different States, whenever it should be proposed by the federal government to make the call for this money, and thus attempt to render the promises to pay operative. He was compelled further to apprehend, in consequence of these propo- sitions, should they be adopted, an early agitation of the tariff controversy, and the revival of local questions which have so 496 Life and Times of Silas Wright. recently tried the strength of this Union more severely than it had ever before been tried, and given to our institutions a sliock which every patriot would long reineniber, and labor to the utmost of his power to avoid in future. " Ilis second objection, Mr. W. said, was against the rule of distribution adopted. It was directed to be made according to the representation of each State in the Senate and House of Representatives. He must suppose, if Congress possess tlie power, under the Constitution, to divide out the moneys in the public treasury to the States, or to the peo2:)le of the States, that the rule of distribution must follow that which o-overns the collection of the same money. That rule is the rule of repre- sentation and taxation ; is the rule of federal numbers ; is the rate of rejDresentation, as nearly as may be, by which the States are represented in the House of Representatives. It has never before been proposed to include the Senate in any calculation of equality between the States. The Constitution has in no instance included it; and he must think that its inclusion here was against tlie spirit and against the express provisions of that instrument. How had this money been accumulated '? By taxation, direct or indirect. From whom had it been collected ? From the people of the States. The Coustitution prescribed the rule by which, and by which only. Congress might tax them; and that was in proportion to their federal numbers. If the money is not wanted for the uses of the federal government, to whom does it belong? and to whom sliould it be returned ? Most certainly the people from whom it has been collected, and in the same proportions which governed its collection from them. It should be distrib- uted, then, upon the federal numbers of the States, or upon their representation in the House of Rei)resentatives alone; and the representation in the Senate, which has no relation to the popu- lation of tax-paying liabilities of the States, should not be included. "Another argument against the adoption of this rule of distri- bution, of the strongest character, was to be found in the certainty it would create that the money would never be called for, even to avoid direct taxation. By this rule all the small States would obtain a large amount of the money to be distributed, beyond Ltfe and Ti3Ies of Silas Wright. 497 the proportion to which their federal numbers would entitle them. Sixteen of the twenty-four States would gain, and eight only would lose. Present, then, in this body, where the States are represented equally, the alternative of a direct tax or a call upon the States for this money, and which do you think, Mr. President, would be adopted ? Would the sixteen States prevail, or the eight ? and if the sixteen, which alternative would they choose ? That, of course, which the interests of the States represented here, and holding the majority, should dictate. What would be that interest ? In the distribution of the money to be repaid they will have received a proportion much greater than their proportion of federal population, because the rule of distribution included their representation in the Senate. If, then, they con- sent to the call for repayment, they must return the money received. On the contrary, if these States adopt a direct tax, they have only to raise a sum equal to their exact proportions in the scale of federal numbers, and therefore will be direct gainers by preferring the tax and rejecting a call for the money. " Mr. W. said he must, in justice to himself, state that the fact that the rule proposed to be adopted would work the greatest injustice to his own State had very little influence with him in urging this objection. If a distribution was to be made, and New York was to be a recipient, it was his duty to contend for her rights; but, in debt as she was, if all her citizens entertained his feelings and opinions upon this subject, they would look, as they most safely might, to her wealth, to her enterprise, to her immense advantages and resources, to pay her debts and carry her on to her high destiny, and would not prostrate her before the national treasury, for the miserable boon of a few hundred thousand dollars. Were he permitted to advise, his State would never accept the money proposed to be intrusted to her upon the terms prescribed. "Another objection, Mr. W. said, remained to be answered, which had been very generally ui-ged against the propositions he had offered upon this subject. It was, that an investment of the surplus in the manner he had proposed would be unequal, as between the different States; and that those States which had no debt, which had issued no stock or securities of any description, 32 498 Life and Times of Silas Wright. would obtain no part of the moneys to be invested. A perfect and conclusive answer to this objection might be, that it was at the option of the States to issue stocks or not; and therefore it was at their option to particijjate or not in these investments, as any- State which would issue stocks, and offer them in the market upon the most favorable terms, would, of course, be most likely to obtain investments. This, however, was not the answer upon which he chose to rest his defense to the objection. The objec- tion had arisen from the fact that gentlemen had yielded all their reflections to the various plans for an equal distribution of these moneys to the States; and they had connected, in their minds, the propositions he had made with reflections of this cliaracter. There was no connection between the two subjects, and he hoped to be able to convince every Senator that the objection was wholly inapplicable in practice to the plan of investment he had suggested. There was nothing in the nature of a distribution among the States connected with the plan. No transaction with the States, of any sort, was proposed. The adoption of the pro- positions could not benefit or injure any State, or give any one State any possible advantage over any other State. The invest- ments were to be made by a purchase of the stocks in the market, at the market value ; and before they could come there they must have been sold by the State issuing them. That State, therefore, must have received its money, and could have no interest what- ever in the sale to the United States, and the purchase by them. It must have taken upon itself the obligation to pay the interest upon the stock at a given time and place, and to redeem the principal at a specified day. No change could be made in these obligations by a transfer of the stocks to the United States, any more than by a similar transfer to any private individual; and whatever premium the government may pay does not go to the benefit of the State issuing the stock, but to the holder of whom the purchase is made. So, also, if the government sell the stock of any State which it may have purchased, the State or its inter- .ests are in no way affected by the sale; its obligations and respon- sibilities are unchanged. Mr. W. said, the better to illustrate his meaning, the Senate must permit him to take a simple busi- ness example. I give my note to you, Mr. President, for the Life and Times of Silas Weight. 499 sum of $100, payable at the expiration of twenty years from its date, with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum; the interest to be paid annually at a specified j^lace, and the principal to be paid at the same place when it falls due; and I make the note negotiable. Can it, by any possibility, interest me whether you hold that note or sell it, or whether it be nogotiated but once in the whole twenty years or every week in the term; whether it be held by individuals or bodies politic, by a pauper or by the United States ? Mr. W. said he was unable to comj^rehend how his interests could be affected in the supposed case, and he was equally unable to discover how the interests of the States were to be affected, either beneficially or injuriously, by permitting the United States to purchase their stocks in the market, as a mere investment of money in the treasury. He was sure gentle- men must see that the objection was groundless, and had pro- ceeded from the mistaken idea that the States whose stocks should be purchased were to be materially benefited, and that, therefore, there ought to be some provision to make the pur- chases equal among the States; whereas, neither the purchase nor sale could affect in any way the interests of the State issuing the stocks. " So far from desiring this equality, Mr. W. said, the very certain inequality was, to his mind, one of the highest merits of the propositions. It was not likely that the United States would hold the stocks of a large number of States at the same time, and those would be held in very unequal quantities. This fact would cause the representatives of the States against which no securities were held to attend vigilantly to the collection or disposition of those held against other States, and, in an equal degree, would induce the representatives from those States against which small amounts were held to see that those against which the amounts were large were made punctually, to meet their payments. One of his most important objections to any plan of distribution, with a view to repayment, was predicated upon the fact that all would be equally interested against a repayment; that there would be none to exercise vigilance, because all would resist collection ; that repayment would never be made, because there would be no one to demand it. Invest- 500 Life and Times of Silas Wright. meuts in the manner he proposed would be free from these objec- tions, and would stimulate the majority to watchfulness and care that collections were promptly made. "Mr. W. said he had but one single further suggestion to make, and he would resume his seat. He wished to inquire of those gentlemen who had voted for the land bill, and who now proposed to support the propositions offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] to distribute the surplus revenue among the States, whether the two measures would, or would not, conflict with each other? whether they were, or were not, intended as antagonistic measures ? That bill provides for the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands on specified days, and extends through the year 1837. These propo- sitions make the same disposition of all the revenues in the trea- sury, over a given sum to be named, upon specified days, with- out regard to the sources from which the moneys may have been derived, and extends its action through the year 1841. If he was not mistaken, the distributions under the two bills were to take place, in some instances at least, on the same day. What he wished gentlemen to inform him was, which bill would take the money; for he suj^posed either would take all which could be called surplus. The rule of distribution was very different in the two cases, and he would be glad to learn whether it was intended, by this measure, to repeal in effect the land bill. His inquiries were particularly directed to the author of this scheme for distribution, and he should await his answer, " When Mr. W. had concluded — " Mr. Leigh called the attention of the Senate to a provision of the substitute, by which the Secretary of the Treasury, though he cannot change the places of deposit during the ses- sion of Congress without its consent, yet, during the recess of Congress, absolute power of such change is given him beyond the remedy of Congress, the Secretary being only required to make a fruitless report of his reasons for the change. " Mr. Wright acknowledged this to be a feature of his sub- stitute for the bill." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 501 Before the final passage of the bill, after it had been ordered to be engrossed, Mr. Wkight, on the 7th of June, 1836, again addressed the Senate as follows : "Mr. Wright said his connection with the subject generally, and with the bill under consideration more especially, had com- pelled him to take a more active part in the discussion than had been pleasant to him, or agreeable to the Senate ; that he had refrained from any interference with this important matter until any further movement upon it had been expressly abandoned by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], who had first, and upon one of the first days of the session, intro- duced a bill to regulate the deposits in the banks; that, after that abandonment, he had called up the bill and proposed a sub- stitute ; that he had connected with that substitute propositions for the temporary investment of any surplus, beyond the proba- ble wants of the treasury, which should be found in the banks at the commencement of each quarter of each year; that, subse- quently to the ofier of these propositions, he had concluded that the terms of investment were not sufiiciently restricted, and he had modified his provisions so as to allow investments in the stocks issued by the States only, and not in any other descrip- tion of stocks whatsoever; that, subsequently to this time, the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] had seemed to resume his interest in his original bill, and had ofi'ered modifica- tions of a character calculated and intended to distribute among the several States, in a proportion regulated by their respective representations, not in the House of Representatives, but in the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, all the moneys which might remain in the treas- ury upon a given day beyond a sum to be fixed as the amount in the treasury for that day. "Subsequently to that time, various propositions were laid before the Senate, by different members of the body, some of them containing new provisions, and others amendments of those which had been previously submitted. The question was one of the first importance to the public and to the treasury, as well as to the general interests of the whole community. The currency 502 Life and Times of Silas Wbight. of the country, the accommodations from the local banks, and consequently the prosperity of the commercial interests, were directly involved in our action. " Under these circumstances, the discussion upon the great question of a regulation of the deposits of the public money by law commenced. At the opening of that discussion, Mr. W. said, he had given his general views upon the whole subject. His subsequent duties in the Senate, and as a member of one of its important committees, together with the accumulated duties devolved upon him, connected with this bill, had prevented him from being yet able to present those views to the public ; but he was now conscious that relief was at hand, and he should soon find it in his power to discharge that labor. Upon the views then expressed by him he should rest himself for his general jus- tification in the course he had taken. " It had been found, however, that a great diversity of opin- ion prevailed in the Senate as to the details of any bill, and that a recommittal would be indispensable, to so far incorporate the various propositions that the whole body could act upon them with any facility. After two days' discussion, that course had been suggested by himself, and concurred in upon all sides of the Senate. A select committee was therefore apj^ointed, and the bill and all the amendments were referred to it, and the Senate had done him the distinguished honor, upon an election by ballot, to place his name at the head of the committee as its chairman. The standing and character and talents of the members of that com- mittee had caused him to doubt, at every step, the soundness of his views and the propriety of his course, and the more especially so, as, upon every question of difference of opinion in the com- mittee, he had found himself in the minority, and, upon some of the most important questions of difference, in a small minority. " He was most happy, however, to be able to say, that every question had been decided without passion or personal feeling, and that, so far as he could judge, all were disposed to frame a bill which would meet the approbation of the Senate. "A single question had excited peculiar interest with him. He had been most anxious to agree upon a bill to regulate the depos- its of the public money in the banks ; and when he found that Life and Times of Silas Wright. 503 no proposition for the disposition of any surplus, if surplus there should be, to which he could give his assent, could command the support of the majority of the committee, he had urged the sep- aration of the two subjects, and the report of two separate bills ; the one to regulate the deposits in the banks, and the other to provide for a more permanent disposition of the surplus. In this he was unsuccessful, as the majority of the committee preferred that the two subjects should be connected in the same bill. " Since the report of the committee of the Senate, he had made every proper effort in his power to produce that separa- tion, and he could not but congratulate himself upon the fact that his first effort was successful ; that the first vote of the Sen- ate sustained the propriety of his views, and directed the separa- tion of the two subjects (which he must say he considered in their nature and character entirely separate), and the report of independent bills for each. "A reconsideration, however, had been proposed, and, after a night's deliberation, it was carried. The motion to recommit was then lost ; and the determination of the Senate thus expressed that the two subjects should be coupled in the same bill, and should stand or fall together. From that time, Mr. W. said, he had felt himself relieved from all responsibility as to a deposit bill proper. He had found that no such bill could be passed in the Senate without incorporating with it a perfectly separate and most important provision for giving the moneys in the treasury to the States, under the name of a deposit. Such a provision contained principles to which he could not, for any consideration, give his assent ; and after that vote, therefore, the bill to him had lost its value. " He had been still disposed, however, to adhere to it, and to make further trial to so modify its provisions as to enable him to give it his suppoi't. With this view he had again offered his propositions, which directed an investment of the surplus in the treasury in State stocks, bearing an interest, and transferable at the pleasure of the holder, with authority in the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer them, when the wants of the treasury should require money for the stocks. As against a proposition to loan the money to the States without interest, this proposition had 504 Life and Times of Silas Weight. met with little favor. He believed it had received but four votes in a full Senate. The reasons for a different disposition had appeared to him to be that the money was the proj)erty of the people of the States, and, if not wanted for the uses of this gov- erinnent, ought to be given to them, without interest, instead of being invested upon interest. He was willing to admit that some force attached to this argument ; but his mind had embraced the argument as relating to, and growing out of, the representative rights of the people of the States, and as referable to their taxa- ble liabilities. If the money belonged to the people of the States, and they had the right to use it without interest, it was because it had been accumulated by taxations upon them, as drawn from a common fund, in which they possessed a common interest. This he believed was the position assumed by the friends of the bill. "Would any member of the body, then, blame him for the surprise he had experienced when he found a principle of distri- l)Ution incorporated in the bill entirely at variance with the rights of the people of tlie States, as resulting from the rate of representation or taxation established by our common constitu- tion of government, when he found this body made an element in the rule of distribution of that money which had been drawn from the people of the States, to be returned to them, as the pre- tense was, because it was not wanted for the purposes of this government ? What was the rule of representation of the States here ? A perfect equality. What was the representation of the people of the States, and the liabilities for taxation, in the other branch of this Legislature? There were sixteen States which would gain by the rule of distribution in the bill, which sixteen States were represented in the popular branch of Congress by eighty-one members ; while there were eight States which would lose by the incorporation of the Senate as an element in the rule of distribution; which eight States were represented in the same branch of Congress by 159 members. The constitutional rules of taxation and representation were the same; were both based upon the federal members ; and in neither was the representation in the Senate an element. " Would it be said that this was not a proposed distribution Life and Times of Silas Wright. 505 of this money to the people of the States, but a mere investment of it? Wliy then any reference to the representation of the States in either branch of Congress ? And much more emphati- cally, why this reference to both, while a simple investment in securities of the same character, without reference to the princi- ple of distribution, receives but four votes in the whole body? Surely no one will liave the hardihood to say, in answer to these inquiries, that the disposition intended is not a distribution to the States according to a rule which is intended to be defended as just and equal. In this sense, could the rule of distribution be defended as just, as equal, as constitutional? He would leave the answers to these questions to those who supported the bill with this provision contained in it. For himself, he was ready and willing to say that, in his judgment, if a ix)wer existed to return the money to the people at all, the exercise of tliat power must follow the rule which raised the money from the people by taxation, or from that fund which they held in common, and in the same proporti(5ns which govern their liability to taxa- tion. " Having thus explained himself as to the provisions and pro- gress of the bill, he was content to rest upon the record of the proceedings upon the bill, which the journal of the Senate would show. If, in resisting this division of the moneys of the nation, he had misrepresented his immediate constituents, he desired that they shoidd know the fact, and especially at this time, when it would so soon be in their power, without his consent, to fill the place he occupied with a better man. If, in refusing to yield to a rule of distribution that does them great injustice, he had been less liberal of their strict rights than they would wash him to be, he was equally anxious that they should be advised of his action, and thus have it in their power to redress themselves if they have been aggrieved. "Mr. W. said there was yet a question which he had not con- sidered, but which must claim his principal attention. He had hitherto spoken of the progress of this bill, and of the rule of distribution adopted by it. He had not spoken, nor did he intend even yet to speak, of the constitutional power of Congress to use its taxing power to collect money from the people of the 506 Life and Times of Silas Wright. States, not to give back to the people who pay the taxes, but to place in the treasuries of the States without interest. This was a great question, which he hoped the people of the States would decide without ai'gument from him, and to their decision he would most cheerfully submit. He was aware he might be answered that Congress could not use its taxing power under the Constitution to raise moneys for distribution to the States, and that the fact that the money was in the treasury had raised a necessity from which this power of distribution was assumed. When those who should use the argument would show him how it was to be ascertained that the money now in the treasury was not raised for distribution, and how it was hereafter to be shown that any money in the treasury was not raised for distribution, he would enter upon a further argument of the points; until then he would content himself with saying that Congress could possess no greater and no less powers for raising revenue than it had possessed from the adoption of the Constitution to the pres- ent time, unless the provisions of that instrument, upon that sub- ject, should be contracted or enlarged. The question to which he referred, and to the examination of which he asked the candid and unprejudiced attention of the Senate, was, how much money would remain in the treasury on the first of January next, which could properly be termed ' surplus,' not required to answer the wants of this government, and, therefore, to be given away to the States ? He had taken some pains to inform himself upon this point, and the best information he could obtain should be given to the Senate. "By a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, made to the Senate on the sixth day of June instant, the amount of money in the treasury on that day, subject to draft, was $33,563,654 ; and in consequence of the late passage of the appropriation bills, and the rapid payments from the treasury under them, that amount, over and above the current receipts, is now reduced to less than $33,000,000. " For the present, Mr. W. said, he would examine the charges now existing, and likely to be made, upon this sum ; and what were they? Life and TniES of Silas Wright. 507 1. Balance of outstanding appropriations of the last year $5,170,000 2. Permanent appropriations chargeable upon 183G, viz. : Pensions under the act of 7th June, 1832, about $1,300,000 Pensions to revolutionary officers, per act of 15th May, 1828, about 160,000 Virginia claims, per act of 5th July, 1832, about 52,000 Gradual improvement of the navy 500,000 Arming and equipping tlie militia 200,000 Civilization of the Indians 10,000 Unclaimed dividends and interest of debt 50,000 Library of Congress 1 ,000 Three per cent to new States from sales of lands, 500,000 Proportion of French indenmity payable by the United States, being part of the amount to be paid by us by the treaty 225,000 2,998,000 3. Appropriations already made at the present ses- sion of Congress, viz. : Navy bill, about $6,276,312 Civil list 2,707,981 Supplement to civil list, about 71 ,770 Army bill 4,010,485 Seminole war 2,120,000 District of Columbia debt 1 ,570,000 Pensions 455,454 Payment of members of Congress, etc 843,880 Volunteer army bill 300,000 Creek war 500,000 Concurrent resolutions as to claims of States against the general government, say 200,000 Private bills and miscellaneous appropriations already made, not less than 100,000 ^ 19,215,882 508 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " We then, Mr. W. said, had certainty so far ; and how did the account stand ? The money in the treasury at our last accounts, on the sixth day of June instant, was $33,563,654 There were then appropriations charged upon it as follows : Outstanding appropriations of 1835 $5 , 170,000 Permanent appropriations for the service of 1836. . 2,998,000 Appropriations already made during the present session of Congress toward the service of 1836. . 19,215,882 27,383,882 Thus leaving a balance in the treasury, unappropriated on the sixth day of the present month, amounting to $6,179,772 Since that time the Indian annuity bill has passed, and become a law, and, including the sums for the removal of Indians, appropriates about 1 , 800,000 Which, taken from the above balance in the treasury, will leave $4 , 379 , 772 " Mr. W. said he would now inquire, as briefly as was possible, what further appropriations remained to be made for the present year, and which he thought all would admit must be made. And here the first subject which had demanded his notice was the Indian treaties which have been ratified by the Senate during its present session. He would enumerate but two, the treaty with the Cherokees and with the Chippewas and Ottawas. These treaties required appropriations, at the least, to the following extents: The Cherokee treaty to the amount of $5 , 600 , 000 The Chippewa and Ottawa treaty to the amount of 1 ,500,000 The fortifications had occupied much of the attention of the present Congress, but, as yet, nothing had been appropriated toward them. The Senate had sent a bill to the House, pro- viding for the purchase of sites, and the commencement of ncAV works, and appropriating for that object about 1,100,000 A bill was pending before the House to provide for continuing the work upon the existing fortifications, and proposing to appropriate for that object about 2,250,000 A bill for the continuation of the Cumberland road had been sent from the Senate to the House, proposing appropriations for that object to the amount of 600,000 Carried forward $10,850,000 Life and TniEs of Silas Wright. 509 Brought forward $10,850,000 Bills were before the two Houses, and most of them had passed the one House or the other, for the improvement of roads in the territories, amounting to about 150,000 A bill had come from the House to the Senate to provide for constructing a frontier road along the western frontier of the United States, and appropriating for that object 100 ,000 Two bills, which usually met the favorable action of Congress at ever}' session, and more especially at the long session, the one for the improvement of harbors and rivers, and the other for the erection of light-houses, light-boats, beacons, buoys, etc., are before the House, proposing to appropriate for these objects 1,500,000 Provision has been made annually, and it is presumed will be made this year, for the compensation of custom-house officers, which calls for an expenditure of about 200 ,000 A bill is now before the House to provide for the increased expenditures at the mints, and proposes to appropriate 50,000 Further appropriations must be made for the Seminole and Creek wars, and the least sum estimated to be necessary is. . 3,000,000 The estimated amount of appropriations by private and local bills, not enumerated above, and beyond the $100,000 in- cluded in the first statement, is 1 ,450,000 This presents an aggregate of appropriations to be made, all of which are supposed to be to some extent necessary, and even indispensable to the public interests, equal to |17»500,000 Take from this amount the above balance in the treasury, after deducting the outstanding appropriations, to wit 4,379,772 And there will remain, to be charged upon tiie moneys to be received into the treasury after the sixth day of June instant, the sum of $13 , 1 20^228 There was another class of appropriations of a public charac- ter, which he thought ought to pass, and he hoped might pass before the adjournment of Congress. One of these measures Avas the filling up of the ranks of the army, and which, if successful, he supposed would incur an annual expenditure of at least $1 ,000,000 Several bills were before Congress for the erection of new cus- tom-houses, some of which, and especially one at New Orleans, and at one or two other points, he hoped would pass, and they would appropriate about 300,000 Carried forward $1 ,300,000 510 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. Brought forward $1 ,300,000 Bills were before Congress, and surely ought to pass, for re- building the treasury buildings, and there was asked for that object, for the present year 250,000 A bill was also now before the Senate recommending the erec- tion of a firc-i)roof building for the Patent Office, and pro- posing to appropriate for that object sometliing more than. . 100,000 Several bills were before the two Houses of Congress, to pro- vide for the erection of new marine hospitals, and he sup- posed some of them would meet our favorable action. He had estimated that the appropriations for these objects would be . . 50 , 000 Bills were before Congress to remit the duties upon goods destroyed by fire in the original packages, many of which he thought ought to pass, and would appropriate, if they did pass, at the least 1 , 100,000 A bill is now before Congress proi^osing to advance the unpaid indemnities under the treaties with France and Naples. This bill would be eminently calculated, to its extent, to relieve the present mercantile pressure, and ought to pass. It would appropriate about 4i000,000 A bill has passed the Senate, and been sent to the House, to purchase the remaining stock held by private stockholders in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company, and appropri- ating for that object 500,000 Here, then, is a further amount, unprovided for, except by future receipts into the treasury, of $7,550,000 Add to this the balance unprovided for except by future receipts into the treasury, as shown by the result of the last preceding calculation 13,120,228 And we have an amount of existing and probable appropria- tions, beyond any means now in the treasury, equal to $20,670,228 " Mr. W. said he did not say that these appropriations would all he made. He did not believe they would all be made ; but he had intended to select, with care and caution, such only as were presented to Congress with strong claims ; of many of them he could say with claims which seemed to him almost, if not altogether, irresistible. He would then ask gentlemen who dis- puted his conclusions to point out the important bills he had enumerated, which would not and ought not to pass. He had given particular reference to the measures, and he hoped they would put their finger upon those which they would oppose." Life ajsd Times of Silas Wright. 51] Chapter LX RECHARTERING THE BANKS IN TPIE DISTRICT UF COLUMBIA. For tlie business of the District, it liacl a large number of banlis in 1836. They all sought extensions or renew- als of their charters by Congress. Temporary extensions were granted them, and a portion received renewals for considerable periods of time. One of them had become a deposit bank, and it had been alleged, at a previous session, that the deposits were improperly loaned out to politicians. Thereupon the House appointed a committee to examine that bank. On their arrival, the books of the bank were withheld from their examination. Gen. Jack- son, on hearing this, sent for its president and informed him that, if he wished to have his bank continued a deposit bank until sundown, he must invite the commit- tee to return and throw its books and papers open to their inspection. Of course this was done, for the bank knew full well that the President would not be trifled with and would keep his word. The committee returned and found that the bank held numerous notes of democratic members of Congress, indorsed by whig members, and notes made by whig and indorsed by democratic members. Yery many of the makers and indorsers were engaged in speculations in public lands. The exhibit was of that character that it was not deemed wise to display it in ' a formal written report. But bills for rechartering several of the banks were reported and warmly discussed. In the Senate, Col. Benton took the lead in opj)osition to the banks. A bill was passed in the Senate, on the seventh of June, for renewing these charters. Mr. Wright made no speech against them, but contented himself on this occasion with voting against the bill. The vote stood 26 ayes and 14 noes. 512 Life and Tines of Silas Wright. Chapter LXI. REDUCTION OF THE DUTIES ON IMPORTS. When Mr. .Wright entered the Senate, in January, 1833, the committees in that body had been appointed, for the second session of the twenty-second Congress, at the meeting in the previous December. At botli sessions of the twenty-third Congress he served on the Committee on Commerce. In the twenty-fourth Congress he served during the first session as a member of the Committee on Finance, and at the second as its chairman, which j)osi- tion he long hekl. This committee has charge of most revenue subjects. The revenues in 1836 had become excessive, and statesmen turned their attention to the subject of their reduction. To aid in accomplishing this purpose, Mr. AVeight, as chairman of the Committee on Finance, on the 27th of January, 1837, introduced a bill having that object in view. Not being accompanied with a written report, he made the following explanation of it : " Mr. Weight said it was his duty here to say that, in con- sequence partly of ill liealth, and partly of other and para- mount engagements, the committee had been deprived, during all its deliberations upon this bill, of the valuable advice and aid of one of its members; and that, therefore, nothing con- tained in the bill, and nothing which he should say, was to be considered as committing that member of the committee, or as expressing his views upon the important and interesting questions involved. The very late arrival in the city of another member of the committee had prevented him from partaking fully in their deliberations. The bill, therefore, is to be received rather as the conclusions and recommendations of a bare major- ity of the committee than of the whole committee ; and it was his duty further to add, that what he should now say would be Life and Times of Silas Wright. 513 more the expression of his private views, and the motives and opinions which had governed his action, than anything he had been either authorized or directed by the committee to say. " The reference was general, and applied to the whole revenue of the country. This revenue (or, more properly speaking, the receipts into the treasury) consists of two parts : the money derived from the duties imposed upon importations, which is revenue proper, and the receipts from the sales of the public lands, which is, in fact, capital, and not revenue. The commit- tee, upon their first view of the reference, considered this last branch of the subject, the receipts from lands, more properly to belong to another standing committee of the Senate — the Com- mittee on Public Lands. Indeed, at the very time of the refer- ence, they knew that the subject of the reduction of the amount of money flowing into the public treasury from the sales of the public lands was under consideration before that committee; and very soon after this reference to the Committee on Finance, and before that committee had made it a subject of deliberation, the Committee on Public Lands reported to the Senate a bill, having for its object the reduction of this branch of the receipts into the public treasury. That bill was, long since, taken up for action in the Senate, and has, for many days now last past, occu- pied the principal time and attention of the body. " The Committee on Finance, therefore, have not, at any time, considered that branch of the reference before them for their action, or that they have been, at any period since the reference, at liberty to consider and act upon it. " Mr. W. said, another conclusion of his own mind, and one he believed existed also in the minds of his colleagues upon the committee who were present and acting, was, that if Congress, by any legislative action, at its present session, coidd reduce the receipts into the treasury to the wants of the government, the most important measures to reach that object must relate to the lands, and go to reduce the receipts from that source. This con- clusion was founded upon the amount of receipts from that source for the last two years. These receipts, for the years 1835 and 1836, counted together, had amounted to between thirty- eight and thirty-nine millions of dollars, he did not know but 33 514 Life and Times of Silas Wright. full tliirty-nine millions; a sura which exceeded the usual esti- mate of the wants of the treasury for the two years mentioned. If, then, every dollar of the revenue from customs were instantly repealed, and the receipts from the lands were to continue at the rates of the last year, there Avould still be a surplus in the trea- sury, or the expenses of the government must be swollen beyond the amount which is considered economical and desirable. It was, therefore, impossible to apply an efficient and adequate remedy for the existing evil of a redundant revenue by any reduction of the revenue from customs. The receipts from the lands was the seat of the evil, and to that quarter the great and commanding remedies must be directed. The committee hoped and believed, during the whole of their deliberations, that Con- gress would pass the necessary laws, during its present session, to lop this branch of our public receipts, and to relieve the national treasury from the dangerous plethora now weighing upon it from that source. Mr. W. said he yet entertained that hope, and his action upon the interesting and important subject of a reduction of our revenue from the customs had been influ- enced by that hope and belief. "Thus confined, as the committee believed they were, to a consideration of the reduction of the duties upon customs, another principle which actuated himself, and which he believed actuated every member of the committee who participated in their deliberations, was to move cautiously and safely ; not to shock the public sense by any hasty and rash movement ; not, if that could possibly be prevented, to disturb any permanent and important domestic interest of the country, which had grown up, or was now growing up, under the protection of our revenue laws; but to go as far as the existing laws would permit, to reduce this branch of the revenue without incurring any of these evils. Acting upon this principle, the committee had, in the bill Avhich he was directed to report, and which he was about to send to the Secretary's table, added to the list of free articles every- thing which had appeared to them to admit of being made free, without injury to the interests to which he had referred. Every article proposed to be made free was distinctly named in the bill ; and the committee had caused a statement to be prepared, from Life and Tlmes of Silas Wright. 515 the tables of commerce and navigation for the year ending on the 30th of September, 1835 (the hist table of that description which is yet completed), showing the name or designation of the article, the present rate of duty, the amount of importations for the year ] 835, the amount of duty paid upon the article as calcu- lated upon those importations, and the amount of duty proposed to be reduced, as estimated upon the importations of that year. Many of the articles named in the bill are not enumerated sepa- rately in the tables of commerce and navigation, but are given as non-enumerated articles, and so grouped as not to show, with precision, the importance of each; but the committee believe that the statement will present, with satisfactory clearness to the mind of every Senator, the effect of the action they recommend by this part of their bill. This statement it was the intention of the committee to ask the Senate to order to be printed to accom- pany the bill ; and they felt confident it would afford greater aid to the action of the body upon the bill than any form of written report they could have presented. "Among the articles proposed to be made free would be found 'common salt; ' and Mr. W, said, while it was not his object at this time to discuss any of the merits or provisions of the bill, he hoped he should be pardoned for the remark, that he knew tliis was, by far, the most important article inserted in the free list, and an article much more likely than any other to excite a deep feeling in the country, and to meet with firm and spirited opposition. He also knew that this was, in certain portions of the Union, a protected article, and would, in that sense, be con- sidered as inserted in violation of the general principle by which the committee had proposed to govern their action. Under these convictions, he was consoled by the reflection that no State in the Union held so deep a stake in this article, as a domestic article, and one of domestic manufacture, as the State he had the honor in part to represent here. It was an important article to a large and most respectable class of the citizens of his State, as one of production and manufacture; and it was important to the State itself, as a soui-ce of revenue to the State treasury. In these aspects he was fully aware of the delicacy of his position in having consented, as a member of the committee, to the insertion 516 iy/i^£ AND Times of Silas Wright. of salt as a free article, and in standing here to urge the Senate to repeal the duty upon it. He did, however, believe that the universal wish of his constituents was that the revenues of this government should be reduced to the economical wants of its treasury, and that they did not expect to reach that desirable result without themselves making their full share of sacrifices to the Common object. He therefore relied upon their liberality and patriotism to justify him in the course he had pursued ; and he did not doubt that they would justify their representatives upon this floor, and in the other House of Congress, in consenting to this reduction of more than half a million of tax upon one of the most prominent and universal necessaries of life, when the money raised upon it was not only not wanted for public expendi- ture, but was producing dangers to our institutions greater than any which those institutions have heretofore encountered — the dangers of an overfilled treasury and a surplus revenue. He could not be mistaken in the opinion that, if the country could be efiectually discharged from these startling dangers, his con- stituents, patriotic and intelligent as they ever had been, and still arc, would not only justify, but applaud, their representa- tives here, for coming forward and offering this sacrifice on their behalf to reach so important a national good. " Mr. W. said the article of ' wines ' was another important article which had presented itself to the notice of the committee, and which they would have been inclined to make free, had it not been their duty also to notice and regard the stipulations in relation to wines in our late treaty with France. Those stipula- tions must be preserved with all the national faith which has throughout the whole history of our beloved country so signally distinguished her policy toward other nations; and in the opinion of the committee they put it out of the power of Congress to make any wines free until after the expiration of the term men- tioned in the treaty, during which the wines of France were to have extended to them certain advantages, in our revenue laws, over the wines of other countries. Under this impression, the committee have recommended a further i-eduction to the extent of one-half of the existing duties upon all wines, from whatever country imported, thus preserving the proportions between Life and Times of Silas Wright. 517 French and other wines, stipulated by the treaty to be preserved in our future legislation upon this subject, and pursuing the same course of legislation which Congress has, upon two former occa- sions, since the ratification of the treaty, pursued in regulating the duties upon wines. "As intimately connected with this branch of the revenue from customs, the article of ' spirits made f i-om vinous materials ' attracted the attention of the committee. They found the exist- ing duties upon this description of spirits very high, ranging from fifty-three to eighty-five cents per gallon, according to the rates of proof at which the spirits may be imported, and that, by applying the same reduction to this class of duties which the committee propose to apply to wines themselves, they would be able to reduce the current revenue by a sum not less than from $275,000 to $300,000 per annum. It was not without much hesi- tancy and doubt that the committee adopted this recommenda- tion. They were, and are, fully sensible that a proposition for the reduction of the duties upon any description of- ardent spirits will not meet with favor in the minds of a very large portion of our citizens. They feel no certainty that it will receive the approbation of the Senate ; but so deep was the conviction in the minds of a majority of the committee of the necessity of a reduction of every duty not protective in its character, to secure the preservation of those which are so, that they felt bound to make the proposition and present it to Congress. The reduction in the revenue, which will be effected by its adoption, is so important in amount, that the committee hope it will receive the calm and candid consideration of Senators before a determination shall be made to diminish so extensively the beneficial action of the bill they present. To relieve the country from the incalculable evils growing out of a surplus revenue is the object of the bill ; to do that without a reduction of the protecting duties has been the intention of the committee. They have, therefore, not touched the duty upon ' spirits from grain,' and they cannot sup- pose that the reduction they propose upon one single other description of spirits will bring them at all into injurious compe- tition with domestic spirits of any kind. " Mr. W. said he was extending his remarks further than he 518 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. had designed, as discussion now was not his object. He would not, therefore, refer to any other articles affected by the two first sections of the bill. The two great articles of salt and spirits wei-e the only ones which he supposed could excite much interest, or lead to much discussion or opposition. Hence he had desired to bring them more particularly to the notice of the Senate. It mip-ht be found that other articles had been unwisely inserted. It would be strange if, in so extensive a list, it should not be so; but they would not be important, and might be stricken out. It would also, no doubt, be found that some articles had been omit- ted which ought to be made free; and it might be the pleasure of the Senate, when acting upon the bill, to extend reduction to articles not now included. The examinations of the committee had been careful and diligent, but they had not been as extensive 'and perfect as they themselves could have wished, though as perfect as the time allowed them had permitted. " He would now, Mr. W. said, offer, very briefly, the ajjology which the committee had to offer for presenting the bill unac- companied by any written report. If he had been fortunate enough to make himself understood by the Senate, in the remarks he had already made, it would be seen that no report could make the provisions of the bill more clear, or show more accui'ately its influence upon the revenue and \xi)on the articles embraced in it, than the statement prepared by the committee to accompany the bill would accomplish those pui'poses. The only object, therefore, of a report from the committee would be to give to the Senate their views, he would say their conjectures, as to the receipts and expenditures of the government for the pre- sent and future years. After the most mature examination and reflection, it was the unanimous opinion of those members of the committee who were present, and acting in the matter, that they could make no re|)ort upon these points which would communi- cate to the Senate any new information, not already in the pos- session of every member of the body, or which would furnish any valuable or useful guides to the action of Congress upon the bill. Were it not proposed, by legislative action, during the present session of Congress, to make great and important changes, affecting all bi-anches of the revenue, and all the sources Life and Times of Silas Wright. 519 from which money comes into the public treasury, calculations, estimates, conjectures, might be made as to the revenues of the present year ; but all such calculations, even in that case, would be most vague and uncertain at best. The experience of the last two years has demonstrated the impossibility, with all the information which can be reached by those officers of the gov- ernment whose sole duty and business it is to manage our fiscal affairs, of so perfecting estimates upon this point that they may not disappoint us many millions. Distinguished and experienced legislators, too, have frequently attempted estimates with no better success, and no member of the Committee on Finance can pretend to information, or judgment, superior to those who have thus erred in their conjectures as to the receipts into our public treasury for a given future period. "Add, then, the consideration that both branches of Congress are, at this moment, considering bills designed to diminish, for the future, the receipts into the treasury from the sales of public lands ; the impossibility that the committee should know whether any bill on that subject will finally pass, and become a law; what may be the provisions of the bill which shall pass, in case any bill do pass; and what may be the effect, in practice, upon the receipts of money for land sales, of any given provisions which may be incorporated in any bill, and Mr. W. said he could not suppose it would be expected by the Senate that the Com- mittee on Finance would have attempted any estimate of the amount to be reduced from the revenue from customs, in order to reduce the whole receipts in the treasury to the standard of the economical wants of the government. Against a body of contingencies and uncertainties of the magnitude and character specified, added to those which must always attend estimates of future revenue from uncertain sources, estimates in name would be more loose than ordinary conjectures; and so loose as to be of no other value than the mere conjectures of so many members of the body to which their report would be submitted. So much for the reasons which have led the committee to come to the conclusion not to attempt estimates, or calculations, or conjectures, as to the amount of money to come into the national treasury during the present or any future year. They 520 Life and Times of Silas Wright. have satisfied themselves that the reductions from the revenue from customs proposed by the bill they recommend can be spai-ed by the national treasury, and leave it able to meet the necessary calls upon it. They do not petend to say that further reductions will not be required to bring the revenue to the point so much desired — that of the economical wants of the government. The receipts into the public treasury are now greatly above that point. The committee have already said their examinations have con- vinced them that the great measures of reduction must be directed to that branch of the receipts arising from the sales of lands. They feel strongly the soundness of the principle that reduction should be proceeded in cautiously and carefully, and, so far as that can be done, with a certainty that while we are remedying one evil we do not fall into another; that while we omit nothing which can properly be done to reduce the revenue to the wants of the government, we do nothing calculated to carry us so far below that point as immediately to produce the necessity of again raising revenue by an increased rate of duties upon imports. These constant fluctuations, sudden and excessive changes in our revenue laws and consequent agitations of the public mind, and uncertainties in the oi^erations of mercantile and commercial men, Mr. W. said, he thought it most important, in any legislation, to avoid. Hence he, as a member of the committee, had determined to pursue what he considered a safe course, neither endangering nor disturbing any important protected interest of the country, or the public treasury in meeting the necessary calls upon it. He had not attempted to determine that the bill would do all that a full remedy for the existing evil demanded, but merely that, in the present state of uncertainty as to the other important branch of the public receipts and the influences upon it of the instant legislation of Congress, it was all the committee had con- cluded, at present, to recommend, and that so much might be done safely. " Mr. W. said there was no less difiiculty in making calculations and estimates upon the other side of this great account, the public expenditures. The ordinary expenditures of the government — that portion of the expenses required to keep all the departments of the government in organization and operation — were laid Life and Times of Silas Wright. 521 before us by the proper fiscal officer of the government, and appropriations to that extent might be very safely calculated upon. All the information within the power of the committee upon this class of appropriations had been equally fully in the hands of every member of Congress from the commencement of the session. No benefit here, then, could be derived from any report the committee could have made. All beyond this was within the pleasure of the two Houses of Congress and the Presi- dent. What extraordinary appropriations they might see fit to make for fortifications, for the navy, for public defense generally, or for any other of the great objects calling for expenditures of money, it was not only out of the power of the committee to say, but would be in vain for them to attempt to conjecture, They could not, therefore, with any certainty, estimate the expenses of the year. Mr. W. said -he felt conscious that the appropriations of Ccngress would, as he thought those approj^riations should, be graduated by a due regard to the ability of the treasury to pay, and the public and national wants to be supplied; but he also further believed that a redundant treasury always promoted not large merely, but extravagant appropriations; and one of his o-reatest anxieties to reduce the national revenues to the national wants arose from the conviction that in that way only can we preserve a system of economical expenditures. He would add no more upon this branch of the subject, hoping the Senate would find in these suggestions sufficient apology for the action of the committee in submitting the bill without any attempt at a report i;])on these vague uncertainties. "A single other remark, Mr. W. said, and he would relieve the Senate from listening to him further. He had not forgotten that another bill had been introduced elsewhere upon this same subject, and proposing to accomplish the same great purpose. He hoped he should not be considered as infringing, unpardonably, upon the rules of order, in making this reference to that measure. It might be supposed by some member of this body, it might be supposed by some member of the other House of Congress, or it might be supposed by some portion of our common constituents, that tills bill coming from the Committee on Finance was designed to conflict with the measure referred to. For himself, 522 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Mr. W. said, he could say, with perfect truth, that no such motive or feeling had entered into his action. He was sure he could say the same for his colleagues upon the committee. They had considered the reference of the Senate, in the special manner in which it had been made, positive and mandatory uf)on them, A report of some sort was their duty, and the report which they believed most conformable to their duty, under the reference, was the bill he was about to present. The time for making their report was not a matter of their pleasure. If made in the shape of a bill, they were bound to make it in time to per- mit the possibility of action upon it; and they had not been unfrequently reminded of the impatience of some members of the body for the conclusions to which they should come. Their delay had been unintentional and compulsory, and the advance- ment of the session had urgently admonished them that further delay would be equal to a failure to discharge the important and delicate duty intrusted to them. He, Mr. W., thought that an examination of the two bills would satisfy every one that they could, in no sense, be antagonist to each other. The one pro- poses to add largely to the list of free articles, and to make material reductions upon two classes of articles not considered as belonging to the protected products or manufactures of the country. Tlie other proposes to hasten, with very great rapid- ity, the reductions proposed to be made by the compromise act. It cannot, then, escape attention that there is no contradiction, in principle or action, between the two measures. Both may make too large, or too rapid, a reduction; but should the bill now presented fall short of its object, a sufficient reduction of the revenue from customs, it was his duty to say that no other mode of further material reductions had suffsrested itself to his mind, in the course of his examinations and reflections upon the subject, than to adopt the principle of that bill, moderated as to time so as to suit the exigency. He would further say, that he wished those most interested in the great and important provi- sions of the compromise act could see, as he thought he could see, that it was their peculiar interest to consent to a modifica- tion of that act, which should make its reductions of the revenue gradual and uniform from the present period to the year 1842; a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 523 little more rapid from this time to 1841, and much less precipi- tous and shocking to those interests from 1841 to 1842. As, however, the committee had no evidence before them of the feeling of the citizens most deeply interested in this policy, and as they had determined, if possible, to digest a bill which wouhl meet with favor, and be passed into a law, they refrained from affixing any such condition to the bill they now report. "As to the instant effect of the two measures, Mr. W. said, he believed there would be little difference. The bill he held in his hand proposed to reduce a fraction over $2,400,000, from and after the thirtieth June next. The other measure to which he had referred, as he understood it, proposed to reduce about $7,000,000, at three periods stated, the first of which was the thirtieth of September next, and the only one of the three peri- ods falling within the present year. That measure, however, was prospective, and this was not; but Congress would be again in session before that bill would have effected but one reduction, and the accounts of the treasury for another year would have been laid before us as our guide to future and further action. He would detain the Senate no longer. "The bill and accompanying report was then read." 524 i//i?'^ AND TniES OF Silas Wright. Chapter LXII. THE SUSPENSION OF THE BANK3, AND HARD TIMES OF 1837. The year 1837 will ever be memorable as a time when the whole country, in ahnost the twinkling of an eye, was plunged from what, on the surface, appeared to be high, swimming prosperity, to deep gloom and fearful financial distress. Contrasted with 1836, it was appalling. The business of banking was a monopoly conferred by legis- lation, ISTumerous selected banks were the authorized depositories of the public moneys of the United States. The more these accumulated, whether from the customs or sales of the public lands, the greater their ability to lend. In proportion to the ease with which they could borrow money, men contracted debts. The mania for speculation commenced in 1834, continued through 1835, and was at its height in 1836, constituting a mammotli bubble which exploded in 1837, bringing ruin upon most of those engaged in or connected with it. Men of all classes and pursuits neglected or abandoned their ordinary avocations, and plunged into the whirlpool of speculation. Many left the beaten road to prosperity and wealth, and eventually sank, witli all their high expectations, in the treacherous quicksands of over- excited hopes. Fortunes were made with bewildering suddenness, but mainly by marking up the prices of speculation property. Debts were contracted with thoughtless ease, and, if paid at all, it was done by repe- titions of borrowing. Men assumed a style of living which would soon prove ruinous, even to the rich. The maxim, that men contract debts when money is plenty and times easy, and pay them when cash is scarce and Life and Times of Silas Wright. 525 times hard, was strikingly illustrated. They got into debt by purchasing property at high prices, and were compelled to pay them by selling it when low. Creditors seldom complain of such fluctuations in prices, as they usually proht largely by them. The year 1837 presented to the world the sad spectacle of communities hopelessly in debt, some to vendors of over- valued speculative property, others to the banks which had encouraged thoughtless speculators, while the impro- vident banks owed the government for its deposits, which they were unable to pay. The banks, so willing to lend when money was plenty and easily obtained, ceased their accommodations, called in all they could, and straggled to sustain themselves ; their debtors having, to a large extent, little or nothing to pay with other than speculation property, consisting mostly of western lands, recently bought of the government, and city and village lots, con- spicuous principally on lithographed plats. With the exception of a small number, all the banks in the United States, through policy or necessity, refused to pay their debts in lawful money— blandly called "suspending specie payments," thereby doing what, if done by a citizen, would be called defying their creditors, and throwing upon them the consequences of their own mismanagement. Bank paper fell everywhere ten or more cents on the dollar, while all the property in the Union tumbled down to a far greater extent. Suits, judgments and executions were more plenty than money. The financial crash was tremendous, and its effects extended to everybody. The number of those who had treasured up their means, to profit by the low prices of forced sales, was not great. But instances were known where sagacious and cautious men had, in this way, doubled and some quadrupled their property. The financial storm came, made its wrecks, and caused countless ruins. Whose fault caused it and its conse- quences ? Upon this point expressions differed more than 526 Life and Times of Silas Weight. real opinions, wliile tlie victims who suffered never charged any portion of it upon tliemselves or their own follies. There are few, indeed, who so far undervalue their own skill and capacity in the transaction of busi- ness, and to such an extent as to charge their want of success upon their own mistakes. It is far easier and much more common to impute it to the government, or to a whole community, or absent individuals, from neither of whom denials or replies of any kind are ever expected. Some imputed the blame to Mr. Van Buren, who had been President but a few weeks ; others, to Gen. Jackson, who had retired to the Hermitage on the previous fourth of March ; but more charged it upon the democratic party, while the democracy insisted that it was the bitter fruit of overtrading, living expensively upon unrealized means, and generally "to the malign influence of wild and unregulated speculation." It was during the existence of this state of things that Mr. Wright used the columns of the St. Lawrence Republican, then the organ of the democratic party in the county of his residence, to address reflecting men of all parties on these subjects. His articles, seven in num- ber, published editorially, were under the caption of " The Times." After the introductory article published on the 20th of June, 1837, one appeared every week in the successive numbers of that paper, which were extensively copied as the recognized productions of his pen. They trace the evils which atflicted the country to their true source. They produced a profound sensation on the public mind, and satisfied reflecting men concerning the origin of the evils they felt, although they failed to con- vince all who had been victims of their own inexperience, or want of judgment or business capacity, that they were at all in fault. Tiiese articles are full of wisdom and profound thought. But their great length forbids our copying them entire. We give copious extracts : Life and Tuies of Sjlas Weight. 527 "The Times.— No. 1. " The Causes of the Present Deranged State of the Commercial Business of the Country. " When evils surround us, and we are aMcted with misfortunes of whatever character, there is no rule of conduct more sound, more practical or more honest than that we should first seek for the causes of our calamities at home ; that we should look to ourselves, our families, our possessions, our friends and neigh- bors, for the causes of our suffering. If we cannot find them there, then we may look abroad to strangers, to politicians, to governments, State and national, to the world at large, to see whether those who have not been consciously" benefited or injured \)j x\fi — those who know us not, and have not heard of us — have made themselves the instruments of affliction and injury, acute in character, serious in extent and immeasurable in consequences, without the common inducements of friendship to work favor, or of enmity to inflict injury, which are the common and ordinary motives for extraordinary human action, whether good or evil. " First, then, for the home view of the deranged state of our commercial affairs. And among the causes which have presented themselves to us, as plain, practicable men, are the following : " 1. Overtrading in that department of business purely com- mercial. That this cause exists to an extent beyond any former example, in this our young and hitherto prosperous country, will not be denied by any man of any employment in business, or any party in politics, when he sees, as reported in every department of the public press, confirmed by official documents from the Treasury department of the nation, that the cost of our imports into the United States, for the last current year, have exceeded the avails of our exports by the sum of more than 160,000,000. " 2. To the speculations in lands, in stocks, in mines and min erals, in the produce of the country, and to speculations gener- ally. In our village, for a time, our cautious men of business were reserved and prudent. Severe experience had taught them that the process of amassing wealth was gradual ; that the legiti- mate profits of business bear some proportion to the capital invested, the skill employed in its management, and the labor and risk of the adventurer. Their judgments, for a time, rejected 528 LiJFE AM) Times of Silas Wright. the rumors of fortunes made in a day, without capital, without skill, without labor and without risk, because the fortunate recipient of the favors of chance had nothing to risk. Yet, incident upon incident, and fact upon fact, appear to contradict their long and dearly-earned experience. A. and B. and C. made and realized their hundreds and thousands,, and tens of thousands, who had never before been fortunate in the accumulation of property or the management of business. D. and E. and F., not particularly distinguished for their capital or business talent, were reported to have made their fives, and tens, and hundreds of thousands, and received a credit with the business men of the place, with their fellow-citizens of the county, and finally with the public, commensurate with the rumor of their gains and for- tunes. The natural influence of this state of things began to be seen upon men of more capital, of more fixed business habits and permanent and constant occupations. It was seen that these enormous gains sprang from the soil upon which they had long lived and toiled, not in the shape of productions from that soil, not from the profitable use of those village lots and watei- powers, and stores and wharves, and eligible sites, but from their purchase and sale with reference to some future and incalculable value, of which all seemed to be convinced with a confidence equaling the strongest self-interest, but the foundation for which sanguine confidence no one could or would explain. Rumor soon became fact. Fact overpowered experience and judgment, and all — the most sagacious and the most wealthy, as well as the most irresponsible and visionary — became infected with the speculating mania. Few purchased to use, and few sold who did not pur- chase ; but all bought and sold, or bought to sell. House lots, store lots, tavern lots, water lots, streets, blocks, and village extensions in all directions, became the subject of conversation, of contemplation, of trade — of profit. "3. The inordinate appetite created by this speculating spirit to acquire wealth, without labor, without economy and without time. " 4. The unnatural withdrawal of men from their regular trades, professions and callings, to devote their times and minds to speculations only, or to some employment which they do not LlIE AND TI3IES OF SiLAS WrIGHT. 529 understand and for which they are not fitted, because they sup- pose it may open a sliorter way to wealth. " 5. Too great a subtraction from productive labor and too great an addition to those callings which add nothing to the general stock of wealth, but are supported by the labor of others. " 6. The expeusiveness and extravagance of living consequent upon the imaginary accumulations of large fortunes speedily and without labor. "Are not these causes sufficient for the evils of which we hear so much complaint ? And do they not conclusively prove that the orio-in of these evils is at home, is with ourselves, and not abroad or with others ? " If we look abroad for causes, shall we find them ? A foreign war mio-ht deranore the business of our commercial men ; we have no foreign war. Our domestic disturbances with the Indians within our borders are ended, and no one supposes they have contributed to our commercial derangements. We are at peace Avith all the world. " The causes of our troubles, then, are not foreign, but domestic." "The Times — No. 2. '■^The Causes of the Present Embarrassments of the Banks, and tlie Necessity [if necessity there be) for their Suspension of Specie Payments. "The discussion of the first part of this inquiry might be answered by a single short sentence, and that answer would be overbanking. But the importance of the inquiry requires an examination of facts connected with our banking and currency. In the winter of 1833-34, the great panic effort by and on behalf of the late Bank of the United States, for an extension of its charter, was made in Congress and throughout the country. The effort was made in the midst of winter, when the frosts lock up the channels of communication and transportation at the north, and when there is an almost entire suspension of active commer- cial business at the south. The effort was to alarm the public mind for the safety of our moneyed institutions, of our currency, and consequently of our trade and commerce. It was especially directed against our local banks and commercial men, because it 34 530 Life and Times of Silas Wright. was supposed that embarrassment and derangement in those quarters, at the moment of the expiration of the charter of the national bank, would most conclusively prove the indispensable necessity for such a giant money power. The season was well selected and the points of attack well taken, but the time was not one of pressure, but of plenty; not one of scarcity, but of profusion ; not one of depression, but of prosperity. The public mind, notwithstanding, did become alarmed and excited. The fears of many, and the indignation of more, were aroused, and the contest, for a time, was heated and violent beyond any excite- ment of a purely domestic character known to our history. Still that was a mere panic. The credit and business of some were seriously injured, but many were more frightened tlian hurt, while this great good was extracted from the intended evil. "The local banks were compelled, from the distrust produced, to examine their conditions, to contract their operations and streno-then their defenses. Their issues were curtailed to an immense amount during the four or five months which the panic lasted ; their debtors were stimulated to payment, their means compacted and the institutions placed in a sound and healthful condition. "The spring opened and the business season returned. The senses of every man proved to him that the alarm had been groundless, and that, instead of bankruptcy and ruin and soli- tude and desert waste around him, the whole country was over- flowing with every jjroduction, prices were fair, the markets quick, the seasons prosperous, the moneyed institutions safe and guarded, and the currency as equable and retaining as strong confidence as any paper currency which had ever circulated among the people. The natural consequence of this sudden change which was wrought upon the minds and senses of the community, even while Congress were daily assembling in the capitol to mourn over the national calamities, was an abandon- ment of panic memorials, meetings and resolutions, and a return to business with renewed energy and increased enterprise. Dur- ing the twelve months immediately succeeding, wealth was accu- mulated by our citizens with a rapidity and ease never known before in any country. The banks were enabled to furnish the Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 53] trading and commercial classes all the aid they required, and to find yet a large surplus, of the means at their command, uncalled for and unemployed. Banking, too, was prosperous and profit- able, and those who were not interested in the existing institutions sought for and obtained new charters, that they also might com- pete for the golden harvest of bank dividends. In this way the surplus of bank means and bank facilities, beyond the wants of trade and commerce, were indefinitely increased, while public confidence in banks, fresh as they were from the ordeal of the panic, remained almost wholly impaired. * * * Now and then a statesman of thought and experience would dare to speak of the dangers of excessive banking ; of the necessity of a more broad and permanent specie basis for our large and rapidly increasing paper circulation; but such exploded opinions brought down, at once, upon his devoted head, the formidable charges of loco-focoism, visionary theorizer, silly advocate of an exclusive metallic currency in a commercial country, follower of the tiltra- isms of the day. " Money was cheap and credits were liberal. The banks could answer all applicants whose business authorized their applications, and wanted yet more customers. Tliis iiBpetus, so suddenly communicated to the current business of a whole country, soon imparted its influence to those descriptions of property which, in ordinary times, are more permanently held for use or investment, and a general appreciation in the market was the consequence. Stocks took the lead, * * * in the operators in these trans- actions the banks found customers. * * * The banks had means which the merchants did not want, and those means were dispensed liberally in discounts and loans to the dealers in stocks. " Houses and lots in the cities and villages next felt the influ- ence of this general appreciation of property. * * * Pur- chasers for the market, for speculation, for an advance of price, ruled the hour, and operators were as regularly patronized by the banks, as the most regular dealers in merchandise or the stocks. When this proved to be true, the banks were no longer troubled with a surplus of means, but, on the contrary, found a surplus of customers. Two natural and unavoidable con- sequences followed. The banks made large dividends, and the 532 Life and Times of Silas Wright. demand for money, and its market value, constantly increased. These facts were made to prove conclusively the want of more banks, and more banks were regularly granted at the annual sessions of almost all of the State Legislatures. The excitement became a perfect mania, and diffused itself throughout the whole land. Our large cities were extended, in imagination, in all directions, until their dimensions exceeded those of any town in the known world ; and every village became a city, upon paper, both in extent and business importance, as well as in the fancied value of lots. Plots were purchased for new cities. "This new and enlarged scale of speculation added new strength to the already accepted proof of the necessity of more banks. Math increased capitals; and also demonstrated, to the entire satisfaction of the interested, that the capitals of the existing country banks were altogether too small, and ought to be increased. "The whole republican party was charged, from day to day, with hostility to the best interests of the country ; with opposi- tion to their own best interests, in blind zeal in the support of Gen. Jackson and his measures, against friends, and home, and country. In vain, then, we predicted the dangers to flow from overtrading, overbanking, and mad speculation. " Our evil predictions are already more than realized, and no man can now be found who regrets that we have not had more banks; while the great mass of our voters, if permitted to speak, would profoundly regret that we ever had any. The false bub- ble of speculation has now burst, and, thanks to the wisdom, and foresight, and patriotism of the republicans of our country, finds us less embarassed than those who have reaped more industriously from the abundant harvest of the excesses of the ' credit system.' " A further class of customers to the banks, who have contri- buted not a little to their present embarrassments, are the direc- tors and officers of the banks themselves, many of whom have entered largely into the stock and land speculations, and all the overtrading, the lumber speculations and all the other excesses of the times; while others, and we fear not a few, have diverted the means of the institutions of which they have had the charge, since the present pressure commenced, to the shaving operations Life and Times of Silas Whigjst. 533 which tlie high price of money has invited, instead of regular discounts to their customers, which the necessities of the times have required, " From this history of the times we conclude that the causes of the present embarrassment of the banks are: " 1. Overbanking to legitimate customers. " 2. Unreasonable loans to stock brokers and stock dealers. "3. Unrestrained loans to speculators in city and village houses, lots and other real property. " 4. Unrestrained loans to speculators in real estate generally, such as farms, proprietary rights in our own State, government lands in the western States, timber lands in Maine and Canada, and the like. " 5. Loans to their own directors and officers, to the injury of their legitimate customers, the commercial community. "6. An excess of banks, inviting to these excesses; and banks granted to persons who had no money to invest, but wanted money to use, or the stock of a new bank to sell at a premium, " It remains for us to inquire for the necessity (if necessity there be) for the suspension of specie payments by the banks. " Every bank is chartered with peculiar and invidious privi- leges, privileges not granted except to incorporated banks, and expressly prohibited to the citizens of the State by a highly penal law. In exchange for these privileges they are subject to certain reasonable and mild liabilities, the most severe of which is that, when they exercise the high and sovereign privilege of issuing their notes to the people as money, as currency, they shall, at all times, be ready to redeem those notes on demand with gold and silver. This liability is enforced by their charters, upon the pain of an immediate declaration of insolvency and forfeiture of all their chartered privileges. All banks, therefore, which have refused to redeem their notes in specie are, prima facie, insol- vent, notwithstanding the Legislature have temporarily relieved them from the forfeiture of their charters. "Every bank in the State, with perhaps one or two exceptions, has refused to redeem its notes in specie. "Whence, then, the necessity of the suspension of specie pay- ment on the part of those not insolvent ? Is there any other 534 Life and Times of Silas Wright. answer than that their customers cannot be sustained without further accommodations ; and that while some of the banks must suspend specie payments, or stop altogether, they cannot continue specie payments and afford the accommodation these customers require ? We see no other possible answer to this inquiry. Who, then, let us inquire, are these customers for whose benefit the community are to be visited for a day, a year, or any longer period, with an irredeemable paper currency ? They are : " 1. Merchants who have overtraded. " 2. Stock brokers and stock dealers who have made bad bar- gains and let them rest upon their hands. "3. Speculators in city and village houses and lots, and other real property, who have purchased and failed to sell while prices were up and markets wei-e open. "4, Speculators in real estate, generally, who have gone beyond their capital, and depended upon bank loans to bear them out against the hazards of purchasing farms and wild lands for resale. " 5. The directors and officers of the banks, who have accom- modated themselves with the means of the institutions in their charge, and do not find it easy to pay. " 6. The managers of such new banks as have found it conve- nient to take out, in the shape of loans, the very money which the charters compelled them to pay in, as capital, at the very earliest meetings of the board of directors, for discount, and who do not find it convenient to return the amounts. " We shall leave it for others to attempt to show, if they choose, the benefits to community, or to any possible interest, other than that of the stockholders, directors and officers of a bank, which is, in fact, insolvent, suspending specie payment for a year, whether by permission of law. or otherwise." Ltfe and Times of Silas Wright. 535 " The Times.— No. 3. " The Agency, if any, of the late Treasury Circular, demanding Gold and Silver in Payment for the JPublic Lands, in Pro- ducing the Present Commercial Derangements and Bank Embarrassments. "In two former articles we have pointed out what we consider to be the pi'orainent and controlling causes of the present derange- ments in the commercial business of the country, the causes of the pi'esent embarrassment of our banks, and of the necessity (if necessity it can be called) for their present suspension of spe- cie payments. Those articles contain a general history of the overtrading, overspeculating and overbanking of the last few years, and it only remains for us now to show the connection between those dangerous business excesses and the treasury circular in question, and then to point o^^t the influence which that measure must have had, so far as it can have any influence, in bringing about the present state of things in our monetary afl"airs. " First, then, for the connection between overtrading, over- speculating and overbanking and the order in question, and here we must give a brief sketch, as our limits will not permit us to give a history. "Congress adjourned on the 4th day of July, 1886, having passed an act regulating the public moneys in the State banks, and making imperative that disposition of all money then in the treasury, or which should thereafter be received into it. Pre- vious to the passage of that act, the system of deposits with the State banks was one resting upon executive order only, and, therefore, subject at all times and in all things to executive dis- cretion. This law, we do not say improperly, limited and res- trained that discretion, while it made the duty of depositing with these institutions comj^ulsory. " During the two years prior to the passage of this law, the public revenue, both from customs and lands, had been under- going a process of accelerated accumulation not less astonishing than frightful. Astonishing, because the receipts of single years more than doubled the estimates of the most faithful and com- 536 Life and Times of Silas Wright. petent fiscal officers, as well as the most experienced and saga- cious statesmen; and fi-ightfiil, because the receipts from customs furnished demonstrative evidence of the most excessive ovei'- trading, while the receipts from lands afforded equally clear evidence of a state of speculation in the public domain still more excessive and dangerous. " The national debt had been finally extinguished by the sur- plus revenues of 1834, and of previous years, and the economical expenses of the government was tlie measure of the wants of the treasury. The accumulation of money in the banks, not wanted by the treasury for immediate use, had become alarming. The amount on dej^osit on tlie 1st of January, 1836, according to our present recollection, was not short of $40,000,000, and the receipts from both customs and lands, from the first of January to the first of July of that year, promised an addition to the former accumulation in the banks, which would make the safety of those institutions, consequently their management and opera- tions, matters of the deepest concern to the treasury of the nation, to its financial movements, and to the vast amount of the property of the people intrusted to their safe-keeping. " The adjournment of Congress, to which we have referred, had taken place without any action of that body upon the repeated and varied recommendations of the President for the reduction of the public revenue from both customs and public lands; the adoption of a system for the distribution to the States of the sui-plus, over five millions of dollars, which should be found on deposit on the 1st of January, 1837, being the only legislation touching that great interest. "In tlie mean time, such had been the fruits of overtrading and speculation, that the customs, alone, promised to yield from twenty-four to twenty-five millions for the year 1836, while the speculations in the public domain had become reduced to a system, and, added to the sales for settlement, and to the enterprises of individual speculators, associations were formed and forming of every imaginary amount of capital, counting from single thou- sands to millions, and extending their stock interests to every considerable town and village in the country, and their specula- tions to every point where public lands were open for sale, and Life and Times of Silas Weight. 537 perhaps we might say, with equal truth, to every point where the Indian title had been extinguished, or was about to be extin- guished, until, from an ordinary average of about three millions, as the avails to the treasury of a year's sales of the public lands, the receipts of 1835 were more than fifteen millions, and those of 1836, unless restrained by governmental action, promised to be nearer thirty than twenty-five millions. " Immediately upon the adjournment of Congress, the President, justly alarmed at the rapid and fearful progress of overtrading and excessive speculation, examined the facts in relation to the payments made for the public domain, and found that the estab- lished process was a mere exchange of those valuable and selected lands for bank credits, rendered vastly more doubtful and hazard- ous by the immense amounts of the national treasure accumulat- ing in the deposit banks. An ordinary certificate of deposit in favor of the Treasurer of the United States was the only con- sideration appearing at the treasury for millions of acres monthly conveyed to purchasers. The examination showed that these certificates were mere indorsements of credits from individuals to banks and from one bank to another. No real capital or cur- rency of intrinsic value was found to enter into any part of the operation, but the specuhitor executed his note to some bank, with indorsers to the satisfaction of tliat bank; that bank, upon the strength of the note, issued its certificate of deposit in favor of the properly located deposit bank, and, upon the strength of that credit with another banking institution, the deposit bank issued to the receiver of the proper land office its cei-tificate of deposit in favor of the national treasury. This certificate, which entitled the holder to the land thus paid for, was of precisely the same, and no greater, validity than the same amount of the notes of the bank issuing it; and this was the payment to the nation for its most valuable domain, at a time when the public treasury was not in want of means, but was overburdened with the possession and safe-keeping of millions, which, during the following year, were to be distributed to the States to get rid of them. " In the absence of legislation, and during the recess of Con- gress, the President was left to apply to this great and alarming 538 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and constantly increasing evil such remedy as the executive power of the government could apply, which was partial and limited. The law declared that nothing but gold and silver should be a tender in payment of debts due to or from the United States, and the receipt and disbursement of bank credits, in the shape of bank notes, in any department of the public service, was mere matter of sufferance and convenience, and not of law. To compel the entry of real capital, or its equivalent in a currency of intrinsic value, to enter, at some stage, into these land specu- lations, the President directed the treasury order in question, and the exception in the order in favor of settlers is a sufficient record evidence that his object was to check speculation, and not to impede the settlement and improvement of the lands. This order required payments in constitutional and statute cur- rency, for lands, after an early day, named in it, from all except settlers, and from them after the 15th day of December, 1836. " That the order of July has had the effect to arrest and almost put a stop to further sjieculations in the public lands we most cheerfully admit. * * This result has directly benefited com- merce, by arresting that fearful drain of capital, which was so rapidly commencing, from the old States, and especially from the commercial cities, to seek investment in the immense public domain of the nation. "It has benefited business generally in the same way, and also by drawing back the attention and energies of a vast num- ber of our most enterprising citizens, who were carried away by the mania, to their farms, their merchandise, their professions and callings, and to a preparation, so far as the means may be left to them, to meet this day of trouble. " It has directly benefited the banks, by stopping their loans to speculators in real estate, and thus adding to what is now believed to be no inconsiderable proportion of their means locked up in lands, if not dependent upon the success of a doubt- ful speculation. " Now for the influence of this order upon the present commer- cial embarrassments: It has not induced the merchants to con- tract debts beyond their power to pay; but, on the contrary, it should have been a timely caution to them against incurring Life and Times of Silas Wright. 539 obligations to be discharged by the precious metals only, when they were notified by it of this increased domestic demand about to be made. Had not the merchants overtraded to the amount of over sixty millions in a single year, their necessities for gold and silver for exportation would not have been thus severe and ruinous, nor would our banking at home have produced a coun- ter-necessity for the precious metals much more imperious than any which can grow out of transactions between merchant and merchant, — the necessity for a restoration of the prostrate cur- rency of a whole country, deranged, distrusted, depreciated, by the inability of the banks to pay specie for their notes. The order, then, has been a positive benefit, in so far as its influence has gone to restrain overtrading and overbanking, two of the severest evils under which we now sufi'er. We have already enumerated, as benefits to the public from this order: " The arrest of the immense drains of capital from the commer- cial cities and old States to the west and south, to be invested in lands; " The breaking up of the speculations in government lands; and "The consequent return of the attentions and energies of the enterprising speculators to regular, productive labor in their sev- eral professions and callings. " We now add another benefit of the order, which, at the pres- ent time, will be more properly estimated by the community in consequence of the present condition of the currency. We allude to the direct and powerful tendency to retain the gold and silver in the country, and prevent their exportation. This influence is exerted by creating a demand for the precious metals as strong as the desire of our emigrating population from the old States to establish for themselves homes upon the public domain; and, by contracting, not the laws of trade and commerce, or of cur- rency, but a necessary consequence of overtrading, the tendency of all the gold and silver of the country to the great seaports for exportation, to pay that excess of foreign debt contracted by the merchants which the productions of the country are insufiicient to pay. This is the true version of the action of that order, about which its opponents so much and so loudly complain, and which they term a violation of the laws of commerce. Before the suspen- 540 Life and Times of Silas Wright. sion of specie payments by the banks, the people may have been confused by this jargon about the hxws of commerce, principles of trade and natural flow of currency; but now that the banks themselves have declared the insufficiency of gold and silver in the country to form a safe basis for our paper currency, and have been compelled to let that currency sink for the want of this vital, sustaining principle, it will not be easy to convince the plain common sense of our freemen, that the measure which has been more instrumental in retaining with us the little specie we have than all the other acts and measures of the government — State or national — of banks, or of individuals, is the greatest cause of our want of specie to enable the merchants to pay their debts, or the banks to fulfill their promises and redeem their notes. The day is too late for such contradictions and gross absurdities to gain credit with the people; and, as in many former instances, the wisdom, policy and justice of this measure of the venerable statesman who was its author are demonstrated, vin- dicated and exalted by the mad perseverence of its opponents in their measures persisted in to prove him wrong. The laws of trade draw our gold and silver to foreign countries to pay the unwisely contracted debts of our mercliants; this execution of the laws of our country by Gen. Jackson draws these precious metals to and retains them within our own limits to purchase farms and houses for our citizens. " The time was when it might have been very difficult to cause the correct conclusions upon this part of the subject to be received by the public, because the merchants, speculators and the bankers, the only classes of persons whose business brought them to a necessary acquaintance with the true action of the order ujjon the banks, were interested in producing erroneous impressions, that they might charge to the order whatever evil consequences should flow from their own monstrous excesses. That time has passed, and the whole people can now see what has been done and to what condition we are brought. " Have the banks been influenced by this most healthful and proper caution, constantly given by the action of this order, and curtailed their business ? If they have not, the merchants and borrowers from the banks have had no cause of complaint in Life and Times of Silas Weight. 54X consequence of this tendency of the order, because they have had constantly all the loans the banks were disposed to let them have without reference to it. If the banks have curtailed their accommodations in consequence of the safe and salutary tenden- cies of the order in this respect, have they done so to an extent beyond what prudence and safety required ? If they have not, then again the merchants and borrowers from them have no right to complain, because, notwithstanding the curtailment, they have continued to enjoy a greater amount of accommodations than the banks could extend with prudence and safety. Let, then, the present condition of the banks answer our inquiry. The doors of all, comparatively speaking, in all quarters of the coun- try, are closed against the redemption of their bills. To this extent they have declared their own iusolvency. And why have they done it ? Is it not because they have loaned beyond their means and relied upon their debtors for aid when aid should be required, and that those debtors cannot or do not pay ? Can any other reason be assigned for their suspension of sjjecie pay- ment? Most certainly not. Then they have overbanked. They have extended accommodations beyond their own means, and upon responsibilities which do not answer them in their time of need. " And let us recollect again, here, that every dollar of specie paid under the order, by positive operation of law, goes imme- diately into the vaults of some bank, and that the necessary action of the order, therefore, is, the collection of gold and silver from the purchasers of lands for deposit in the banks; and then, when we all know that all the banks, deposit banks as well as others, even with direct aid from the order itself, cannot redeem their notes with specie, can we listen to the complaints that the tendency of this order has been injuriously to restrict banking? Let the farmers, the mechanics, the laboring classes of the coun- try, who have the avails of this labor in irredeemable and incon- vertible bank paper in their pockets, answer." 542 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. "The Times.— No. 4. " I'he Probable Continuance of tlie Suspension of Specie Payments. "The discussion of this question involves points of delicacy of which, we trust, we are not insensible. We can say with perfect trust, however, that no hostility to any banking institu- tion in the State or country, and no prejudice against banks gen- 'erally, leads us to the discussion; but a strong sense of the duty we owe to our readers, as the conductor of a public journal, requires this notice at our hands. " Three distinct interests will be found to be involved in the decision of the question. " 1. The interests of the banks themselves. " Under this head we trust that we may assume one position, without the apprehension of contradiction or question from any quarter whatsoever, and that position is, that it is the interest of every bank to continue the suspension of specie payments so long as they can keep their credit so as to make their notes cur- rent with the community as money. The incorj)orated banks have vast privileges, and still more important exemptions. Their privilege of issuing, by express authority of law, their paper promises to pay gold and silver on demand as currency, to take the place of gold and silver in the hands and pockets of the people, is nothing less than the delegation to them of one of the most delicate, important and resi)onsible prerogatives of the sovereignty of any civil government. Their exemption from liability to pay any description of their debts, beyond the mere amount of stock paid into the bank, is an invidious privilege to these artificial corporations over those extended to natural per- sons, the citizens and freemen of our country, which would startle every honest mind, not familiarized, by custom and use, to this legislative preference for soulless paper existences over the persons of God's creation, with hearts and souls and con- sciences, and at least some sense of moral obligation. The only real consideration to the community for this privilege of creating a currency on the one hand, and an exemption from liability for the most just debts on the other, is the simple and most just Life and Times of Silas Weight. 543 obligation to pay on demand at the hanJcing-hoicse the gold and silver for their promissory currency, their bank notes, which are mere promises to pay gold and silver. When this obligation is discharged by legislation, or the voluntary action of the banks,- the people lose wholly their slender equivalent for one of the most important rights surrendered to these corporations; the insti- tutions are discharged from their only onerous responsibility, and what is called currency is the mere form of a promise to pay, most tastefully executed, without any intention on the part of the promisor to pay, and with the knowledge on the part of him who receives the promise as money that it will not be paid. "The bank which issues notes which it cannot redeem in specie, while the obligation to pay specie imposed by its charter remains annulled by legislation and unrevoked by the bank, practices a fraud upon the public, for which a natural pei'son would be eonvicted of the crime ol' swindling, and have a cell assigned him in some one of the public prisons provided for the punishment of high crimes against the peace and safety of civil society; but the bank which issues bills, after its obligation to redeem them in specie has been revoked by itself, in a public declaration, persisted in by its practice, or annulled by legisla- tion, is guilty of no fraud against the public or individuals. It is true the bank promises to pay; but it declares before the pro- mise, and that declaration is made known to him who receives the promise, that it will not pay. He, therefore, cannot com- plain that the promise is not fulfilled, who was told, before it was given, that it would not be fulfilled. "Such is the present relation between the banks of this State and the people, produced by the published declarations of the banks that they would not redeem their notes with gold and silver, and the law of the Legislature exempting them from the severe penalties imposed by their charters for this act of faithless- ness to the community. "Who can, then, doubt the soundness of the position with which we set out, that it is the interest of every bank to continue the suspension of specie payments to the latest hour at which they can sustain their present credit and the present circulation of their notes without these payments? 544 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " Are we not, then, safe in the conclusion that, so long as the banks are actuated by their own interests, a return to specie payments is not to be looked for from them as a voluntary •movement, while they can continue to furnish the circulating medium for the people, without the redemption of their notes in specie ? We confess the conclusion appears to us to be perfect demonstration. " We next propose to consider " 2. The interests of the customers of the banks. "These are three classes, viz.: Men engaged in commercial and mercantile pursuits, manufacturers, mechanics, and all other classes of citizens, whose regular callings make them legitimate borrowers from banks to carry on their business; men engaged in speculations of every description ; and what may, perhaps, pro- perly be termed miscellaneous borrowers. To whatever extent either of these classes of citizens may now be indebted to the banks, and require an extension of their credits, to that extent they must be interested in the postponement of the day for the resumption of specie payments, inasmuch as curtailment of accommodations and collection of debts must precede resumption. The men ensraffed in commercial and mercantile pursuits have overtraded to an enormous extent. The foreign debt against them is, there- fore, large; millions upon millions beyond the value of the pro- ductions of the country seeking a foreign market. This balance must be paid in a currency of intrinsic value, or must be post- poned until an excess of productions over importations shall meet and cancel it. Under these circumstances, what is the strength of the claim of this class of creditors of the banks to that indulgence from the people which shall impose upon them a discredited and depreciated currency for a length of time, that this balance of an excessive foreign trade may be wiped off, by the exportation of the balance of gold and silver yet remaining in the country ? " We know that the derangement of the times, occasioned by the mad speculations, must, in a greater or less degree, extend its influence to regular dealers and business men, who have kept themselves aloof from the passions of the day ; but the law of the Legislature gives to such twelve months to separate them- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 545 selves from the speculations, to contract their business, to con^ ceutrate their means, and pay or arrange their liabilities to banks and others ; and, during the time, taxes the whole community with the derangements, obstructions and losses, to be experienced in every branch of industry and every department of business, from an inconvertible and depreciated currency. Is this a libe- ral time for the whole people to suffer for the benefit of a few V And when the present depreciation of the paper currency, from ten to twelve and a half cents upon every dollar, is estimated, is it not a sufficiently liberal tax for the people to pay to relieve the commercial and mercantile classes ? " The same remarks, substantially, are applicable to manufac- turers, meclianics and all others, who are legitimate borrowers from banks to carry on their business, and the same conclusion must therefore be applied to them also. " If such are the claims upon the community of commercial men, merchants, manufacturers, mechanics and other useful classes of citizens, what must be said of similar claims when pressed by mere speculators ; men who substitute cunning for capital, and deception for skill in any trade or profession; persons whose object as well as occupation it is to unsettle the regular order of business, the established value of property and the set- tled judgment of men? Have they claims to sympathy or for- bearance ? Have they a right to ask the whole people to endure a deranged and depreciated currency, for a j^rotracted period, that they may realize the golden harvest they have anticipated fi'om their bold progress in mischief? We do not see the merits of such a claim from such a source. " 3. The interest of the people in this question. " For the last six or seven years, the people of this State, through their representatives in the Legislature, have been much too indulgent in yielding to the cupidity of individuals, and the personal and unwearied solicitation of the interested local bank charters, and the mischiefs resulting from that mistaken lenity are now visiting themselves upon us with a severity which usually pursues any criminal laxity of vigilance in a popular government. Almost from the commencement of our governments. State and national, banks have been incorporated by legislative authority, 30 546 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. and, hy the powers and privileges granted to tiiem, have been made the practical trustees of the currency of the people. As we have receded from the days of the Revolution, the sufferings of that period, and one of the most severe among them was depreciated paper currency, have become dim in the recollection, and in just about this proportion we have increased our banks and our paper circulation. But one revulsion of a general char- acter, anterior to the present time, has overtaken us in this career of substituting credit for money. That revulsion, much less general and severe than the present, was occasioned by the worst of all calamities, a foreign war and a barren treasury ; and was made imperative, much more by the wants of the national trea- sury and its calls upon the banks for support, than from any exigencies growing out of the private and ordinary transactions of the banks themselves. In consequence of this the banks were countenanced and sustained by the people in their suspensions of specie payment. Then the choice for the people to make was between the preservation of their soil and their liberties, assailed by a most formidable foe, and the preservation of their currency, impaired to support the government in an arduous struggle. " Now we have a revulsion, entirely universal, and that imme- diately succeeding a period of prosperity such as no country on the face of the earth ever before experienced, and without any national calamity, of any character whatsoever, preceding or accompanying it, with which it can be in any possible way con- nected. It has proceeded wholly from overtrading, exces- sive speculations, and all sorts of extravagance, consequent upon excessive banking and the cheapening of credits in every department of business. All banks have suspended specie pay- ments, and we have an inconvertible paper currency, depreciated, upon an average, full ten per cent below the par value of money. "This is the injm-y under which the people now suffer; and its necessary consequences, an instability in the prices of property, to the great depression in value of property generally, and the perfect uncertainty whether that which is currency, is money, to the citizen, when he goes to his rest at night, may not be value- less paper when he arises in the morning, attend this derange- ment of our currency much more closely and extensively than Life and Times of Silas Wukiht. 547 upon any former occasion, because the causes now apparent loi- this suspension by the banks are so insufficient to excuse the course pursued. "All this being done and suffered, we say the people should command an immediate restoration of specie payments. Not a day more should the continuance of the suspension be suffered. Members should be sent to the next Legislature whose principles and opinions are with the people upon this point. "Let, then, the banks now know that that act of suspension is the last, and let them and the next Legislature be prepared for the exj)iration of that law." "The Times.— No. 5. " The Duties and Hesponsibilities imposed upon the National Govermnent by the Suspension of Specie Payments by the State Hanks. " The duties and responsibilities of the federal government, in tliis as well as in other respects, must be measured by its dele- gated powers, and it will, therefore, be proper for us to look at the extent of those powers before we attempt to prescribe the duties or impress the responsibilities upon our public servants. " The Constitution of the United States is the charter of the powers and privileges conferred upon the government of the United States ; it is the only charter of powers or privileges which has ever been granted by the people or the States to that government. To that instrument, therefore, alone, we have to look for the powers after which we seek, to determine the extent of the present discussion. " In the fifth clause of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States, among the powers conferred upon the Congress of the United States, we find the following: 'To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin.' This is every word we find in that instrument conferring upon Congress any power whatsoever over our coin or currency. The power here conferred is full and exclusive to make the coin and declare its value, and to declare the value of foreign coins, and here it ends. Nothing is found relative to the regulation of the 548 Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. currency, any farther than that currency consists of coins, and not one word as to the regulation or equalization of our exchanges, foreign or domestic. " We, therefore, repudiate and reject, from our consideration of this topic, all the modern ideas of our political opponents, and perhaps of some of our political friends, as to the duties of the federal government in relation to our currency, and of the exchanges between the States. These are new doctrines, which have grown up with other imagined necessities for a national bank, and, indeed, constitute the essence and root of all the argu- ments out of which such an institution, under our system, ever has grown, or ever will be produced in future. All the reasoning, here- tofore, in favor of a national bank has been drawn, not from the Constitution, but from expediency ; not from any grant of power, but from supposed implication to almost every important power conferred upon Congress. If all the reasons ever urged be care- fully examined and traced to their proper source and bearing, they will be found to result in the position that it is necessary or expedient, or both, that Congress should assume upon itself the regulation of the currency of the States generally, and also the regulation of exchanges between them. All this field of dis- cussion we exclude from our consideration of the present subject, with the declaration that Congress has no power to do these things by the Constitution; that Congress has never done them, and that Congress cannot do them. "We do not intend, upon the present occasion, nor is it neces- sary for our purpose, to express an opinion, or enter into any discussion, as to the extent of the powers of the State Legisla- tures over the collection of debts within their respective limits, or how far they may authorize, establish and regulate, either through the instrumentality of banks or otherwise, a practical currency within their jurisdictions and for their citizens, provided their regulations for any of these purposes do not violate the prohibitions upon the States to be found in the tenth section of the first article of the Constitution.* It is suiRcient for us that *"N'o State shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 549 the power of Congress over the currency of its own creation and regulation is confined to the collection and disbursement of the public revenues, and that no branch of the federal gov- ernment has the power to make even coin a currency binding and obligatory upon the citizens of the several States for any other purpose, or to prescribe to them a currency for any other uses. " If the regulation of the currency within and between the States be not within the constitutional power of Congress, it will scai'cely be contended that the regulation of the exchanges between the commercial cities, a mere use of currency, is con- ferred by the power ' to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin.' " The power of Congress, then, over the currency and domestic exchanges of the country, is confined to the collection and dis- bursement of the public revenues, and consists in the power to prescribe in what currency those revenues shall be received and paid out. " That the only currency known to the Constitution is a cur- rency of intrinsic value, a metallic currency, a currency of coin according to the value placed upon it by Congress, is a fact too plain for contradiction or question. Congress derives no power, from that instrument, to make, to establish or to regulate the value of any other currency, nor is anything else recognized therein as money. "From these facts it results, as the most plain and obvious duty of Congress, that he who has a demand against the federal government in ' money ' should be paid that demand in money; or, if in any other medium of exchange, that that medium, what- ever it may be, should be equivalent to ' money,' equivalent to coin, as the value thereof is regulated by Congress. "The revenues of the federal government are derived directly from the people. They pay for the public lands which are pur- chased, and they purchase and consume the foreign dutiable goods which are imported. From these sources the national revenues are received into the treasury, and hence arises another imperious duty of every department of the national government, viz. : The duty of adopting such measures, in reference to the national 550 Life and Times of Silas Wright. finances, as can be adopted consistently with the constitutional powers conferred upon them, and are best calculated to furnish to the people a solvent, equable and stable currency in which to pay those dues and taxes. " Duties to the government constitute an ingredient of price in the demand of the retailing merchant for imported dutiable mer- chandise, and upon those duties, as well as upon the original cost of the goods, the consumer has to pay the ordinary mercantile profits of the importer, the jobber and the retailer. If, added to the duties, there is a discount upon currency, that too must con- stitute a new ingredient of price, upon which the same series of profits must be added, and all must be paid by the consumer. This addition to the intrinsic value of his purchase does not confine itself to a single ingredient of the selling price, but covers the whole, and is to be added, to that extent, upon every and all charges which shall enter into the seller's value. Can there, then, be a stronger or more palpable duty of the govern- ment, than that, so far as this influence of its action is concerned, the consumers of foreign imported merchandise, who are the great mass of the people of the country, should be relieved from a most formidable tax, in the shape of an extensive depre- ciation of the currency first, and of the various mercantile profits upon that ingredient next, to the selling prices to the consumers ? " This view of the subject is strictly applicable to consumers of imported dutiable goods, because they must be paid for in a medium equivalent to specie, and because the consumer is the final payer of all costs and charges, including the duties to the government and the losses consequent upon the depreciation of currency, if such loss is sustained by any one. " The same duty, upon the federal government, is equally imperative as to that portion of the public revenue derived from the sales of the public lands, from another consideration. The lands are the property of the whole people. In the cession of them to the United States by the several States, they were pledged to meet ' the general charge ' upon the people, and in their sale, therefore, every citizen has an interest in the direct proportion to his liability to taxation, direct or indirect, to sup- Life and Tjmes of Silas Wuianr. 551 port the government and pay the debts and expenses of the nation. The price of the lands is fixed by law at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and every acre sold should relieve the tax-payers of the country from that amount of charge. I Jul if the lauds be sold for a currency depreciated at the rate of leu per cent, the people lose one-tenth of their property in the lands sold, which loss they must make up to the national treasury by direct or indirect taxation. Hence the obligation upon C/ongress to protect the currency, so far as it may be within its constitu- tional power to do so, is not less, arising from this than the other great branch of the public revenue. "Another duty, equally imperative upon the government and much more interesting and important to the people, is that of a paternal guardianship over the rights and interests of the gov- erned; and one of the most vital among those rights and interests, the protection and preservation, by all the ways and means in its power, of the integrity, stability and value of other currency. The duties of the government of which we have heretofore spoken are partial and limited, and extend only to particular interests. This is general, and covers every interest of every citi- zen relating to property, whether public or private, local or gen- eral. The two former connect themselves immediately with the interests and action of the federal government, and the appeal, as to them, is more appropriately made under this head. This is universal, and therefore addresses itself to all public servants, however constituted and under wdiatever government. State or national, and by whatever authority they may hold or exercise their trusts. "That the power exists to require that the currency of the national treasury shall be according to the value of the currency created and regulated by Congress, under the express grant of power contained in the Constitution, no one, we trust, does or can doubt. It is the constant and continued and unvaried exer- cise of that power which we ask, and nothing more. As one of the people, we think we have the right to ask, nay demand, this at the hands of our public servants, and we do demand it. The direct benefits will be to save us from loss in paying our exac- tions to the government and in the sales of our public lands; and 552 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the consequential benefits, in the influence to this course on the part of Congress will exert upon the legislation of the States and upon those who now control our currency through the means of the local banks, will be all-sufiicient, at an early day, to restore our currency to what it has so lately been and what it ought to be. "Among the responsibilities of the federal government, that of keeping safely the moneys collected from the people, so that they may be ready, at the calls of the public treasury, without subtraction or depreciation, stands prominent. At periods when a proper relation exists between the revenues collected and the wants of the government for expenditures, this responsibility may be discharged without difficulty or danger; but, when over- trading in foreign merchandise, or overspeculation in the public lands, swells the sources of revenue greatly beyond the wants of the government, it becomes one of great difficulty, delicacy and hazard. The evils which destroy the equilibrium tend necessarily to impair the safety of the ordinary and natural depositories, the banks of the States, and offer temptations to unfaithful guardians, should such be selected. " Another responsibility resting upon the national government is that of guarding and preserving, even beyond the reach of just suspicion at home or abroad, the credit of the United States as a body politic. This high trust can be but very imperfectly discharged, and cannot be discharged at all to the benefit of the people, for any length of time, with a disordered and depreciated currency sanctioned by its authority. " It is important for us to notice but a single provision of the law [the Deposit Law of 1836], and that provision is, that no bank note shall be received in payment of dues to the govern- ment, or paid out in discharge of debts due from the government, which is not convertible into gold and silver coin at the will and pleasure of the holder. "Under this law, with this provision incorporated in it, all the existing banks accepted their high trusts to the government and people of the country and received some forty millions of the public treasure; and yet, strange to tell, before a single twelve- month had passed away, they all refuse to pay gold and silver Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 553 for their notes. ISTay more, and farther and worse, they even refuse to pay the government anything but their own irredeem- able bank notes, whicli the law above mentioned prohibits the oflScers of government from either receiving or paying out, for the millions intrusted to their safe-keeping. Still farther: tlie drafts of the Treasurer of the United States, drawn upon a de])o- sit bank for a mere trust fund, belonging to individual citizens, which fund was, by tlie government, imported from abroad in gold and silver, and in gold and silver placed in that bank for safe-keeping, have been dishonored and returned without pay- ment, because the holder of the drafts would not receive the irredeemable bills of that bank in satisfaction. " What ought Congress to do, is the great question ? Can a national bank be resorted to, even if it could remedy the evils we suffer? Twice such an institution has been tried, and twice have the people pronounced their verdict that it shall not have existence within our confederacy; that its powers to produce expansions and contractions in the currency, and overtradings, speculations, panics and pressures, are much superior to its pow- ers to regulate, restrain or sustain our circulating medium; that the political dangers and evils arising from it, to the purity and stability of our free institutions, far outweigh any promise of benefits; that the Constitution of the United States has not conferred upon Congress any power to charter such an insti- tution, and that no such charter shall emanate from the hands of their representatives. The voice in which this last verdict was so distinctly and clearly pronounced yet sounds in our ears, and warns us against repeating this doubly condemned experiment. " Shall State banks be further continued as public depositories and fiscal agents of the treasury? Shall millions more be intrusted to these institutions which refuse to respond for what they have received for safe-keeping, except by their own irre- deemable and faithless promises to pay ? Shall Congress recede from the ground it has taken, that the debts of the nation shall be paid in a currency equivalent to specie, at the will of the holder? Shall it legalize as currency, and establish as the cir- culating medium of the national treasury, the in-edeemable notes 554 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the State banks, and impoi*t gold and silver from other coun- tries to be exchanged for such a miserable representative of money ? "What, then, can Congress do? Try the yet untried expe- dient. Produce a perfect and entire separation between the finances of the nation and all banks of issue or discount, how- ever or by whatever authority existing; between the national treasury and those artificial creations of legislation ujDon which we have, hitherto, so unfortunately attempted to depend. We have tried the faith of these soulless existences, in all their forms of being, and that faith has always failed us in the hour of utmost need. Now let us try the faith of natural persons, of moral, accountable agents, of freemen. Let Congress trust the safe-keeping of the public treasure with citizens, as such, and not as bank corporators; with men responsible to itself, and not to a moneyed institution. Let collections into the national treasury be collections of money, or its equivalent, not of irredeemable paper; and when the government owes a citizen, let him, for that debt, be able to obtain money or its equivalent, and not i convertible bank notes. " We are told, and no doubt truly, that the connection between the public treasury and the banks has aided to pro- duce the excesses we now so deeply deplore. Let not the trea- sury again contribute its agency to such severe afflictions upon the people. When duties are to be paid to the government, let them be paid in fact, not practically credited by a system of deposit in banks which enables the merchant to withdraw with one hand what he places in the bank with the other. If lands are sold, let the money paid for them be retained by the govern- ment, to which it belongs, until its wants call for its use. Explode the mischievous doctrine, now so generally promul- gated, that the merchant, or the speculator, have a right to the use of every dollar of money in the national treasury; and, when overtrading shall unduly increase the revenue from customs, or mad speculations swell the amounts received for sales of lands, let the accumulations of cash capital in the treasury check these excesses, before their bitter fruits are realized, as now, in the destruction of credit, the derangement and depreciation of the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 555 currency, the depression of property, and the prostriition of l)usi- ness generally." Note. — In this last paragraph, Mr. "Wright first develops the idea of an independent treasury, afterward matured and adopted, under which a dol- lar has never been lost, as well as a philosophical and inl'allible mode of checking and restraining most etfectually overtradings and speculations in the public lands. "The Times. — No. 6. " The Duties of the State Governments tovmrd the JSanks, being institutions of their creation, and over tchich they have Gov- ernmental Control. " We hope we are not insensible of the delicacy of the discussion under our present head. The State Legislatures have chartered the existing banks and to them the banks are responsible. We, therefore, address bodies where power follows proof, and where we hope and believe evils and defects require only to be shown to command the remedy. That evils exist all feel and know, and that defects exist in the banking system of the States is almost necessarily inferable from the present deranged state of the banks existing under them. But when an individual citizen assumes to speak of defects in existing legislation, or to recommend for leo-islative consideration remedies for existing evils, he should not speak without reflection, or make even suggestions without caution. " That our banking system is as wise, as safe and as valuable, in every sense, as that of any other State in the Union, we do not doubt. That it is fur superior to many, we verily believe. Still, when brought into conflict with improvidence and cupidity, the present moment shows us how utterly insuflicient it is to answer the hopes of its wise founders. When overloaded and overworked, it turns out to be, like the banks of issue chartered under it, a paper system altogether. The limitations, restrictions and responsibilities, upon paper, are all-sufticient, but they no more secure a sound and stable currency, in practice, than the notes of the banks secure specie payments. " What duties, then, are devolved upon otir Legislature in con- sequence of the present suspension of our banks and the present deranged and depressed state of our currency ? 556 Life and Times of Silas Weight. "The first and most essential, in our judgment, is that of securing a return by the banks to specie payment at the earliest practicable period. Legislation in this State has already inter- posed itself between the banks and their liabilities, by granting those institutions a respite from their most weighty forfeitures for a term of one year. " Can they, then, i-esume specie payments in May, 1838, or before that time ? If there be banks which were, in fact, insol- vent at the time of their suspension, it is not likely that any such can resume and sustain specie payments within a twelvemonth from that period; nor is it likely that institutions in that condi- tion ever can return successfully to the performance of this pri- mary duty. " Unless other interests than those of the banks and their debtors can be interposed, it will be the duty of our next Legis- lature, wholly unavoidable, to require the banks to return to specie payments within the limitation of the j^resent suspension law, or a forfeiture of their charters in pursuance of the terms of their contract with the public. The currency must be restored to a sound and stable state as soon as justice will permit, and, if we have not labored in vain, we have shown that neither justice to the creditors of the banks, nor to the whole public, will authorize a further suspension. " As a first step, to give greater stability and security to our State banks, and consequently to our paper currency, the securing a much broader specie basis than any we have enjoyed, will strike all as indispensable. This can only be done, in our judg- ment, consistently with the preservation of our banking system, by a prohibition of small bank-notes and the consequent circula- tion of the precious metals as the currency for change in the small transactions of the community. Our present law, prohib- iting the issue and circulation by our banks of all notes of a less denomination than five dollars, is a first step in this policy. " We shall, and do now, call upon our representatives in every situation to mark, carefully and closely, the action of events, and to adopt such measures as shall secure the great result — a basis of gold and silver in circulation among the people upon which the broad and high superstructure of our paper currency can Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. 557 safely rest. Reverses, such as that under which we now suffer, cannot and ought not to be endured, and the preventive, for the future, must and shoukl be certain and effectual. "And we further say, that that safety cannot be given to our system without an increased specie basis, and that that specie basis cannot be secured and the system itself preserved without a firm and constant adherence to and perseverance in the policy of suppressing small notes for circulation and the substitution of the precious metals as the currency for the common and ordinary transactions of business. " The developments of the last year authorize the apprehension that the capitals of some of our banks, most recently chartered, have been unreal in fact and little better as security to the i)ublic than the old exploded stock-note system. We allude to the practice of hypothecating the stock of one bank as security for loans made from another ; thus, in effect, so far as the security to the public is concerned, sinking so much of the capital of the one institution in that of another. The annual rejjorts of our Bank Commissioners show the existence and extent of this prac- tice, and prove that millions of the nominal banking capital of the State are swallowed up in the mere ordinary bank credits. We also alhide to a practice, said to prevail to a much greater extent than the former, of making loans to stockholders of new banks, at a very early day, if not at the very first meeting of the board of directors, for discounts in sums measured exactly by their subscriptions and payments for the stock they held in the bank. So far as this practice may prevail, no one can fail to see that the capital of the bank is gone whence it came, and that the note of the stockholder is all that remains as a basis for the cir- culation of the bills of the bank loaned to him. "As requirement of law, that each bank should make investments of its capital stock paid in in public stocks issued by the federal government, or some one of the States, or in bonds and mort- gages upon unincumbered real estate, at a rate of valuation which should be safe against any contingency, would obviate these evil practices, and give to the public a security against future loss, which is the promise, but not the operation, of the present laws to give. 558 LiFiJ AND Times oii Silas Wiiidnr. "In connection with this subject we suggest an entire pi'ohibi- tion against loans by any bank to its directors, and a very guarded, if not entire j)rohibition, of loans by a bank to its stockholders. Tlie legal intendment is that he who takes bank stock has money to lend and prefers this mode of investment ; and not that he is a money borrower, and wishes to acquire a pawn wliich can com- [)el loans to such an extent, beyond liis cash means, as his neces- sities or convenience may require. Why not, then, make tliis intendment law and practice, and thus place our banks in hands which shall have no other interest in their manaajeraent than that of the profits to be derived from investments in their stocks ? " Connected with these suggestions it is well worthy of con- sideration of our legislators whether the power given to our banks to contract debts and incur liabilities of any description, is not, as a whole, more extensive than can be consistent with the perfect security of the institutions themselves, and consequently witli the safety of the public and the currency. That the banks have incurred liabilities beyond their power to meet, according to the terms of their promises, is confessed and declared by them- selves ; and will it not be wise, for the future, more narrowly to limit that discretion which has once led to error and injury and loss ? "As immediately connected with this branch of the subject, we have a word to say as to the duty of our future legislatures in granting new banks. That grants have hitherto been too numerously made we suppose will not be denied by any indi- vidual or any interest. That banks have been, heretofore, granted for objects not properly calling for the aid of banks must also be admitted, because it is impossible that the business properly entitled to bank accommodations should not be able to sustain the banks granting these accommodations, during a period of national peace and unrivaled prosperity. Here, then, is an evil to be remedied addressing itself peculiarly and exclusively to the Legislature. Let no bank be granted where there shall not be demonstrative proof that the interests of trade and commerce require increased bank facilities. Let those proofs, and not the interests and anxieties of personal applicants, govern the action of our legislators. Let the novel doctrine that banks are to be Life and Times of Silas Wright. 559 chartered in different sections and counties in the State upon the basis of territory, popuhxtion and representation, be wholly dis- carded, as unsound and dangerous. Let the substanti.-il wealth and description of business of the population for which a, hank is asked determine the propriety of the application, and not llie price of real estate, of city or village lots, or the extent of vision- ary speculations prevalent at the point of proposed location. Above all, let the least evidence of an attempt, on the })art of the applicants of a bank, to gain legislative votes for it by combin- ing it with any other measure whatsoever depending, oi' to come, before the body, be proof conclusive of want of merit in the application, and want of integrity in the applicants, either of which should secure for it prompt rejection." "The Times.— No. 1. " llie Duties of the People in reference to tlieir Governments, State and National, as the Constitutional Poioer to Correct Abuses in either, to Defend their own Interests, and to Secure to. themselves and their posterity Equal Justice, Public Liberty, and the liiyhts of Private Property. "Under this head we address the fountain of power, under our system of government, the sovereignty of our republic. With- out the aid, and countenance, and support of that sovereignty, neither legislators, nor any other class of public servants, can perform the high duties which the crisis demands. Without the advice and direction of the sovereign people they may mistake those duties, and fall into honest but not less fatal errors. It is the duty of a free people, therefore, upon all great emergencies, to advise and direct their agents, to make manifest to them their interests and wishes, and to sustain those who labor to do then- will. " The present time makes this loud call upon the people of the United States. A period of apparent prosperity, such as no nation ever experienced, is almost instantly succeeded by depres- sion, mercantile embarrassment, and a derangement of our cur- rency more extensive and universal than any former example furnished in our history. Why has such a consequence followed such appearances ? Has the period of prosperity been merely 560 Life and Times of Silas Wright. apparent, artificial and unreal? Or, has a period of real plenty and prosperity been improved by the artful and designing to inflate business, and confidence, and credit, until one of the rich- est blessings which a kind Providence showers upon a nation has been perverted and made to minister to the most disastrous con- sequences? If either position implied in these inquiries be cor- rect, by what immediate agency has the false bubble been inflated and distended, until its bursting has given a shock to business, and confidence, and credit, as sudden as the motion of the elec- tric fluid in a commotion of the elements, and as terrible as the earthquake to the planet we inhabit? Is there a doubt that State legislation has given existence to this agency, and that the all- powerful agent is the State banks, to which has been intrusted, not the regulation only, but the practical making of the eurrency of our country ? To us it seems no one can doubt this position. " The State Legislatures have chartered banks that they might serve and advance, not injure and retard, the great pecuniary interests of society. They have conferred upon them their extensive and exclusive privileges, not for those who hold the stock and the management of these institutions to make them more profitable to themselves, but that they might be more use- ful to the public, more safe in their operations, and consequently better able to sustain against all contingencies that currency which they are authorized to furnish for the uses of the people. How is it, then, that these wise and just intentions are so often disappointed ? Why are State banks so often surrounded with embarrassments, unable to meet their responsibilities, — indeed, wholly and desperately insolvent ? Why are portions of our currency so often found discredited, depreciated and finally valueless ? And why, at too short intervals, do we find the whole mass of our paper money deranged, depreciated and inconvertible? Are these evils innate and inherent in the bank- ing system, or are they defects in the regulations of law which govern banking in our country ? We know that there are many who suppose these fluctuations, evils and losses are inseparable from, and irremediable in, the paper system; but we have hoped, and still do hope, that this opinion is founded in error. We know that all former experience has countenanced it; but we believe Life and Thies of Silas Wright. 5(31 tLat, in all former time, the interests of bankers, of stockholders, of borrowers, have predominated over the interests and safety of the community, in our legislation upon banks and banking. We know that the former class of interests are private, personal and direct, and that they are always exerted upon the legislative body with their full force and effect; while we also know that the latter are left to the good sense, careful remembrance and unbiased integrity of each public agent who has a vote to give, or a voice to express, in this part of our legislation. " If fault be here, it is the fault of the people themselves. The negligence is theirs, and the loss, injury and suffering is upon them. They have left their public servants without advice, without the expression of their wishes, without instruction, open to the influence, exerted in season and out of season, of the inte- rests in conflict with those of the public generally, and are not roused until the consequences of their want of vigilance are visited upon themselves and their dearest and deepest interests. " This is emphatically that time, and what are now the duties of the people ? We answer, "1. To see that, in our future legislation upon this great sub- ject, tlie interests of the public and the safety of the currency are made paramount to the private interests connected with the banks. " This duty can only be discharged by an awakened attention, on the part of the people, to their deep interest in the circulating medium of the country ; in the equivalent for which they exchange their labor, the products of their labor, their farms and their shops ; in that article of property which they receive as money, upon which, as property, they place the highest estimate, and which, with all business men, is the end and aim of industry, of economy, of exertion and of enterprise in the things of this world. That medium of exchange with us is principally furnished by the State banks, and upon them, by our laws, rests its sta- bility, value and character. The interests of the people, there- fore, in these institutions, their soundness and action, are equal to their interests in their currency, in their circulating medium of exchange. The banks exist at the will of the people and through the direct agency of their representatives, and without 36 562 Life and Times of Silas Wright. this Avill and this agency they could have no existence. The privileges granted to them are a portion of the privileges and sovereignty of the people, and those privileges, so far as they are ever correctly granted, are parted with for the public benefit, and that only. The interests of the stockholders and managers of the banks, resulting from their business transactions, are merely consequential and secondary, and, in the theory of incorporated banking, rightly understood, form no part of the consideration for the charter of a bank, " Still, we apprehend that here rests one of the greatest errors in the practice of banking in the States, The great public inte- rests involved are lost sight of, while the interests, wishes and solic'.tations of the corporators are permitted to command not only the representative action, but, by way of inconsiderate petition, the popular voice also. Hence, banks have been soli- cited and granted, in the various States, merely to accommodate local and personal and private interests, where there was not, even a pretense, that the great interests of trade and commerce, or of a sound and solvent medium of exchange, required such institutions, "The revulsion necessarily consequent upon legislation by such a standard is now oppressing the country, and an irredeem- able currency, fearfully expanded, is one of the fruits of the policy wl:\ich all feel and deplore. The remedy, and the only remedy, for this great evil is with the people. "But let the people express their will; let them advise their public servants; let them pronounce their interests in a sound and valuable currency, and their determination, at any sacrifice, to possess and enjoy it; let them instruct their representatives; let them command the legislation which their rights, the pros- perity of the country and the credit of the nation demand, and the incipient steps toward a remedy for existing evils in our monetary affairs will have been effectually taken. Let this course, on the part of the people, be followed up by a careful scrutiny upon the conduct of all their public servants, especially their representatives in the State and national Legislatures. Let their every vote and action in reference to the currency and our mone- tary system be marked, its tendency strictly scrutinized, and the Ltpe and TniEs of Silas Wright. 503 reasons and motives for it be demanded, examini'd and justly estimated. * * In this way, and this way only, will an ascendancy be given to public over private interests growing out of our banking system. " 2. To see that no further unnecessary and improvident addi- tions be made to our banking capital, and consequently to our already too greatly expanded currency. "The discharge of this duty is most imperious, and had it been firmly discharged years gone by, we have every reason to believe that the country would not have experienced its present sad reverse. * * * Let the legislative combinations which have become so common, and have been, of late, so openly avowed, be entirely broken up. " We know that our remarks may be supposed to cast impu- tations upon those who have represented the people in our legis- lative assemblies. We make no personal allusions, nor have we, even in our minds, the name of any individual to whom we would make the personal application; but so palpable to the whole pub- lic sense has the influence of these combinations been, upon a variety of occasions, and never more than in the legislation of 1836, when more than |6,000,000 were added to our banking capital, that it becomes a duty on our part to warn the people against them, and to arouse them to a watchfulness and scrutiny, in regard to the individual and separate acts of their representa- tives, which will prove a speedy corrective against these baneful effects for the future. " 3. To enforce such remedies for the defects in our present banking system as shall sustain the public credit, protect the public interests, restore the currency to a specie value and give stability, infuse a greater portion of the precious metals into the circulating medium of the country, and restrain the action of the existing banks within the limits of prudence and safety. " 4. To protect our political institutions from the influence of, and from all unnecessary connection with, moneyed institutions. State or national, and from the dangers which accumulations of capital, with incorporated banking powers, and a control over the currency of the country, must always present to the rights of 564 Life and Times of Silas Wright. private property, to the purity of our elections and to public liberty. " When a concentrated movement of local banks has prostrated our currency, can any one expect that the people will consent to shut their eyes to the fact ? When that same vigilant opposition which, one year ago, was taunting us with a denial of justice in not granting more banks, is now charging upon us the multiplica- tion of banks to the ruin of the business and credit and currency of the country, can any one expect that republicans will be silent and not avow and defend their j^rinciples ? When the dangers to property and to liberty, threatened from the influence of a great national bank, have but just been eradicated by the people, does any one expect that the same people will sit tamely by and see one of the most serious of those threatened evils inflicted by a combination of banks, without an expression of their feelings '? " The existence of an individual aristocracy in this country is rendered impossible by the abolition, by the States, of the laws of entails and primogeniture, and nothing but an aristocracy of wealth, based upon a legal corporate existence, can ever return that aflliction upon our beloved country. Against that the people must guard with a sleepless vigilance, equal to that which was exercised by our fathers in the achievement of our freedom ; and if the time shall ever come when a political party shall rise up and be successful in our country, whose principles shall be found in a bank charter, or in the charter of any other corporate money power, then may we class our government with the most dangerous aristocracies lapon the earth ; then may our people cease to boast of their freedom, of the purity of their institutions, of their elec- tive fi-anchise, or of their rights of property, and be content to fatten upon the humble boons which corporate wealth shall in mercy grant, whether those boons shall be presented in the miti- gated form of an irredeemable paper currency, or the more severe aspect of menial service in a manufactory or on a manor. " We must be distinctly understood in these remarks. We do not intend by them to invoke prejudice against the existing banking institutions. We have already said that their conduct should control their standing in the public estimation ; that those which present, by their management, satisfactory evidence of a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 565 disposition to return to a practical and faithful discharge of tlicir whole duties to the public should be aided by public contidoiice; and that all should be sustained in the full enjoyment of all their existing legal rights. These sentiments we cheerfully repeat, and, so far as our humble voice is concerned, we entreat their full and strict observance from the people ; and it is only in reference to a system of corporate authorities, corporate exemp- tions and corporate wealth, and to the existence of a political party in this country, founded upon such a system, whether denominated State or national, local or general, ' credit system,' or ' American system,' that we apply the remarks in our last paragraph." 566 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LXIII. POSTPONING THE FOURTH INSTALLMENT OF THE DEPOSITS WITH THE STATES. In the spring of 1837, nearly all the banks in the United States, as if by concert, suspended specie payments. The deposit banks failed to keep their plighted faith toward the government, and were unable or unwilling to meet their obligations. The whole amount in the treasury on the 1st day of January, 1837, over and above the five millions to be retained there under the distribution act of 1836, was $37,468,859.97, of which three installments, amounting to $28,101,644, had been paid over to the States, and the fourth, of $9,367,213.24, was soon to become pay- able. Public policy forbid this being done. At the special session of Congress Mr. Wright reported a bill to postpone paying over this installment. This was taken up for consideration on the 14th of September, 1837, and its immediate passage strongly urged by Mr. Weight, who addressed the Senate on its merits as follows : " ]\[r. Wright said it might become him to say a few words in relation to the bill before the Senate. His position in i-eference to this and other bills, perhaps, required him to do so. He would, however, confine himself strictly to the present subject, and to the most brief justification of his own course, and that of the majority of the Committee on Finance, who had concurred with him in reporting the bill. "Immediately upon the appointmen': of the committee, and the reference to it of the important subjects treated of in the message of the President and the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, the committee found that the treasury of the United States was very soon to be in want of means to meet the current demands upon it, without regard to any further transfer to the States. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 567 They also found that this fourth installment of the deposits witli the States was to become payable on the first day of October, and amounted to about nine and one-third millions of dollars. "The state of the treasury, as developed by tlic report of the Secretary of the Treasury, was, as he now recollected, and he thought he could not be materially mistaken, that, at the lime when the statement appended to that report was made up, about the first day of the present month (lie believed the exact date was the twenty-eighth of August), there was in the treasury, sub- ject to draft, available and unavailable, but eight millions one hundred and some odd thousand dollars. The report was printed, and upon the table of every Senator, and would verify his correctness in this particular. This amount was exclusive of the sums already deposited with the States, being some twenty- eight millions. " To arrive at what would be the condition of the treasury on the first of October, the expenses of the present month, which, from drafts already made and anticipated, were estimated at about two and a half millions, must be deducted from the eight millions one hundred and odd thousands ; thus leaving in the treasury, subject to draft, on the first day of October, less tliau six millions, without the transfer of a dollar to the States toward the October installment. This, too, included all the funds in the treasury subject to draft for payments or transfers to the States, whether available or not, upon the drafts of the Treasurer; the funds on deposit with the States not being taken into the compu- tation. " If, then, the October installment was to be transferred to the States, all the means in the treasury, of all descriptions, on the day when that installment was by the deposit law made trans- ferable, would not be equal to two-thirds of the amount, and money must be borrowed, upon the credit of the United States, to supply the deficiency. "Another and stronger view, however, was presented to the committee by the head of the Treasury department. The larg- est portion of the funds in the treasury at present, and wliicli would remain there on the first of October, were wholly unavad-- able upon the drafts of the Treasurer. They were in the western 568 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and south-western banks ; and experience had already shown that the drafts of the Treasurer upon these banks would not be received in payment by the public creditors. It was equally proved that the States, other than those in which the banks were located, would not take those drafts and give their obligations for a repayment of the amount in money, in pursuance of the provisions of the deposit law. The transfer to the States, there- fore, could not be made, even to the amount of the funds in the treasury subject to draft, by reason of the character of the funds to be drawn upon ; and, if to be made, a loan, to a much greater amount than the deficiency of those funds upon paper, would be rendered indispensable, from the unavailable condition of these funds. " Still, it would be seen by the Senate that this disjiosition of the funds in the treasury, and of the public ci-edit, would leave the treasury without a dollar to answer the current demands upon it. The appropriations for the year were large, almost beyond example, and the current calls upon the public treasury must be measured by them. Hence it had been an object of primary intei'est with the Secretary to devise the means for carry- ing on the government and fulfilling its obligations to the public creditors; and in reaching that object he had, as he, Mr. W., con- sidered, wisely and properly suspended his efforts to make this last transfer to the States. In pursuance of this necessity, he had told Congress, in his printed report, that he should make no movements toward the accomplishment of that object until the action of Congress should signify its will that that transfer should still be made, and should provide the means for making it. These facts and conclusions were fully before the committee. " It then became necessary for tliem to see what would be the state of the public treasury, upon the supposition that the October installment of the deposit with the States should be with- held. In prosecuting that inquiry, they found that the funds in the treasury, subject to draft, were to so great an extent unavail- able that it would be indispensably necessary to resort to the use of the credit of the government, in some form, to anticipate the practical use of the unavailable portions of those funds, for the pui'pose of current payments. Life and Tuies of Bilas Wright. 569 "At this stage of the inquiry, two other important intei-ests, both public and private in their cliaracter, pressed themselves upon the attention of the committee. In any settlement with the late deposit banks which should have proper regard to the present deranged and depressed state of the business of the country, and to the security of the public moneys yet remainiiii;- in their possession, the committee were forced to the conclusion that indulgence to these institutions, beyond their legal liabilities, was indispensable. The conclusions of the committee upon this point had been embodied in the shape of a bill, which Avas now before the Senate in a printed form. The other great interest to which he referred was a similar indulgence upon the revenue bonds. There, also, the committee had reported a bill, which was before the body. In both cases, the least indulgence had been proposed which the committee believed to be consistent with the great private interests of the community or the security of the public property involved. They had been induced to believe that the time granted to the banks was the least which would enable them to meet the payments in the manner required by law, and that any dependence upon a more speedy collection of the merchants' bonds would result in disappointment to the public treasury, and a consequent failure to pay- the public creditors. " It being assumed that Congress would agree with the com- mittee in these conclusions, and that these bills would meet with approbation, what, then, would be the state of the treasury with reference to a transfer of the October installment to the States ? " Mr. W. said he understood the estimates of the department to be, that without these indulgences to the banks and the mer- chants, and with the postponement of the October installment of the transfer to the States, the whole means in the treasury might be adequate to its wants, in case Congress should be willing to grant the use of the public credit temporarily, that that portion of the funds which was at present unavailable might be brought into practical use, until time should render them available for the redemption of that credit. If those indulgences should be granted, then the use of the public credit would be required beyond the current year, because material portions of the existing 570 Life and Times of Silas Wright. means, and of the otherwise accruing revenue, would be placed witliout the reach or control of the treasury for more than that period. " Upon these calculations and hypotheses the bills of the com- mittee had been framed, and it was now his duty to give these facts and conclusions practical application to the measure under discussion, " This was a bill to postpone the October installment of the transfer to the States. If he had been correct in his statements, and had made himself intelligible to the Senate, it would be seen that nothing existed in the treasury out of which this transfer could be made, and that nothing within its power could enable it to make it without the aid of Congress. It would also be seen that the whole means of the treasury were inadequate to meet the current calls upon it, without the temporary aid of the credit of the nation; and that, if a reasonable indulgence were granted to public debtors (such as the condition of the country and the secu- rity of eventual collections seemed to demand), the use of that credit must extend beyond the current year, and could, at best, be only eventually met and redeemed by the means of the treasury, existing or in prospect, without a further transfer to the States. " In view of these facts, Mr. W. said his own mind had been brought to this simple and plain conclusion: that the United States had no longer any moneys to be safely kept by the States; that if the October installment of the transfer, provided for by the deposit law of 1836, was made, the means to make it must be borrowed upon the credit of the United States, and that Con- gress must place itself in the singular position of using the public credit to borrow money, merely that it might be safely kept by the States when it was obtained. He understood these provi- sions of the deposit law, upon their face, to be mere j^rovisions for the safe-keeping of the public money. He understood this to be the object of those who advocated and supported that law at the time of its passage. In that sense he was disposed to regard it now; and he did not, therefore, view it as creating any claim in favor of the States, or as imposing any debt upon the United States, If, therefore, we were called upon to borrow money to Life and Times of Silas Wright. 571 fulfill the provisions of that law, lie could only view it in the light of a call upon us to borrow money, merely that it miorht be safely kept when so borrowed. He had not felt, and could not feel himself authorized to recommend a loan upon the credit of the nation for such a purpose. He believed he spoke the sen- timents of those of his colleagues upon the connnittee, when lie said that these were the views which had actuated him and tlicni in consenting to report this bill. " Mr. W. said he owed it to himself to say that lie had felt most sensildy the remarks of the honorable Senator from Massachu- setts [Mr. Webster] as to the inconveniences and disappointments which must o-row out of withholding the transfer of this install- ment to the States. With a much less knowlege of tlie varied business and pecuniary affairs of our extended country than that distinguished Senator, he had not been insensible to these consid- erations. The course pursued by his own State, in the disposi- tion of this money, had compelled him to be awake to them. The law of his State for the investment of its portion of this money had placed the matter even beyond its control, and had compelled its chief fiscal orticer, long since, to announce to its citizens that this installment would be paid from the treasury of the State, whatever might be the action of Congress upon the subject. This would, beyond doubt, be done; and those who sent him here, and whom it was his duty and desire faithfully to repre- sent, should this bill pass, would be compelled to indemnify, from their own public funds, the individuals interested as borrowers of these moneys, against disappointment, damage or loss, from the action of Congress. Yet, under these delicate and difiicult circumstances, he had not been able to convince himself that he could properly do otherwise than to support the bill. He owed a high duty to those constituents, but he owed, in his estimation, a hio-her to the nation and to the Constitution of his country. He could not think that the power granted to Congress to borrow money upon the credit of the United States could be properly exercised for the mere purpose of raising money to be safely kept; and this he must consider the simple question presented. He mio-ht be mistaken in this view of the matter; but such was the deliberate conclusion of his mind, upon the most mature 572 Life and Times of Silas Wright. reflection, and that conclusion must govern his action upon the bill, as it had done his action as a member of the committee which reported it. " Having said thus much, Mr. W. said, he would only correct two or three errors of fact into which the honorable Senator who had just resumed his seat [Mr. Webster] seemed to him to have fallen, and he would detain the Senate no longer. " The honorable Senator seemed to suppose that the means to make this transfer to the States were in the treasury, and that the only difficulty, separate from the other demands upon it, grew out of the present unavailable character of those means. The state- ments he had already made had shown the error of this hypothe- sis. He had already shown that the whole means in the treasury, even when the Secretary of the Treasury made his report, at the commencement of our present session, of whatever character, whether available or not, were less, by more than a million of dollars, than the installment required to be transferred to the States under the deposit law. He had further shown that those means, such as they were, were, before the first of October, when that transfer was required to be made, to be still further dimin- ished by the whole expenses of the government for the present month, ascertained and estimated to amount to two and a half millions of dollars. Hence it would follow that the whole means in the treasury, on the first day of October next, must be from three and a half to four millions less than the transfer required. It was in vain, therefore, Mr. W. said, to escape from the conclu- sion that, if Congress should insist upon this transfer, it must authorize a loan of money upon the public credit, to enable the treasury to make it; in other words, that it must authorize a loan of money upon the credit of the United States, that that money, when loaned, may be deposited with the States for safe-keeping. "Another error of the honorable Senator [Mr. Webster], which he felt bound to correct, was in his strictures upon the recom- mendations of the Secretary of the Treasury as to the manner of issuing treasury notes. The honorable Senator had criticised this part of the rej^ort of the Secretary of the Treasury with some severity, and had held him up to the Senate and the country Life and Times of Silas Wriurt. 573 as striking out a new path for the supply of the treasury ; as recommending the issue of paper money ; of a description of paper simihir to that which we know by the denomination kI' 'continental money ;' and of doing this for the tirst time since the organization of the government under the Constitution. The fault complained of consisted in a recommendation, merely dis- cretionary and alternative, to issue treasury notes bearing no interest, and payable to the bearer, in the case the public erudi- tors should be found willing to i-eceive such notes in payment of their demands against the government, at par; otherwise to give the notes such an interest as would bring them to par. "Mr. W. said, as the committee, in the bill they lunl reported, had not followed this recommendation of the Secretary, it would be seen that no question was depending before the Senate, either in the bill now under discussion or in any other, whirh rendercon tlie treasury, upon the government, upon the banks and upon the currency generally. The saiV'-kccp- ing of the public moneys became separated from the State banks, in May last, by the voluntary suspension of si)ecie i)ayments l)y the banks, and the operation of the existing laws upon that act, and the bill proposes to continue the separation. " Before he could proceed with his argument, he must hei'e notice a position taken by the Senator from South Carolina, who addressed the Senate yesterday [Mr. Preston], and which position, he must say, he heard assumed with some surprise. It was, that the existing la^v had not produced a separation between the pub- lic treasury and the State banks ; that they were not legally separated, and that the only separation Avhich did exist was one forced by the Secretary of the Treasury, without the requirement of law and against the public interests. If he correctly under- stood the Senator, this was a fail- statement of his argument ; and he would repeat, he had heard it with surprise. The answer to it should be an extract from the law itself; and it would be found a triumphant answer. That part of the eighth section of the deposit act of the 23d of June, 1836, which prescribed the rule for the action of the Secretary ujxm this subject, was in the following words : "' Sec. 8. And he it further enacted. That no bank which shall be selected or employed as the place of deposit of the public money shall be discon- tinued as such depository, or the public money withdrawn therefrom, except for the causes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, if at any time any one of said banks shall fail or refuse to perform any of said duties as prescribed by this act, and stipulated to be performed by its contract ; or if amj of said banks sJiall at any titne refuse t/) pay its own notes in specie, if demamUd; or shall fail to keep in its vaults such an amount of specie as shall be required by the Secretary of the Treasury, and shall be, in his opinion, necessary to render the said bank a safe depository of the public moneys, having due regard to the nature of the business transacted by the bank ; in, any and every such case it shall be the duty of the Secretary of tJie Tremury to discontinue any stich bank as a depository, and tcithdratc from it the public moneys which it may hold on deposit at the time of such discontinuance.'' " This was the law. What had the Secretary done? He had discontinued the defaulting banks as public depositories. Had 590 Life and Times of Silas Wright. he obeyed the law in doing this, or had he forced the separation? It was true, as the gentleman had stated, that there were yet six specie-paying banks, and consequently six deposit banks upon the list ; but where were they located? Wtiat were the collec- tions of the revenue at those points ? What was the imi)ortance of any one of them as a fiscal agent of the treasury ? The gen- tleman had not seen fit to give to tlie Senate tliese facts in con- nection with his claim on behalf of this remnant of the deposit banks, and certainly he did not intend to detain the Senate to do it. It was enough for his purpose that the connection was, for all practical and useful purposes, either to the government or the people, wholly dissolved ; and, if it again existed, must exist by a rexinion, not as a continuance of any present existence. "The conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury was complained of by the Senator. Had the Secretary attempted to force a sepa- ration between the public deposits and the six remaining deposit banks ? This was not alleged. They were placed upon the list of depositories in the report of the Secretary, laid before Congress at the commencement of the present session ; and in the same statement the location of each, and the amount of public money on deposit in each, to enable the Senate and the country to judge of the importance of a continued connection with these banks as fiscal agents of the treasury, were plainly given. From this statement the assertion had been made, and was now repeated, that, for all practical and useful purposes to the treasury or the people, the connection between the deposit banks and the public moneys was at an end. Nor was the Secretary of the Treasury in any sense chargeable for the dissolution of this connection. So far from it, his own statements to Congress show that he has fallen short of the execution of the law. It commanded him, upon the failure of any bank to pay specie for its notes, when demanded, not only to discontinue such bank as a depository, but to ' vnthdraio from it the public ononeys which it may hold on deposit at the time of such discontinuance.'^ Has he done this ? No ; for he tells us that the larger portion of the means in the treasury, at this moment, exist in balances due from these banks as portions of the deposits they have received for safe- Keeping. Has the Secretary brought suits to recover these bal- Life anu Times of Silas ]Vin<;iiT. 59] ances when the banks have failed to make legal payment? He tells ns not, except in a few cases where it was considered neces- sary for the eventual security of the public property. He, then, is the last person in the world who should be charged with per- secution against the banks, or with an attempt to force a sepai-a- tion between them and the i)ublic treasury. If he is culpable at all, it is in not having obeyed the law, by withdrawing from them the moneys they held in deposit at the time they discon- tinued the payment of their notes in -specie, when demanded. If he has violated the law, he has violated it from lenity to the banks; and all know that this lenity has been wholly compulsory, growing out of the situation in which the banks have placed themselves. So much for the charge that the Secretary of the Treasury has forced the separation between the banks and the government. " He would now proceed to inquire what influences, favorable or unfavorable, the bill (to make this separation between all bunks and the public money permanent) would exert upon the public treasury. It would give to the treasury direct possession, and a perfect knowledge of its means at all times and under all circum- stances. They would consist not of bank credits but of money, and would, therefore, not be subject to any of the fluctuations to which bank credits must be always liable. The means of the treasury would be the value received, and not the mere represen- tation of that value in account. " It would give to the treasury the perfect command of its means. It would no longer be troubled with unavailable funds, a description of funds well known to it for the last tAventy years; which have always grown exclusively out of its connection with banks ; which now constitute almost its only resource for the payment of the public creditors ; and the consequence of which character given to the means of the treasury, so far as he was informed, had, more than any other single cause, compelled the convention of Congress at this inconvenient and, he thought he might safely say, dangerous season of the year. It might be well, here, to deflne this term ' unavailable funds,' as applied to the means in the public treasury. He understood them to con- sist, now and upon all former occasions, either of bank notes, 592 Life and Times of Silas Wright. which the banks issuing them could not redeem in specie, or any- lliing else which would pay the debts of the government; or of moneys received by the banks for safe-keeping, and which they could not pay, upon demand, in the legal currency of the country, or in any currency which the creditors of the government would consent to receive as money. An entire separation from banks would, of course, relieve the public treasury from this embarrass- ment for the future. It would, at all times, enable the treasury to pay the demands upon it, when the money of the people had been collected and placed in its keeping for that pui-pose; whereas, under the connection, these moneys were liable to become un- available in the hands or the banks, and the people again to be called upon to raise, either from their pockets or upon their credit, the means to pay those very debts for the payment of which they had once provided, by depositing the money in bank. "A continuance of the separation would further relieve the treasury from the necessity of using its means to sustain the credit of banks, when revulsions in trade and general shocks to credit shouhl bring the banks in jeopardy. These revulsions must be always more or less frequent in every commercial coun- try, and most frequent and most severe in those which most extensively adopt a system of paper or credit circulation and cur- rency. If, then, the means of the national treasury are confided to the safe-keeping of the banks which furnish that paper or credit circulation and currency, they must be always subject to the fluctuations, revulsions and incidents to which the credit of the banks are subject. They become mere credits with the banks, and cannot be exempted from the influences which affect its other credits. Can the fiscal oiflcers of the government, then, neglect to put forth their exertions and the means at their command to sustain the credit of those banks, when occasion shall call, whose credits constitute the means of the public treasury itself ? He was not ignorant of the fact that loud and startling complaints had been made in this hall against a late Secretary of the Trea- sury, upon the mere suspicion that he had used the means of the treasury to sustain the credit of the deposit banks; but would any gentleman deny that, under this concise and practical view of the consequences of a connection between the treasury of the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 593 people and the banks, it must frequently become the imperious duty of that officer, a duty as binding as that of keeping the treasury in a situation to answer the calls upon it, to exert this power, and so to locate the means of the treasury as to render it as effective as possible ? The consequence was unavoidable; and still the exercise of such a power would always be odious in a political sense, and must always be more or less invidious in a financial sense. It could never be exerted equally toward all the banks, but must be used especially in favor of those which should be, for the time being, the depositories of the public funds. Its influence, then, might often be unfavorable, and even injurious toward institutions which had promoted, as much as any other, the collection and })rompt payment of the public revenues, but which should not, on the day of trouble, be safe keepers of any portion of those revenues. Is it not desirable, if it can be done with safety to all interests to be regarded, to relieve the treasury, and the head of the fiscal department of this government, from this always so delicate, and frequently so odious, an exercise of the power and influence of the public funds upon the credit of the banks and the business of the country? He must say that a proper national pride, and a just feeling of patriotism, seemed to him to demand it, at an}^ expense short of the positive sacrifice of some paramount public interest. "A further benefit to be derived fi'om a system which shall make the treasury the keejjer of its own means, and especially if those means shall be collected and disbursed in the legal currency of gold and silver, or of paper issued upon the faith and credit of the government only, will be a perfect uniformity of value in the collections and disbursements of the treasury, wherever made. Its operations will become stable and certain in every sense, and all the contracts with the government may be made without the customary deductions on account of the anticipated receipt of a depreciated medium of payment. Every citizen can make his proposals for the pulilic works or public supplies, wherever may be the place of his residence or the place of pay- ment under the contract, based upon the par of money, and will not be driven to an uncertain calculation upon the fluctuations of exchange and the uncertainties of credit. 38 594 I'l^^ ^-^-^ Times of Silas Wright. " These are some of the benefits to be anticipated to the public treasury from a permanent separation from the banks. What are the injuries, the unfavorable influences, if any, to stand ao-ainst these benefits ? He had heard but one suggested, so far as the interests and conveniences of the treasury are concerned, and he must say but that one had occurred to his mind. The expense and trouble of remitting specie, in cases where that should become necessary, was, he believed, the only drawback upon the treasury for all these benefits, and a short examination would show the weight of this objection. " Under the system of bank deposits, drafts from the Treasurer, upon the diff'erent depositories, and from one depository upon another, are made the medium of remittance in all ordinary cases, and, where the drafts are fully credited, supersede the necessity of an actual transportation of the money in almost all the operations of the public treasury. Nothing in the system proposed pre- vents the use of the same medium for remittance and exchange. The drafts of the Treasurer of the United States upon a receiving ofticer of the government will certainly have as good credit as his drafts upon a deposit bank, and when they are known to be drawn upon the specie in safe-keeping, and upon nothing else, they caunot fail to be as acceptable to the public creditor as any similar drafts have heretofore been. The trouble and expense, therefore, of transporting specie funds from one portion of the country to the other, for disbursement to the public creditors, will not probably be more extensive under this bill than under the bank system, which it proposes to supersede. " But we here meet an objection from the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston], which requires an answer. He says the system proposed, thus carried out, will constitute a bank, a bank of discount, a bank of issue, a national bank, a government bank. He reasons thus : One of the depositories constituted by the bill will make its draft upon another and deliver it to the public creditor. Tlie receipt of the draft by the public creditor is a discount of the paper of the ofticer making it. The person receiving the draft may transfer it to his neighbor before it is presented for payment, and it may pass from hand to hand before it finds its way to tlie ofticer upon whom it is drawn, and who Life and Times of Silas Wright. 595 has tlie specie in keeping for its payment. This will convert the draft into an issue of paper, and as it is drawn upon specie funds in actual deposit in the hands of the drawee, the whole machinery- must constitute a bank, and a bank, too, of deposit, discount and issue. Now, the only answer which this argument requires is sim- ply to say, that if this constitutes a national baid-:, a government bank, or a bank of any sort, then we have had such a bank under the system of deposit with the State banks, because the public disbursements have constantly been made, and the public funds distributed and equalized by exactly similar drafts. He saw no force whatever in the argument, unless it was designed to frighten those who, like himself, were not very partial to banks of any description, and were most distinctly hostile to a national or government bank, with the apprehension that such a bank was insidiously buried under the bill, and w^ould be disinterred and spring into life at its passage. Now, he was ready to say to the Senator from South Carolina, and to all the friends of that Sena- tor, who were so very anxious for the establishment of a national bank, that, opposed as he was to such an institution, in name or in principle, if they would compromise by the acceptance of such a bank as this bill Avould establish, they should have it with his cheerful assent, and this long and heated agitation about a gov- ernment bank should be forever amicably settled. "He would now look at the influences of this measure upon the government. " It would discharge its legislation free from bank influences of all sorts. He spoke not of improper or corrupt influences, but of those constituent interests which must be represented in Con- gress so long as the connection between the public treasury and banks of any description was maintained. He addressed those who must understand him, and who must have seen and felt these influences in our official action here. Who, he w^ould ask, had occupied one of these seats for the last five years, and had not seen the power of this influence upon our deliberations? Who had failed to see that it was an influence more nearly over- powering and beyond our control than any we had been called to encounter? Who did not see and feel it now as pressing upon us with a giant force? It was true we had formerly 596 LiTFE AND Times of Silas Wright. and most usually encountered it in the consolidated form of a national bank, and that it now presented itself to us in State detachments; but it was the same influence similarly exerted. It was the effort of cupidity on our free institutions — an effort to make money out of the money and means and credit of the people. " He uttered these sentiments with extreme reluctance, and with the most extended charity toward all those who differed from him. He knew well that not only political opponents, but those who had ever been political and personal friends — those toward whom he had ever entertained and still did entertain the kindest feelings — did differ with him upon these points. He most cheerfully yielded to their integrity, sincerity and patriot- ism every indulgence which he asked for himself; but the crisis, the importance of the questions presented, and our imperious duty to our constituents, demanded from us frank and fearless action. " Was it not, then, in case he was right, most desirable to free the legislation of Congress from bank influence altogether? Would it not tend, more than any other single act we could per- form, to take from our debates and deliberations that bitterness and acrimony which had too strongly characterized them for the last few years, but which, he was proud to say, had entered in a much less degree into the present debate in the Senate than into any similar debate for many years? For himself, he felt that this consideration alone demanded the passage of this bill: that it was entirely paramount to any objections he had yet heard urged against it; that it was as much superior to considerations of financial convenience and pecuniary profit as was the purity and permanency of our political institutions to the temporary advan- tages of a bargain or the facilities of borrowing money. "This was not the only advantage the government would derive from a permanent separation of its finances from the banks. It would discharge it from that eternal round of imputa- tions to which, under the connection, its every fiscal action is subjected. If it be a time of prosperity and plenty, all are struggling for the profits arising from the safe-keeping of the government funds; and the failure on the part of its fiscal otiicer to select a given bank as a public depository is not only matter Life and Times of Silas Wright. 597 of personal offense, but is immediately converted into tlie active cause of all the pecuniary calamities which the friends and cus- tomers of that bank may experience tlirough all time to come. If it be a time of scarcity and pressure, like tlie present, the drafts of the Treasurer upon the money of the people in safe- keeping with tlie banks is a lutldess attack, a war upon them, and is ntended to prostrate the institutions. The former keep- ing of the funds becomes a merit and a virtue, and to ask for their payment to the public creditors is ingratitude and injustice. " If the executive, in the exercise of a sound discretion, sees proper to issue an order requiring paj'ment in money for the whole, or any portion, of the public revenue, this is converted into an attack upon the banks, a distrust of their credit and sol- vency, and a wrong inflicted by the government upon the whole people. Can it be desirable to preserve a connection which is the subject of incessant complaint on the part of the banks and their friends, and of constant embarrassment to the operations of tlie public treasury, and of imputation upon the most faithful and worthy public officers ? He tliought not. lie considered this connection of the fiscal affairs of tlie government with the credit and business of the banks, and of business and commercial men, and the constant imputations brought u])on the government thereby, as promoting a political morality in the public mind most dangerous to our institutions; as doing more to weaken the confidence of the peoi)le in the government of their choice, than any and all other causes of distrust combined. If we would listen to the slander and misrepresentations of the times, we must believe that all our misfortunes, public and private, are imputable to our government — all our prosperity to a resistance to its mea- sures and its policy. And whence do these imputations come, but from our connection with the banks ? They all emanate from that source, and from no other. That connection is now dis- solved, by the operation of law and the voluntary action of the banks themselves ; and he would say, let it be perpetual — let it never be renewed. " The effect of this measure upon the banks should next occupy his attention. " It had been considered as a measure of open and violent hos- 598 Life and Times of Silas Wright. tility to those institutions, as fraught with unmixed evil to them. Was this the true view of it? Had it these exclusive tenden- cies ? He thought not, and he would attempt to point out some positive benefits to the banks from its adoption. " It would leave the State banks to operate upon their own means — upon the capitals which the respective State Legislatures had thought proper to give to them, and upon the funds derived from their private depositors. These means would be perfectly certain and uniform, so far as they consisted of the capitals of the banks, and would be subject to no dangerous fluctuations, so far as they consisted of private deposits. Hence the action of the institutions could always be regulated by a certain standard — the extent of their means for the accommodation of their custo- mers. This would discharge them from the inducement to those dangerous expansions and contractions, which not only promote, but cause, revulsions such as that under which the country now sufi^ers. " The government has been charged with being the cause of the present pecuniary embarrassments of the country, and he thought not without some foundation; but he considered the con- nection between the treasury and the banks the only foundation for such a charge. What had we done ? We had deposited our funds in the State banks. A period of unexampled prosperity had visited our country. Importations had become excessive, and the duties thereupon had swelled the public revenue from that source beyond all reasonable anticipation. The banks received the excess of revenue which the wants of the govern- ment and the public appropriations did not call for. The same causes promoted unusual and unexampled sales of the public lands, and thus, from both of the great sources of revenue to the United States, streams were poured into the public treasury, widened and deepened by their own accumulation and velocity. The banks were the safe-keepers of the public funds, the fiscal agents of the treasury, and they were also the reservoirs from which the importing and other merchants drew their means, and from which the speculating purchasers of our immense domain were supplied with funds for their operations. So far as the government was concerned the consequences are obvious. The Life and Times of Silas Wright. 599 moment the revenue exceeded the wants of the treasury, the excess fed the passion they ought to have controlled. The banks were the receivers and the payei-s. They received, to keep for the government, and loaned to the merchants and purchasers of our lands. The system, in fact and in practice, was one of indefi- nite credit for both duties and lands. The money paid for both went into the banks for safe-keeping. The treasury did not want it or call for it for payment of the public dues. The banks loaned it to their customers, who were the payers for duties and lands. Under these circumstances, and this action of the system, excesses were inevitable, and they had visited their consequences sweep- ingly upon the country and upon the treasury itself. " Ouffht not this state of things to be a lesson to the wise not to renew a connection which had been so disastrous to every interest involved ? To the government and the public treasury, as a creditor of the banks ; to the banks, as debtors to the trea- sury and creditors to the citizens ; and to the people at large, and especially to the commercial community, as debtors to the banks. " That the times have promoted overtrading and overbanking no one will deny; but that the connection between the govern- ment and the banks, and the forty millions of dollars of surplus funds in deposit with them, immensely increased the overbank- ing, is equally undeniable. It is not to be expected that the managers of banks will keep money without making profitable use of it, when that use is presented and urged upon them. This remark was not made in censure of the officers of the deposit banks. Their stockholders, and the community about them, knew that they were in possession of the funds; and the use would be demanded, nay, he might say commanded, had the officers of the institutions resisted. The evil lay farther back. It was in placing and retaining the funds in the banks, which the immediate calls upon the treasury did not require. "The fault of the government, however, did not stop here. We passed a law exacting from the banks interest for these funds, and thus not only sanctioned, but compelled, their use of them in their ordinary loans and discounts. Could a bank keep money and |.ay interest upon it, and derive no interest from its 600 Life and Tj.mes of Silas Wright. use ? Most certainly not, and we therefore compelled the banks, by our express legislation, to promote the evils of which we now complain. We compelled them to loan our money, in their hands for safe-keeping, by charging and exacting from them an interest for its use, and thus stimulated them to increase the excesses of overtrading and overbanking. We furnished them with a capi- tal of some forty millions of dollars, and forced them to use it in making loans. " Can anything more strongly or clearly show the impolicy to every interest of any connection of a financial or interested char- acter between the local banks of the country and the treasury of the nation ? The imputations cast upon us, as having caused the present pecuniary embarrassments of the countiy, have this justice, and let us discharge ourselves from similar imputations for the future. Our real fault has been, not that we have unduly checked the excesses of the times, but that, in the outset, we promoted the expansions by the banks which necessarily led to those excesses, and that all our efforts, legislative and executive, have been insufficient to avert the catastrophe which has now come upon the country. We see our agency in the mischief, when it is too late for us to apply a remedy. The incidental relief in our power we have already offered to the country, so far as the action of this body is concerned, and now let us pass this bill, and protect ourselves against all imputation as wrong-doers for the future. " A further benefit to the banks, to be derived from a continu- ance of the separation, is, that when they shall win the public confidence by their sound management and permanent means, they will possess and retain it, independent of public j^atronage, independent of any action of the federal government, and exempt from the fluctuations which congressional legislation or executive discretion may otherwise cause. This is the description of public confidence whicli these institutions should possess and rely upon, and these should be its foundations. Its own capital, and the integrity and ability of its managers, should be the dependence of a banking institution; not the uncertain and changing patron- age of any body, much less the fluctuating and dangerous patron- age of governments. State or national. A credit founded upon Life and Times of Silas Wright. 601 such patronage must be delusive. To-day you deposit with a bank a million of dollars ; to-morrow it extends its accomnKxhv- tions upon the strength of your funds in its keeping; the day following its favored customers expand their business and enlarge their credits; on the fourth day you require your funds, and draw upon the bank for tlieni. Your deposit lias given to tlie bank a false confidence in its means; its extension has given its customers a false estimate of its ability to indulge them; tlicir expansion has given the community false expectations as to their power of indulgence; and your call for your money undeceives all, after the mischief is done, the excess committed, and just in time to produce the derangement and distress and suffering which must always, sooner or later, follow excessive credits and mistaken confidence. The institutions which are to furnish to the people of this country a circulating paper to answer the pur- poses of money, ought not to be subjected to fluctuations of this description. Their love of gain ouglit not thus to be stimulated, and especially by this government, which has none but an incidental control over their proceedings. They should be left by us to operate upon their own means, to rest their credit upon their own ability and good character, and not upon our funds. " But it is said the withdrawal from the State banks of our con- fidence, countenance and patronage, in this particular, will pros- trate and destroy those institutions; that the attempt to separate the finances of this government from them is, in effect, a declara- tion of war against them, which they cannot survive. Is this, can this be so ? Will any sound and solvent State bank fail because the United States does not intrust to it the safe-keeping of the moneys of the people? Did the State Legislatures, in chartering those banks, expect or intend that their credit or solvency should be sustained by the legislation of Congress, or the use of the funds of the federal government ? If so, why have they limited and fixed their respective capitals, and attempted to set bounds to their operations ? Why have they assigned different amounts of capital to different banks, dependent upon their location and business associations ? Certainly no other answer can be given to these interrogatories than that they intended that each bank should have a capital equal to the wants 602 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the business community surroxmding it, and that all the banks of their creation should liave a credit and confidence with the people, and should transact a business proportioned to the capi- tals granted to them respectively, and not beyond that limit. You, then, by making your deposits with these institutions, destroy the proportions which the State Legislatures have in- tended to establish and preserve. Your deposits are treated as capital by the banks, and an extension of their loans, and an augmentation of their business, beyond that which their own means would allow, is the necessary consequence of your joatron- age. Can this disposition of your moneys fail to promote excessive banking ? The members of tlie State Legislatures have a knowledge of the business wants of all the places at which they locate banks, and their object is to measure the banking capital at any given point by the wants of business at that point. When they have done that, you come in with your deposits, distributed not upon the basis which governs the State Legisla- tures, but according to your own convenience for receipt or dis- bursement. The consequence is that you pour your millions into these State institutions, without reference to the legitimate business calls for banking facilities at the points where your deposits are made, and thus derange and destroy the proportions, as to these facilities, which the local Legislatures have determined to be safe and proper. In this way your patronage becomes an evil, and not a benefit. It stimulates the cupidity of the banks, and they, in turn, stimulate the cupidity of the business community around them, until excesses on the part of all produce revulsion, distress and bankruptcy. " Still it is urged that our withholding this evidence of our confidence in the State banks will destroy their credit and pros- trate the institutions. Will any one pretend that the States have rested the credit of their banking institutions upon the patronage or confidence of this government ? Can that man be found Avho will admit that, as a member of 'the Legislature of his State, he has voted for banks with the expectation that they miTSt be solvent or insolvent, as the pleasure of Congress shall determine ? W^ill not every such man tell you that he has given to the banks wliicli he has aided to create a capital stock uj)on Life and Times of Silas Wright. 603 which its solvency and credit with the people is to rest ? That with honest and prudent management each bank lias within itself, and under its own control, the elements of its own pros- perity, and is not dependent upon your smiles or to be ruined l)y your frowns? This ought to be so, and is so. " How was it with the State banks during the period from 1816 to 1836? The Bank of the United States then enjoyed the exclusive privilege of keeping the public funds, and its notes alone were by law made receivable in payment of the public dues. Were the State banks discredited or ruined then ? Was that separation between them and the funds of the government treated as a war upon them, a war of extermination? No, sir. The operations of these institutions were never more stable and safe than during that period, nor did they ever stand stronger in the public confidence than then. Away, then, with the idea that the solvency or credit of the State banks rests upon our patron- age or favor, or that our frown upon them is annihilation. " He knew that were we to withdraw our confidence from a particular bank, and extend it to all others, the inference would justly be that we suspected its solvency and responsibility, and that this might do it injury. But when we separate ourselves from all banks. State or national, and declare our object to be a political as well as a financial separation, will it be said that we cast distrust upon the banks which will destroy their credit ? Will it be contended that the banks established by the States have a right to the safe-keeping and use of the revenues of the nation ? He thought not. And if not, then could the separation of our finances from them be justly termed a war against them ? No. The position was absurd and unsustainable. He had no feeling of hostility to the State banks, but he was not to concede their right to the possession and use of the moneys of the people, lest they should choose to consider a denial of the right an act of hostility. He would go as far as any man should go to protect these institutions in the full enjoyment of all their constitutional and legal rights; and he would go quite as far to compel them rigidly to fulfill their most sacred obligations to that confiding peoph; who take their promises to pay upon demand as money. "In every light, then, in which he could view this matter, it (504 Life and Times of Silas Wright. was his deliberate opinion that, the banks would be benefited and not injured by making the existing separation between them and the public treasury perpetual. The passage of this bill at this time might have some tendency to weaken the confidence of the community in the institutions; but, if such a consequence must attend this change of our policy, could there be a better time than the present to make that change ? The banks were now, he would not say insolvent, for he did not believe that was the condition of any large portion of them, but unable to pay the demands upon them. That fact was avowed by themselves and known to all the world. They were in a quasi insolvent state, and all the distrust which could grow out of such a condition they had brought upon themselves by their voluntary suspension of specie payments. It was in vain, then, to talk of the delicacy of their present credit. That delicacy had been destroyed by their own act, and before they could ever again restore themselves to the confidence of the community they must be sound in fact, and able to discharge to the fullest extent every obligation which general distrust could bring against them. It was erroneous to suppose that they could ever resume and sustain specie payments until they were thus prepared and thus armed. They must build up for themselves a new character, based upon a perfect fulfill- ment of all their obligations. If, then, we are to separate from them, and that separation is to have any tendency to affect their credit, this is the very period when it is most desirable to them that the declaration of a perpetual divorcement should be made. Now it can do them no harm. They are already in a condition from which main strength alone can raise them; but at a time when their credit was unsuspected, and their operations unem- barrassed and unimpeded, the measure might give them an inju- rious sliock. Let it be done now, therefore, that wlieu they do rise it may be distinctly known that they rise upon their own strength, unaided by our patronage and untrammeled l)y our movements. "Mr. W. said he had touched but incidentally the question of the receptibility or non-receptibility of the notes of the State banks in payment of the i)ublic dues. He did not now propose to detain the Senate by remarks upon that point. The proposi- Life and Tuies of iSilas Wright. 605 tion affecting that question had not come from the committee, but from a member of the Senate in his place, and to him he should leave the discussion of tliat topic. For himself, he agreed with the view of this matter which he understood his honorable colleague to take, that, in case the dei)Osits were confined to the safe-keeping of the officers of the government, it was a question of much less interest to the banks than seemed to be generally supposed. If the banks were not made the depositories, it could not be supposed that their notes, if made receivable, would be retained for any length of time in safe-keeping. It would be a necessary result of this mode of keeping the public funds, that all bank-notes received must be presented at short intervals for payment; and he could not see that it would be any very valu- able favor to the banks, as a permanent system, to receive their notes merely for the purpo'se of immediate presentment and pay- ment. In this respect he was fully conscious that the change should not be precipitate or rash; most especially it should not while the heavy balances remain due to the treasury from the late deposit banks. For this reason the graduation provided for in the amendment proposed by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] met his approbation; nor did he think time very material upon this point, and he should be willing to make the graduation even more slow than that proposed, in case any important interest would be favorably affected by further time. The preservation of the principle was what he wished, but he did not desire rashness or precipitancy in bringing it into practice. "He would now examine very briefly the influences which he su]»i)Osed this measure would exert niton the cnvrency generally. "It would give a stable and uniform value to the currency received into and paid from tlie {lublic treasury, in whatever portion of our widely extended country the receipts or payments should be made. " It would also preserve the currency of the treasury at the standard fixed by the Constitution and the laws of Congress, and guaranteed to all the citizens of the country, as the only currency they siiould be compelled to take in payment of debts. " It would stimulate, if not compel, the banks to elevate their paper currency to a level with the currency of the public trea- 606 Life and Times of Silas Wright. sury, and would go very far to measure the public confidence in these institutions by the standard which regulates the currency received and disbursed by the government. If they keep their paper up to that standard of value, it will have currency and confidence; and if they do not, it will have neitlier. There will be a rule for judgment which cannot err, because it will be a rule of intrinsic value, and not of paper credit. "In this sense he deemed the measure of immense national importance. Hitherto the standard of currency fixed by the Constitution had been, in practice, erected nowhere ; while the banks, State and national, had been left to establish the standards of value in all quarters of the country, and these standards had been as various, at different points, as the fluctuations of trade could make them. The fiscal operations of the federal govern- ment had hitherto been made, to every practical extent, to follow the interests of the banks, and the uniformity of receipts and dis- bursements in the various portions of the Union had only been the uniformity of bank credits and the uniformity in value of bank paper. It was high time that a more permanent standard, and one in conformity with the Constitution, should be established. Congress alone could establish it; and Congress, in his judgment, could only establish it in connection with the receipts and dis- bursements of the public revenue, and to the extent of those i-eceipts and disbursements. He hailed this measure, then, as one calculated to produce this great reformation, and to bring us back to the starting point of 1789. With these feelings he advo- cated it, and hoped for its passage. "A further beneficial tendency of this measure will be an extension of the specie basis for our broad paper circulation. This is admitted by all to be a matter of indispensable necessity. Who then should contribute to it, if not the federal government^ Are the banks expected to do it, when it is in the very face of their interests to promote the circulation of the metals ? Are the. States to do it, when they cannot ' coin money or regulate the value thereof? ' Whence is this great good to the peojile of the country to be derived, unless Congress shall bring its powers to aid in the work? And how shall Congress accomplish this purpose but by the receipts and disbursements of the public revenue? Life and Times of Silas Wright. 007 "The adoption of such a system by Congress woiihl constitute a point, in the broad field of our currency, exempt from tlic fluc- tuations and revulsions to which a currency of credit must be always subject. It would be a fortress to wliicli public coiitideiice would retreat in times of trouble, and within which it would remain uninjured, however violent the convulsion which shouhl shake the monetary world. Now we were without any such rock of safety. The storm, which was now sufficiently powerful to agitate the great ocean of credit, shook alike the treasury of our country and the humblest bank. This ought not so to be. The finances of a rich and powerful and prosperous nation ought not to be subject to these fluctuations. Tliey ought to be exempted from the reverses and revulsions to which private cupidity will always subject the business of an enterprising people. Place them upon the basis of a currency of intrinsic value, and you accomplish this great object. Leave them to -stand upon the credit of banks, and you insure the recurrence of a crisis like the present, when, with abundant means in account, your treasury is destitute of means at command. " But we are told that tlie passage of this bill will establish one currency for the government and its officers, and another for the people. This argument has been repeated from various quar- ters of the House, and he was disp -/Sed to consider it as advanced in all candor and sincerity, and to reply to it in the same spirit. " He must premise, however, that he could not comprehend this mode of treating the government and the people of this country as separate interests, much less as antagonistic interests. He had supposed that our government consisted of mere servants of the people, charged, in their several stations, with the execu- tion of the will of the people; and that, beyond tlie execution of tliat temporary trust, the officers of tlie government were, to the extent of their numbers, the people themselves, and one with them in feeling and interest. How, tlien, it would be possible to create or establish a currency which, properly and practically speaking, should be a currency for the government, and should not, at the same time, be a currency for the people, was entirely beyond his comprehension. The officers of the government principally reside in the country, and among the people. They 608 Life and Times of Silas Wright. receive their compensation, whatever it may be, from the people, and the expenses of themselves and their families are paid, like those of other citizens, to the people from whom they purchase and with whom they deal. The curi-ency they receive from the people, as a compensation for their services, they must pay to the jjeople in discharge of their debts ; and how a currency thus employed, received from the people and paid back again to the people, could be a government currency, as contradistinguished from the currency of the people, he must again repeat, he could not at all comprehend. " But he would look at the argument in another aspect. It necessarily presupposes that a better currency is to be secured to the government and its officers and a baser for the people. The currency proposed to be secured to the national treasury is gold and silver, or their equivalent. The currency which the argu- ment assumes the people are to have is bank paper. What, then, do those who use the ai'gument assume? Most certainly that the currency of bank paper is ahvays to be baser than the currency of gold and silver; because if the currency of paper be equal in value to the cuiTcncy of gold and silver, then the argu- ment has no force, as urged, to show that the government and its officers are to be pi-eferred in our legislation to the people at large. Taking the argument with this assumption, and in what predicament do those who use it place themselves? They, by their own assumption, urge us to adopt, by a law of Congress, a standard of currency for the treasury of the nation baser than gold and silver, to avoid the invidiousness of giving to ourselves a better currency than the people are to have. Has this argu- ment been well considered and its consequences duly weighed? He thouglit not, or it would not have been presented. " Gentlemen might suppose it popular to talk about the cur- rency of the people as base and depreciated, but they would per- mit him to ask to whom are the peo])le to look for an elevated standard of currency — for a standard of currency such as is gnar- anteed to them by the Constitution • — if not to Congress ? Shall they look to the banks? The complaint of the argument is that the banks are to furnish them a base paper currency, while the government secures to itself a currency of gold and silver. Are Life and Times of Silas Wright. 609 they to look to the States'? They have no power to fix a stan- dard of currency even for their own citizens, much less for the nation. They must, then, look to Congress and to the Constitu- tion. And what shall Congress do to promote the interests of the people in this matter? Fix a standard of value baser than that which the Constitution has guaranteed to the people? Adopt bank paper as the standard of value of the country, for fear that the government will have a better currency than the people? Can the people ever have a better currency than the government, so long as the regulation of the standard rests with the government ? Most certainly not. If we adopt a standard baser than the coins, the people cannot elevate it. If we keep our standard upon the level of the Constitution, the people can compel the banks to come up to that standard, because no law can obligate them to receive the paper of the banks or to give to them their confidence, and they will, of course, do neither, unless the banks furnish them a currency equal to the legal standard oi the country; but adopt by your legislation a baser standard than gold and silver, and do you think — does any one think — that the banks will furnish a better currency for the people than you prescribe for the public treasury ? No, sir. The supposition would be absurd. If you do not fix and maintain a proper stan- dard of currency none can exist in the comitry. If you adopt and adhere to the constitutional standard in your transactions, the influence of your example will be all-powerful with the banks and with all future State legislation in regard to them. " The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] manifested some alarm, lest the officers of the government should be set down at the first table and the people left to supply themselves at the second. He was one of those who claimed to be as demo- cratic as the honorable Senator, and as unwilling to degrade our masters, the people; but if the cook were to supply the first table with base food, in order that the master of the mansion might sit at it with the servants, he could not believe that the honor of the situation would compensate for the unwholesome character of the bill of fare. Would it not better comport with the duty of a faithful servant to provide sound, healthful, nutri- tious food for every table, and thus enable the master to consult 39 610 Life and Times or Silas Wright. his pleasure as to which he would be fed from, without danger to his health. True, if bad food were not provided and cooked the servants could not eat bad food, but it was as true that if sound food were not provided the master could not have sound food, whatever table he might choose it from. If Ave do not provide a sound standard of currency, our masters, the people, cannot enjoy a sound currency, for to us they have intxaisted the duty of selecting and establishing that standard. We act for them and not for ourselves, and the standard of currency we adopt for the public treasury is adopted for them and not for us. " Another argument, very nearly allied in character to the last, is urged against the passage of this bill. It is said its effect will be to raise the salaries and compensations of the public officers. Some have stated the increase to be equal to ten, some to twelve and a half, and he believed he had seen some statements raising it as high as twenty per cent upon the present compensations. What foundation had this argument ? The same as the former. It went upon the assumption that the currency of the country was now, and was always to remain, base and depreciated ; that a dollar of currency was not, and was not to be, equal in value to a statute standard dollar. Look at the position in its true light, and its fallacy will be instantly manifest. The com2:)ensa- tions of all public officers are fixed by law. Take our own com- pensation, for example. We are to receive a given number of dollars per day for each day of our service. This is the contract between us and the people. How, then, are we to be paid ? Are we to have eight dollars for each day we occupy these seats, or are we to have eight promises of some bank to j)ay, which are worth but four dollars ? Does any man doubt which was the intention of the law ? Will any man contend that we are overpaid if we receive eight doUai's in gold or silver, as the value thereof is regulated by Congress '? Will not all admit that we are not paid accord- ing to the law unless we receiv^e that value ? But, say gentlemen, gold and silver bear a premium in the market, and therefore any given amount, paid in the standard coins of the country, is overpaid to the extent of the premium upon the coins. Here rests the error. The premises are false, and the conclusion there- fore falls to the ground. Gold and silver do not, and cannot, Life and Times of Silas Wright. QW properly speaking, bejir a premium. An American silver dollar can no more be worth one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty-five cents, in this country, than a standard pound can weigh a pound and a quarter. The one thing is as impossible as the other. Both are themselves standards, the one of value and the other of quantity ; and the former can no more vary than the latter. The dollar is Avorth exactly one hundred cents. It is the measure of that value, and cannot be worth either more or less than that sum. It is itself the par of money. Whatever is above it bears a premium, and whatever is below it is at a dis- count. This error in computing the value of money and the value of our paper currency is so universal, that it is not singular this argument should appear plausible to most minds without a somewhat close examination. All the statements we see pub- lished adopt the value of the paper as the par of money; and because the gold and silver are more valuable and command a higher price in the market than paper, they are said to bear a premium. The error arises from adopting an erroneous standard for the ])ai" value. The paper is not par when gold and silver are worth more than it. They are the par and the paper is depreci- ated. A moment's reiiection will show every man that this is the true position. Why, then, it will be asked, are not the state- ments of the market value of our currency, daily published to the country, made upon the true and not upon a false basis ? The boards of brokers and bankers and dealers in money would pro- bably be able to account for the manner in which these state- ments are made. It is much more acceptable to them, and doubtless much more favorable to the circulation and credit of the depreciated bank paper, to use it as the par, the standard of value, and to present gold and silver at a premium, as being actually worth a tenth beyond its statute value, its value as a tender in the payment of debts. "A single fact which transpired in this city but a day or two since will show the practical effect of this mode of computing the value of money. A member of the Senate, within the last few days, related to me the following incident : The Senator stepped into a shop upon the avenue to purchase some small article. The price was given to him by the shopkeeper at eighty- 612 Life and TniES of Silas Wright. seven and a half cents. He presented a dollar in silver to make payment, when he was informed that the price was given at eiu'hty-seven and a half cents nnder the expectation that payment wonld be made in paper, in 'shin-plasters,' as they are called, and that it was but seventy-live cents if paid in. specie, and he received a quarter of a dollar in change and the article he desired. W.-is this difference of price a premium upon the silver? No, sir. It was an addition to cover the depreciation of paper. The seventy- five cents was the value of the article in money. The eighty- seven and a half cents was the value in depreciated paper. This little incident shows us the tax which would be imposed upon the public creditors, including the officers of the government, if we were to pay them in a depreciated currency. It shows us that we should, at once, sink their compensations about one-sixth, as that would be the additional charge against them for every neces- sary of life, because they must make payment in a currency so much depreciated. It shows us also the immense tax which the whole community must pay so long as they are compelled to use a base currency; and shall we then be urged to adopt a standard of currency for the public treasury below the value of gold and silver ? "A third argument against the passage of this bill, urged with great zeal and earnestness by those who put it forth, is, that it will extend most fearfully the executive patronage of this gov- ernment; that it will tend to strengthen the executive arm, to the danger of public liberty itself. He would examine concisely this startling objection. The bill creates no new officers. It proposes to intrust the safe-keeping of the public funds with the officers who now collect them. These officers are all appointed by the President and Senate, by the President alone, or by the heads of some one of the executive departments. They are all public officers of the government, responsible to it and to the people for their official acts. They are all now removable at the pleasure of the President. The bill does not propose to change the mode of their appointment, or to increase their liability to dismission from office by the executive. In what way, then, does it increase the executive power over them, or strengthen that arm of the government for good or for evil ? He would take a case, the more Life and Times of Silas Wright. 613 clearly to illustrate his views; the collector of the port of New York, a place of high trust and responsibility already, and to be made much more so if this bill becomes a law, is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; lie is removable at the pleasure of the President witliout cause, * either proved or assigned; this is the relation of that officer to the executive branch of the government under the existing hiws. Does the bill before us propose to change that relation ? Not in any way whatever. It merely proposes to make that officer keep and disburse the money he collects, instead of handing it over to a bank for safe-keeping; and it will require that he should streno-then his official bond and sureties to meet the increased official responsibility. But would any gentleman explain to him liow the power or influence of the executive over the officer was to be increased by these proceedings. That power and influence could oidy be exerted in reference to his appointment to or removal from office; and the existing law upon that subject was not to be changed. The office was made no more valuable by this addition of duty and responsibility, and, therefore, the bill would cause no increase of a desire for the possession or reten- tion of it. " It was a mistake, then, of fact, that the executive patronage was increased, or the executive arm strengthened by the provi- sions of the bill. It was a delusion which gentlemen had per- mitted their imaginations to practice upon them, wliich had no foundation in the proposed law. This would be rendered more apparent by the fact that this argument was most urged by those who preferred a return to the system of deposits with the State banks. Had any gentleman, who had occupied a seat here for the last few years, or who had turned Ids attention at all to the proceedings of Congress since the public moneys were trans- ferred for safe-keeping from the late Bank of the United States to tlie State banks, forgotten the vivid pictures, daily drawn upon this floor, of the immense stride which had been taken by the executive power in the adoption of that system of deposits '? Were we not constantly told of the army of bank agents, bank officers and bank directors, persons unknown to the Constitution and the law, and not responsible to Congress 614 ItiFE AND Times of Silas Wright. or tlie people, wliicli that system had brought within executive influence, and engaged in the service of the executive ? Who did not then feel that there was some force in these remarks ? And wlio that was a friend to the then administration did not struggle incessantly to procure the passage of some law which should bring that system of deposits within the power and con-' trol of Congress '? And are we now to be urged to return to that system, to re-enlist tliat numerous body of bank managers, and reconnect them witli the executive branch of the government, to prevent an extension of executive patronage and power, by the simple employment of officers of our own appointment, dircttly responsible to the people, and to the representatives of the people here ? The position was absurd. It was to urge us upon the very evil we were cautioned to avoid ; to embrace a danger existing in its worst form, to discharge ourselves from one of a merely imaginary character. " No, sir ; if gentlemen would take a calm and dispassionate view of this subject, they would see that the bill would increase immensely, fearfully, the executive responsibilities, not the execu- tive power. If the SJ^stem proposed be adopted, the people will hold the President responsible for nis selection of the officers to be intrusted with the safe-keeping of their treasure; and they will hold the head of the Treasury department responsible for an incessant and sleepless vigilance over these depositaries. This will be the influence the bill will exert upon the executive branch of the government. It will throw upon the executive officers a great increase of care and responsibility — not an increase of power or influence. " Indeed, so strongly had this increase of responsibility, even upon the minor executive officers, impressed itself upon the mind of one of the gentlemen who had addressed the Senate [Mr. Rives], as to induce him to entertain the apprehension that men of proper character, standing and responsibility could not be found willing to accept the trusts. For himself, he was almost ready to say that he wished he could entertain more apprehen- sion upon this point than the argument of the Senator had inspired him with. He had no fear of living to see that period when the lucrative and honoi'al)le and desirable offices of this government Life and Times of Silas Wright. 615 would go begging for incumbents; when candidates, of the most unquestioned qualifications in every sense, would not voluntarily present themselves, and conflict with each other for the places. At points where the emoluments of office did not present ade- quate temptation, the collections must be small and the trust light ; so that he was at perfect ease upon this point, and had only alluded to it to enforce his own position, tliat the bill was calculated to increase executive responsibility, not to extend executive power. "A fourth argument against the bill claimed a passing notice. It was that it would work the entire destruction of credit in the country. This appeared to him to be, most clearly, an objection springing from an excited imagination. What were the premises from which this frightful conclusion had been drawn? State them in their worst form and utmost extent, and what were they ? Tliat the government of the United States was, hereafter, to con- fine the safe-keeping of the public moneys to the hands of its own officers, and was gradually to discontinue the receipt of bank notes in payment of the public dues. These were the things proposed to be done. The effect of such a policy upon the credit and business of the local banking institutions of the country he had already fully discussed ; and, to his own satisfaction, had shown that its adoption would promote, and not injure, the use- fulness of those institutions, considered in the light of public institutions founded for the benefit of the people at large, and deserving credit and confidence precisely in proportion as they should confine their operations within their fixed means, and should discharge faithfully and promptly all the obligations imposed by their charters. In this light only was he disposed to discuss the claims of the local banks upon the country or the con- fidence of the people. The profits of the corporators was not a consideration to enter into a discussion like the present. It was a mere consequence of the faithful discharge of one of the high- est trusts which any government could delegate, the trust of making a currency for the people of the country; and if he had succeeded in showing that this trust could be more safely and perfectly executed without than with a fiscal connection with this government, ho had accomplished his object, and proved that 616 Life and Taiss of Silas Wright. the just credit of these institutions was not to be injuriously atFected by the bill. " Who would contend that its provisions were calculated to injure any other description of credit ? Would not wealth and integrity receive the same confidence with the community, whether the funds of this government were kept in the State banks oi- in the hands of the officers of the people ? Would not industry and enterprise gain the same esteem, and command the same credit, wherever the government should choose to place its stronof box? Would neiarhbor cease to trust and confide in neighbor because bank notes were not to be I'eceived in payment of the public dues? Certainly not. The picture was an imagi- nary one, and this consequence of the passage of the bill, upon the credit between man and man, was not to be apprehended. It was the objection of an excited mind and not of sober reason. "An argument of a character very similar to that last noticed had proceeded from the same source. It was that the passage of this bill, the separation of the funds of the government from the banks and the gradual suspension of the receipt of their paper in payment of the public dues, would lead to a universal and exclu- sive metallic currency for the whole country in all its business operations. That it would lead to a currency equal in value to gold and silver, and convertible into gold and silver at pleasure, he hoped and believed. But that it would destroy the State banks and send us back to an exclusive metallic currency there was not the slightest reason for believing. If he had not labored in vain, in a former part of his argument he had shown that the efliect of this policy would be favorable to the banks, favorable to the certainty of their means, to a safe measure for their opera- tions and to the stability of their credit and confidence with the people. If these positions should prove to be true, there was no just fear that the banks would be destroyed or that banks char- tered by the States would not continue to exist. And surely, while banks of issue were in operation in the country, no one need fear the prevalence of an exclusive metallic cu.rrency; for nothing- was more certain than that bank paper and gold and silver of equal denominations could not circulate together. The paper might be made, for the general purposes of business, of equal Life and Times of Silas Weight. HI 7 value with gold and silver; but while the one was the promise ol' a bank to pay and the other the means by which alone that pro- mise could be redeemed, and while it was the direct interest of the bank that the promise should take the place of tlie i-eal value and circulate in its stead, the one would be withdrawn from cii- culation and hoarded, and the other would be scattered upon the wings of the wind. "His fear was, that the whole operations of the public treasury would be inadequate to furnish a sufficient specie basis for our paper circulation. What were those operations in the aggre- gate, compared to the monetary operations of the country ? The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] had said they Avere estimated at from one and a half to tAvo per cent. Call them two per cent, call them five per cent, and will they distribute a quantity of tlie metals sufficient to sustain the immense super- structure of paper, amounting to the remaining ninety-five or ninety- eight per cent? And from what other source were we to look for an extension of our specie basis if not from the opera- tions of this government? Here, then, was the fear, and not that too extensive a metallic currency would be diffused among the people. " He would notice a single other objection to this system, and close his remarks upon this branch of the subject. It had been said that its effect would be to hoard vast amounts of cash capi- tal from the uses of business. How far was this effect to be anticipated ? When the revenues of the country were made to bear a just relation to its expenditures — a relation which he hoped our recent experience would induce us most rigidly to preserve for the future — there would be nothing to hoard, in the practical sense of that term. We should receive with one hand and dis- burse with the other. The payments into the public treasury, and the payments out of it, would be made in the same description of currency ; and what was taken from the uses of business by the receipts, would be given back to those uses in the disbursements, without material delay. It was true that the great extent of our territory, the great number of points at which both receipts and disbursements were to be made, and the wide distance of their location from each other and from the treasury here, keep a 618 Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. large sum in suspense, and in transitu, during the whole time. That sum might be liberally estimated at from three to five mil- lions, and it was tlie whole amount which the ordinary operations of the treasury would, in any sense, hoard — the whole amount which it would withdraw from the uses of business, when the revenues and expenditure of the government should be justly measured together. This same sum was now exactly similarly employed, and was suspended in the deposit banks to await the presentation of outstanding drafts ; that is, it would be so sus- pended if the banks were in a condition to fulfill their obliga- tions, and meet the drafts of the treasury in s])ecie or its equiva- lent. " But it might be said that, when our revenues should again become abundant, and exceed our expenditures, so that another surplus should accumulate, this system of deposits would neces- sarily lead to hoarding. This consequence he most cheerfully admitted, and he considered it one of the strongest merits of the system. He hoped never again to see the time when a surplus revenue should afflict us; but if that time did ever again come, it must i^roceed from an excess of impoilations, and a renewal of the speculations in our vast public domain. In that case he wished to see the excess of the revenue hoarded, closely locked up from the vises of the trading community, as the most efticient, speedy and certain check to the overtrading and speculations. " What, he would ask, would have been the surplus of revenue during the late excesses, had the accunmlations of money in the public treasury, paid for duties and lands, been hoarded then, and not surrendered to the uses of the customers of the banks ? That surplus, under the system of deposits then in use, reached an amount beyond forty millions of dollars. Does any one sup- pose it would have reached one-third of that sum if the gold and silver had been demanded in payment of the public dues, and closely locked up in the public depositories ? No, sir; a pressiire upon the money market would have been produced, and the excesses arrested before you would have hoarded ten millions of coin by this process. What an infinite benefit to the country would have been produced by such an action. We should have V»een saved from the almost incurable evils of a surplus revenue, Life and Times of Silas Wriciht. G39 and of its practical distribution among the States of the Union, and, what would have been of far more importance, we should have been saved from this tremendous revulsion which the excesses of credit have brought upon us. " What, sir, has been our own agency in this national calamity ? Our revenue was accumulating millions n]M)ii millions beyond our wants. We placed it in the banks for safe-keeping, exacted from them interest for its use, and thus compelled them to make loans upon it in the ordinary course of their business. It was a time of plenty, and their own means were full, but yet they must use ours to indemnify them for the use which the law compelled them to pay. Could any system have been better devised to })ro- mote the excesses of which we now complain ? Every dollar col- lected toward the public revenue added, not one dollar simi)ly, but, being used as capital, two or three dollars, to the loans wdiicli the cupidity of the banks stimulated them to make. Hence the evil, so far as the funds of the government were concerned, pro- moted its own increase, and so it must ever be while the banks are made the depositories of the public moneys. Sliould we not, then, dismiss the idea that a hoarding of capital is to be a dreaded evil of the proposed system; so regulate our legislation that the revenues and expenditures, in times of stability and regularity of business, will meet each other; and desire to hoard, wdien excess in trade or credit or speculation threaten to disturb the healthful equilibrium of the currency, and to plunge us into reverses such as we are now experiencing ? For himself, he had no hesitation upon the subject. If a regulator of the general currency of the country was within the power of Congress, he thought this that regulator, and this action of the proposed system of separation from the banks seemed to him to be more valuable than almost any feature in it. " In addition to the remarks he had made and the objections he had attempted to answer, he found it to be his duty to notice a single feature of the bill, which had been the subject of much apprehension and criticism. He referred to the provision for the security of the pul)lic moneys in the hands of the depositaries proposed to be established. The committee had here introduced a guard of a most i-igid character, new to him, and, he believed, 620 Life and Times of Silas Wright. new to our laws. It was that of making a use of the moneys a criminal offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment, in addition to the usual pecuniary liabilities. Their object was to draw the characters of the officers into security for the public, and to interpose that guaranty against an abuse, of their trust. He con- sidered this feature of the bill of vital importance to its success- ful operation, although the usual provisions for sureties and pecuniary liabilities were full and complete without it. "The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] had expended mucli of liis argument in showing that the public funds would be insecure in such keeping; and, to fortify himself in his posi- tion, he had exhibited to us the long list of defaulting public officers which is annually laid before us, and which comprises every defaulter from the commencement of the government to the present day. This was a part of the history of our country most unpleasant and painful, and he could not dwell upon it with any pleasure; but the Senator, in bringing it to his aid upon this occasion, seemed to have forgotten that all these defalcations had liappened under an established system of bank deposits, State or national, and, therefore, did not go a step to show either the danger of a permanent keeping and disbursement of the public moneys by the public officers, or the greater security of a system of deposit in banks than of a keeping by the officers themselves. The cases cited did go to show that there would sometimes be defaulting officers; and he did not Hatter himself that the present bill, or any other which human ingenuity could form, would con- stitute a perfect exemption of the government from such losses, or a perfect security to the public funds in any condition. One thing, however, was clear, and would be conceded by all, which was, that the depositaries proposed to be established by this bill would not all fail at once, and thus effectually block the wheels of the treasury, with an abundance of means in its possession in case those means could be commanded. Such was its present condition under the system of State bank deposits. With mil- lions in the banks, the treasury had not a dollar at command, and is now, at this moment, compelled to resort to the public credit to carry on the government. N"o such revulsion to the treasury could be experienced under the system of deposits proposed to Life and Times of Silas Witiaiir. C)'l\ be adopted; and even if we should occasionally lose a small sum by a defaulting officer, we should not be driven to the expense of extra calls of Congress iii consequence of such defaults. "He would not detain the Senate to add anything further to this branch of the argument. The President, in his message, had placed the ordinary aspect of the subject too clearly before Con- gress and the country to admit of confirmation by anything he could add to these forcible and practicable views. " This closed the examination he proposed to make of the plan of the administration, for the exercise of the incidental powers of Congress over the general currency of the country, and of tiie prominent objections to that plan ; and he would now pass to the alternatives proposed by those who differed from the Presi- dent. " The first of these was the plan proposed by the honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives], which, in substance, is a return to the system of State bank deposits, connected with the general receptibility, upon certain conditions, of the notes of the St^ate banks in payment of the public dues. What he had already said in reference to the administration plan would excuse him from any further discussion of this proposition than what related to its limitations. The proposition was, in substance, simi- lar to one formerly introduced into this body by the same distin- guished Senator, and upon that occasion it underwent a full dis- cussion. It was not, therefore, a proposition new to the body ; but as he had not taken part in its discussion then, and as it was now brought in conflict with a system he approved, he felt it to be his duty to test its efficiency to accomplish its proposed objects. "Those objects seem to be two: the first of which was to strengthen and sustain the State banks and facilitate their return to specie payments; and the second to extend and strengthen the specie basis for the paper circulation of the banks by expel- ling from circulation small bank-notes. " The first object was proposed to be accomplished by a con- tinuance of the public deposits with these banks, and by making their notes, when redeemed with specie, receivable in payment of the public dues. He had already discussed both these points as 622 Life and Times of ^Silas Wright. ffilly as be proposed to do it, under the head of the influence upon the banks of the passage of the bill before the Senate. He had there given his reasons for the opinion that even a connec- tion, as depositories, between the State banks and the national treasury was injurious to the banks; that if the connection ag depositories did not exist, the receptibility of the notes of the banks in payment of the public dues was a matter of little prac- tical interest to them, because the notes so received must be immediately presented for payment and could not be perma- nently retained in safe-keeping; and that, if the separation between the banks and the treasury was to be made perpetual, the present was the most favorable time, so far as the banks are concerned, to make that declaration. "It therefore remained for him simply and concisely to exa- mine the efticacy of the Senator's plan to exclude small notes and extend the circulation of specie. "These two great objects were proposed to be accomplished by the enactment that no note of any State bank should be received in payment of the public dues, if such bank should, after a specified day, issue notes below a specified denomination. The restriction is made to commence at the passage of the act, with a limitation of notes not below five dollars; after the year 1839 no notes are to be issued below ten dollars; and after the year 1841 no notes below twenty dollars; and the receptibility of the bank paper by the public treasury is made dependent upon an obser- vance by the banks of these restrictions. No alteration of the present bank deposit law is proposed, and that compels the banks, as a condition of their participation in that patronage, not to issue notes below the denomination of ten dollars. Nei- ther the deposit law nor the proposition of the honorable Senator appeals to the controlling power of State legislation to make them effective. Neither could do so with propriety, as both are mere regulations of federal legislation addressed to the interests of the State banking institutions. This address to sucli institutions is always the safe one, so far as their power of action is within their own control; for no principle can be more safely depended upon than tliat a moneyed incorporation, by whatever authority brought into existence, will govern its action by its interests. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 623 "It is ill this single sense, then, that the practical results to be expected from the adoption of the plan of the Senator from Vir- ginia are to be examined. How far will the interests of the State banking institutions of the country induce them to sub- ject their action to his proposed restrictions ? The inducement offered is the receptibility of their paper in the payment of iJie public dues. The disability is that of issuing no small notes. He had before suggested; as the result of his reflections, that, unaccompanied by a portion of the public deposits, the recep- tibility of the notes of a local bank in payment of the public dues was a very trifling, if not a very questionable, boon. That impression contidently remained. He therefore concluded that the interests of no banks would induce them, voluntarily, to subject themselves to the restrictions proposed, except such as should be selected as depositories. The value of this patronage would be greatly impaired if the notes of the deposit banks were not so receivable. These institutions, therefore, woidd bring themselves within the restrictions and within the beneflts of tlie system. What, then, would be the effect, in practice, upon the currency of the country ? There are now some eight hundred State banks in organization. The greatest number selected under the late deposit law was about one-tenth of the whole ; and it is known at the treasury, and will be readily seen by all who will make a practical examination of the subject, that cme of the greatest evils of that law was the large number of banks which its provisions compelled the Secretary of the Treasury, in the then bloated state of the public funds, to select as depositories. From thirty to forty is the largest number which the convenience of the receipts and disbursements and the safe management of the public funds can ever require. But suppose the highest number heretofore employed should be retained, still we should have more than seven hundred banks not submitting themselves to the proposed restrictions, and consequently not restrained, except by their charters, from the issue of small notes. Go far- ther, and suppose that the interests of one-half of all the banks of the country should induce them to come within the provisions of the proposed bill ; the field for the circulation of small paper would only be made richer for those which did not come in, and. 624 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. until the established laws of curreucy be radically changed, and silver dollars and half eagles can circulate in common with one and live-dollar bank notes, the four hundred banks would make much more, from this circulation, than from any additions we can make to their business by receiving their notes. The induce- ment which the proposition holds out is wholly inadequate to the accomplishment of the objects proposed, and not a dollar will be added to the specie circulation of the country under it. These considerations rendered this plan less desirable to him than that proposed by the President. "True, it might be said that the plan of the President did not act upon the banks by way of restraint upon the amount or description of their issues. It was true as to the description of their issues. That was left to State legislation, the source from which they derived their existences, and to w^hich belonged the limitation of their powers, so far as they were to be limited by leo-islation. The plan of the President sought to act upon these institutions in a different way, and by a more powerful lever. Specie was their life-blood, and the creation of a demand for it was the only efficient control over tjiem. Bring the public reve- nues, then, to a specie standard, and you most effectually limit the amount of issues of the banks, so far as your operations can impose such a limit. Make your disbursements in gold and silver; and, although the small bank paper will displace it, your continued and perpetual action will draw the same specie again from the banks, and will thus keep an amount equal to your receipts and disbursements in a constantly active state. In this way alone, in his judgment, is it in the power of this government to expand the specie basis for our immense paper circulation. " He could not see that the action of the bill proposed by the Senator from Virginia would accomplish this object, Avhile it did appear to him that a perfect separation from the banks, and a gradual return to a metallic currency for the operations of the national treasury, might reach it. " The only other alternative which had been presented was a national bank. No distinct proposition, in a legislative form, for such an institution, was before the Senate ; but the debate had developed the fact that such an institution was the favorite alter- Life and Thies of Silas Weight. 625 native of a large majority of the body, and therefore he made this allusion to it. It was not his purpose to discuss it in any manner. In the absence of any distinct proposition, and after the recent expression of the Senate upon that point, he could not feel warranted in taking the time even to reply to the argu- ments which had been advanced in favor of this plan. The whole subject had constituted a topic of constant discussion before the country for years, and he could not hope, at this late day, to give any new ideas upon it to the Senate or to the public. "He had upon his notes several other replies which he had intended to make, but the lateness of the hour, and the full dis- cussion which every important point in the debate had received from others, would induce him to omit them, with a single excep- tion. "The honorable Senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives] had. seemed to suppose that nothing had transpired to weaken the confidence of those who had formerly favored the system of State bank deposits. He was one who had favored that system, when it was adopted by the executive in 1833-34. He then expressed his con- fidence in the ability and fidelity of the State banks to discharge the trusts confided to them. At that time he entertained fully and honestly the confidence he expressed in those institutions. Their subsequent conduct had gone far to convince him that his confidence was excessive and misplaced. He would not say that that system of deposits had entirely failed, as that seemed to be a point of debate and question, but he would say that the banks had failed to comply with their obligations ; that both the government and the people had been reduced to extremities by this failure on their part ; that we found ourselves here, at this unseasonable period, in consequence of it ; and that, in view of these facts, he heard with some surpi-ise the declaration, confi- dently pronounced, that nothing had taken place to authorize a change of opinion as to the safety of that system. " He had been repeatedly published to the country as grossly inconsistent for supporting and sustaining that system of deposits in 1834, and for failing to support it now. He did not feel the force of the charge ; but, whether inconsistent or not, when con- vinced of his error, he was most cheerful to retract it. Time had 40 626 Life and Times of Silas Wright. shown that he then possessed a confidence in the banks which they had not sustained, and which he was bound to presume they could not sustain. Was he, for the sake of consistency, or for any other cause, to assume to entertain his former confidence, when every foundation for it had been swept away by the vohin- tary action of the banks themselves? No, sir, such was not his course. He left the defense of such a position to those who could see no difference between sound specie-paying banks and banks which refused to pay specie upon their promises; between banks which promptly, upon demand, fulfilled all their obliga- tions to the public and the national treasury, and banks which complied with their engagements to neither." At tlie conclusion of the debate, on the 4th of October, 1837, the bill passed the Senate by the following vote : " Yeas — Messrs. Allen, Benton, Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King of Alabama, Linn, Lyon, Morris, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Strange, Walker, Wall, Williams, Wright and Young — 26. ^^JVai/s — Messrs. Bayard, Black, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Kent, King of Georgia, Knight, McKean, Nicholas, Prentiss, Robbins, Smith of Indiana, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tipton, Webster and White — 20." It was sent to the House, where it was laid upon the table by a vote of 120 to 107. There was no further action on this subject at that session. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 627 Chapter LXV. OTHER MEASURES INTRODUCED INTO THE SENATE AT THE SPECIAL SESSION IN 1837. After the failure of nearly all the banks to redeem their bills, importing merchants encountered great difficulties in obtaining currency receivable by law at the custom- houses for duties. This led to an application to Congress for authority to deposit goods, on their arrival, in public stores. Mr. Wright reported a bill for this purpose, which did not then become a law. But an act was passed to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to post- pone, for a limited time, the collection of duty bonds, and to give a credit of three and six months for the duties on goods imported by the first of November then next. Mr. Weight also reported a bill to revoke the charters of all banks in the District of Columbia which should not resume specie payments within sixty days, and should not cease within thirty days to pay out bills of banks which did not redeem them in specie; and that said banks should, within sixty days, commence redeeming their notes under ten dollars, and should forthwith cease to deal in bills under five dollars. This bill indicated Mr. Wright' s views concerning banks not redeeming their bills in specie and his dislike to a currency of small bills. It did not, however, become a law at that session. Mr. Wright also introduced a bill for the adjustment of claims of the government upon the late deposit banks. It authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to continue to withdraw public money in them, whether standing to the credit of the United States or any officer of the govern- 628 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ment, in a manner convenient to tlie banks as he should deem consistent with the wants of the government. In case the banks should not comply with the requisitions of the Secretary, then he was directed to institute suits against them. The Secretary was also directed to require additional security from these banks. This bill became a law. Under this it is understood that the Secretary secured and received all the moneys due from these deposit banks, so that the government did not eventually lose anything by them. The deposit, as well as other banks, having refused to redeem theu' bills or pay what they owed the government, except in depreciated and unconvertible paper, there were no means of meeting tlie national engagements. No officer of the government could be lawfully paid his salary or expenses, nor was there any means of meeting our engagements to the army or navy. Instead of seek- ing relief through a loan, the administration preferred resorting to treasury notes. Mr. Wright reported a bill for this j)urpose, which passed both Houses, for not to exceed $10,000,000, and became a law on the 12th of October, 1837. Here we have the astonishing spectacle of a government having, in the middle of the previous year, so much money that it actually distributed some $28,000,000 to relieve itself from its abundance, and resorted to efforts for the reduction of its income, actually reduced to bor- rowing in order to avoid acts of actual bankruptcy by refusing to pay its lawful demands. Mr. Wkight used to speak of this as one of the striking features of a paper- money system. His views, at length, on banks and -the paper-money contrivance, are fully and strikingly given in seven articles published in the St. Lawrence Republi- can, in 1837, and fi'om which the author gave extended extracts in a previous chapter. The untoward conse- quences of excessive issues of a paper currency, even by LiBE AND TUIES OF SiLAS WrIGHT. 629 the government, exhibited during the war of the rebellion, are remarkable confirmations of his great financial sagacity as displayed in these articles. Our national debt has been nearly doubled by resorting to a paper system instead of using gold and silver, which Secretary Chase said could be borrowed abroad upon five per cent interest. 630 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LXVI. CASE OF RICHARD W. MEADE The claim of Mr. Meade had often been before the Senate and received its affirmative action. He had been onr consul at Cadiz, in Spain, and had had extensive transactions with the Spanish government, and was largely its creditor. When we purchased Florida, the treaty provided a fund of $5,000,000 for the payment of claims of American citizens upon Spain, A commission was appointed to adjust these and distribiite the fund. Meade presented bis claim to the commission, and a certi- ficate of a Spanish official that his government owed him a specified sum. This they held was not sufficient proof, and requu'ed evidence of the transactions occasioning the indebtedness, which was not furnished before the expira- tion of their powers and the distribution of the sum pro- vided among other claimants. He then appealed to Congress. At the request of Gen. Jackson, Mr. Wright gave the case a long and patient investigation, and arriv(xl at the conclusion that the claim was not valid against our government. When the bill for Meade's relief came up in the Senate, Mr. Weight presented the facts as he understood them and the conclusions he had formed at length. He gave a succinct history of this case from tlie time of Meade's first visit to Cadiz, in 1803, up to the period when the claim was made on this country, under the provisions of the treaty of 1819 with Spain, from which he maintained that Meade had no well-founded claim upon the United States, but that it was between himself and the government of Spain, growing out of transactions of a private nature. The bill, however, Life and Times of Silas Weight. 63X passed tlie Senate by a vote of 23 to 16. It failed in the House as it had done before. This claim has since been before Congress several times. When the Court of Claims was established, it was pre- sented there, where it was resisted by the author, as gov- ernment solicitor, in an elaborate brief, and the decision was against it. A motion was subsequently made for a reargument, since which the author has not heard of it, though it is probable it is still an outstanding claim against the government. Mk. Wright to his Brother-in-Law, Lucius Moody. In this letter we have a specimen of Mr. Wright's humorous correspondence, diifering, in most respects, from his ordinary correspondence. "Washington, I9th Januari/, 1838. " My Dear Brother. — Your letter, with the inclosure, came to us more than a week since, but I have been too deeply engaged to allow me time to answer it. I have not now time to write a long letter, and as you never do that yourself, I am sure you do not wish to read one. We are much more comfortably situated this winter than when you was with us during the fall. We have now two small rooms upon the second floor of the house, one of which is our bed-room and Clarissa's working-room, and the other is my oftice. Both have good fire-places, and fires when we want them; and as they adjoin each other, and are wholly disconnected from any other room in the house, they are very pleasant. We have four other ladies in the mess besides Clarissa, and as they are, as yet, perfectly friendly and very neighborly, the separation of rooms is very convenient, as it enables Clarissa to have her occasional visitors from the mess in her own room, while I can be undisturbed by the discussions which you know must always be carried on at such meetings. " Time may prove that there are more inconveniences con- nected with this separation of business and labor, more than counterbalancing the benefits, though I hope not. It is true, 632 Life and Times of Silas Wright. when I closed my labors in my room last evening, at rather a late hour, and attempted to get to my bed, I found myself locked out, and not having any bed in my own room, the prospect for a while was rather discouraging. Yet the weather was very warm, so warm that we had required no fires in our rooms during the evening, and a berth upon the carpet would not have been as inconvenient as in a colder night. By rattling the door, how- ever, for a few times, I gained admittance, and Clarissa, with all the apparent honesty in the world, assured me that she had fas- tened the door to undress, and had gone to bed and to sleep without thinking to unfasten it. During the time she was telling this story I kept my position firmly in the open door, and not finding the old bachelor of our mess attempting to rush out past me, nor being able to see him in the room, I made the best of it I could, assumed to believe her whole story, and here the matter rested. I do not, in truth, think he was in the room, because I did not see and did not hear him there before I went to sleep, which was very soon after I went to bed; but you will admit that, at the hour of eleven o'clock p. m., it was somewhat a disturb- ing consideration to find the key turned upon you by your wufe. " Nonsense aside. Clarissa has improved in health since we left home more than our hopes or wishes would have permitted us to believe she could have done when we did leave. We have had two or three days, last past, of most unnatural, and I fear unhealthy, weather. It has been about as warm as dog days, and much such weather in character. During that time she has not felt quite as well; but for six or seven weeks before that her improvement seemed to be constant and regular, though not very rapid. She has gained strength so that she walks a mile out and back without unreasonable fatigue, and this evening, if the wind does not blow too severely, we propose to walk to the theatre and see Mr, Booth in Richard III. I am perfectly well, and have enough that I ought to do, and much more than I do attend to properly. " We had letters from Horace this morning. He is entirely well and apparently in good spirits. Our last letters from home informed us that they were all well there, but I believe we have not heard directly since about a week since. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 633 " We have been looking with great anxiety to the revolution- ary movements in your Province and Lower Canada. I have not for a moment anticipated an effective revolution, but I have found that the thing had gone so far as to work great injury to some worthy and good radicals among you. One or two letters which I have received from our friend Norton have induced me to fear that he might be injured in property, if not otherwise, by the disturbances. I have wi'itten to him at Toronto, but was really afraid to write, as he told me his letters '/vould be opened and examined at the post-office. " We have heard that you had closed your services on board the Great Britain and were to take charge of another boat of Mr. Hamilton's in the spring, and that, to be more in the way of that duty, you was also, in the spring, to remove your resi- dence to Lewiston. Tell us if this news is true, and, if it be, when you expect to remove up stream. " Tell us also what you know, if anything, about the place of residence, situation and circumstances of our Mary Dawdle. All we have heard of her since we left home is through Charlotte Hunter, and she said her information came from Julia. " Tell us also how that fat boy, Lucius Horace, comes on, and whether he is improving in a manner which will authorize the expectation that he too is to be advanced from a clerk to a captain in the spring. " Do write more frequently, and, if we do not give you letter for letter, we will give you documents for the balance. " Clarissa sends her love to Julia and the boy. " Most truly yours, "SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. *' Mr. Lucius Moody." 634 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LXVII. INDEPENDENT TREASURY BILL. Early in the second session of the twenty-fifth Congress Mr. Wright again introduced his bill, entitled "A bill to impose additional duties, as depositaries, upon certain public officers, to appoint receivers-general of public money and to regulate the safe-keeping, transfer and dis- bursement of the public moneys of the United States," commonly called the "sub-treasury bill." It again underwent a rigid scrutiny and a long discussion. Mr. Weight, on the 31st of January, 1838, addressed the Senate as follows : " Mr. Wright said he regretted that it would be necessary for him to impose a more severe tax upon the time and patience of the Senate than he had ever before been compelled to impose, since he had been honored Avith a seat in the body. He had hoped, therefore, that he should have been able to reach the sub- ject at an earlier hour in the morning; but, as it was, he would endeavor to conclude with the sitting of the day. "He said he entered upon the debate with a painful conscious- ness of his inability to do justice to the position he held in refer- ence to the measure upon the table. The discussion of it must involve questions of the highest importance in politics, of the most pervading interest in finance, and, as he thought, of equal magnitude in the morals of government. These questions were to be discussed, deliberated upon and decided by the Senate; and upon him had fallen the duty of opening such a debate before that hio;h tribunal. " Could he call to his aid talents, experience, learning, powers of argument and perspicuity of language, such as were possessed and at the command of many of the distinguished Senators whom he knew he must meet in opposition to the bill, he should feel- a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 635 gratifying confidence that he could contend successfully and could triumphantly refute every objection. As it was, he was consoled by the reflection that he should be followed in the debate by other Senators equally able and equally distinguished, and who would only have occasion to ask of him that he should not injure a cause which must rest its defense with them. He would most cheerfully promise them that he would not inten- tionally throw obstacles in their way, and he would entreat the Senate to judge of the bill from its provisions, which he consid- ered sound and salutary, and not from the weaknesses they would not fail to discover in his attempt to support them. "Justice to himself required another preliminary remark. But a few months had passed since they were engaged there in the discussion of this same measure, or rather, perhaps, he should say, of a measure precisely similar in its great leading features. In that discussion he had taken a part, and if he should be found upon this occasion repeating ideas and urging arguments which he had then advanced, the reason and his apology must be sought in the identity of the subjects, and not in a disposition on his part to trouble the Senate now with remarks to which they had once done him the honor to listen. " He said the bill was based upon two great leading principles, and that all its provisions, detailed and numerous as they were, became necessary, in the judgment of the committee, to carry those principles successfully into practice. These principles were : '■'■First. A practical and bona fide separation between the pub- lic treasure, the money of the people, and the business of indi- viduals- and incorporations, and especially between this money and the business of banking. '■'■Second. A gradual change of the currency to be received in payment of the public dues, from that authorized to be received by the resolution of Congress of 1816, to the legal currency of the United States. " The material details of the bill applicable to each of these objects it would be his duty to notice; and as the task must be tedious and uninteresting to him, and much more so to the Senate, he would abridge it as much as justice to the measure would permit. 636 Life and Times of Silas Weight. "As applicable to the first object, the bill commenced with the establishment of offices and vaults, at designated points, for the safe-keeping of the public money. The first section defined and established the treasury of the United States, and placed it under the care and charge of the Treasurer of the United States; and, singular as it had appeared to him, and as he thought it would appear to most of the constituents of every Senator, this was the first attempt, so far as his researches had enabled him to discover, to establish, by law, a national treasuiy. Should this bill pass, and this section be retained, he was confident it would be the first act of the Congress of the United States which had given, not a name, but ' a local habitation,' to this most import- ant institution. As the object of the bill is to place the funds of the government hereafter under the control of the public treasury, and not of private banking institutions, it seemed to the committee peculiarly proper that its first enactment should be to define and establish that treasury. "The second section constituted the mint at Philadelphia, and the branch mint at New Orleans; also, places for the deposit and safe-keeping of the public money collected at those places, or transferred to them by the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. The treasurers of the mints respectively were assigned to the charge and custody of the moneys there deposited. "The third section directed the preparation of suitable offices and vaults in the custom-houses now erecting at New York and Boston, for the deposit and safe-keeping of the public money at those points, and for the use of the officers to have the custody of those moneys; and the fourth section provided for the erection of two independent offices and vaults, for the same purpose, the one to be located at Charleston, in the State of South Carolina, and the other at St. Louis, in the State of Missouri. " It would not require any remark from him to satisfy the mind of every Senator of the propriety of selecting the seat of government as the place of location for the national treasury, or that the points he had named upon the Atlantic coast, as well as New Orleans, were places where so important portions of the public revenue were collected, and from which so great a share of the public disbursements were now, in fact, made, or could be Life and TniES of Silas Wright. 637 made with increased convenience to the treasury and to the public creditors, as to rendei- them all })roper places for the location of offices for the safe-keeping of the public money, in case any such offices were to be provided at the public expense, owned by the government, and kept in the cliarge of its officei-s. Another reason also existed, and which was conclusive with the commit- tee, as to the selection of Washington, Philadeljdiia, New Orleans, New York and Boston. Public buildings of a lire-proof charac- ter were already erected, or now being erected, at the public expense, and for the i)ublic use, at all those places, in which suffi- cient rooms, offices and vaults, for the purpose contemplated, could be secured without any material addition to the expense incurred, and to be incurred, upon the buildings. It was also his duty to inform the Senate that, since the bill was reported, the committee had learned that the government now owned a custom-house at Charleston, and that the information jyossessed at the Treasury department authorized the belief that suitable rooms for offices could be had in that building, thus rendering it necessary to construct a vault only, instead of an independent office, as the bill contemplated, at that place. He had prepared an amendment to the bill, to make it conform to this state of facts, Avhicli he would send to the chair before he resumed his seat. "As to the selection of St. Louis, some diversity of opinion might exist; but the committee had fixed upon that place because, from all the information they had been able to collect, they believed it to be the point from which the principal part of our heavy disbursements upon the western frontier were made. They were informed that a very large proportion of the money paid, and to be paid, annually, to the Indians west of the Mississippi, and the principal part of the disbursements at the various military posts upon the western frontier, were received by the various disbursing officers at tliis town, and that, therefore, large accu- mulations of public money were rendered necessary at this point, to meet these payments. This seemed to them to require an office for safe-keeping, and an officer or agent of the government, of some kind, there ; and the place was selected more, perhaps, in consequence of the heavy disbursements made from, than the 638 Life and Times of Silas Wright. amount of collections at it. Still, their information was that the money collected at many of the western, and especially the north- western, land offices could be more conveniently transferred to, and accumulated at, that point than at any other upon that frontier. " The fifth section of the bill, he said, provided for the appoint- ment of four additional salary officers, and which, in the draft of the bill, the committee had — to distinguish them from the receivers of public money at the various land offices — denominated 'receivers-general of public money.' These officers were to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as other officers of like importance were appointed; were to hold their office for the same terms of four years ; and were to be located, one at New York, one at Boston, one at Charleston and one at St. Louis, to take the charge of the offices and vaults for the safe-keeping of the public money at those points respectively, and of the money placed therein. " He was well aware that this was a feature of the bill not calculated to be popular, upon a slight examination, and that it was not palatable to some of the friends of the measure gene- rally. It was not his purpose to discuss this provision at large, in this place, as the course he had marked out for himself would require that he should again recur to it; but a few remarks upon the necessity of some provision of the sort wex*e called for here. It was indispensably necessary to the operations of the treasuiy that it should have agencies of some description at these points. The collections and disbursements at them all made this impera- tive, and if it was designed to discontinue the banks as fiscal agents, some other must be substituted. This would be appa- rent to all, merely from recurring to the names of the places, and to their importance as commercial towns. It was true that, in the bill reported by the committee, at the extra session of Congress in September, no provision was made for this addition to the existing officers of the Treasury department. The duties now proposed to be assigned to these new officers were, by that bill, devolved upon the respective collectors of the customs at the places named ; but it was then stated to the Senate by him- self, in his place, that this and many other matters of detail were Life and Times of Silas Wright. 639 purposely omitted, that the bill then reported might be made as simple as possible, and embody the great principles intended to be secured by it; knowing, as the committee did know, the strong desire and determination of both Houses of Cong-ress to limit that session within the shortest possible period which the public business would allow. They believed that these details, including as well the provisions of the sections before noticed as the one now under discussion, and others which follow, would be calcu- lated to protract discussion, delay action, and thus either extend the session or prevent the final passage of the bill. They were then convinced that the recommendations of the President and Seci'etary of the Treasury, as to the appointment of these addi- tional officers, would have to be carried out, but, in the then almost suspended state of our foreign trade, they did not believe that the operations of the treasury would suffer for the want of them during the very short vacation which was to intervene between that and the present session of Congress ; and it was then intimated that the defects in that bill could he supplied now. " The inquiries which the committee have since made, not only at the Treasury department, but at some of the places named, have proved to their entire satisfaction that this addition of officers will be required; that the collectors of the customs at these places, or certainly at some of them, are already charged with more oner" ous and responsible duties than any one man, whatever may be his industry and capacity for business, can well discharge ; and that, at the port of New York at least, those duties would justly bear division, were it not that, from their nature and chai'acter, they cannot be divided. The same must be nearly the trutli at Boston, and cannot vary very materially from it at Charleston and St. Louis. The Secretary of the Treasury supposes that the receipts and disbursements of the money ordinarily collected and disbursed at each of these points will occupy the full time of one competent business man ; and will any one suppose that duties so onerous and so responsible can be added to those at present to be performed by the collectors of the customs? Will any on(i desire that such duties and responsibilities should be confided to a mere clerk in the office of the collector? He thought not. Then the provision, or some one of a similar character, was 640 Life and Times of Silas Wright. / indispensable, and its rejection would endanger the safety of the public money, embarrass the operations of the treasury, and put in jeopardy, if not defeat, the successful action of the whole system. "The sixth section of the bill was, in substance, the first sec- tion of the bill reported by the committee at the extra session; the only alterations being those required to make it conform to the provisions which were before it, and which he had already noticed. It declared what officei's of the government should be depositaries, embracing, in addition to those named in the former sections, collectors of the customs, receivers of public money at the land offices, postmasters, and some other classes, and assigned generally the duties to be performed by them in this capacity. " He would now pass to section ten, which required but a single remark. It conferred a general power upon the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer the money in the hands of any depo- sitary to the custody and keeping of any other depositar}^, as occasion might require. Tliis provision was necessary, as well to give the department control over its own affairs, as to enable it to consult the safety of the public money and the calls of the public service. If money accumulate, at any given point, to an amount which, from the smallness of the officer's bond, or from any other cause, the Secretary shall have reason to fear is or may be unsafe, he should be authorized to transfer it, or any portion of it, to a place of safety. If money accumulate at points where it is not wanted for disbursement, he should have the same authority to transfer it to a point where it is so wanted. If a depositary be located at a place remote from any bank and any office of safe-keeping, similar authority will be required to trans- fer his collections for deposit. These, and many other occasions, will arise for the exercise of this power to make transfers. "The twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth sections contained provisions to authorize special deposits of public money, for safe- keeping, at all places where there was no office for the safe-keep- ing belonging to the government. The only parts of the sections which it would be material for him to notice were those which defined the character of the deposits. They are made strictly special, and a broad discretion is given to the Secretary of the Life and Tuies of ^Silas Wright. 641 Treasury as to the measures he will adopt to secure to them that character. In case he shall think it wise to do so, lie is author- ized to provide iron safes to be placed in the vaults of the banks, for the exclusive keeping of the public money, and so constructed that they may be under the joint control of the bank and the depositing officer, so that neither can gain access to the money Avithout the consent and aid of the other. A further condition is, that nothing but gold and silver, and paper issued upon the authority of the United States, and made by law receivable in payment of the public dues, shall be offered for deposit by the depositaries, or received on deposit by the banks. It is further provided that all deposits shall be carried upon the books of the bank to the credit of the officer making the deposit, and not to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States; that neither the Treasurer nor the Secretary of the Treasury shall draw upon the bank for disbursements or transfers, and that the money depo- sited shall not be withdrawn from the bank, by the officer to whose credit it stands, without an order from the Secretary of the Treasury for the payment. A commission upon the money deposited is proposed to be allowed to the banks for their trouble and risk, but as the committee had no information as to the rate of commission which it would be safe for Congress to fix as a maximum, and not incur the danger of so limiting this compen- sation as to induce the banks to refuse the deposits altogether, they have reported the bill in blank in this respect. " These provisions, it would be seen, were very close; and it had been suggested, as well by some of the friends as by the oppo- nents of the bill, that they were so close as to render it possible, if not probable, that the banking institutions would reject them on that account, upon the ground that they carried upon their face a distrust of the solvency and responsibility of the institu- tions, or of the integrity of their officers and managers, or both. He would detain the Senate a few moments to examine these objections; and, first, if he understood the matter and the law of the case, the idea of distrust as to the solvency and responsi- bility of the banks arising from these provisions seemed to him to be a forced and unnatural inference. If such an idea could grow out of any part of them, it must be that part giving to the 41 642 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Secretary of the Treasury a discretion to furnish safes for the exchisive keeping of the public money, to be under the joint con- trol of the bank and an officer of the government. This would, constitute the deposit entirely special; and, as he understood the law, the bank would not be responsible for such a deposit beyond the obligation of ordinary care and vigilance in its safe-keeping. In the incidents of property, responsibility and risk there was scarcely a resemblance between a deposit of this character and a general, open deposit. In the latter the property is changed the moment the deposit is made. The money becomes the absolute property of the bank as much as its own capital, and the govern- ment receives its credit or promise to pay in its certificate of deposit, in exchange foi- the money. No matter, then, how the money be lost, if it be lost, the indebtedness of the institution upon its certificate is not changed thereby, nor can it be dis- charged by any act of the debtor other than payment. In such deposits, therefore, the solvency and responsibility of the bank become the first subjects of inquiry and examination for the depositor. Not so in cases of special deposit. There the pro- perty is not changed; the specific thing deposited remains the property of the depositor. If it be money, it would be a viola- tion of the law and rules of the deposit for the bank to exchange it, for any pui'pose, for the same amount of money of an exactly similar character. It is the identity of the article and the pro- perty in it which give it the character of a special deposit; and if that article be converted by the bank, although instantly replaced by an exactly similar article in every respect, the iden- tity and property are both gone, and the option of the depositor alone must determine whether his indemnity shall be the respon- sibility of the institution or the article tendered in exchange. Hence the difi^erent liabilities of the bank in the two cases. In the first it purchases the money w^th its credit, and thus con- tracts a debt which it is unconditionally liable to pay; in the second it derives no property from tlie deposit, and is a simple bailee, with or without compensation as its contract of deposit shall determine; but, in either case, only liable in case of want of ordinary care and vigilance in the safe-keeping of the thing intrusted to its keeping. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 643 " In tlie provisions for the special deposits provided for, there- fore, the government only proposes to hire the security of the vaults and safes of the banks for the keeping of its money, and the ordinary care and vigilance of its officers in guarding it while there. Beyond these, it has nothing to do with the capi- tal, solvency or responsibility of the institutions. How, then, can it be supposed that the provisions are intended to carry dis- trust upon their face against the solvency and resi^onsibility of the banks? If the vaults be safe, and the integrity of the offi- cers — their vigilance and care — tried and known, an insolvent bank is as safe a place for a special deposit as a solvent one; a bank unable to pay its debts as a bank abundant in its means beyond its liabilities. Either can keep as safely and faithfully the property of another placed in its vaults, while the creditors of neither can avail themselves of a special deposit, whatever it may be, without the assent and aid of the officers of the institu- tion. How unnecessarj^, therefore, to declare distrust upon the face of a law, when almost all interest in the just grounds for that feeling is put at rest by the nature and character of the deposit to be made. And how unnatural to infer such distrust from language which does not necessarily convey it, when the character of the contract proposed to be made does not require the inference. " It was further alleged that the provisions conveyed imputa- tion against the integiity of the officers and managers of the banks, and that, therefore, they would not contract with the Sec- retary of the Treasury for the deposits proposed. Was this a fair construction of the provisions of the bill? Was it an improper or ungenerous disti-ust of the integrity of those who had the management of these institutions, and the care and custody of the property placed in their charge, to set guards over their con- duct ? What did the bill propose in reference to the officers who were to be intrusted with the safe-keeping of the public money ? They were required, not only to give bonds for the faithful per- formance of their trust, but a breach of that trust, in the use of the money for investments, loans, or in any other manner what- soever, was declared a crime which should subject the perpetrator to indictment and infamous punishment; to protracted personal 644 Life and Times of Silas Wuight. imprisonment, and to a fine equal to the money embezzled, and, consequently, to perpetual disgrace and infamy. Was this a suggestion, upon the face of these provisions, of distrust of the honesty and integrity of these officers ? Was every honest and honorable citizen of the country bound to reject these offices, when tendered to them, because the law under which they must act, in providing penalties for their misconduct or guards against it, conveyed to the public a distrust of their integrity ? Had any statesman ever supposed that, in naming penalties and pun- ishments in a law for violations of official duty or official trust, he was drawing out imputations against the integrity and trust- worthiness of the officers who were to hold places under it ? He could not so suppose. He could not subscribe to this doctrine ; and he would ask if incorporations, incorporeal existences, were to be treated more delicately, in our legislation, than that class of citizens who would be selected by the President and approved by the Senate for high and responsible public trusts? All must answer no ; and, so answering, all must concede that there was no foundation for this objection to the provisions. Incorporations could not be subjected to indictment and punishment, as there was no real person upon whom the punishment could be inflicted. This check could not be imposed upon their oiRcers and agents, because it would be impossible to determine who was guilty in form only and who in fact, when every act must be that of an agent who may have no discretion. If, then, physical restraints are interposed as to these institutions, to accomplish the ends which are reached by penal enactments in the case of natural persons, is the offense to delicacy of feeling, the affront to honor or integrity, greater in the former case than in the latter ? He could not see that it was, and he must think that both of these objections displayed a degree of overwrought sensibility toward the banking institutions of the country which their sagacious managers would see should not govern their conduct. "There was a single other view of this subject which he must present, and he would pass on to other provisions of the bill. It was the intention of the committee who drew and reported the bill to make these deposits strictly special, to prevent the banks from any use of the money deposited; and he believed the pro- Life and Times of Silas Weight. 645 visions to which he had referred, if failhfullj- executed, would accomplish tliat intention. If the hanks sliould receive the money, under this understanding, and with an intention on their part to carry it out in good faith, what would be their true interest in this matter ? Would it not be to have their power to use the money placed beyond question; to liave phj'sical disa- bilities interposed between them and that portion of the i)ublic treasure committed to their charge ? Observation and experi- ence must, already, have taught them that the distrustful eye of public opinion follows the public treasure, and, unless the most efficient guards are jorovided by the government, and assented to by the banks, will not the most injurious suspicions of a breach of their trust be likely to rest upon them? Ought they not, for their own indemnity, to desire that the use of these moneys should be placed beyond their power? And will they not have some just reason to apprehend that objections on their part may give rise to suspicions as to their disposition faithfully to execute the trust in conformity with its intentions ? "The fifteenth and sixteenth sections provided checks upon the various depositaries constituted by the bill. The first author- ized the Secretary of the Treasury to appoint special agents, whenever he may find it necessary, to inspect the books, accounts, money on hand, and other business of any depositary. The principal object of this section, as he understood that object, was to enable the Secretary, whenever the returns of the officer, information communicated by third persons, or any other infor- mation, should authorize a suspicion that all was not right with any one of the officers intrusted with the safe-keeping of public money, to appoint some competent citizen, as a special agent, to present himself, unexpectedly, with authority to examine the official transactions of the officer; to detect and correct error, if error should be found to exist; to expose fraud and bring the officer to punishment, in case dishonesty should be detected, and to justify innocence, if suspected without foundation. It was true the section made these examinations compulsory, at long intervals of one year, in cases where the amounts collected usually exceeded a just proportion to the amount secured by the bond of the officer; but this part of the section he considered of much 646 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. less importance than that he had before noticed. He considered its principal utility to consist in the authority to appoint an agent unknown to the officer, and who might come upon him in an unprepared state. If the agent were to be one permanently appointed and publicly known, one whom the officer might watch and guard himself against, he should consider it not worth retain- ing. He was aware that, in its present shape, it was objection- able to some of the friends of the bill; and, with this exposition, he submitted its adoption or rejection to the sense of the Senate. It was an exact transcript of a section contained in the bill which passed the body at the extra session, and as it was inserted upon the suggestion of the head of the Treasury department, he pre- sumed the suggestion had proceeded from a similar provision contained in the laws which regulate the Post-office department, and which had been of great use in detecting frauds connected with the extended operations of that department ; but should it l)e thought that such a provision would not be beneficial, as con- nected with this bill, he should not consider its removal as mate- rially marring the system intended to be constituted. " The sixteenth section made it the duty of the surveyors of the customs, naval officers, registers of the land offices, directors of the mints, and some other officers, at the expiration of each quarter, to examine into and report to the Secretary of the Trea- sury the state of the accounts and money on hand of the dejjosi- taries in their districts, or immediate connection. These were checks obtained through the instrumentality of existing officers, were wholly without expense to the public, would evidently be of material service as guards upon the depositaries, and as con- tributing to a uniformity and system in the keeping of the accounts of those officers, and, he presumed, would meet with no objection from any quarter. " He would pass now to the twentieth section, which required every officer charged with the keeping of public money to keep an accurate account of the kinds of money received and paid out; the ol)ject of which was to prevent these officers, without detec- tion, from receiving and paying out to the public creditors a depreciated currency, and also from making exchanges of the currency received in a manner which should be injurious to the Life and Times of Silas Weight. G47 public interests, or to the rights of those who might receive piiy- ments from the officer of demands against the government. The same section also declares tliat any use of the money in his hands by any depositary, by way of investment in any kind of property or merchandise, or of loan, with or without interest, or in any way whatsoever, shall be a high misdemeanor, for which the officer convicted thereof shall be imprisoned for a term of not less than two nor more than five years, and shall pay a fine equal to the amount of the money so used. He believed this was a new feature in the legislation of Congress. He had not found any case where a law imposed criminal punishment for the mis- use or misapplication of money by a public officei- ; but still he believed the provision sound in principle, and that it would prove salutary in practice. He had examined very superficially the legislation of other countries upon this point, and he found that many of the nations of Europe, from which we had copied most of our public laws, made this act a felony, with much more severe punishment than is here proposed. He had heard no objection against this feature of the bill from any quarter of the House, and he hoped there would, be none. "The twenty-first section might not be considered by some as peculiarly appropriate to this bill ; but he trusted to be able to satisfy the Senate that it connected itself with its provisions in a very important manner, and ought to form a part of it. The section made it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, when there should be an amount upon deposit to the credit of the Treasurer beyond the sum of four millions of dollars, to invest such surplus in stocks of the United States, or of some one of the States, bearing an interest, and transferable at the pleasure of the holder, by delivery or assignment ; but it prohibited the Secretary from becoming a subscriber to or purchaser of any new stocks about to be issued by any State, and thus prevented him from holding out any inducement to any State to issue stocks with a view to these investments. It also directed him, when- ever the money in the treasury, or standing to the credit of the Treasurer with the several depositaries, should be less than four millions, to sell so much of the stocks, in which any surplus should have been invested, as would keep the money in the trea- 648 Life and Times of Silas Wright. sury at that amount, or as his information might satisfy him the wants of the treasury would require. " Provisions of the character contained in this section were not new to the Senate. They had been, upon a former occasion, introduced there by himself, as a means of disposing, in the most safe and profitable manner to the treasury, and in the way he thought would prove most convenient to the business interests of the community, of a large surplus of public money on deposit in the banks. A different disposition of that subject seemed prefer- able to the Senate, and the provisions for investment did not meet with favor. He entertained a strong hope that their natu- ral connection with this bill, and with the salutary workings of the system for the management of the public finances provided for by it, would give to it a different reception at the present time. " It was found that the wide-spread operations of the treasury required about four millions of dollars constantly on hand, including the amounts in transitu, and the million, or therabouts, constantly employed at the mints; but that accumulations beyond that sum were, at all ordinary periods, accumulations to be kept, not acted upon, for the time being. To avoid, then, the risks of keeping, which formed a material objection with those who opposed the bill, and to avoid accumulations of money to be locked up from use, which formed another and much more weighty objection against the system in the arguments of those who had hitherto opposed it, these provisions were made a part of the bill itself, and he must suppose that these considerations would, at this time, and in this connection, render them accept- able to many, who, upon their introduction on the former occasion alluded to, could not yield them support. He must confidently believe that, to those whose minds had been influenced by the objections he had repeated, they would constitute a positive merit, as a part of a bill otherwise, in their estimation, defective. "There was another aspect in which he wished to present these provisions. The constant experience of the Treasury depart- ment, since the final extinguishment of the national debt, had shown the necessity of some elastic provision in our legislation upon the subject of the public revenue and expenditures, which Life and Times of Silas Wright. 649 would accommodate itself to the varied conditions of the treasury, or, rather, Avhich would enable the head of the Treasury depart- ment so to manage the national finances as that the treasury may l)e at all times prepared to meet the calls upon it, and that an amount of money should at no time be hoarded therein, to the injury of the business of the country or its citizens. During the existence of the public debt, the provisions of law, and apju'opriations of money connected with it, furnished this regu- lator for the state of the treasury. The applications of money upon the debt were at all times governed by the surplus of reve- nue over the expenditures, while all the unexpended balances of appropriations, after a limited period, passed to the Sinking Fund, and were absorbed in the debt. A troublesome surplus of reve- nue, therefore, could never exist, while that application remained open. On the other hand, as the appropriations for the year were carefully provided for before any application upon the debt, it Avas scarcely possible that any contingency, not foreseen during the regular annual session of Congress, could occur to disenable the treasury to meet the demands upon it, arising under the cur- rent appropriation bills. The amount of revenue intended for application upon the debt would always be sufficient to meet any disappointment in the accruing receipts into the treasury. The time, however, had now past. The debt was paid ; and, from the necessity of the case, and the state of the legislation of Con- gress, experiments had been made to measure the actual appro- priations by the estimated revenue, and to make them come out even. For the first few years of this trial, from a state of cir- cumstances not at the time sufficiently considered, but now clearly and properly estimated, the revenue got largely the better of the approi)riations. This gave rise to the bill directing a deposit of the surplus with the States; and again the actual appropriations and the estimated revenues were attempted to be equally measured. A revulsion in the trade, and business, and banking of the coun- try came ; the anticipated revenue was cut short, and that por- tion of it which rested ujjon credits could not be realized. Indeed, the very money on deposit in the banks, to the credit of the Treasurer, could not be commanded, and, comparatively, the whole anticipated means of the treasury were either not realized, 650 Life and Times of Silas Wright. or placed beyond its control. Still the appropriations were in force, the expenditures were going on under them, and could not be arrested, and a special convocation of Congress became neces- sary, to preserve the faith of the government, and enable the jDublic treasury to meet the just demands upon it. What followed was fresh in the recollection of the Senate and the country; and he would not consume the time by a repetition of the measures of relief to the country and the treasury adopted at that session. " He had mentioned these facts to show the necessity of some provision to guard against these disappointments in the accruing revenue, as well as to prevent the evil of a hoarding of money, when the revenue should overreach the appropriations. In either sense, he considered the provisions of the section of the first importance, and he entreated Senators not to suffer past recollec- tions to prejudice their minds, but to examine these facts ; to permit our late experience to have its due weight; to reflect how frequently similar disappointments, as to the revenue, might be experienced — how often surplus amounts of revenue might alarm the public mind, as to the safety of the public treasure; and then to decide upon the adoption or rejection of the section. " The only remaining section which he would notice, as con- nected with the first great object of the bill, was the twenty- seventh. This section authorizes the Treasurer of the United States to receive, at the treasury, and at such other places as he shall designate, payments of money in advance for the purchase of public lands, and to give a receipt for each payment, which shall be current at any of the land offices at any public or pri- vate sale of lands. Since the bill had been reported, he had become convinced that the section was too loosely drawn and required to be amended. These receipts might be taken and treated as negotiable paper, and might, as the section now stood, be given in a form which would make them so upon their face. This would subject the bill to the imputation of authorizing the emission of a paper currency based upon the public lands, a thing by no means intended by himself, and he was sure not by any member of the committee who assented to the report of the bill. He had therefore prepared an amendment, declaring that the receipts to be given by the Treasurer, pursuant to the provisions Life and Times of Silas Wright. 651 of the section, should not be negotiable or transferable by assign- ment or delivery, or in any other manner whatsoever; but that every such receipt should be presented at the land office by or for the person to whom it was given, as shown upon its face. In this shape he hoped the section would not be objectionable upon the ground above stated, while he thought it would be apparent that its general provision would be of great convenience to those purchasers of the public lands wlio were to emigrate from the old States and to carry with them the means to make their purchases. It would save them from the trouble and risk of transporting money of any descrijjtion, and also from the danger of taking to so distant a portion of the country a currency which would not answer their purpose when there. It was not apprehended that the Treasurer would be called upon to select many points as places where these payments might be made. Perhaps the points at which it was proposed to keep offices for the deposit of the public money would be sufficient, and perhaps a few other principal places might be selected with increased convenience to the public. A certificate of the deposit of the money at any designated point, transmitted to the Treasurer, would command the required receipt from him as well as the actual payment of the money at the treasury itself; and as this could be done through the mail, the party making the payment would be saved the expense of a journey to the Treasurer's office in this city. " A further and material advantage to the banking institutions, he was assured, would be derived from the adoption of this sec- tion. The notes of specie-paying banks are now authorized to be received for all payments except for lands, and if this bill passed would be receivable as well for lands as other public dues, to a greater or less extent, for six or seven years yet to come. Still, a citizen of the old States about to emigrate to the new, and hav- ing the money for the purchase of his lands in the notes of specie- paying banks of the old States, would not venture to take those notes as the means of payment, because there would be a danger that the land officer to whom he might wish to inake payment would not receive the notes of even specie-paying banks, so remote from the place where alone they could be converted into specie. The emigrant would be compelled, therefore, to present 652 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the notes, convert them himself, and take the specie as his means of payment, unless the provision now proposed or some one of a similar character should enable him to make the payment before his journey is commenced. The experience of the past had proved that this was the course pursued by the emigrants toward the banks in the vicinity of their former i-esidences, and pursued from compulsion; but he had been informed that dur- ing the short period, in the summer of 1836, when payments for lands were actually received at the office of the Treasurer in this city, large amounts were paid and received ; and that the banks here, and in the adjoining States of Virginia and Maryland, expe- rienced sensible and material relief from the practice. "He would here close his examination of the first class of the provisions of the bill, and give a very brief attention to the sec- ond: those relating to the proposed change in the currency to be received in payment of the public dues. " The principal and controlling provision upon this subject was to be found in the twenty-third section of the bill. The section was long, and contained much detail, but the principle adopted by it was simple and intelligible; it was merely a gradual change from the currency of specie-paying bank-notes to the legal cur- rency of the country. The change was to commence after the close of the present year, and was to cover the full period of six years, making the change applicable to one-sixth part of the accruing revenue of each, beyond that of the next preceding year. He could most easily make the Senate acquainted with this section, by saying that it was, in substance and principle, the provision offered by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], by way of amendment to the bill reported by the committee to the Senate, at the extra session, in September last. The only material change made by the committee had been to extend the gradation of the change in the currency from fourths to sixths, so as to require six instead of four years to make the change entire. The section might not be drawn in the same words used by that Senator in his amendment, but, with the exception just named, the substance was identical. "This was a feature of the bill which former experien.ee assured liim wuuld be'-more strongly contested, perhaps, than any other Life and Times of Silas Wright. 653 of its provisions. It would be recollected by the Senate that, at the extra session, the committee had incorporated into tlieir bill no provision in reference to the currency in which the public dues should be received, and that their opinion had been then expressed to the body, that it would be most expedient to legislate upon each of these great points separately, and by separate bills. A different opinion was stongly expressed at the time by several Senators, and different amendments touching this subject of the currency were early offered to the bill which the committee did report. After full debate, and by deliberate votes, the amend- ment proposed by the Senator from South Carolina was adopted and made a part of the bill. Under these circumstances, the committee had felt constrained, in making their report at this session, to include this provision in that report, and to make it a part of the same measure which should separate the finances of the country from the banking interests of the country. Hence is the section now found in the bill presented by the committee, although it was not a part of their former report. Still, it pre- sents a question of deep interest, of great magnitude, and upon which there is great diversity of opinion and great delicacy of feeling, as well throughout the country as in this and the other House of Congress. " It was not his purpose, at this time, to discuss the section except in one aspect, but in that one he must make some suggestions. The alarm taken at the provision had relation principally to tlie State banks, and it av^s in reference to the interests of those insti- tutions that he proposed the suggestions he was about to make. The proposition is, gradually, and after the term of some six or seven years, to discontinue the receipt of their notes in pay- ment of the public dues, although they may be, at the time, specie-paying banks, and their notes may he convertible into specie, at the will of the holder, at their banking-house, wherever that may be located. The objection is, that this rejection of the paper of these banks, on the part of the national government, will so far discredit their circulation generally as to cripple their operations, destroy their powers of usefulness in the local sphere of their legitimate operations, and finally annihilate them. Is there ground for this apprehension ? How are the charters of 654 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the State banks obtained, and for what purposes ? Is it that the circulation of their notes shall extend over the whole Union ? Is it that those notes shall take with them, wherever they may go, the faith and credit of the United States, and be the lesal cur- rency of the federal government at every point and place in these twenty-six States ? No ; no such idea ever entered into the mind of any man, Avho, as a member of the Legislature of his State, has voted for a local bank charter. The only ground upon w^hich those applications are pressed upon the State Legislature is, the accommodation of the commerce and business in the imme- diate vicinity of the proposed location of the bank. Look at the statistics which are always made a part of the argument in favor of a particular State charter. Are they the statistics of the Union? No; they are the statistic? of the village, or town, or county embracing the location of the proposed bank, and they are intended to prove the necessity of the banking facilities pro- posed to be furnished by the charter at that point. Did any man ever suppose, then, that the State Legislatures, to which these applications are so constantly and perseveringly addressed, considered themselves, in their very liberal grants in this way, to be authorizing a currency for the whole people of the United States, and especially a standard of currency for the treasury of the United States ? No. Such a position would not be assumed by any man here, nor would it by any man in the country. Where, then, arose the obligation of this government to receive the notes of these institutions, thus chartered, and for such pur- poses, in payment of the public dues ? He could not see either the obligation or the duty; and certainly no one would contend, in case the notes were to be received, that they should be kept on hand as the money treasure of the Avhole people. "How, then, were they to be disposed of in a manner to con- sult the safety of the public funds, in case they were to be per- petually received ? This question admitted of but one answer. They must be presented, at short intervals, to the banks which issued them, and converted into money, into the legal currency of the country. In conformity with this manifest principle, the bill provided that these notes should not be made matters of deposit, under the regulations it contains for special deposits in Life and Times of Silas Wrigbt. 655 banks. It Avould be folly to deposit, merely for safety, the representative of value, in the place of the value itself, where the open option existed to constitute the deposit of the one or the other. Which would, then, be most useful to the State banks : to receive their notes as cash at the treasury, and constantly convert them into specie, or gradually to discontinue that receipt altogether, and collect the revenue in the legal currency only V To allow them from six to seven years to conform themselves, their business and their conditions to the changed state of things ; or to. commence immediately to receive tlieir notes for the public dues, so far as those notes are redeemable in specie upon demand at their banking-houses, and to present them for payment at short intervals and in large masses ? For himself, he must sa)^ he thought the provisions of the section in question were more mild and more favorable to the State banks tlian the alternative he had contemplated. The subject, however, was before the Senate. It would be discussed l)y others, wlio had bestowed more thought and more research upon this particular point than he had ; the merits of the question, in every aspect, would be fairly and fully presented, and he would content him- self with whatever decision should be made. Should this propo- sition not meet with favor, he should ask the sense of the Senate upon the alternative, and he would not permit himself to doubt that the one or the other would be adopted. " The twenty-fourth section was merely calculated to carry out the one which preceded it, by making it imperative upon all dis- bursing officers, after the time when the whole revenue should be collectable in the legal currency of the United States, to make all their disbursements in the same currency, upon penalty of dismissal from office, and a forfeiture of any compensation which might be due to them at the time of their violation of the law. "• The twenty-fifth section might, perhaps, be considered as somewhat connected with those which have gone before it, as it requires the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe the times within which the drafts of the Treasurer, drawn upon the various depositaries, according to their respective distances from the seat of government, shall be presented for payment, and after which time they shall not be accepted and paid by the depositary, 656 Life and Times of Silas Wright. without new directions from the Secretary. The object of this section, it will be seen, was to prevent these drafts from being made a currency for circulation, based upon the credit of the government. Since the suspension of the banks, in May last, this use has been made of these drafts, to some extent, and it was thought desirable to check the practice in its inception. The section was copied from a provision of the bill which passed the Senate at the extra session, and which was inserted in that .bill, as an amendment, by the Senate itself. " He would relieve the Senate and himself from any further observations as to the details of the bill. He had omitted seve- ral of great importance, and among them he would mention those which made provision for the official bonds of the several deposi- taries. He believed those provisions broad and ample, and such as were best calculated to secure the public treasure, and he thought every Senator, upon examination, would agree with him in this opinion. He would not attempt to particularize the other sections which had not been noticed, but would merely remark that none of them introduced any new principle into the bill, and that he thought all would be found to reach the object intended by them. "Such, Mr. President, said Mr. W., is the system which the majority of the Committee on Finance have considered it to be their duty to present to the Senate, for the safe-keeping, transfer and disbursement of the public money of the United States. This system is strenuously opposed, not by the political partj' uniformly opposed to the present administi'ation only, but by some of the respected and influential individuals among those who have hitherto been its friends and supporters. What, then, is proposed by those wdio cannot give their support to the bill before you? The system of State bank deposits seems to be more especially urged as the antagonist proposition, and, under the impression that there was to rest the present controversy, so far as distinct propositions of any character would be submitted to the Senate, he proposed to institute a comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of each system, as connected with the prominent objections which had been heretofore urged against the provisions of the bill. Life and Times of Silas Wright. (j57 "First, then, as to the safety of the public money under the system proposed by the bill, and under the State bank deposit system. " The bill proposes to require ample and sufficient bonds and sureties from all the depositaries constituted by it, as one step toward the safety of the money intrusted to the keeping of those agents. " It also proposes to provide vaults and safes at the most important points of collection and disbursement, in this respect placing itself upon a par with banks, so far as physical securities are concerned. " It further proposes to adopt the use of the vaults and safes of the banks, at all places where those securities are not provided by the government, using the banks for safety simply, by the system of special deposits, and not in any sense as fiscal agents of the treasury. " These are the guards which the system constituted by the bill holds out to the people against the loss of their treasure. " The State bank deposit system presents the capitals of the institutions as security for deposits, in the same manner as for all other liabilities of the incorporation. " It also presents its vaults and safes, constructed for its own security, and, it is fair to presume, as securely constructed as those proposed for the government. " It next presents, as we have heretofore practiced under it, collateral bonds, with sureties, for the due and faithful fulfillment of its engagements on the part of the bank. " These are the protections to the public treasure offered by the State bank deposit system, supposing, as he did, that the system, if continued, was to remain upon the plan of open or general deposits, as adopted in the deposit bill of 1836. Other- wise, as he had shown in a former part of his remarks, the capi- tal of the bank would not be liable, except for gross negligence in the keeping of the money placed in its vaults. " What, then, are the risks under each system ? " Under that proposed by the bill, the only single risk is that of the misconduct and dishonesty of the officers to whom the safe-keeping of the money is intrusted, and that conduct, in addi- 42 658 Life and Times oi Silas Wright. tion to all other legal liabilities, is made a high crime, and punish- able with protracted personal imprisonment. The persons to whom tliis trust is to be confided are such citizens as the Presi- dent, with a full knowledge of the duties, responsibilities and temptations, shall select and nominate to the Senate, and as the Senate, upon full examination, shall advise and consent that the President do appoint and commission to execute the trust. The risk is that these persons will be dishonest; that they will become insensible to standing and character ; that they will violate tlieir faith to their sureties and their country; that they will embezzle the public money in their hands, and thus subject themselves to infamous punishment — to imprisonment with rogues and felons for a term of not less than two years. " One of the risks under the State bank deposit system is the same misconduct and dishonesty of the officers, agents and mana- gers of the banks, and they are numerous, and many of them selected to perform subordinate duties. Without any imputation upon the institutions, therefore, or their principal officers, it can- not be unfair to assume that many of the persons who must have access to their books, accounts and money will not be persons of that standing and character which would be required, by all con- cerned, in the selection and appointment of responsible public officers. In the case of the bank, too, the persons who must have access to the money in its charge are numerous, while under the other system the single depositary alone has such access. Again, the misconduct and dishonesty of the officers and agents of the bank are not made criminal and punished as crimes. If committed, so far as the government is concerned, they are mere breaches of trust, and incur a debt ; they lay the foundation for a suit at law to recover the money embezzled. Can it, by possi- bility, be supposed that these risks are equally balanced ? He knew that, upon a former occasion, when this same subject Avas under discussion, we had had paraded' before us a long and most unpleasant list of defaulting public officers ; but it had not been stated at what periods those defaults had occurred, or what was their aggregate amount. He had never, upon any occasion, examined tlie list with much care, as it was not a matter of enter- tainment to him to see these evidences of unworthiness in those Life and Times of Silas Wright. 659 who had sought and obtained public patronage and public trust. He had, however, referred to the list sufficiently to learn that nine-tenths of the defaults recorded upon it had happened during the prevalence of a system of bank deposits of some sort; and he thought it would be found, upon careful comparison, that a large majority of them had taken place when a national bank, that great security, in the minds of many, against all pecuniary evils, was the sole depository of the national treasure. The defaulters were mostly disbursing officers proper, such as paymasters of the army, pursers in the navy, and the like, or postmasters, who had never, until very recently, been legally connected, in any way, with the treasury, or contractors upon the public works. All these classes of persons, except postmasters, must always, and under any system, have the same opportunity to misapply public money; and their defaults, therefore, were no more an argument against the system proposed by the bill, for the safe-keeping of the pub- lic money, than against any other system which could be devised or named. He had already said the amount of these defaults had not been stated. He did not know the amount; but this he would venture to affirm, without the fear of contradiction, that the whole amount of losses to the government, from the defaults of public officers, since its organization under the Constitution, would be but a fraction of the losses which it had sustained from its connection with the State banks alone, setting aside the forty years of the period when a national bank was the sole fiscal agent of the treasury. Here, therefore, the State bank system gained no advantage in the argument. He was most happy to be able to say that, in comparison with the vast amounts which had been received and disbursed, the losses under any system hitherto adopted had been very small, and it made him proud of his country, and of her citizens, to state a fact which had been given to him from high authority, since the subject of intrusting the money of the people with their own officers had been one of discussion before the country. The fact to which he alluded was that the whole disbursements of the army, from the year 1821 to the year 1836, both inclusive, amounting to several mil- lions in each year, had been made through the hands of the pub- lic officers appointed for that purpose, and that not one dollar of 660 Life and Times of Silas Wright. loss had accrued tt) the government from those appropriations during the whole of that period. Ought not this fact alone to inspire confidence in the trustworthiness of our public servants? It seemed to him so; and he must say he could not comprehend how it was, after all the experience which our former and recent history had afforded, that gentlemen of the most unquestioned integrity should feel and manifest so much distrust against the public ofiicers of the government — men of elevated standing and character, and directly accountable to the people and their representatives, as well as to the civil and criminal tribunals of the country — and should at the same time, and in reference to the same subject, repose such implicit and unmoved confidence in the incorj)orated banking institutions of the States, and in their officers and managers. Did they believe that the transfer of a citizen from private life to a public office necessarily poi- soned his integrity, while a similar transfer to a situation in a bank rendered him worthy of all trust? No. They could not so believe. The fact could not be so. The honest man would be honest in either situation. The dishonest man would be honest in neither. He knew that public officers sometimes became defaulters ; and he must be permitted to ask how frequently the public sense was startled by announcements, through the public press, of the defaults and embezzlements of the most confiden- tial officers of banks? All were frail and erring men; and some, alike in both classes, would prove unequal to the resistance which the temptations of their situations required ; but he could not see that either system derived any advantage over the other from this consideration ; while he did believe that the bill under dis- cussion proposed guards against this risk which would be found more beneficial in practice than any hitherto known to the legis- lation of Congress. " So far as vaults and safes were concerned, he had already admitted that each system possessed equal advantages; and from what had been said it would be seen that, to a very great extent, these securities, as applied to both systems, were identically the same. "But there is another and much more important risk con- nected with the bank system. It is, that all moneys placed with Life and Times of Silas Wright. 661 the banks for safe-keeping, upon open or general deposit, are necessarily subjected to all the hazards which attend the busi- ness of the banking institutions. We have already seen that the money thus deposited becomes at once the property of the bank, and that the depositor receives in exchange for his money the simple credit of the institution. If, then, its credit be subjected to the hazards of the banking business, so must be the money placed on general deposit with it. as that money is merely con- verted by the depositor into that credit. By adopting this sys- tem, therefore, for the safe-keeping of the national treasure, we embark the money of the people in the same boat with the capi- tal of the bank; we subject it to all the hazards to which that capital is subjected, and we substantially agree, so far as our reliance is upon the capital of the institution for indemnity, that if the adventure be fortunate our money shall be safe, but that if it be unfortunate the risk and the loss shall be ours. We are not, however, to be placed in the condition of the owners of the capital of the bank. We are not to share in the profits of a for- tunate hazard. Our only object is safety for our money, and to gain that we take our share of the risks, without any interest in the contemplated profits from them. Who will contend that these risks do not fully balance the safety we derive as the con- sideration for incurring them ? The bank system, then, derives no advantage in the argument from the security afibrded us by its capital, so long as it subjects us to all its risks without any share in its gains. " Let us now balance the account, as far as we have gone, and see which system has the advantage. In the security of vaults and safes both are equal. The security afforded by the capitals of the banks is counterbalanced by the risks it compels us to take, growing out of its banking operations, without any share in the profits of those oj^erations, if fortunate. This balances this item of the account. In the risk growing out of the miscon- duct and dishonesty of ofiicers, managers and agents, the system proposed by the bill has a decided advantage in the number of persons to be trusted, the standing and character of those Avho have access to the money, and the guards against and punish- ment of embezzlement. In the bonds and sureties both systems 662 Life and Times of Silas Wright. would he, prima facie, e<\Vid\', but we have been recently told, by a distinguished Senator [Mr. Webster], that the collateral bonds given by the banks are useless paper; that they are always signed by officers, directors and stockholders of the bank for which they are sureties, by persons whose business and fortunes are interwoven with the business and fortunes of the bank, and that when it fails the sureties upon our bond must fail with it. He hoped this position was not true to its full extent ; but he must admit that it was likely to be true in a veiy great degree, for who would become security for a bank but the persons inter- ested in it ? These institutions, from their nature and character, could neither receive nor reciprocate any other friendships than those of interest, and, therefore, they could only look to the interested to find sureties for their engagements. Not so with the public officer. He would have no business relations. His official duties would require his whole time and whole mind. The discharge of those duties would call for no bank facilities. His sureties would be friends, men wholly disconnected from him in business, and whose properties and responsibilities could not be affected by his pecuniary disasters, any farther than their lia- bilities upon his bond should produce that effect. The system proposed by the bill, then, derived a material advantage over the bank system, in the safety of the collateral bonds, and thus must be admitted, in the settlement of the account, to have two advan- tages over the antagonist system, and to be the safer of the two. *' Second. He would now carry the comparison to the expenses of the antagonistic systems. "And, first, of the expenses under that proposed by the bill. They were the erection of the two offices at Charleston and St. Louis. It had been seen, however, that the erection of an office at Charleston would be probably avoided; that the government now owned a custom-house at that place, and that rooms for an office for the receiver-general of public moneys there might be procured in that building ; that the necessary vaults would be required to be constructed, and the rooms fitted up and prepared for this use, which would be the whole expense at that point for erections. The estimate of the department, for these pur- poses, was $2,000. For the expenses of a site, the erection of Ltfe and Times of Stlas Wright. G(>3 the necessary building, and the construction of vaiills and safes within it, at St. Louis, the dc'iiartinont supposed an expense of from $4,500 to $5,000 would be incurred. From inquiry made of gentlemen intimately and personally acquainted willi llif prices of pi'operty and building materials at that [)lare, hv pre- sumed the expense might be above the estimate of the de[)art- ment. It was said that the cost of a suitable site, at a proper location within the business part of the town, would be some three or four thousand dollars at the least. In this event, the estnnate would be much too low, and it was just to the Secretary of the Treasury to say that the estimate of the department was accompanied with a declaration that no local information was possessed, such as was required to approximate toward perfect accuracy. The estimates were from $6,500 to $7,000. He would suppose they were too low by $3,000, and that an expenditure of $10,000 would be incurred for these erections at the two points. He had been more particular and detailed upon this item of the proposed expenditures, because he was well advised that the most persevering efforts had been made, and are constantly making, to represent the intention to be to erect palaces and splendid edifices for these humble offices? He had no other answer to give to these mistakes than to pre- sent the estimates of the proper department of the government — of that department which was charged by the bill with the erec- tion of the buildings not only, but with the direction of the plans upon which they were to be erected — thus showing, as perfectly as mere intention can be shown, the views of the government as to the scale of extravagance or economy designed by it in this particular; and to say that Congress was the only branch of the government which could be looked to for the means to make any erections whatsoever, and that its appropriations must measure the expense and consequently the extravagance or economy of the executors of the law. "The next and only other item of expense, under the l)ill, would be the pay of the officers and clerks employed. The number of additional officers whose appointments were provided for was four, and he would assume that their combined salaries would not be less than eight nor more than twelve thousand dol- 664 Life and Times of Silas Wright. lars. They were to be placed in responsible trusts, and ought to be citizens of elevated standing and tried moral integrity. He could not suppose, therefore, that any one would wish to assign them salaries of less than $2,000 each, and he did not think that the salary of any one of them should exceed |3,000. For the sake of the argument he would call this expense |1 2,000. " It might be necessary to employ from six to twelve addi- tional clerks under the various provisions of the bill. Their combined pay might amount to from six to ten thousand dollars. He thought the estimate, both as to the number of clerks and as to the amount of compensation, very high. Botli, however, were his own, as he had asked no estimate from the department upon this point, and he was willing to assume the higliest of his suppo- sitions to be the true standard of expense for these two objects. " These last are regular annual expenses, and ai-e therefore to be considered as the constant charge upon the public treasury of the system proposed. The cost of the erections is a single expense, which, being once incurred and paid, is done with. "What, then, are the expenses of the State bank deposit sys- tem? If the deposits are open and general, and the banks have the use of the public money as a compensation for their agency, the expense is nothing, directly. The use pays for the keeping, as it most assuredly should, when the money is not in fact kept but used. He should have occasion, however, very soon, to hint at the indirect expense to the United States of such a system of bank deposits. " But suppose a system of special deposits be established, and the banks be effectually prohibited from the use, for any pur- pose, of the money of the people in their keeping, how then will stand the question of expense ? A commission upon the money deposited must be paid to the bank for its trouble and risk. He was wholly unable to say what that commission ought to be, or what Congress woiild be compelled to make it to induce the banks to accept the trust. He had found, however, from a com- parison of various rates of commission with the ordinary amounts of revenue collected under the existing laws, and with the esti- mate of the revenue for the current year, that one-eighth of one per cent would amount to from twenty-five to twenty-eight thou- Life and Times of Silas Weight. 665 sand dollars, as the constant and current expenses of a special deposit system. " How, then, stands the comparison? It had been seen that the annual expenses of the system proposed by the bill would, in the payment of officers and clerks, vary from fourteen to twenty-two thousand dollars, and that the last would be the highest amount to which those expenditures could rise midor that system were Congress to adopt it as reported by the committee. The expenditures for erections might be added, if gentlemen chose, and the average made upon any given number of years which, in the judgment of any member of the Senate, would afford a fair trial to any financial system adapted to the operations of the national treasury, and conform- ing as strictly to the great mass of private and corporate interests in the country as the constitutional powers of Congress would permit that conformation to be made. He could not see, there- fore, that any system, formed upon the basis of special deposits in banks, could, in point of expense, possess advantages over the bill under discussion. He had not forgotten that that bill adopted a partial system of special deposits, and that it contemplated a payment of a commission to the banks which should keep the public money pursuant to its provisions; but he assumed that the difference of amount in the above estimate for the respective sys- tems was more than sufficient to cover any commissions which a fair execution of the provisions of the bill would call out of the public treasury to be paid to the banks. The most important points in the country, both as to the collection and disbursement of the public money, were provided for, independently of the provisions for a special deposit. The commissions, therefore, could be made applicable to but a mere fraction of the whole revenue; and, at any contemplated rate, the whole amount could never exceed a few thousand dollars. " He had made a reference to the indirect expenses of an open and general State bank deposit system, where the services and risks of the banks were compensated by the use of the publ'c money. Need he, at this time, and in the present condition of the State banks and of the public funds, define his meaning in that reference ? Why was the special convocation of Congress 666 Life and Times of Silas Wright. rendered necessary in Septenibei' last ? Was it not the suspen- sion of the banks to pay specie for their paper, and the consequent inability of the public treasury to obtain fi-om them, in any currency conformable to law, the millions of the public money intrusted to their safe-keeping, and required for the current expenditures of the government ? No one would deny this posi- tion. What the expense to the people of the United States was, for that single extra session of Congress, he had not taken the trouble to inform himself; but this he would venture to assert with perfect confidence, that those expenses more than equaled the money required to carry on the system of finance, proposed by the bill, for any period of ten years. He would not now bring into notice the losses which might yet be sustained before the experiment of the late State bank deposit system should be finally closed. He did not wish to say anything unfavorable to the eventual solvency and safety and security of those institutions. He did not wish to bring any distrust upon them; much less would he repeat here the daily rumors of that portion of the public press which most strenuously opposed this measure, of the entire failure of this and that and the other 'pet bank;' of the $60,000 here and 140,000 there, and untold thousands somewhere else, lost to the people by this experiment-trying administration, in consequence of the employment of these State banks as fiscal agents of the public treasury. He hoped and believed these pictures were overdrawn ; he was content to suppose, for the purpose of this argument, that not one dollar was to be thus lost, and yet he tn;sted he had shown that the system proposed by the bill, for the management of the national finances, was more economical and less expensive to the tax-paying public, than either a system of general or special State bank deposits. " Third. His next point of comparison should be the patron- age conferred upon the executive branch of the government by the antagonistic systems. " It had been already seen that the system proposed by the bill required the appointment of four additional officers, with salaries of from two to three thousand dollars. This was a direct increase of the executive power and patronage; but when it should be recollected how many officers, with equal salaries, Life and Times of Silas Weight. 667 already existed, and with how much facility officers were added to that number, at almost every session of Congress, and in almost every one of the executive departments, ho must hope tliat no unreasonable alarm Avould be felt in imy quarter of tlie House by this very limited addition to the existing nunibcr. [f they were not to be constitutionally appointed, or if, being so appointed, duties were to be assigned to them not of a character compatil)le with our civil and political institutions, then the offices ought not to be created or the duties assigned, regardless of all consequences which the rejection of the proposition might bring upon the country. If, however the appointments are to l)e constitutionally made, and the duties of the officers seem to be necessary to the public service, he must be permitted to say that he reposed too confidently upon the intelligence of the American people to sup- pose they would condemn the measure because its details called for such an accession of executive strength to carry out their wishes. He would not permit himself so far to distrust the con- fidence of our citizens in the government of their choice as to believe that they would not feel perfectly safe in the decisions of Cono-vess as to the offices to be created, and in the President and Senate to select the persons to fill those offices. " Was it, could it be, true that a greater or safer trust was to be placed in local banking incorporations than could be placed in the constituted authorities of our government, as organized under the Constitution ? Were the tax-paying citizens of our Republic afraid to intrust the safe-keeping of the national trea- sure to officers of their own choice and responsible to them and to the laws of Congress, and anxious to confide it to banks not created by national authority, over which no branch of the national government had any control, and in the management of which neither the people nor their government had any voice ? He did not believe this was the state of public opinion. He did not believe that distrust toward our national authorities had yet gained this extent. He was not ready to admit that banks, such as our State banks now are, and with the recent experience of the danger of resting the operations of the public treasury upon them, were more the favorites of the people of this country than their own well-tried and faithful servants. 668 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. " It was not his wish or design, he would repeat again, to say anything unjust or injurious to these institutions. Within their proper spheres they were convenient and useful, but recent events had perfectly satisfied his mind that they were not the fit keepers of the treasure and treasury of a nation; that this important inci- dent to national independence ought not to be committed to the charge of institutions whose interest leaned so strongly toward a hazardous misapplication of such a trust. "Was it, could it have been, contemplated by the framers of our system of government that they had provided no fit and trustworthy depository of the national finances; that banks — incorporations, private incorporations, chartered for private uses, owned by private individuals, and managed by persons responsi- ble only to the stockholders — must be called in to sustain the most delicate trust under any government; that the will of these institutions must be consulted as to the terms upon which they would consent to accept the trust, and that all the authori- ties of the country. Congress itself included, must cater with them for terms upon which the money of a free people could be kept and paid out, and as to the character of the currency which either should be permitted to enjoy; had propositions to this effect been submitted to the convention which framed the Consti- tution, what would have been their fate ? Does any one believe they would now have been found in that Constitution which is the pride of freemen everywhere? No; such dependence upon such aid wduld have found no countenance there. Can it find countenance in the Senate now ? " Could any one doubt, then, that the people's money should be confided to the people's servants, to their oflicers, responsible to them and to the laws? and that the appointment of such and so many ofticers as should be found necessary to perform this trust, in a manner safe and convenient to the treasury and to the people themselves, was not only in strict conformity with the Constitution and the very nature of our civil institutions, but an imperious duty upon every Congress ? He could enter- tain no doubts upon either point. " There was another direct grant of executive patronage and power under the bill — the authority to appoint the necessary Life and Times of Silas Weioht. 6G9 clerks to perform the mechanical duties required, when they could not be performed by the officers to whose keepinL? the money was to be intrusted — and il had been seen tliat this nii<;hl involve the selection and appointment of from six to (wclve clerks. He would consume no time in comnicntiiii;- upon this grant of power; the mere statement of the fact shouhl suHice. "These two were the only direct grants of executive pat mil- age which the bill proposed to make ; but it seemed to be sup- posed that the power and influence of the executive was to be immensely and dangerously increased over all the otlicers charged with the keeping of any portion of the public money, and this idea formed one of the most weighty objections against tlie sys- tem. How, he would ask, is this inference derived ? Not one cent of additional compensation is piroposed to be given to any one of the existing executive ofiicers, in consequence of the addi- tional duties imposed upon them by this bill. They were all now subject to removal from office by the President, at his plea- sure. Whence, then, was he to derive this increased power over tliem? Could he command the money in their hands? No; unless he was ready to commit a direct infraction of the Consti- tution, and the officer to subject himself to protracted imprison- ment and infamous punishment. The bill })rovides that all money, in the hands of every depositary, shall be held there to the credit of the Treasurer, or, in other words, as in the treasury; and the Constitution declares that no money shall be taken from the treasury but in conformity to appropriations made by law. Tlie bill makes any unlawful use of the money, by the officer in whose charge it is, punishable by ini]>risonment for a term not less than two years. To let the President have the money would be as criminal, under the law, as to let any other citizen of the country have it, and detection would be as certain in the one case as the other. The only difference would be that the President, if he were to make himself the knowing recipient, would subject himself to impeachment for the violation of the Constitution and the fraud upon the treasury; whereas the citizen would incur no criminal liability whatsoever. ^Yhere, then, is the dangerous increase of power given to the President? Suppose he remove the officer ; the money is still, in a legal sense, in the 670 Life and Times of Silas Weight. treasury. He gains no access to it by the removal, and if he did, he could make no use of it without a violation of the Constitu- tion, It was easy to see that this system would impose great additional responsibility upon the President, as he must select all the persons Avho are to be intrusted Avith public money, and it is his duty to- see that they all obey, observe and execute the law. He would venture the assertion that no honest man who was to hold the office of President, consulting merely his personal interests and responsibilities, separate from his sense of the jnib- lic good, would desire the passage of this law. He could see nothing desirable to that officer personally to grow out of it, Avhile he could see a fearful load of personal responsibility in every feature of the system. "But the officers who were to keep the public money were also executive officers, and i^erhajDS it was here, and not with the President, that this great increase of executive power was appre- hended. The same inquiries were alike applicable to this sug- gestion. How could the possession of money by the officer, which he could only use in pursuance of appropriations made by law, without subjecting himself to the severest punishment, increase the power and influence of that officer with his fellow- citizens ? Suppose he should become corrupt and violate the law. Would not every respectable man whom he should approach shun and avoid him; and could the certainty of detection give him time to establish an influence, based upon the power of the money embezzled, which would be dangerous to public liberty ? Most certainly not. In this, as in the case of the President, the responsibility, not the power and influence, of the officer would be increased. " Such was the view he was compelled to take of the charge of executive patronage made against the financial system pro- posed by the bill in its present form; but the imaginations of some had carried them beyond the present propositions, and induced them to fear that this was the mere commencement, the entering wedge to a multiplication of executive officers, until they should cover the whole land, like the locusts of Egypt, and eat out the substance of the people. Where was the foundation for this apprehension ? With whom rested the power of increas- Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 671 ing officers of any character? Not, certainly, with the execu- tive. He can act in selecting men for office when the offices are created by Congress, and, with certain exceptions, he can remove men from office at his pleasure; but lie can cremate no office, nor can he multiply the number of officers of any grade or character. This, then, is not an objection against the execu- tive, but against the legislative power of the government; it is an objection which implies distrust, not of the President, but ol' ourselves. And are we afraid to trust ourselves in this matter, or do we stand in so much fear of those who may succeed us iu these seats that we would rather commit the finances of the country to incorporated banks than to the present or future representatives of the people and the States ? "But how stands the objection of executive patronage, as applied to the State bank deposit system? The first step in this system is the selection of some twenty, thirty or more banks, to do which the direct interest of all their officers, directors and stockholders must be addressed, and when selected the same interest is enlisted in whatever contract may be made. Here is, at once, an army of new persons brought within the reach of executive powder, not, like the salary officer, upon stipulated compensations, but whose interests are wholly dependent upon the extent of the patronage bestowed — upon the amount of money intrusted to their charge. Then come up llie competi- tions and appliances to obtain a selection, and the inducement to a vicious executive to excite hopes and create expectations throughout the wdiole line of banking institutions in all the States. But the selections are made, the money deposited and passed to the citizens among the other accommodations of the favored banks. This creates another influence far more extended and fearful — the influence of the debtors of the selected banks; for when appropriations are made by law, the executive officers — those w^ho are charged with the execution of the law — must direct the drafts which are to bring the money from the banks to meet them. Let any unprejudiced mind compare the influ- ences here embodied with the executive patronage conferred by the bill under discussion, and can the decision be in favor of the bank system in this respect ? 672 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " But there is another view of this matter. He had shown that, under the system proposed by the bill, the executive could not reach the money in the hands of the depositary without sub- jecting both to a condign punishment. How is it here ? Sup- pose the executive corrupt, and the bank willing to be corrupted, or the reverse, and what is to hinder his obtaining any amount of the public money he pleases ? He takes it not as the money of the people, but as the money of the bank. It is not, in form, a loan from the public money on deposit, but an accommodation in the usual course of banking business ; and still, before the deposit- ing officer shall have left the counter of the institution, the executive may take the money he deposits, and no one is pun- ishable. The depositing officer himself, any other executive officer of the government, may do the same thing with equal impunity. "Has the system provided for by the bill, then, anything to fear from a comparison with that of the State bank deposit sys- tem, as to the dangers of an increase of executive patronage ? He could not so suppose. " Fourth. He would now institute a short comparison of Avhat he thought would be the relative effects of the two systems upon the State banking institutions themselves. " The system proposed by the bill would necessarily operate as a check upon the issues and expansions of those institutions, in either shape in which it had been proposed to pass it. If the notes of the banks continue to be received in payment of tlie public dues, and the depositaries are directed, as in that case they unquestionably should be, to call frequently and at short intervals for the balances against the banks, and to demand specie for those balances, this must operate as a powerful check upon all the banks in the vicinity of those depositaries where the collec- tions are large. If, on the other hand, the receipt of the bank- notes be gradually discontinued in the collection of the revenue, and specie collections substituted, while the change will create some demand upon the banks for specie, the disbursements of specie by the government will constantly distribute among the people a broader and more permanent basis for the paper circula- tion, which the banks will, of course, continue, growing out of Life and Times of Silas Weight. 673 their private operations. That the demand for specie may, to some extent, diminish the profits of banking, is more than pro- bable; but if the effect shall be to restrain the issues of the banks, to keep upon them a constant sense of the necessity of more specie capital to meet their liabilities, the operation, as past expe- rience abundantly proves, will be greatly beneficial to the com- munity, and will work rather a benefit than an injury to the institutions themselves. In the meantime, the disbursement by the government of the specie it receives cannot fail, not only to give stability and confidence, to some extent, at least, to the gen- eral currency, by continuing in active circulation some portions of the gold and silver upon which the whole is based, but must, to the extent of the circulation, have a tendency to strengthen the banks against sudden pressures and unfounded distrusts, by enabling them the more easily to arm themselves with coin. " What are the tendencies of the opposite system upon the banking institutions? Recent experience has answered this inquiry more forcibly than it was in his power to command lan- guage to answer it. The effect was to promote fearful expansions when large amounts of public money were placed upon deposit, and ruinous contractions when the necessities or the policy of the government required its payment. The effect was to stimulate to dangerous excesses, not the banks only, but their customers also, when money was abundant in the treasury, and to add to the pressure, by heavy calls from the treasury, when there was a scarcity. In short, the effect of the latter system upon the banks had proved, upon trial, to be unmixed evil, while the influ- ences of the former promised to be rather favorable than unfa- vorable. " Fifth. The next and most important comparison between the two systems was the influence of each upon the government of the country and its finances. The proposed system would place the money of the government, at all times, within the power and conti-ol of the government. It would enable the government, at all times, to pay its debts in a currency not depreciated, a cur- rency equal to the standard of the Constitution and the law. It would render the government financially independent, and main- tain it in that position. Under such a system we should no more 43 674 Life and Times of Silas Wright. hear, what we were now daily hearing in this hall, that honest citizens had been defrauded, by being paid their demands against the treasury in bank paper, which was depreciated or worthless, and that Congress ought to indemnify them for their losses thus occasioned. These were some of the benefits certain to be derived to the government from the adoption of the system pro- vided for by the bill; but there was another, and, in his judg- ment, far greater benefit, equally certain to flow from its adop- tion. It would exempt the government fi-om the constan': and innumerable imputations of injuries to trade, to the currency, to credit, to the private affairs of individuals and . banks, from its financial movements. Was any person whom he addressed insen- sible to the moral and political evil growing out of these com- plaints; to their strong tendency to alienate the feelings of the l^eople from our most valuable institutions, and to bring them to look upon all government as a curse and not a blessing, as calcu- lated, not for their protection, but destruction and ruin ? He would remind the Senate, very briefly, of the course of these com- plaints for the last four years. " The government removed the public money from one single bank and placed it in several others. A clamor followed the act; a panic was excited; banks failed, merchants failed, money was made scarce, the currency was disturbed, credit received a shock, and, for some four months in succession, we heard nothing here but scenes of distress, general ruin, and almost famine ; and all in a time of as great plenty and abundance, not of the necessaries of life only, but of money, as our country had ever witnessed. The panic passed off, and business of every description, and enterprise of every character, sprung into increased life and activity. The public lands commenced to sell rapidly, and our revenues became excessive. Then came the second complaint which he proposed to notice, and it was, that the whole splendid public domain, that rich inheritance from our fathers of the Revolution, under the operation of the ' pet bank system,' was going or gone — was being exchanged, for what? For 'bank rags.' That complaint lasted us for the most of one session of Congress, but nothing was done by legislation to remedy the evil. The accumulations of revenue had by this time come to be Life and Ti3ies of Silas Witniiir. 675 vast, and this gave rise to a third complaint. It was double in its character and contradictory with itself, and yet it entertained us during a large sliare of one of our sessions, and finally pro- duced legislation. It was, to-day, that the government was actu- ally locking up in the banks all the money of the country, while the honest and hard-working citizens were suffering for its use; to-morrow, the almost countless millions were loaned by the pet banks to favorites of the executive, and members of the dominant political party, to enable them to make speculations in the public lands, and in all other descriptions of property, to the injury of fair business men and the ruin of the poor. So far were these complaints carried, inconsistent and contradictory as they were, as to make a sensible impression upon the public mind, and finally to induce almost all the members of this body to vote for the deposit law of 1836, which was to dissipate this hoarded fund and place it in safe-keeping with the States. The Secretary of the Treasury commenced the necessary measures to execute this law, and very soon found that the money which had been so injuriously hoarded, in our debates here, had been in fact rather too much dissipated before Congress interfered with it. This raised another complaint. The Secretary was wantonly executing the law, because he did not like its provisions. He was giving drafts upon the banks which had the money, for acceptance and payment, as the law required; when, if he had given them for transfer merely, the banks would not have been injured. During the first part of this process the sale of the public lands continued at an accelerated pace; and, although Congress made a strenuous but fruitless efifort to remedy the evil, the complaint commenced again that the public domain was being exchanged for irrespon- sible bank paper. The President took up the subject, after Congress left it, and directed the land oflicers to receive nothing but gold and silver in payment for lands. This laid the founda- tion for a new and continuing complaint. The payment of the immense deposits to the States produced the necessity for equal collections on the part of the deposit banks from their customers. These collections occasioned a scarcity of money, and it was the ' specie circular' which had done it. Their foreign debts pressed upon the merchants, and the calls upon them from the banks dis- 676 Life and Times of Silas Wright. enabled them to pay ; but the specie circular had wrought the mischief by marching all the gold and silver of the country to the west to purchase lands. Embarrassments continued to increase; extensive failures of merchants and others took place; and finally, in May last, all the banks of the country suspended payment. Still, the goverment was princii^ally in fault ; the specie circular had taken all the metallic currency to the interior, and prevented it from going to Europe to pay our foreign debt; and the banks could not pay specie until that debt was can- celed. Time passed on. The funds of the treasury were in the banks and could not be commanded, and an extra call of Congress became necessary to relieve the debtors of the gov- ernment and supply the treasury with funds. The banks were complained of for their excesses and improvidence ; and the fault was that of the government, for having placed in their hands such immense deposits, to be called for so sud- denly, and for having checked their excessive issue of paper by the specie circular. Congress was convened, and the present President transmitted his message, proposing to end these com- plaints by an entire severance of all business connection between the national treasury and the banking institutions. This, at once, changed the face of things, and showed the President and the administration hostile to the banks ; and now, although the foreign debt is paid, and foreign exchange down to par, the banks cannot resume payment for fear of the government. " He would ask, in all candor and in all sincerity, if any his- tory of facts could show more conclusively the impropriety of this connection between the finances of the country and the afiairs of individuals and banking incorporations; if there was a man who heard him, who did not see and feel the necessity of relieving the government of his country from these constant and contradictory complaints ? The proposed system will do that, and, in his judgment, that alone would be one of the greatest benefits which could be conferred upon the nation. " If such will be the influences, upon our finances and govern- ment, of the system proposed, what influences are to be expected from the State bank system ? Certainly, to place the money of the people beyond the control of the servants of the people, and Life and Times of Silas Wright. 077 within the control of the banks ; to disenable the government to pay its debts, except in a depreciated currency, whenever tb<; notes of the banks are depreciated; or to abandon its money, collected and accumulated in the banks to meet its debts, as a resource for that purpose, and to resort to its credit to raise the means by which legal payments can be made ; to render the country, at all times — under all circumstances and in every emci-- gency, even that of war not excepted, and after the money for the public use had been collected from the people — financially dependent upon banks, in the management of which it has no voice, and over which it has no control ; to subject the govern- ment to all the complaints which have been recapitulated, and volumes of others of a like character; in short, to subject the treasury of the nation to all the fluctuations to which an ordinary banking or commercial house is subject; to make it instrumental in promoting excesses in both, and then chargeable with all the evils which may befall either itself or the banking and mercantile interests. Should he spend the time of the Senate to prove that these were the necessary consequences of the system of State bank deposits? In the face ot recent and severe experience, both to the treasury and to the country, would proof of these positions be called for? That experience furnished the clearest and strongest proof, and those whom it had not convinced, it was in vain for him to attempt to convince by fact or argument. Such, to his mind, were the comparative influences of the two systems upon the government of the country and its finances. " Sixth. He would extend his comparison to a single other point, the influence of each system upon the general currency, and dismiss this part of the argument. " The system proposed was clear and certain in its action in this particular: It would secure a sound and standard currency for the national treasury, whether that currency should be gold and silver or bank paper, and it would exempt that treasury from the fluctuations of an unregulated and varying currency. So far, therefore, as the money operations of the government could influ- ence the currency generally, the influence exerted by this sys- tem must l)e salutary; as it must be to sustain a general currency equal to its own standard. If that currency should come, in 678 Life and Times of Silas Wright. time, to be gold and silver only, the system would exert another beneficial influence. It would not only present a standard of currency worthy of imitation, but, to the extent of the whole public disbursements, it would constantly circulate among the people a basis for the paper currency of the State banks, and thus aid them in keeping their representation of coin stable and firm, and equal in value to coin itself. Beyond these influences, it would leave the people and the States to regulate, in their own way, and without the interference of federal power, that portion of the general currency which, by the division of power under our system, falls within their juris- diction and is the constant subject of their action. It would then be clear to all, if that portion of the currency should sink below the standard of currency for the public treasury, that wrong existed somewhere in State legislation, or in the manage- ment of those intrusted by State legislation with the regulation of that currency; and the federal authorities would be free from imputation or suspicion, and would stand before the whole coun- try holding up the true standard of currency, and inviting from the State authorities a correction of the errors which should at any time disturb or depreciate that portion committed to their care. " How, in this respect, does the opposite system act ? The State banks are, to much the greatest, if not to the entire, extent, private institutions, controlled by private individuals and private interests, and owned in whole, or to the extent of a majority of the capital, by private citizens, as private property. Private gain, then, as a necessary and natural consequence of the very constitution of these banks, was their principle of government, and, as an equally necessary and natural consequence, they would keep that portion of the currency which they were authorized to furnish for the country at a sound standard value, when private interest and the prospect of private gain should so direct, and they would sufler it to depreciate by the same rule. Give them the national treasure, and permit them to subject it to the fluctu- ations of their interest, and can a stable currency be expected, either for the treasury or the people ? Who are the legitimate customers of the banks ? More particularly the merchants. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 079 Their business pervades not the whole of their own country only, but the whole civilized world. The laws of the States of the Union, therefore, are regulations much too limited for them; uml even the laws and regulations of any single government, as to either trade or currency, are but municipal in their character when applied to their operations. Still, they themselves have local habitations and the case may well and frequently occur; when it is vastly more important to them that they should be able to command specie to export, in liquidation of their foreign debts, than that our local banks at home should redeem their notes in specie. What, in such a condition of trade and of the mercantile interest, will always be likely to be the condition of our local banks ? Set aside the consideration that the merchants may be able to control those institutions from the stock they hold, and merely assume that they are the principal debtors to the banks, and are to continue to be their principal customers; let the argument rest here, and give the banks the possession and control of the national treasure, which interest would prevail ? Would the treasury of the country be sustained, and the pay- ments to the public creditors be made in specie or its equivalent, or would the views and wishes of the merchants be consulted, and the currency be made to bend to private and corporate interests ? Let the experience of the last year answer the inquiry. He would express his confirmed opinion that, under such a sys- tem, the currency of the public treasury must share all the reverses and fluctuations of foreign and domestic trade, and all the hazards of corporate banking, as a private interest. Hence the operations of the treasury itself must be suspended, or the law of Congress, as to currency, violated, whenever revulsions shall oppress the country and the customers of the banks, or the alternative be resorted to, as it recently has been by the national authorities, to convoke Congress, relieve the banks and the pub- lic debtors, and resort to the credit of the nation to sustain its treasury until the natural operations of healthful business shall again restore the equilibrium. " Such, in his mind, were the probable influences of the two systems upon the general currency of the country. " He would now proceed to answer a very few of the promi- 680 Life and Times of Silas Wright. nent objections made to the bill, and pass, as rapidly as possible, to his conclusion. The first of these objections which he would notice was that the system proposed by the bill was an attack upon the State banking institutions, calculated to destroy their credit and usefulness. This, if true, was a grave charge, and, therefore, required some consideration. An attack must be an infringement of some vested right, or a course of treatment so manifestly against the public good as to partake of wantonness and immorality, or a spirit of revenge. Was any right of these institutions proposed to be infringed upon ? Did their charters, granted by the States for fixed and specified purposes, include among those purposes the safe-keeping or profitable use of the monej^ of the whole country ? Was there a provision that they should be fiscal agents of the national treasury, or that their credit should be sustained by the money and credit of the people of the United States ? No. No such provision was ever heard of in the charter of any State bank. No right of the institu- tions was, then, infringed, by withholding from them both the keeping and use of the pul)Iic money. " Was any faith or confidence, due from this government to the States or to these institutions of their creation, violated by the proposed separation ? The States had chartered banks for par- ticular locations, with capitals such as the locations seemed to demand; but would any one pretend that, in granting these char- tei's, the State Legislatures had counted upon the money in the national treasury, or the credit of the federal government, to sustain and make useful the banking institutions to which they were giving life and power as banks of issue and discount ? Did any State Legislature ever, by word or deed, cause it to be under- stood, either by the people or the institutions, that banks of their creation were mere skeletons, powerless and helpless, and that the life and health-giving principle was to be breathed into them by an extension of the patronage of the federal government, in the shape of a profitable use of its money, and a command of its confidence and credit ? Never. Had the federal government, by any act or expression, authorized an expectation of this patronage and confidence, except upon conditions which had been violated by the banks, and had thus forced a separation between Life and Times of Silas Wright. 681 them and the treasure of the country ? He was aware of no such act or expression. The separation exists, and lias been forced upon the nation by the banks themselves, and the simple question is, shall we renew it ? In what sense can the decision of that question, however that decision may be made, be an attack u|)oii the banks? The idea was a mistaken one, and the objection, in any light in which it could be viewed, was unfounded and unjust. " He proposed, however, for the purpose of illustrating tiic truth of this conclusion and making it more clear, to call to the minds of Senators a single chapter in our financial history. During forty years of the existence of the government, under the federal Constitution, a national bank had been in existence, and, he spoke from recollection, but he believed the national bank had been, for the whole period, the exclusive depository of the public money and the exclusive fiscal agent of the treasury. He ■was sure it was so during the twenty years' existence of the last national bank, and he thought it was so under the old bank. Then the State banks were not depositories of the national treasure nor fiscal agents of the national treasury, and had it ever been asserted that this legislation was an attack upon these institutions, or that their credit and usefulness were thereby destroyed? But, again: during the existence of the last Bank of the United States the notes of the State banks were not dis- bursed to the public creditors at all, and were not receivable in payment of the public dues but at the pleasure of the national bank, and then, as every bank receives the notes of its neighbor institution, to take them out of circulation, and return them promptly, to be converted into specie or specie funds. Did these State institutions languish and die under this congressional legis- lation ? Did they not rather take root and flourish, and become sound and stable and useful ? Has not a large and powerful political party in this country ever contended that the checks and restraints, exercised by the national bank, during this period, over the State institutions, were salutary and proper? That it was a great balance-wheel, regulating and equalizing the movement of the whole complex machinery ? What is proposed by the bill but that, to the extent of its operations, the national treasury shall form the same check and restraint 682 LiFJn AND Times of Silas Wright. upon the local banking institutions ? That it shall keep the public money independent of them? That it shall either not receive their notes in payment of the public dues, or, receiving, shall frequently present them for conversion into specie or specie funds ? The only difference will be that the treasury will not enter into competition with the local banks in the business of banking; that it will leave that whole field to them, and merely content itself with a sound currency for its transactions. How, then, is it possible that those who saw such benign influences to the local institutions from the wholesome restraints of a national bank, should see such baneful effects to follow the same influ- ences when flowing from the public treasury ? — should see there an attack upon the institutions, a prostration of their credit and a total destruction of their usefulness ? " He was aware that the system proposed was new, and substan- tially untried, so far as the legislation and the practice of our government was concerned ; and it would be admitted by all, that, as a new measure, it had met the full share of d'enunciation, which almost all changes from established custom, almost all reforms, however valuable and useful, are destined to meet, when presented in the mere shape of propositions for the acceptance of the public. It was not his habit to speak disrespectfully here of the actions or the motives of any; and he certainly did not intend, in the remark he was about to make, to express any want of charity toward the course or opinions of any side of the House, or any individual in it. He yielded to all that credit for purity of purpose and sincerity of intention which he wished them to award to him; but he must say that he had never seen more active, zealous and persevering efforts to forestall public opinion, upon any measure of legislation, than had been used toward this, from the appearance of the message of the President, at the extra session, to the present hour. He had seen this with the more deep regret, because some of the most respectable, intelli- gent and influential of those who had been friends and supporters of the administration, and who, he trusted, were yet so, were among the most active in opposition to this measure. They so acted because they so felt and so thought ; and if they used efforts to prejudice the bill in the public mind, it was because Life and Times of Silas Wright. 683 they deprecated its passage as, in their judgments, injurious to the public interests. "He would entreat them, however, to pause and reflect. Experience had tested the imperfections of the State bank depo- sit system, of wliich they were advocates, while experience had done little to approve or condemn the system proposed by tlie bill. It had been in substantial operation since the suspension of specie payments by the banks, in May last. It was forced into operation by that suspension. It found the currency of the country deranged, the credit of the country depressed, and the business of the country prostrate and at a stand. He would not say that these were the consequences of the State bank deposit system. He had said upon that point all he intended to say; but it was matter of history that these disasters had come upon the country under the practical operation of that system. What had been the effect of the operation, for two-thirds of a year, of the system which it was supposed would destroy credit, depress property, discourage enterprise and exertion, and send the coun- try back to a state of barbarism ? Foreign exchanges had been, for some time, down to and below par in our commercial mar- kets ; thus affording conclusive evidence that our foreign debt had been reduced within ordinary limits ; domestic exchanges were rapidly approximating a healthful state, furnishing the same evidence that internal trade was gradually and steadily equalizing itself ; property retained a fair value, and found a steady market; credit and confidence were gaining strength; and the banks, as a general remark, were recovering from their late excesses, and preparing for a speedy resumption of specie payments. Such seemed to be the history of our business pros- pects at the present moment. He did not mention these things to ascribe them to the operations of the national treasury, or to the manner in which those operations had been conducted since the suspension of the banks, but to prove that the practical operation of a system for the management of our finances, such as is substantially provided for by the bill, had not had the effect to retard and defeat these great and beneficial business results, nor to repress the immense energies and to cripple the vast resources of our extended country. 684 LiFJS AND TUIES OF SiLAS WrIGHT. "Surely, then, so far as experience has afforded evidence, it offers no cause for discouragement to the friends of the measure; and inasmuch as opinions beyond that, whether favorable or unfa- vorable, are little more than conjecture, the opposers of the bill should not demand of us to surrender our favorable judgment, though thus slightly tested, in favor of a measure which repeated experiment, both in adversity and in prosperity, has proved to be delusive and dangerous. "The next objection he proposed to notice was, that the opera- tions of the bill would be to separate the government from the people, and to secure a sound currency for the public officers and a base currency for the country. "This, again, was a startling objection and required examina- tion. Its first assumption was, that the tendency of the measure under discussion would be to separate the government of the country from the people of the country — to elevate the former and depress the latter; and the second was, that the separation would be marked by a difference in the value of the currency to be provided for and secured to each. Had either of these assump- tions any foundation in fact, or even in fair apprehension ? " He had already attempted to show, and thought he had suc- ceeded in showing, that the financial system proposed by the bill was preferable to the State bank deposit system in the following respects, namely: In the safety it afforded to the public moneys; in the expenses and risks attending its administration; in its salutary influences upon the banking institutions themselves ; in the limitations of patronage added to the executive branch of the government; in the independence it secures to the govern- ment financially, and the exemption it confers from injurious imputations; and in its tendency, to the full extent of the opera- tions of the national treasury and of the exertion of all the con- stitutional power of this govei*nment, to produce and maintain a sound and stable currency for the whole country. If he had suc- ceeded in establishing these positions, would it, could it, be said that a system jjossessing such advantages was calculated to pro- duce separation and alienation between the people of the country and the government of their choice? He could not believe it. " But the objection assumed that this separation was to grow Life and Times of Silas Wright. 6S5 out of the different currencies produced, for the government and the people, by the necessary action of the system. Tliut tlie effect of the bill would be, and was intended to be, to produce and maintain a uniform and sound currency ibr the national treasury and for all who might have demands upon it, as well the officers of the government as others, was most freely admit- ted. Indeed, this was claimed as one of the princii)al merits of the system. But did it follow that, because the bill had this tendency, it would therefore tend to debase the general currency of the people? Certainly not. No such consequence followed. "On the contrary, it had been already shown that, so far as it should exert any influence upon the general currency, that influ- ence must be to raise that currency to a level with thai secured to the treasury. If, then, the people were to have a base cur- rency, they were to have it, not in consequence of the bill, l)ut in defiance of it; they were to receive it, not from the public ti-ea- sury, but from the State banks; not from the evils of the legisla- tion of Congress, but from the evils of State legislation. Did any one pretend that the bill could exert an influence to debase any portion of the currency upon which it had no direct action? He had not heard it so contended, and he felt sure that no such position would be assumed. If the currency upon which it did directly act and the standard of which it regulated were to be base, then it might be well apprehended that its indirect influ- ence would be to draw down the general currency to its level; but as the gist of the complaint is that the standard of currency it assumes for the government is higher than that of the general currency, so it follows, by a parity of reasoning, that its indirect influence must be to raise the general currency to its standard. " In all this he was constrained, most respectfully, to ask where was the ground of complaint, unless gentlemen were ready to take the position that a sound, uniform and standard currency could not be sustained in the countr3% and that, to avoid invidi- ous distinctions between the government and the people, the national Legislature, possessing the power to fix the standard of currency, should at once adopt a base standard, and thus conform the currency of the treasury to that which it might be the interest of the local banking institixtions to maintain. He did not believe 686 Life and Times of Silas Wl-ight. that any advocate for such a doctrine was to be found here; but if such a one should appear, he liad only first to deny the posi- tion wholly, and to assert that a sound currency could be sus- tained in this country, without an infringement u[)on the powers granted to Congress, by the Constitution, for the means of accom- plishing the object ; and second, if the position should be granted, to deny the inference, and contend that it was the constitutional duty of Congress to keej) the currency of the national treasury up to the standard of gold and silver, in any event. " The next, and only other, objection he proposed to notice was, that the tendency of the system provided for by the bill would be to withdraw from circulation and use, and to hoard in the several depositories, too great a portion of the gold and silver of the country. " He had but a brief answer to this objection. It never could be true at times when the revenue and expenditures of the govern- ment were properly adjusted. If they were equal, as they should be, the receipts of revenue would be taken in one hand, and the disbursements for expenses would be made with the other. Nothing could be hoarded but the amount which the widely extended operations of the treasury compelled it to keep hi transitu / and that was just as much, and no more, hoarded than the money of the merchant at a distant point, either during the time that notice of its collection was traveling to him in the mail, or his draft for it was passing back to the point where the money was on deposit. This amount would vary from three to five millions of dollars, including the amount constantly retained in tlie mints in the process of coinage; and he would repeat that, when the revenue and expenditures should bear a just proportion to each other, as they always should, no further or more danger- ous hoarding could take place under the bill. " But suppose that a time should again come when overtrading and speculation, in every branch of business, should commence the accumulation of another surplus revenue, such as had afflicted the country for the last few years, then, for himself, he should consider this tendency of the bill one of its most valuable fea- tures. Let overtrading go on, and speculation spread, and let the amounts paid for duties and lands be collected in gold and silver, Life and Times of Silas WKiaiir. ()S7 and hoarded in the public treasury and by its depositaries, except so much as is wanted to meet the fair expenditures of the govern- ment, and how far does any man believe these deranging ;iii(l injurious business excesses would proceed ? Not, Mr. President, to the prostration of business and credit, and the currency of tlic country. No, sir ; the banks, instead of promoting, would bi' compelled to arrest them, and to restore business to its legitimate and proper channel, before the country could receive a shock, or the people injury. " It was wrong for him, however, to spend the time of the Senate in the discussion of this objection, as it was expressly met by a provision in the bill. He referred to the twenty-first sec- tion, which made it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, whenever there should be on deposit to the credit of the treasurer a sum greater than four millions of dollars, to dissipate the money so hoarded by an investment in national or State stocks. This must relieve the apprehensions of all upon this point, as four millions was the greatest amount which could, at any one time, be permitted to remain in the possession and keeping of all the depositaries constituted by the bill. As, however, he had discussed the provisions of this section somewhat at length, in the course of his remarks upon the provisions of tlie bill gene- rally, he would oiuit any further remarks here. " He had now closed what he proposed to say, having particu- lar reference to the system of finance for the national treasury recommended by the committee, or as to the ostensible antagon- ist system of State bank deposits. "But there was a third alternative — a national bank — which he must not omit to notice, iu his extended discussion of this great subject. He was bound, however, after having so long trespassed upon the time of the Senate, to relieve the members from the apprehension that he was now to enter upon this inter- minable field of debate. No: nothing in this field presented to him matter for debate. He entertained the most firm convictions that the Constitution of the United States had conferred upon Congress no power to charter such an institution; but every argument upon that great question had been again and again presented to Congress and the nation in a manner much more 688 Life and Times of Silas Wright. forcible, and from sources much more commanding, than any- thing which could be advanced by him. It was, therefore, to him a question not for discussion but for action, and, unless his present views upon it should be radically changed, for negative action only. "He had heard, since he had been honored with a seat in this body, many ingenious arguments in favor of the power, but all had sought to derive it from necessity or expediency; and it was due to the authors of these arguments to say that, to his mind, no very nice distinction had been preserved between necessity and expediency. It had been said that a uniform currency was necessary for the country; that such a currency could not be produced or maintained without a national bank, and that, there- fore, Congress had the power to charter such an institution. That a uniform currency was expedient and highly desirable for our wide-spread country, no one could doubt; but that the coun- try could get on very comfortably without such a currency, had been proved by the actual experience of several periods in our history. That a sound and standard currency was necessary to the existence of commerce; that such a currency could not be established and sustained in our country but by congressional legislation, and that, therefore. Congress had the power to create, as well as to regulate, such a currency, has been contended here. No one will be disposed to question the position that a sound and standard currency is very desirable to a commercial country; but that commerce can be carried on, to a considerable extent, without money of any description, is a fact not to be questioned. These instances are mentioned, not to question the expedient and useful tendency of the arguments, so far as they go, to show that a uniform currency is highly important to every civilized country, and that a sound medium of exchange is of the first utility in commerce, but to question how far the argument of necessity, in either case, can be safely relied upon as the basis of a grant of constitutional power, and to show that, in either argument, there is no little difficulty in settling the dispute as to where expediency and utility end and necessity begins. For himself, he repudiated all such arguments, and all arguments, of every character, founded upon simple necessity, as establishing grants of power under the Life and 'Times of Silas Weight. 089 Constitution of the United States in favor of the Congress of the United States. "A single remark upon the question of chartering a national bank, as a mere matter of expediency, if all questions of consti- tutional power were out of the way, and he would dismiss this topic. The experience of his own time, the late proceedings of the late Bank of the United States, had satisfied his mind that the dangers to our political and civil institutions from such an organized money power vastly overbalance any anticipated bene- fits, and that, as a simple question of expediency, such an institu- tion ought not to be chartered by Congress. Neither the hour of the day, the patience of the Senate, nor his own strength, would permit him to enter upon a further discussion of this point at present; and his only purpose having been to pronounce the opinion he had pronounced, he would pass to his conclusion. " The three alternatives had been presented. The condition of the public treasury, of the currency, of the business of the coun- try and general public expectation, demanded action from Con- gress. The committee of which he was a member had presented to the Senate the bill upon the table, as the action which a majority of its members proposed. This bill was to be opposed from two sides of the House. The friends of the State bank deposit system, and the friends of a national bank, were alike, and together, to be met and overcome, or the bill could not pass. " In this condition of the question, and of the Senate, he con-, sidered it to be his indispensable duty to present, what he believed to be tlie real and true issue, fairly and fully to the Senate and the country. And what was that ? " In his judgment, it was the adoption of some system based upon the principles of the bill under discussion, or a national bank. He saw no prospect of success for any middle ground. What were the evidences of our senses upon this subject ? Look at the divisions in this body. The party friendly to a national bank had always repudiated the State bank deposit system as dangerous in its additions to executive power, as inefficient as to the currency, and as unsafe as to the public money. Was there any evidence that those members of that party here had changed their opinions as to that system? He knew of none; and were 44 690 Life and Times of ISilas Wrwbt. he to judge from the language of that portion of the public press which was supposed to reflect their opinions, or from what had but recently passed here in relation to the failure of a deposit bank in Boston, he should be compelled to say that no change in that quarter had taken place. But he would appeal to the gen- tlemen themselves, and ask if recent experience, as to that finan- cial system for the national treasury, had changed their feelings toward it — had endeared it to them as one they were now desirous to make their own ? Are they willing to surrender their favorite project of a national bank for this alternative ? Will they not tell us, in frankness and candoi-, that, with one or two solitary exceptions, perhaps every man of them is for a national bank, as, in their judgments, the only effectual remedy for the financial difficulties of the country ? " If such continues to be the feeling of the party which opposed the late administration, and equally opposes the jsresent, what is the condition, in this respect, of tliose who have hitherto supported both ? Is there not, numerically speaking, a very great degree of unanimity of sentiment with them, in favor of the bill, at least so far as a practical and hona fide separation from the banks is concerned ? He supposed that to be the fact, and he referred to this division of feeling here, upon this subject, with no pleasure. He knew and felt that those with whom he had long, intimately and pleasantly associated, personally and politi- cally, were to differ with him upon this measure. He regretted the difference as much as any one of them could. He entertained no unkindness of feeling toward them on account of this differ- ence of opinion upon a particular bill. He yielded to them all the sincerity of convictions of public duty which he claimed for himself; and he assured them, one and all, that no remark which he had made, or was about to jnake, had been or should be, on his part, intended to wound their feelings or censure their course. They, like himself, were responsible to their constituents and the country for their acts here, and he did not entertain a doubt that that accountability would be discharged by them according to their most firm convictions of right. Yet he must appeal to them to say if they did not believe the public opinion of the country was very justly reflected in the two House of Congress Life and Times of Silas Wriout. (j<)l upon the three alternative propositions he had discussed? If they had seen any evidence, from recent political results any- where, to authorize the belief that the State bank system of deposits, to which they still adhered, was gaining favor in iiiiy quarter? If they did not perceive that the two other systems were dividing the great mass of the public mind of the whole country ? If they did not feel, in the recent history and present condition of the State banks, that public confidence could not again be restored to that system of deposits by legislative enact- ments ? If they did not fear, in assuming the positions they were compelled to assume, that banks were necessary to the suc- cessful and proper administration of the finances of the federal government ; that it is within the power, and is, in some sort and to some extent, the duty of this government to regulate the whole currency of the country; that the regulation of exchanges, too, if not directly, was incidentally a matter for which the government should be held responsible, and that the custody and safe-keeping of the public treasure should be committed to banks, and not to the constituted authorities of the government; did they not fear, he would repeat, that, in assuming these positions, they were merely aiding and strengthening the friends of a national bank ? That they were furnishing what might be con- sidered as evidence, to those who could listen to such an argu- ment, to prove that a national bank was necessary under our system ? He did not put these inquiries from anything which had been advanced here, but they were suggested from the course of argument which he saw constantly used in the public press and elsewhere, to sustain the ground which these friends had assumed, and he must say that it seemed to him like yield- ing the whole field to the advocates of a national bank ; that it was making such an institution, and some system founded upon the principles of the bill under discussion, the real alternatives before the country, and bringing the contest, if not here, else- where, to that issue. " He was sorry to have detained the Senate so long, and, as the best atonement he could make, he would resume his seat and trouble them no farther." 692 Life and Times of Silas Wright. The bill finally passed the Senate on the 26tli of March, 1838 — yeas 27, nays 25 — and was sent to the House, where it was, on the next day, laid on the table by a vote of ayes 106, nays 98. No further proceedings appear to have been taken on this subject during the twenty-fifth Congress. The matter was revived in the twenty-sixth Congress, and a similar bill passed both Houses and became a law on the 4tli of July, 1840. A bill had been reported, of a similar character, in the House by Mr. Cambrelling, which was rejected in the House on the 25tli of June, 1838, by a vote of 111 to 125. A motion to reconsider was rejected — ayes 21, nays 205. Me. Wright to Lucius Moody. " Senate Chamber, ) " Washington, I'lth February, 1838. \ " My Dear Brother. — Your favor came to us some days since. I will be frank and tell you that my first effort was to persuade Clarissa to give you an answer and save me the time and labor, as I have on hand here constantly more than I can possibly attend to well. Yet my persuasion failed, and I was thinking about attempting to use authority and compulsion when along came a note of invitation to us to dine with the President on Saturday. We accepted, of course, and all answer to your letter was swallowed up in preparation for the dinner. It came. We attended. Mrs. Wright was led to the table by the President himself, seated at his right hand, by a caution very proper to the occasion, did not get under the table, and went through the whole ceremony in fine style. We got home at ten o'clock. I did not get locked out again, because I did not leave the bed- room for a time long enough to permit of turning the key. Not that I would insinuate that a disposition existed in any quarter to lock me out, but that having once had my fears excited in that direction I was a little sceary upon that point. "However, the night passed well, and the morning found Cla- rissa in fine health and in as fine spirits; but I observed in the course of the day that she was rather particulai'. The rocking Life and Times of Silas Wiuaur. f}!):] chair or my full-stuffed and cushioned '^hair were tlie only seats which seemed to be convenient, and dresses and dinners and agreeable parties and such like subjects seemed to be matters of greater moment than on any day before. "From this you will see that we are well and getting belter, although there were forty-five candles lighted upon <>ur dinner table, and the olives were served at the usual time an5 " 'Sec. 5. And he it further enacted, Thai no lands sliall he sold Iiy virtue of this act, at either public or private sale, for less tiian two dolhirs per acre, and payment may be made for the same, by all pnrcdiasers, either in si)ecie, or in evidences of the public debt of the United States, at the rates pre- scribed by the act entitled "An act to authorize the receipt of evidences of the public debt in payment for the lands of the United States." ' "Here is a new enumeration of the currency or iiicditim in which payments were to be made for tlie public lands, and which does not include the bills or notes of banks of any description. It is confined to 'specie'' or 'evidences of the public debt of the United States.'' If, therefore, any other medium of payment was received while this continued to be the law of tlie case, it must have been so received, as the committee suppose, upon the respon- sibility, and at the risk, of the officer receiving the payment, and not because it Avas sanctioned by the law. "On the 18th of April, 1806, an act was passed entitled 'An act to repeal so much of any act or acts as authorize the receipt of evidences of the public debt in payment for lands of the United States, and for other purposes relative to the public debt.' The first clause of the first section of this act is in the words following : " ' Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Bepresentatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, Tliat so much of any act or acts as authorize the receipt of evidences of the public debt, in payment for the lauds of the United States, shall, from and after the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and six, be repealed.' " This section proceeds with two provisos, saving the rights of persons who had purchased lauds, with the right to make the payments therefor in evidences of the public debt, prior to the passage of the act, and holding out inducements to those indebted for lands to make the payments in advance, and in money, but in no way affecting the repeal above quoted. After the 30th day of April, 1806, therefore, with the exception as to purchases which had been previously made, evidences of the public debt of the United States were not a medium in which payments for public lands could be made, but the law of 1800, above referred to, Avith this modification, continued to be the law regulating these payments. If, then, the committee have been correct in their construction of that law, and its influence upon the cur- 726 Life and Times of Silas Wright. rency or medium of payment for the public lands, this modifica- tion reduced that currency or medium to ' specie ' only. " No further change is found to have been made in the laws, in this respect, until the year 1812. On the thirtieth day of June, of that year, a law was passed, entitled 'An act to authorize the issuing of treasury notes.' The first clause of the sixth section of that act is in the following words : " ' Sec. 6. Andbe itfurtlier enacted. That the said treasury notes, wherever made payable, shall be everywhere received in payment of all duties and taxes laid by the authority of the United States, and of all public lands sold by the said authority.' " This law added a new medium of payment for the public lands, to wit, treasury notes, issued by the government itself, and for the payment of which, with the interest thereupon, its faith was solemnly pledged. From this time, therefore, the public lands might be paid for in either '■specie'' or '• treasury notes^ and it was at the option of the purchaser, by the law, to make his payments in the one or the other medium, as his interest, or convenience, or pleasure, should dictate. "On the 25th day of February, 1813, another law was passed ' to authorize the issuing of treasury notes for the service of the year one thousand eight hundred and thirteen,' and, on the 4th day of March, 1814, another similar law was passed 'to authorize the issuing of treasury notes for the sei'vice of the year one thou- sand eight hundred and fourteen,' both of which last mentioned laws contained a provision precisely similar, in substance and in terms, to that above quoted from the law of 1812. "On the 31st day of March, 1814, an act was passed, entitled ' An act providing for the indemnification of certain claimants of public lands in the Mississippi territory.' By this act the Presi- dent of the United States was directed to cause to be issued, from the treasury, certificates of stock to certain claimants to lands under ' the Upper Mississippi Company,' under ' the Ten- nessee Company,' under ' the Georgia Mississippi Company,' under ' the Georgia Company,' and under ' Citizens' right,' so called, for amounts and upon conditions prescribed in the act ; and the fourth section of the act is in the following words: " ' Sec 4. And he it further enacted, That the said certificates of stock Life and Tuies of Silas Wriqiit. 727 shall be receivable in payment of the public lauds, to be sold after the date of such certificates, in the Mississippi territory: Provided, That on every hundred dollars to be paid for such lands, ninety-five dollars shall be receiv- able in such certificates, and five dollars in cash: Provided, That no person or persons, making payment for lands in certificates authorized to be issued by this act, shall be entitled to the discount for prompt payment now allowed by law to purchasers of public lands.' "Here was a new medium of payment for public lands in tlie Mississippi territory, which authorized purchasers of lands from the United States, there subject to the limitations of the act, to make payment either in 'specie' or in 'treasury notes,' or in these 'certificates of stock,' subsequently more familiarly known as 'Mississippi land scrip.' In relation to all the public lands other than those in the Mississippi territory, as it then existed, the currency or medium in which payments were to be made was left unchanged, and continued to be regulated by the laws before referred to, and to be ' specie ' or ' treasury notes.' "By an act, passed on the 26th day of December, 1814, enti- tled ' An act supplemental to the acts authorizing a loan for the several sums of twenty-five millions of dollars and three millions of dollars,' a further emission of treasury notes was authorized to the amount of ten and a half millions of dollars, and the fol- lowing is a copy of the first clause of the third section of the act : " ' Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the treasury notes to be issued by virtue of this act shall be prepared, signed and issued in the like form and manner; shall be reimbursable at the same places and in the like periods; shall bear the same rate of interest ; shall, in the like manner, be transfer- able ; and shall be equally receivable, in payments to the United States, for taxes, duties, and sales of the public lands, as the treasury notes issued by virtue of the act of Congress, entitled "An act to authorize the issuing of treasury notes for the service of the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen," passed on the fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid.' " On the 24th day of February, 1815, a further act was passed entitled 'An act to authorize the issuing of treasury notes for the service of the year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen,' the first clause of the sixth section of which is in the words following : " ' Sec. 6. And he it further enacted, That the treasury notes, authorized to be issued by this act, shall be everywhere receivable in all payments to the United States.' 728 Life and Times of Silas WiUght. " Neither of the two last mentioned acts made any change in the character of the currency or medium of payment, authorized by law to be received for the public lands, at the time of their passage, but merely added to the quantity of that medium which rested upon the faith and credit of the government. Still, there- fore, ' specie ' and ' treasury notes ' were receivable for all lands, wherever situated, and ' specie,' ' treasury notes ' and ' Mississippi land scrip' for that portion of the public lands situate within the Mississippi territory. "This brings the examination, in point of time, up to the charter of the second Bank of the United States, in 1816; and it may be proper here to remark that, in case the committee have been mistaken as to the force, effect and true construction of the act of the 10th of May, 1800, and that act did not exclude the bills and notes of the old Bank of the United Stat^es from being a legal medium for the payment for lands, still, inasmuch as the charter of that bank expired on the 3d day of March, 1811, by its own limitation, and as the tenth section of the charter, which made its bills and notes receivable for any description of public dues, was repealed on the 19th day of March, 1812, by an act of Congress passed for that sole purpose, it will be seen that this difference of construction of the act of 1800, if admitted, will only affect the currency or medium, in which the public lands might be paid for, up to the 3d of March, 1811, or, at most, up to the 19th of March, 1812, when that bank had ceased to exist as a bank, and its bills and notes to be receivable by law for any portion of the public dues. At the period of time of which the committee now speak, therefore, the currency or media, made receivable by law in payment for the public lands, was as last above enumerated. " The act to charter the late Bank of the United States was passed on the 10th day of April, 1816, and the fourteenth section of that charter made the bills and notes of the bank, payable on demand, receivable in all payments to the United States, ' unless otherioise directed hy act of Congress? This added to the cur- rency receivable by law in payment for the public lands a new medium, to wit, the bills or notes, payable on demand, of the late Bank of the United States. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 7^9 "The joint resolution of 181G followed but twenty days boliin.l the bank charter, it having been passed, and met the approval ..f the President on the aotli day of April, 1816. That resohitiun required and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to aibipt such measures as he should deem necessary to cause, as soon as might be, all duties, taxes, debts or sums of monev, bc'c-oniini,^ due to the United States, to be collected and paid ' in the Ic-mI 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 resolution went on to declare that, after the 20th day of February, 1817, no duties, taxes, debts or sums of money, payable to the United States, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the currency or media of joayment befoi-e enumerated. Here was unquestionably given a permission to receive in payment of any portion of the public dues, and consequently in payment for the public lands, as well as other dues, the notes of specie-paying State banks, and it is the first j!?ermm«o;i of that character which has met the notice of the committee in any of the acts of Con- gress. They are aware that some consider this resolution as man- datory, rendering the reception of these notes obligatory upon the head of the Treasury department, but they do not so consider it. It is not their purpose, however, to discuss this question here, as that discussion pertains, more appropriately, to the second branch of the resolution referred to them. Under either con- struction, the resolution of 1816 made it lawful to receive a new medium of payment for the public lands in ' the notes of banks payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of the United States.' " From this time, therefore, the officers of the government were compelled to receive, in payment for all public lands, 'specie,' treasury notes, ' the bills or notes of the Bank of the United States, payable on demand;' and were also permitted to receive the notes of other banks ' which were payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of the United States;' and, in addition to these media of payments, they were compelled to receive ' -Mis- sissippi land scrip ' for lands sold in the Mississippi territory. 730 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " Thus remained the law upon this subject until the passage of the act of the 24th of April, 1820, entitled 'An act making fur- ther provision for the sale of the public lands.' This law abol- ished credits upon sales of public lands, from and after the 1st day of July, 1820, and declared that ''every purchaser of land sold at public sale thereafter sftall, on the day of purchase, maJce complete payment therefor • and the purchaser at private sale shall produce to the register of the land office a receipt from the Treasurer of the United States, or from the receiver of public moneys of the district, for the amount of the purchase-money on any tract, before he shall enter the sanne at the laiid office? " The fourth section of the act makes provision for the sale of such lands as had been sold under former laws, and had reverted, or should thereafter revert, to the United States in consequence of the non-payment of the purchase-money, and also of lots and tracts theretofore reserved from sale, and contains a proviso in the following words : " ' Provided^ That no such lands shall be sold, at any public sales hereby authorized, for a less price than one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, nor on any other terms than that of cash jiayment ; and all the lands offered at such public sales, and which shall remain unsold at the close thereof, shall be subject to entry at private sale, in the same manner and at the same price with the other lands sold at private sale at the respective land offices.' " Although the terms of this law, and esjaecially those employed in the proviso above quoted, ' nor on any other terms than that of cash payment^ would seem to favor the idea that it was the intention of Congress, from and after the day fixed in the law, to part with the public domain for ' cash,' for money only, in the strict and proper sense of the word ; and although the policy of the law, in the abolition of all credits and the great reduction of the price of the lands, from two dollars to one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, would seem to have the same bearing; and although the committee infer, fi-om the lapse of time and the returns of sales, that the treasury notes and Mississippi land scrip had ceased, in a great degree, if not altogether, to be pre- sented in payment for lands ; yet, as they learn that no change as to the currency or medium of payment was introduced into practice in consequence of the passage of this act, they are con- Life and Times of Silas Winairr. 7:Ji tent to assume, for the purpose of the argument, Llial no chiui^r,. in this respect was intended by it, wliilc it certainly will nut be contended that it is susceptible of any construction which can add to the media of payment authorized by former acts of Con- gress, or make the receipt of any such medium compulsory, which before its passage was merely permissive. "The committee find no other law affecting the currency or medium of payment, to be received for the public lands, until the passage of the act of the 30th day of May, 1830, entitled ' An act for the relief of certain officers and soldiers of the Vir- ginia line and navy, and of the continental army during the Revolutionary war.' The first section of this act makes it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury and Commissioner of the General Land Office to issue certificates or scrip to certain officers, soldiers, sailors and marines, who were in the service of Virginia, on her State establishment, during the Revolutionary war, and who, by the laws and resolutions of the State, were entitled to military land bounties, upon the terms and conditions pointed out in the act. The first clause of the fourth section of the act is in the following words: " ' Sec. 4. And be it furtJier enacted^ That the certificates or scrip, to be issued by virtue of this act, shall be receivable in payment for any lands hereafter to be purchased at private sale, after the same shall have been offered at public sale, and shall remain unsold at any of the land offices of the United States, established or to be established in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.' " The sixth section of this act is in the words following : " ' Sec 6. And he it further enacted, That the provisions of the first and fourth sections of this act shall extend to and embrace owners of military land warrants issued by the United States in satisfaction of claims for bounty land for services during the Revolutionary war ; and that the laws heretofore enacted, providing for the issuing said warrants, are hereby revived and continued in force for two years.' "The first clause of the seventh section is as follows: " ' Sec 7. And he it furtJier enacted, That the provisions of this act shall also be deemed and taken to extend to all the unsatisfied warrants of the Virginia army on continental establishment.' " These provisions added another medium of payment for the 732 Life akd Times of Silas Wright. public lands in what has been commonly denominated ' the Vir- ginia land scrip,' subject to the limitations expressed. "On the 3d day of March, 1836, the charter of the last Bank of the United States expired by its own limitation, and the insti- tution, for banking purposes, ceased to exist on that day; and, by a law of Congress passed on the 15th day of June, 1836, the fourteenth section of the charter, making its bills and notes receivable in payment of the public dues, was repealed. " This is believed to have been the exact state of the law in reference to the currency or media of payment receivable for the public lands at the time when the treasury circular of the 11th of July, 1836, was issued. "Prior to this date, the committee suppose the law of the 31st of March, 1814, making the Mississippi land scrip receivable in payment for i^i^ihlic lands in the MississijDpi territory, had become obsolete by the entire receipt and canceling of the stock issued; and it is a matter of public notoriety that the treasury notes authorized to be issued by the several laws before referred to, of 1812, 1813, 1814 and 1815, had been, long before, so far wholly redeemed and canceled as to render those laws, for every purpose of this inquiry, also obsolete. The currency or media of payment receivable for the public lands, therefore, at the date of this order, had become reduced by the repeal of laws, the expiration of laws and the extinguishment of public liabilities, to ' specie ' and ' Vir- ginia land scrip,' the receipt of which was compulsory, and ' notes of banks which were payable, and paid on demand, in the legal currency of the United States,' the receipt of which was merely permissive. The circular acted upon the bank-notes merely, and was in effect a direction to the receivers of public moneys for lands not to use the permission granted by the joint resolution of 1816, as to bank-notes, so far as the payments for lands were concerned. This suspended the receipt of the notes in this branch of the revenue and left the payments for lands to be made in specie and Virginia land scrip. " The reasons which prevailed upon the mind of the then Presi- dent of the United States to direct the circular to be issued are given in the paper itself. It recites, in substance, that com- plaints had been made of extensive frauds practiced in the sales Life and Times of Silas Wright. 7:^3 of the public lands; of vast speculations in those hauls uikU'i- tlir system of sale and payment then in use; of alarming a( tempts lo monopolize large tracts of the lands in the hands of iudiviiliial and associated proprietors; of the aid given to effect all these objects by excessive bank credits, by dangerous if not partial facilities through bank drafts and bank deposits; of the general evil influence likely to result to the public interests by these pro- ceedings; of the danger to the public treasury from this rapid accumulation of bank ci-edits, in lieu of money, in its favor, as well as the danger to the currency of the country generally from the unprecedented expansion of credits and the further exciiange of the public domain for credits in bank or bank paper. Then follows the mandatory part of the circular, in these words: '"The President of the United States has given directions, and you are hereby instructed, after the fifteenth day of A.ugust next, to receive in pay- ment of the public lands notliing except what is directed by tlic existing laws, viz., gold and silver, and, in the proper cases, Virginia land scrip; Provided, That, till tlie fifteenth of December next, tlie .same indulgences heretofore extended as to the kind of money received may be continued, foi any quantity of land not exceeding 320 acres, to eacli purchaser wlio is an actual settler or a bona fide resident in the State where the sales are made.' " That the complaints recited in the circular were made, the committee certainly need not labor to prove to any who were mem- bers of either House of Congress from 1834 to 1830, inclusive; to any who listened to the debates aiul proceedings of either House during that period; to any who read the i)ublished pro- ceedings of Congress, or listened to the voice of a large portion of the public press of the country, for the time alluded to. No one of these classes of persons can have forgotten the numerous and constantly repeated charges of favoritism, partiality, collusion and fraud said to be practiced by the officers charged with the sale of the public lands, and with the collection of the revenue therefrom. No one of these classes of persons can have forgotten the charges of sinister accommodations, of favoritism, of partial- ity and of corruption, made against the State banks generally, and especially against those which had been selected as deposit banks and had accepted the trust. Every forum was filled with these charges and complaints, and every vehicle which trans- 734 Life and Times of Silas Wright. poi'ted the public mail groaned under their weight, as they were diffused throughout the land. '' That speculations were going on in the public lands, immense in extent and in the capital and credit involved, became more fully demonstrable by every return from the receivers at the land offices. The proceeds of the sales arose, in consecutive years, from four millions of dollars — which was more than the previous average amount per annum — to fourteen millions, and from fourteen millions to twenty-four millions in a single year. That monopolies in the hands of private holders, highly injurious to the settlement and prosperity of the new States, must grow out of sales thus accelerated, was a necessary and unavoidable conse- quence. The number of acres sold in a year proved conclusively that vast quantities were purchased for a market, and for specu- lation — not for settlement and cultivation ; while the passion to purchase seemed to increase with the increase of sales, until there was reason to apprehend that the means of payment were traveling in a circle from the banks to the land offices, and from the land offices to the banks, without adding other or further security for the lands sold than the increased indebtedness of the banks to the treasury, and the increased indebtedness of the purchasers to the banks. " While these appearances and causes of uneasiness were exhibiting themselves to those charged with the management of this branch of the public service, forebodings of evil were not spared by those w^hose confidence in these public servants was not without limit. They were warned against a sacrifice of our rich public domain; against a monopoly of that vast estate by those said to be favored by their position, favored by power and favored by the banks ; against an exchange of that splendid inheritance, the price of the blood of the patriots of the Revolu- tion, for bank credits, bank paper, ' hank rags.'* They were charged to look to the public treasury, and see that its numerous and rapidly increasing millions upon paper were realized to the people in a sound, and not a depreciated, currency. They were told of the dangers and evils of these sudden and vast accumula- tions in the banks; and speedy and fatal derangements of the currency generally were predicted, with a confidence which could Life and Times of Si has We k hit. 7:5-, not have been exceeded in prophets possessing ploimiy powers to bring about the fulfillment of their own predictions. "Such, briefly, was the history of the times up to and tlnough the session of Congress of 1835-3G; and much of the lime ..f ilmt, session was consumed, in both Houses, in considering proposit ions in relation to the revenue, the deposit and (^afe-keepiog of the public moneys, the diminution of the surplus of revenue so rapidly collecting in the banks, and other kindred measures; but the session of Congress closed and nothing was done. Still, the evil complained of and apprehended was extending itself, and accumulating strength from its own advances. "Under these circumstances the circular was issued; and as the seat of the disease was assumed by all to rest in the dano-er- ous expansions by the banks, and the incautious facility with which they extended accommodations to the purchasers of the public domain, the check was made to operate upon their issues of paper, and to bring to the test of real capital this branch of the public revenues. It should not be overlooked that the circu- lar was not to take effect until more than thirty days after it was issued, and that even then an exception to its operation was made, in favor of actual settlers, for a term of four months, and until after Congress would be again in session. It is but just to give here the conclusion of this letter in its own words, that the objects designed to be reached and effected by it may not be mistaken. Its last paragraph is as follows: " ' The princiijal objects of the President in adopting this measure being to repress alleged frauds, and to withhold any countenance or facilities in the power of the government from the monopoly of the public lands in the hands of speculators and capitalists, to the injury of the actual settlers in the new States and of emigrants in search of new homes, as well as to discourage the ruinous extension of banli issues and bank credits by whicli these results are generally supposed to be promoted, your utmost vigilance is required and relied on to carry this order into complete execution.' " Such was the order, and such were the objects intended to be accomplished by it. That its action upon the banks, and espe- cially in the land States, was, in some degree, harsh and severe, is unquestionably true. The condition of the institutions and the extension of their business, which called it forth, rendered this consequence certain and unavoidable. But, before this effect 736 Life and Times of Silas Wkwht. of the circular should be made the ground for its condemnation, it should be considered how pressing was the necessity which called for some protection against a hasty transfer of the whole public domain for an equivalent, rendered uncertain, at best, from its vast amount and rapid accumulation; how urgent was the call for some measure which should either check the strong current of receipts rushing into the treasury, or give increased security and safety to the millions thus amassing beyond the wants of the government; which should stay the expansions of the banks, or guard the public domain and public treasure against the ruinous consequences certain to follow from the revulsion which these expansions could not fail to draw after them ; how imminent was the danger to the currency of the whole country if these millions of the public money were suffered to multiply in the banks, and thus give strength and force and extent to the evil which all saw, all felt, and against which all demanded protection. " That these dangers surround us now, unfortunately requires no proof. The history of the country and of our banking insti- tutions, as well as of our public treasury, since the date of this circular, abundantly proves their existence and their extent. That the banks had extended their circulation and their credits beyond the point of prudence and of safety none Avill now ques- tion; that the public treasure in their keeping had become, and was becoming, unsafe from these excesses and indiscretions experience has now demonstrated; and that every public interest required and demanded a check upon the excesses of banking, the excesses of trade and the excesses of speculation is now beyond dispute. "It has been objected to the treasury circular, as the appro- priate remedy for the evil complained of, that it adopted a rule of discrimination, between the currency or medium of payment receivable for the public lands and for the revenue from customs, new, unknown to our laws and regulations for the collection of the revenue, and indefensible upon principle. " It has been already seen that discriminations of this charac- ter are not new to our laws. As early as the year 1797 the evi- dences of the public debt, which were transferable certificates of Life and Tjmes of Silas Wukiiit. 7:1 / •>/ indebtedness, were made by law receivable in payment lor tlic public lands, but were not receivable in payment for duties or^ any other public dues. In 18 U the Mississippi laiid scrip was made by law receivable in payment for the public lands in a spe- cified territory, and not for the public lands generally, or in any other branch of the revenue, or for any other dues to the govern- ment. In 1823 the gold coins of Great Britain, Portugal, France and Spain were made receivable, at specified values, in payments for lands, while those coins were not, by any law of Con<--ress in force at that time, receivable in any other branch of the revenue or made a tender in the payment of any other debts. And as late as 1830 the Virginia land scrip was made receivable for lands in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and in no other States and for no other payments to the United States; and the same scrip is yet a medium of payment for public lands, its appli- cation having been extended and made general by an act of 1835. Discriminations of this character, therefore, have lono- been known to the law and the practice of our public collections, and the circular introduced no new principle in this respect into our system. " Is there, then, any ground upon which the circular can be justified as having been made applicable to the receipts for lands and not for customs? The committee think some suggestions may be made which will go far to justify this aj)plication of the order, and they will proceed to state them. "In the first place, an excessive currency of any character has a necessary tendency to sink the value of that currency, when compared with the value of marketable property for which it is exchanged. Plence the invariable nominal rise in the market of property of all descriptions which is open to a free market, when that which is used as money is abundant and cheap; and one of the strongest evidences that our paper currency was excessive during the years 1835 and 1836, is found in the fact that prices constantly advanced, although the supplies in almost every department of trade and production were unusually abundant, and no extraordinary demand was known to exist. The duties which constitute our revenue from customs are almost all a rate per centum imposed upon the value of the article. If, 47 738 Life and Times of Silas Wright. then, the quantity of dutiable goods imported be the same, and the value be nominally increased in consequence of an excessive currency, the value of the duties will be nominally increased in the same ratio, and therefore the collection of the duties in the cheapened currency will keep the real value of the revenue from the importations at a given standard. Not so with our public lands. They have not been, and are not in this sense, open to a free market. Their value per acre is fixed by law; and however much the currency in which they were purchased may have been cheapened by abundance, they could not rise with other property to a price which would restore the equilibrium. They were bound down by a statute value ; and when the cur- rency to be received in payment for them was designated, the same nominal value of that currency, however much it might be cheapened by excess, would purchase the same quantity of the lands. "If this suggestion required illustration, the history of the years 1835 and 1836 would afford the most ample. Speculations were excessive in almost every branch of trade and every descrip tion of property; but most so, and of the longest continuance, in the public lands. Why was this so ? Clearly because, as our paper currency became more abundant, it became more cheap; and while every other description of property advanced in price, in a ratio nearly equal to the depression in value of the currency which paid for it, the market value of the public lands remained the same, and the same amount of the cheapened currency would purchase the same quantity of the lands. Hence they soon became the cheapest commodity in the market, and therefore continued to attract the attention of purchasers for the longest time, and to the latest period of the business excesses. " This consideration would seem to the committee to ofier a reason for the discriminating application of the circular at the time it was issued. When Congress fixed the value of the public domain at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the intention, no doubt, was that the treasui-y should receive that sum in coin, or its equivalent. If, then, the paper currency had become so far cheapened, in consequence of its excess, that one dollar and twenty-five cents in it was worth less than the same sum in coin, Life and Times of /Silas Wriuut. ■v.) that difference was most palpably a net gain to the purchasers of the lands, and an entire loss to the Avholo people of the coimtrv, to whom the public domain belongs. That the cominilLeo an; not mistaken in supposing that the paper currency was chcapeticd below the value of coin, is proved from the almost instant opera- tion of the order itself, when one hundred and ten dollars of tiie paper were paid for a hundred dollars of the coin, to be expended in the purchase of the same lands, at the same price. "In the second place, a check upon the excessive issues of paper and the dangerous extensions of credit was one of the great objects to be attained. The two great sources of revenue were the public lands and the foreign importations. For the for- mer the paper, while it continued to be the currency of the trea- sury for their purchase, was the exclusive standard of value. It made the whole jjurchase. It was an accepted medium for the entire payment, and when the trade became excessive a check upon the paper was a check upon the whole capital embarked. Not so with the foreign importations. The paper was the medium of payment for the duties simply. The goods upon which the duties were assessed were, and must be, pur- chased abroad, where our bank paper could not circulate and did not constitute a medium of payment, and where coin and the equivalent of coin would alone pay the debts of the American merchant. If, then, it be considered that but about one-half of the amount of our foreign importations is chargeable with duties at all, and that the duties upon the remaining half do not proba- bly, at the present time, exceed an average of thirty per centum, it will be seen how feeble, in the comparison, would have been the check imposed by the order upon this branch of the revenue. In the case of the lands it reached the whole capital, and, as has been seen, imposed upon it a check equal to some ten per centum, while in the case of the importations it could have reached but the mere incident of the duties, being only some fifteen per cen- tum upon the whole capital, and, at the same rate of calculation, affording a check only equal to about one and a half per centum. "Again, excessive issues of paper by our banks would act directly and to the whole extent upon the trade in the public lands, so long as the paper continued to be received in payment 740 Life and Times of Silas Weight. for them, because it would meet the whole cost and constitute an acceptable medium for the whole jDayment; while the same excessive issues of the same paper would act but indirectly and incidentally upon our foreign trade. It might, to some extent and for a limited period, cheapen our products to be sent abroad and exchanged for foreign merchandise and in this way stimu- late the foreign trade. It might, while the paper remained nominally equivalent to gold and silver and convertible into them, by cheapening the precious metals, lead to their profitable exportation and thus tend to make foreign trade excessive. And it would, while the countries with which the business was carried on remained at a healthful standard, add a direct stimulus as to that part of the capital required to pay the home duties. Still, it will be seen that the impetus given to foreign trade by exces- sive banking at home is indirect, incidental and partial; while that given to domestic speculations, such as that which has recently taken place in the public lands, is direct, positive and universal. These considerations, in the minds of the committee, should go far to justify the discriminating application of the order. "In the third place, so large a portion of the operations of foreign trade is brought to the direct test of real capital, to the touchstone of a currency of intrinsic value, that excesses in that trade will soon check themselves. Not so with domestic trade based upon an excess of paper currency, while that paper con- tinues to be an acceptable medium of payment in all its opera- tions. So long as that state of things can be preserved the domestic excesses may be continued and extended at pleasure. Here, again, our recent experience furnishes us proof of the cor- rectness of our positions. The excesses may be said to have commenced in both branches of our trade at about the same time. The domestic branch received the earliest check in the order under consideration, and yet that portion of it confined to the public lands had increased sixfold in two years, thus show- ing the direct and powerful impetus communicated to it, and the unlimited power of expansion it possessed, until checked by extraneous application, by the test of real capital, not introduced by its own movements but forced upon it by an independent power. Notwithstanding this application to our domestic trade, Life and Timks of Silas Wruiiit. 71| howevei" sudden and harsh as it is supposed to liave been, mont lis passed away before the self-correcting principle of the foreign trade produced any sensible check in that br;inc]i. Yet, altliougli its amount had not been doubled during tlie whole period of excess, when this correcting [)rinciiile diil maiiifost its power a business paralysis was felt throughout tlie whole (•(nmtry. All business was suddenly arrested, and the banks themselves were compelled to suspend specie payments, without the al)ility to give a hope of resumption until a healthful equilibrium could he restored to this trade. Such, then, is the check which the foreign trade contains within itself, while the domestic, if once diivcii to excess, must look abroad for the corrective; and hence the greater propriety of applying the order in question to the one than to the other. "To such as entertain the opinion that the pecuniary allairs of the country were healthful and well at the time this order was issued, that nothing required to be done, no check to be imposed, arguments in justification of the order Avould be addressed in vain. But such as admit that something was required, some protection to the public treasure and the public domain demanded, shoidd ask themselves what other or better measure was in the power of the executive, before they condemn this as too sudden, too harsh or too strong. They should remember that, although the land sales were materially checked and the revenue from that source beneficially diminished by the operation of the order, business was not convulsed, trade was not prostrated, and the banks were not closed until the commercial revulsion following from the excesses of our foreign trade interposed itself. That the operation of the order may have hastened, in some small degree, the commercial revulsion is barely possible; that it was the cause of that revulsion is not possible. The supposition is contradicted by the facts of history, applicable as well to other countries as our own, by the dates of events and by the neces- sary connection between cause and effect, " To the complaint that the order was made invidious by its par- tial application to a single branch of the public revenue, it would seem to the committee to be a satisfactory answer to say that it was made applicable to that branch of the revenue upon which 742 Life and Times of Silas Wright. it would act most efficiently as a check to the prevailing excesses; upon that branch of the revenue from which the heaviest surplus was accumulating in the treasury; upon that branch of the reve- nue which was most insecure, as time has since shown ; upon that branch of the revenue which, from the nature and character of the pi'operty out of which it arose, as well as from the medium in which it was entirely paid, most needed protection, by an efficient check upon the excesses of credit ; and that, if its action was necessarily severe, that action was materially mitigated by confining it to that branch of the revenue least diffused, in its exactions upon the tax-payers of the whole Union. " So much for the treasury circular of the 11th of July, 1836, for the peculiar circumstances which called it forth, for the reasons and views which dictated it, for the grounds upon which its partial and particular application is justified, and for answers to the prominent objections against it. " The suspension of sj^ecie payment by the banks, and the pro- visions of the deposit law of 1836, have, since the month of May, 1837, rendered the order in question practically a dead letter, and it remains to this moment in that state unrescinded. "The Senate has, during its present session, with great and patient labor, digested, passed and sent to the House of Repre- sentatives a bill, such as met the approbation of a majority of its members, covering all these points, and calculated to make the rule for the currency, collection, safe-keeping and disburse- ment of the public revenue, in all its branches, uniform and iden- tical. As has been before remarked, one of the sections of that bill was, in its supposed purpose and object, similar to the first clause of the resolution referred to the committee, and now under consideration. The vote of the Senate, which introduced that section into the bill, does not leave room for a doubt that the body is decidedly friendly to the principle contained in it, the principle of uniformity in the currency or media of payment in all branches of the public revenue. The question is one which, so far as its present agitation is concerned, has originated in the action of the executive department of the government; but that department has repeatedly referred it, with all the attendant considerations, to Congress, that legislation, so far as Congress Life and Times of Silas Wrkuit. 7.1:5 should think wise and expedient, miolit tuke tlie place oi' execu- tive regulation and executive discretion. Whether, under these circumstances, the Senate will consider it incumbent upon it to act further, upon any branch of this great subject, until it, shall be informed of the final disposition, by the House, of tlic l.ill it has sent down, covering the whole ground, is a question in icla- tion to which the committee do not feel called upon for the expression of an opinion. If it shall be supposed that this repe- tition of action may involve considerations of parliamentary rule or parliamentary courtesy, they will appropriately address them- selves to the Senate itself, and not to one of its committees. "The committee will, therefore, leave this branch of the reso- lution, with the single remark that, should the Senate be disposed to adopt it in its present form, some exception may be required to be made in relation to ' the Virginia land scrip,' now expressly, by law, made receivable for lands, but not for any other public dues. "The second clause of the resolution, proposing to make bank- notes the currency of the public treasury, is in the following words: " ' And that, until otherwise ordered by Congress, the notes of sound banks, which are payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of the United States, under suitable restrictions, to be forthwith prescribed and promnlgated by the Secretary of the Treasury, shall be received in payment of the revenue and of debts and dues to the government.' " The proposition here presented, also, has already received the definitive action of the Senate during its present session, but not, like the former one, the favorable action of the body. A refer- ence to the journal will show that, on the 24th day of JNfarch last, the ' bill to impose additional duties, as depositaries, upon certain public ofticers, to appoint receivers-general of public money, and to regulate the safe-keeping, transfer and disbursement of the public money of the United States,' being under consideration, the following amendment was moved, to stand as the twenty- third section of that bill, viz. : " ' Sec. 33. And be it further enacted, That the revenue of the United States, whether arising from duties, taxes, debts or sales of public lands, shall be collected and received in gold and silver, or in treasury notes, or iu 744 Life and Times of Silas Weight. the notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the legal coin of the United States, subject to such regulations and restrictions, in regard to the notes of specie-paying banks, as aforesaid, as Congress may, from time to time, establish and prescribe: Provided, That nothing in this section shall be so construed as to prohibit receivers or collectors of the dues of the government from receiving for the public lands any kind of laud scrip or treasury certificate now authorized by law.' " The only substantial difference between these propositions is, that the one now referred to the committee leaves the restrictions and regulations under which bank-notes are to be received to the Secretary of the Treasury, while the one formerly offered to the Senate reserved to Congress alone the right of imposing those restrictions. In all other respects both are substantially the same. The exclusive object and purpose of both is to make the notes of specie-paying banks receivable, by compulsion of law, in all dues to the government; and, although the one last quoted enumerates, also, gold and silver and treasury notes, yet the sole change it proposes in the existing laws is as to the bank-notes, inasmuch as gold and silver and treasury notes are, by the exist- ing laws, expressly ma^de receivable in payment of all dues to the United States. The propositions, therefore, are identical in sub- stance, with the single exception before named. A reference to the Senate journal of the twenty-fourth of ]\Iarch last will show that a vote of the Senate was taken upon the last named proposi- tion, and that it was rejected, every Senator being in his seat and voting upon the question. " This part of the resolution, therefore, like the former, is obnoxious to the objection that it is, in effect, but a mere repeti- tion of a proposition before made to the Senate and before deliberately and definitively acted upon by the body, during its present session. The committee do not mention this fact to prove that the Senate either cannot or ought not again to entertain the proposition, or that it will not be the pleasure of the body again to act upon it. As in relation to the former clause of the resolution, they do not feel called ujjon to express any opinion upon these points. They are questions, as it seems to them, addressing themselves to the Senate itself, and not to the committee, and with the Senate they cheerfully leave their decision. They will, however, respectfully suggest that a Life and Tuies of Sin as Wright. 745 practice of this sort, extensively introduced, cduld Hdt prove economical to the time of a legislative body or lax t.i:d)lc lu iho certainty of its action. The same questions might, un(h'r such ii practice, call for a repetition of debate and a repetition nf voles, without any material advance in business; and, as tlic IhmIv might chance to be full or thin, as to numbers, at the inccisc moment of each vote, its decisions of the same (juestions niiglit be uniform or contradictory. These, however, are considerations which will not escape the attention of the Senate in disposing of the propositions nqw presented. "How, then, will the clause of the resolution now under con- sideration, if adopted and made part of the law of the land, change the law as it exists? And how will it affect the treasury and the public funds? In the opinion of the committee, it will make a medium of payment for public dues, to wit, specie-paying bank-notes, compulsory, which has heretofore been merely per- missive; and it will force upon the public treasury a currency which has proved, upon various occasions, to be unsafe and dan- gerous, when its receipt rested in the discretion, and therefore to some extent upon the official responsibility of the fiscal officers of the government, and which, if made the legal currency of the treasury, and compulsory upon it, will subject the public revenues to fluctuations, hazards and losses, highly detrimental to every important interest, public and private. "Are the committee right in supposing that this proposition involves the change of the existing laws which they have men- tioned ? As condensed an examination of our legislation upon this subject as can be made shall answer this inquiry. " The first law passed, after the organization of the government under the present Constitution, touching the currency or medium of payment in which the public dues should be collected and received, was an act passed on the 31st day of July, 1789, entitled 'An act to regulate the collection of duties, imposed by law on the tonnage of ships or vessels, and on goods, wares and mer- chandises imported into the United States.' The thirtieth section of that act prescribed the currency to be received under it, and was in the following words : " ' Sec. 30. Arid U it further enacted, That the duties and fees to be col- 746 Life and Times of Silas Wright. lected by virtue of this act shall be received ia gold and silver coin only, at the following rates, that is to say: the gold coins of France, England, Spain and Portugal, and all other gold coins of equal fineness, at eighty-nine cents for every pennyweight ; the Mexican dollar at one hundred cents ; the crown of France at one dollar and eleven cents ; the crown of England at one dol- lar and eleven cents ; and all silver coins of equal fineness at one dollar and eleven cents per ounce.' " This established ' gold and silver coin only ' as the currency of the treasury, so far as the revenue from customs was con- cerned. This act was repealed by an act passed on the 4th day of August, 1790, entitled 'An act to provide more effectually for the collection of the duties imposed by law on goods, wai-es and merchandise imported into the United States, and on the tonnage of ships and vessels.' The fifty-sixth section was in the same words with the thirtieth section of the act of 1789 above quoted, with the following addition at the end of the section, viz. : ' and cut silver of equal fineness at one dollar and six cents per ounce.'' " The next law which affected the ciirrency of the treasury was the act passed on the 25th day of February, 1V91, entitled 'An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States.' The tenth section of this act was in the following words: " ' Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That the bills or notes of the said corporation, originally made payable or which shall have become payable, on demand, in gold or silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States.' "These laws constituted the currency of the treasury 'of gold and silver coin only,' or of the bills or notes of the Bank of the United States, originally made payable or which had become payable, on demand, in ' gold and silver coin ;' which currency was made receivable in all branches of the public revenue, and for all debts and dues of the government. " With the exception of the legislation as to the currency or media of payment receivable for the public lands, before noticed, the committee find no act of Congress changing this state of the law until the passage of the act of 2d May, 1799, entitled 'An act to regulate the collection of duties on imports and tonnage.' This act repealed the act of 1790, above referred to, and all prior acts and parts of acts conflicting with its provisions, and its seventy-fourth section is in the words following : Life and Times of Silas Wright. 747 *' ' Sec. 74. And U it further enacted, Tliat all duties and fees to be col- lected shall be payable in mouej^ of the United States, or in foreign g()ld and silver coins, at the following rates, that is to say: the gold coins of Great Britain and Portugal, of the standard prior to the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, at the rate of one hundred cents for every twenty-seven grains of the actual weight thereof ; the gold ci)ins of France, Spain, and the dominions of Spain, of the standard prior to the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, at the rate of one hundred cents for every twenty-seven grains and two-fifths of a grain of the actual weight thereof; Spanish milled dollars, at the rate of one hundred cents for each dollar, the actual weight whereof shall not be less than seventeen pennyweights and seven grains, and in proportion for the parts of a dollar; crowns of France at the rate of one hundred and ten cents for each crown, the actual weight vrhereof shall not be less than eighteen pennyweights and seventeen grains, and in proportion for the parts of a crown; Provided, That no foreign coins shall be receivable which are not, by law, a tender for the payment of all debts, except in consequence of a proclamation of the President of the United States, authorizing such foreign coins to be received in payment of the duties and fees aforesaid.' "By an act passed on the 9th day of February, 1793, entitled 'An act regulating foreign coins, and for other purposes,' it is provided that the foreign coins above particularly named shall pass current, ' as money^ within the United States, and be a ten- der in payment of debts, at the rates above specified, which explains the proviso of the section; but what is tlie true legal construction of the terms ' money of the United States,'' used in the first part of the section, may require some examination. " On the 2d day of April, 1792, an act was passed entitled 'An act establishing a mint, and regulating the coins of the United States.' This act made the first provision for our national coin- age and for our national coin. Its provisions are numerous, but it is sufficient for the present purpose to say of them that they designate the coins of gold, silver and copper to be coined at the mint, being the same designations which the coins of the United States still bear; that they regulate the value of the coins, and that the sixteenth section is in the following words : " ' Sec. 16. And be it furtlier enacted, 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 ; those of full weight, according to the respective values hereinbefore declared ; and those of less than full weight, at values proportioned to their respective weights.' 748 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " The Constitution gives to Congress the power to ' coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin,' and the two acts last referred to are an exercise of that power; the latter provid- ing for coining money by means of a mint of the United States, and regulating the value of the money so to he coined, and the former regulating the value of foreign coin. This power is exclu- sive in Congress, as the Constitution of the United States ex- pressly prohibits the States from coining money. What, then, is 'the money of the United States' here intended? In the opinion of the committee, it is the coin of the United States; the product of the mint of the United States; the money coined by the authority of Congress. In this opinion they do not suppose it possible they can be mistaken. The construction seems to them too clear to admit of argument or question. The collocation of the words ' money of the United States,' as used in the section of the act of 1799, above quoted, would seem to confirm this as the construction intended to be given to these words by Congress, in the passage of that law. The provision is, 'that all duties and fees to be collected shall be payable in money of the United States, or in foreign gold and silver coins;'' thus, as it would seem to the committee, contemplating a currency of metal only, and using the words which are used to distinguish between the coinage of our own country and foreign coinage. " It has been seen that, prior to the passage of this law, the revenue from customs was, by law, collectible in gold and silver coin, or in the bills or notes of the Bank of the United States. If the construction which the committee have given above to this act of 1799 be correct, the bills or notes were excluded by it from the collections of the revenue from customs, inasmuch as the 112th section of the act repeals the act of the 4th of August, 1790, and further declares that 'all other acts and parts of acts, coming within the purview of this act, shall be repealed and thenceforth cease to operate.' That branch of the revenue was, therefore, from that time forward, receivable in coin only ; that is to say, ' in money of the United States, or in foreign gold and silver coins.' "Between this date and the year 1811, no changes are found to have been made in the law prescribing the currency or medium Life and Times of Silas Wright. 749 of payment iu which any part of the public dues sliould ])o received, other than such as have been noticed under tlie i'ormcr head of this report, being such as affected that branch of the reve- nue derivable from the lands only. On the 3d day of ^March, 181], the charter of the old Bank of the United States expired, and, by an act passed on the 19th of March, 1812, the tenth section of that chai'ter, making the bills or notes of the corpora- tion receivable in payments to the United States, was repealed. This left the act of 1799 the unquestioned rule as to the currency receivable in payment of the revenue from customs. " In this same year, however, and the three years succeeding, the various laws before referred to, of 1812, 1813, 1814 and 1815, authorizing emissions of treasury notes, were passed; all of wliich made the notes receivable in all branches of the revenue and for all dues to the government. They, therefore, wei-e added to the coin as a medium of payment in the collection of the duties and fees, under the act of 1799 and the other acts regulatino- the col- lection of the revenue from customs. "On the 10th day of April, 1816, the law passed to incorporate the second Bank of the United States, entitled ' An act to incor- porate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States.' The fourteenth section of this act was in the words following: "'Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That the bills or notes of the said corporation, originally made payable or which shall have become payable, on demand, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States, unless otherwise directed by act of Congress.' " If this last clause of the section referred to ' acts of Congress ' thereafter to be passed and not to acts of Congress then in force, then this bank charter added a new medium of payment for all public dues, and made receivable in all branches of the public revenue, by the then existing laws, ' gold and silver coin,' ' trea- sury notes' and 'the bills or notes of the corporation payable on demand.' This seems to have been the construction given by Congress to those laws in the language used in the joint resolu- tion of the 30th day of April, 1816, This resolution, it will be seen by its date, passed but twenty days after the passage of the bank charter, and made a change in the legislation of Congress in relation to the currency of the public treasury much greater than 750 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. any which had ever l)efore been known to our laws. Indeed, it must strike the attention of all, at this day, as somewhat remark- able, that during the existence of the government under the Constitution, the two bank charters alone excepted, no law or resolution or expression of Congress had recognized, in any form or to any extent, bank notes as a medium of payment at the treasury; and that even during the existence of the first bank charter, and notwithstanding the receivable character given to its bills and notes by its tenth section before quoted, the law of 1799 before referred to, in relation to the collection of the reve- nue from customs, and the law of 1800 referred to under the former head of this report, in relation to the sale of the public lands, were both j^assed, and both confined the payments in these respective branches of the revenue to ' specie,' ' money of the United States,' 'gold and silver coin' or 'evidences of the public debt of the United States.' These laws, too, remained in full and unquestioned force, as to these provisions, during the whole remaining life of that bank charter and up to the time of the charter of the second bank, in 1816. "The joint resolution of 1816 here referred to is entitled 'A resolution relative to the more effectual collection of the public revenue,' and is in the following words: ' ' ' Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, 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 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 twentieth day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts or sums of money, accru- ing or becoming payable to the United States, as aforesaid, ought to be col- lected 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.' "Such was the resolution of the 30th of April, 1816 ; a resolu- tion called into existence by the derangement in our monetary system at that particular period; a resolution which, its form and Life am> Times of Silas Wuiciit. 7;,[ its terms, as well as the circumstances attenrlii.L,' it, all conclti- sively prove, was never intended, by the Congress w liidi |.:is>m.1 it, to be a i^ermanent reguLation for tlie currency of tlic treasury, but a temporary aid in an attempt to recover fi. mi the widi- departures from the law, wliich tlie practices of the 'rrcMNury department had introduced; in an attempt to l)riiig liack, to a tolerable state, a practical, not a legal currency, whidi liad become intolerable. And it should be carefully borne in iniml that this resolution was not designed to release the standard ot curi'ency for the treasury from the operation of sound and w liolr- some laws, but to relieve the treasury from a depreciated cur- rency which had been, and was being, received into it against law. " The committee are not to be understood as speaking in terms of censure of the state of things existing in 1816, in relation to our monetary affairs, but merely as relating facts as they appear upon the face of the statute book. We had just then emerged from a state of war. Our contest had been with a rich, and powerful, and skillful, and experienced enemy. Our resources, both in men and money, were vastly more limited than they now are. A heavy balance of the debt of the Revolution remaimd unpaid, and our credit as a nation had become but partially established, either with our own or foreign capitalists. We were unprepared for war, and the expenses of making the necessary preparations, in the midst of hostilities, soon exhausted our trea- sury and depressed our credit. In tliat condition the country souffht aid wherever it could be obtained, and, among other resources, availed itself of that which was offered by a certain portion of the State banking institutions. In this way it became their debtor, and, being unable to pay, was compelled to wink at and finally to countenance their suspension of specie payments. Hence, also, arose the compulsion to make their irredeemable notes the currency of the treasury ; a compulsion stronger than the law; the compulsion upon the debtor not to refuse to honor the paper of his creditor. Surely, then, the committee are not disposed to cast censure upon the able and worthy and patriotic public officers, through whom these acts were performed, but to mourn, as they did, over that depressed condition of our beloved 752 Life and Times of Silas Wright. country which forced its faithful public servants to these extremities. " To extricate the treasury from these embarrassments, and, as far as might be, to reclaim the currency generally from derange- ments thus brought upon it, was the design and object of the resolution under consideration ; and who that has examined our previous legislation will believe that, but for these derangements, growing pruicipally out of loans and advances to the government in the hour of its utmost need, the resolution of 1816 would have ever met the approbation of a Congress of that day ? And who, in view of all these considerations, will believe that the Congress which did pass that resolution intended to render it compulsory as to the receipt of the notes of the State banks in payment of all public dues, and thus to fasten upon the public treasury, as a permanent and obligatory medium of payment, for all future time, that very currency from which the country had suffered and Avas then suffering so severely ? " Was the resolution imperative as to the receivability of the notes of the local banks? Such is not the construction wliich the committee give to it. The resolution names four distinct media of payment for the public dues, viz. : the legal currency of the United States (gold and silver coin), treasury notes, notes of the Bank of the United States, and notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of the United States. The first three are mentioned as currency or media, ' as by law provided and declared,^ as it has been seen they were ; while the committee look upon the enumeration of the last, it not being a currency or medium of payment for the public treasury, 'by law provided and declared,' as, in substance, granting a permission to the fiscal agents of the treasury to make it such, if payable and paid on demand in the legal currency; as, in effect, saying to the receivers of public money, in all the departments, you may receive the notes of the local banks in payments to the United States, provided they are redeemable and redeemed, on demand, in coin ; you are now receiving them while they are irredeemable ; but after the twentieth day of February next you ^ ought'' not to receive them in that state. "Another view of the resolution will strengthen this construe- Life and Times of Silas W uihiit. I .»• tion. If it is impemive as to the vocoipt i.f il.c n.,t,.s nf ,tny local banks which arc payable and paid on (Ic-iii.in.l, ii, tlu- Ir-.d currency of the United States, it is equally iniperativu that t"hu notes of all local banks, which are so paid, sli:ill 1„. rfcfiv.-.l. Will the idea be entertained, for a moment, that tin- Congress ..f 1816 intended this? Will it be believed that thry inlur..!..,! i,, make the notes of all the banks in the Union, and ..f all whirh the States should thereafter charter, and wliich should at the moment be specie-paying banks, an effective tender, at any and every point in the Union, in payment of all government dues ? The committee cannot entertain such an opinion. Tliey will not believe that the majority of any Congress of the United States, which has ever yet assembled, would have adopted a rule for the currency of the public treasury so incalculably dangerous. To them the resolution seems to have had one distinct and lead- ing object, viz., the discontinance of the receipt, at the treasury, of the notes of banks which were tiot payable and paid on demand in the legal coin of the United States. Still, the banks whose notes were to be excluded by such a rule were the banks which had aided the government in its then recent troubles, and to which it stood indebted. Hence the advisory rather than mandatory language in which the interdiction was couclied in the last part of the resolution; and hence, too, the inducement as to the receipt of the notes, in case they were redeemed in spe- cie, proffered in the first j^art of the resolution. Those portions which relate to 'the legal currency of the United States,' to the 'treasury notes' and to the 'notes of the Bank of the United States' were not inserted to constitute, by the force of law, a currency for the treasury; for they were then, by the law, the curreiK-.y of the treasury for all payments to the United States. They were not made the currency of the treasuiy by the resolu- tion, but were so before the resolution had existence, and were described in it as the currency in which the public dues were to be paid, ' as hy law provided and declared? "The resolution, then, was not designed to and did not pre- scribe and establish a currency obligatory upon the treasury, but recited that which was so 'as by law provided and declared;' and authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to add to it, in the 48 754 Life and Times of Silas Weight. collections of the revenue, the notes of banks which were payable and i^aid on demand in the legal currency of the United States, while it pronounced the opinion of Congress that he ' ought ' not, after a day named, to receive in those collections the notes of banks which did not redeem their notes in sjsecie on demand. If this question be yet doubtful, the committee will refer to the cotemporaneous construction of the government and its agents, • as shown bj^ their practice under the resolution, to establish the point. It will be recollected that the charter of the second Bank of the United States passed Congress on the 10th day of April, 1816, just twenty days before the passage of the resolution in question. By the sixteenth section of that charter, ' the deposits of the money of the United States, in places in which the said bank and branches thereof may be established, shall be made in said bank or branches thereof^ etc. In pursuance of this require- ment, the public money was placed in the bank and its branches for safe-keeping and disbursement as soon as the institution was prepared to receive it, and the bank became, at every important point in the Union, the fiscal agent of the treasury both for the collection and disbursement of the public revenues. If, then, the receipt of the notes of all the specie-paying banks of the country was made compulsory upon the treasury by the joint resolution of 1816 (for it has already been shown that if the receipt of any such notes was compulsory the receipt of all were so), it made the receipt of all such notes equally compulsory upon the bank, as the fiscal agent of the treasury, so far as the collection of the public dues was concerned. Did the bank so construe the resolution or so practice under it? It shall speak for itself, in the language used in the twenty-fourth and twenty- fifth of its rules and regulations, adopted on the 3d day of Janu- ary, 1817, for the government of its branches. It will be seen by the dates that these rules and regulations were adopted just eight months and three days after the passage of the resolution by Congress, and the two here referred to are in the words fol- lowing : " 'Article XXIV. The offices of discount and deposit shall receive, in payment of the revenue of the United States, the notes of such State banks as redeem their engagements with specie, and provided they are the notes of Life and Times of Silas Whuuit. /.').') banks located in the city or place where the oiBce rccoivinR tl.o.n in cs..||, hshed. And also the notes of such othcM- banks, as a sp.-finl ,l..p„sit oh behalf of the government, as tlic Secretary of tlie Treasury nmy rcniiro " ' Articlk XXV. The offices of discount and deposit si.nli, at least onro in every week, settle with the State banks for their notes received i„ pny ment of the revenue, or for the engagements of individuals to the banks ^o as to prevent the balances due to the office from swelling to an inconvenient amount.' " Here is the construction put upon this resolution by the bank, immediately after its passage, and before the day named in it had arrived, when the treasury was to cease to receive tlic notes of non-specie-paying banks. Here, too, are the rules which were to govern, and which did govern, the practice of the bank under the resolution; and the committee are bound to presume tliat the construction and the rules met the approbation of those officers of the government whose duty it was to see the laws faithfully executed in this particular, as they were bound to see that their fiscal agent performed what they held themselves obliged to per- form in consequence of this resolution. They are also bound to presume that this practice was in accordance with the intention of the members of Congress who voted for the resolution, and with the construction given to it by the State banks interested, as the practice appears to have governed the conduct of the bank, without any interference on the part of Congress, from the time the rules and regulations were adopted until the month of October, 1833, when the public money ceased to be deposited with the institution. Surely, then, after such evidences of cotem- poraneous construction, it will not be contended that the reso- lution of 1816 was intended to, or did, make the receipt of all specie-paying bank-notes obligatory upon the treasury. "After this period, and during the continuance of the charter of the second Bank of the United States, no laws have met the attention of the committee which varied the description of cur- rency or media of payment for the public dues. The legal currency of the United States — treasury notes, and the notes of the Bank of the United States, payable on demand — was, there- fore, the legal currency of the treasury, with the permission, granted by the resolution of 1816, to receive the notes of the local banks payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of 756 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the United States, until the expiration of that charter. The charter expired on the 3d day of March, 1836, by its own limita- tion, and on the nineteenth day of June after, Congress repealed its fourteenth section, which made its notes receivable in pay- ments to the United States. " It is proper here to remark that the various laws authorizing emissions of treasury notes, and making them receivable for all government dues, had become obsolete, by the entire redemption of the notes, many years before the expiration of the bank char- ter, in 1836, and that medium of payment was thus practically withdrawn fi-om the currency of the treasury. The expiration of the charter of the bank, and the law of the 15th June, 1836, repealing the fourteenth section of the charter, withdrew another of those media in the notes of the bank, thus leaving ' the legal currency of the United States' the only currency compulsory upon the treasury, but leaving also the permission given, by the joint resolution of 1816, to receive the notes of specie-paying local banks. " This continued to be the state of things until the passage of the act entitled 'An act to regulate the deposits of the public money,' passed on the 23d day of June, 1836. The last clause of the fifth section of that act is in the following words: " ' Nor shall the notes or bills of any bank be received in payment of any debt due to the United States, which shall, after the fourth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, issue any note or bill of a less denomination than five dollars. ' "Thus modified, the law compelled the receipt of the legal currency of the United States, and permitted the receipt of the notes of such specie-paying banks as should not, after the 4th of July, 1836, issue notes of a less denomination than five dollars. "On the 12th of October, 1837, an act was passed entitled 'An act to authorize the issuing of treasury notes,' the first clause of the sixth section of which reads as follows: " ' Sec. 6. And he it further enacted, That the said treasury notes shall be received in payment of all duties and taxes laid by the authority of the United States, of all public lands sold by the said authority, and of all debts to the United States, of any character whatsoever, which may be due and payable at the time when said treasury notes may be offered in payment.' Life and Times of Silas W h-K./ir. «.)/ "This law added again treasury notes ns a nicdiiun of pHyin.-ut, and thus stands the hiw at the present lime -ilir Ir^.il .-unTucy and treasury notes being made receivable by law, and llu- w,U'.h of specie-paying banks which have not, since the lih .l:iy ..f .Inly, 1836, and do not, issue notes of a less denoniimii ion tlian live dollars, being permitted to be received by the rfs.ijuliun >>( l•^\^\, as modified by the deposit law of 1830. "In this last review of the legislation in relation to the cur- rency, references may not have been made, in all cases, to the laws prescribing the media of payment for the public lauds, but all such laws are believed to be particularly noticeil uikIlt the former head. None of the numerous laws resjulatint; the value of foreign coin, and of the coins of the United States, have been referred to under either head, as the coins of both descriptions, as far as regulated by law, have at all times been receivable in all the branches of the revenue, and for all dues to the govern- ment, either specifically, by the terms of the laws, or under the general designations of ' money of the United States ' and ' legal currency of the United States.' It may, however, be worthy of remark, that considerable changes are found in the laws regulat- ing the value of foreign coin, both as to the descriptions of coins legalized and made ' money of the United States,' and a tender in payment of debts, and as to the value fixed to the coins of difterent countries by the different laws, and that, during some periods, no foreign gold coins, and very few foreign silver coins, if any, have been legalized. It also appears that, by an act passed on the 3d day of March, 1823, the gold coins of Great Britain, Portugal, France and Spain were made receivable ' in all pay- ments on account of the public lands,' at specified rates, but for no other public dues; nor were any foreign gold coins, at that time, leo-alized and made a tender in the payment of debts. " Such has been the legislation of Congress on the subject of the currency or media of payment to be received for dues to the public treasury; and from it we learn that, with the exception of the two bank charters and the resoluiiuu of 1816, it has, in all cases and for all purposes, required in payment of the public due3 gold and silver coin, or securities issued upon the faith and cn.-dit of the government. The bank charters present the only instances 758 Life and Times of Silas Wright. where bank-notes have been made a tender in payment of debts due to the United States; and in those instances the notes of the banks themselves only were so made, being the notes of banks in which the government itself was a stockholder to the amount of one-fifth part of the whole capital; of banks created by Congress, and over which Congress held sovereign control, both as the creating Legislature and as the guardian of the pro- perty of the people invested in them. The committee do not mean to be understood as speaking in terms of approbation of legalizing the notes of even these banks as a currency compulsory upon the treasury, but merely as distinguishing the banks which issued them from the banks chartered by the States, over which Congress has no control, in the management of which no branch of this government can exercise any voice, and in which the United States hold no interest. " Still, the proposition referred to the committee, and now under consideration, is that all the notes of all the specie-paying State banks of the country, of all such banks which the States shall hereafter charter, and of all such banks which may be here- after formed under any general bank laws or systems of free banking which any of the States have adopted or may hereafter adopt, ' shall be received in payment of the revenue, and of debts and dues to the government.' Such they understand to be the scope and effect of the proposition embraced in the resolution referred to them. Will the Senate adopt it ? The committee hope and believe not. The deliberate expression of the body against a proposition substantially similar, during its present session, strengthens this hope. " The permission to receive the notes of specie-paying State banks still exists, under the resolution of 1816. Do the interests of this government require more than this permission ? Will the security of the public treasure, the money of the people intrusted to the keeping of Congress, be increased by making the receipt of these notes compulsory upon the treasury ? The Constitution has protected the people themselves against being compelled to take bank-notes of any character in payment of dues to them, as individual citizens. It declares that ' no State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment Life and Tlmes of Silas Wninur. 7f,0 of debts;' and no one ever Ims, and l he <(.iiiinitlfi' pirsuriif im one will now, claim for Congress the power tlms denied i., dn. States. Were the fathers of the land, the iVainers of ihe ('..ii- stitution of the United States, wise in extendhitf this proleeiimi to the individual citizens of the country? Diil, and do, ili.-ir private interests require this protection? All will answer tliesc questions affirmatively. Is it possible, then, thai t liiir collected interest, their public treasure, is to be rendered nmre seeiire by an exactly opposite rule? Is it possible that their j)rivate, individual property can only be protected by securing to them the right to demand gold and silver in payment of their debts? and that their common treasure is to be better protected l)y taking this right from their servants, charged with its col- lection ? The citizens are at liberty to receive bank paper in payment of their debts, if they think it safe to do so, and the collectors of their revenue are at liberty to receive bank paper into the public treasury, if they think the paper safe to thai treasury. The Constitution guards the former against a compul- sion to take the paper ; and should Congress force that compul- sion upon the latter, because the Constitution does not interpose to prevent it ? The servants of the people in Congress or in the State Legislatures cannot force bank paper into the pockets of their constituents, in satisfaction of their debts; and should they force it into their public treasuries, in satisfaction of the dues to them ? The committee can see no state of facts, or train of argu- ment, which can reconcile these contradictions, and make the passage of this part of the resolution a public duty. Is thus proposition to be adopted for the benefit of the banks, as it is seen its adoption cannot be urged as a protection to the public interests and the public treasure? Do the banks require or ask it ? The committee believe they can answer for the solvent and well-conducted banks, that they have no such need, and make no such request ; that they have no desire that the currency of then- notes should rest upon any stronger basis than their known ability and willingness to redeem them with gold and silver, on demand ; and that they would not, if they could, have the notes of the eight or nine hundred banks of the several States made a legal tender for any purpose. That there have been banks winch 760 Life and Tuies of 8ilas Wright. required the force of law to make their notes current and valu- able, recent experience has demonstrated, as, in the absence of such a law to force them upon the public, they have fallen dead and valueless upon the hands of private holders. That there may be other banks in the country which yet purport to be sound, and which still may require the aid of such a law as is here proposed, to enable them to pass off their notes for a much longer period, is very possible; but the committee sincerely hope, if such there are, that their number is small, and they are sure that none will advocate the passage of the resolution for the benefit of such banks. Of one thing they are most happy to be assured, and that is, that there are some banks in the country which require no such artificial aid; which have resumed specie payments, and are rising up, under all the embarrassments of the times, to the full per- formance of their whole duties to themselves and the public; and which present, to those behind them, a most worthy example of what good management and good faith can accomplish, without the aid of a law which shall compel the receipt of tlieir paper. " Try the proposition under consideration upon the banks them- selves. Would they receive each other's notes at par when they were all specie-paying banks ? Will a single sound bank among the whole number now consent to the passage of laws which shall compel them to receive each other's pajDcr at par, or even to receive it at all, after they shall have resumed specie payments? Most certainly not. Then shall Congress, by its legislation, com- pel a credit for the notes of the banks at the treasury, which they will not give, upon any terms, to the notes of each other ? Most assuredly the banks will not have the eflTrontery to ask Congress to do this, " It may be said, as it has been said, that opposition to this resolution is hostility to the State banks. The committee cannot view it in that light. Is it hostility to a bank to decline to make its notes receivable, by the force of law, in the payment of debts ? Have the rights of private incorporations become already so far advanced in our free country ? Are we compelled to pass laws to force off their notes, or be warred upon by these institutions ? Have the rights of cori:)orators become already so far paramount to the rights of the individual citizen, that we must so frame our Life and Times of Silas Wiuaiir. 7r,l laws as to compel the promises of llic one to \h- rccoivod at nm- treasury while we exact the money IVuni tlic other, or l)0 Bi-t down enemies to tlie corporations, merit uil:,- tin ir vcni^cuure ? U it a crime against the banks to object against making lh:it :i l.^al tender at the public treasury wliich the banks will imt rc<;ogni/.u to be a currency at their counters? No. 'riic condilion of tin- American legislator has not yet become so degradi-il. 'I'hr banker, deserving the name, who a})[ireciates the privileges eon- ferred upon him by law in the charter of his bank, and feels the obligations which attend upon liis profession ; who can contenl himself with reasonable gains, and athnits that he is not, more than the private citizen, exempt from the common moral oldiga- tion of paying his debts when he is able to do so, will interpose no claims, and ask no such protection for liis eredii. lie will applaud the legislator for passing such laws as will protect pri- vate rights, private property, the public interests of his constitu- ents, and public liberty, even though some of those laws should be intended to restrain the abuses of banking. lie will not con- sider efforts to protect the public morals and the interests of the whole people against any and all threatened dangers, as hostile to him or his bank; and if such a charge is to come from those engaged in the business of banking, it is to be looked for from those only who are conscious of a weakness requiring the aid of laws such as that now proposed; from those who have enjoyed the monopoly of having their notes exclusively made the legal currency of the public treasury, until the wealth and power acquired from too much public patronage and favor hav.- em- boldened them to demand as a right, in all situations, the exclu- sive privileges which were only accorded to relations the most intimate, and interests perfectly identical between them and the public ; or from those whose habit of leaning upon the public treasury for support has become so confirmed that that suj^p.-rt is rendered essential to healthful existence. To such, the refusal to pass this part of the resolution may seen, a hostile act, not because they believe they possess the riglit to .lemand the pro- tection, but because they feel its necessity too deeply to he able to reason as to the right. "It may be said, as it has been said, that tlie government is 762 Life and Times of Silas Wright. believed to be hostile to the State banks, and that this provision of the resolution should be passed to rebut so injurious a pre- sumption. The foundation for this suggestion, and the character of the remedy recommended for the supposed evil, deserve some examination, that the public mind may be disabused upon both points. " First, then, what foundation is there for the allegation that the government is hostile to the State banks, arid is prosecuting an extei-minating war against them ? Previous to the month of October, 1833, all the connection which had existed between the government of the United States and the banks chartered by the States, for a term of nearly eighteen years, had been prescribed, formed and conducted by and through the Bank of the United States, acting as the fiscal agent of the treasury of the United States. The committee, in a former part of this report, have shown what that connection was, and how far it extended. It consisted in the reception, by the Bank of the United States and its branches, ' in payment of the revenue of the United States,' of the notes of such State banks as ' redeemed their engagements with specie,' and were ' located in the city or place ' where the receiving bank or branch was located, and of the return of those notes to the State bank which issued them, ' at least once in every week,' to he redeemed with specie. This was the character and extent of the connection between the public treasury and the local banks, under the fiscal management of the Bank of the United States. To prepare for the expiration of the charter of that bank, and for the winding up of its affairs as a national bank, an institution which public opinion had clearly indicated was not to have existence in this country after the expiration of that charter, the Secretary of the Treasury, under the direction of the President, ordered the public money, from and after the 1st day of October, 1833, to be made in certain designated State banks, and not in the Bank of the United States. This was the commence- ment of a more extensive, intimate and responsible connection between the government and the local banks. It was matured and continued by executive direction, without any definitive action on the part of Congress, until the 23d day of June, 1836. In the meantime, this action on the part of the executive branch Life and Times of Silas Wuianr. 7(;^ of the government was most loudly coniphiincd ol", as cxhil)i(iiig a spirit of favoritism, toward the local hanks, (l;in;^erous to the public treasure of the nation, destructive of puliMi; coiifKh'tice, and consequently of public and private credit; us rcndfiinj^ ci-r- tain the entire prostration of business, and the dissoniiiiation «»f distress and bankruptcy throughout the land. Tlu" puhlic. reve- nue, however, continued to accumulate with a rapidity thtTi-ti>- fore unexampled, and business took a sudden impetus, whith drove it from a state of healthful and vigorous to one of wiUl and feverish action in the space of less than two years. These appearances filled the minds of many of the friends of the jiolicy of the executive with anxiety and concern, while tlie coniplaint.s of the opponents of the policy were changed to the dangers impending over the numerous millions of the public money in the insecure banks ; the improper uses to which the money was applied by the institutions ; the certainty of fatal derangement.s in the paper currency to be caused by the excesses, and the like. At this crisis, and on tiie 23d day of June, 1836, the act was passed entitled 'An act to regulate the deposits of the pul>lie money.' That act legalized the connection between the govern- Bient and the banks, and prescribed regulations of law for its future continuance. Still, the unnatural accumulations of reve- nue continued in a manner to alarm the minds of all, and to fur- nish the most conclusive evidence of fearful excesses in banking, and in the use of credits generally. The deposit act proposed no check to this state of things, so far as the public revenue was concerned, though it did provide another, and wluit Congress considered a safer, mode of keeping the vast amount of treasure collected and collecting. No other action of Congress provided this check ; and as much the greatest excess of collections was coming in from the lands, after the adjournment of Congress, on the 4th of July, 1836, and on the eleventh day of that month, the Secretary of the Treasury, under the direction of the President, issued the order respecting the medium in which payments for lands would, after certain periods named, be required to be made. This order first changed the tone of complaint from that of favor- itism on the part of the government toward the local banks, to that of deadly hostility against them. Time passed on, however, 764 Life and TniEs of Silas Wright. and Congress met and adjourned again, and no law was passed affecting the collection of the revenue in any of its branches. The order had had the effect to diminish to some extent, but to a much less extent than was anticipated by its friends and pre- dicted by its opponents, the sales of the public lands, and to lessen, in the same proportion, the accumulation of revenue from that source. By this time, also, unequivocal evidences of a gene- ral business and commercial revulsion were exhibitinsf them- selves, not only throughout this country, but most of the com- mercial countries of Europe, and so rapidly did the change sweep on, that, before the expiration of the month of May, 1837, with a few unimportant exceptions, all the banking institutions of the United States were induced to susj^end the payment of their notes in specie. " This produced a new and embarrassing state of things for the government. All the means of the treasury to meet the current expenditures of the country were on deposit in the banks, and they were, by law, the depositories of the accruing revenue. Still, the act making them so prohibited the selection, as depo- sitories, of any but specie-paying banks, and made it the impera- tive duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to discontinue any bank as a depository which should ' at any time refuse to pay its own notes in specie, if demanded,' and to ' withdraw from it the public moneys which it may hold on deposit at the time of such discontinuance.' The deposit banks, therefore, were all to be instantly discontinued, and the country presented no others which could be selected, because it presented no specie-paying banks. Hence other depositories, different from and independent of the banks, were to be constituted, and, as a natural and almost necessary consequence, the officers of the government, charged with the collection of the public dues, were charged also with the keeping of the money collected, until it was required for disbursement. Another duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, made equally imperative by the deposit law, was promptly to withdraw from the banks, which had been depositories and were discontinued, the public moneys held by them on deposit at the time of their discontinuance. The per- formance of this duty involved greater difficulty, and, indeed, Life and Times of Silas Windiir. 7(j;> was rendered impossible. The laws wliicli liavc Iuth l.rfi.rt* referred to, the resolution of 1816 heiiij^ iiu-.lmhil, limiifl iho power as well as discretion of the Secretary of tlir Tifasiiry :im to the currenc}'^ or media of payment lie was at lil)erty lo n-eeivu from the banks or from any other public tlel)ti>is ; ainl neiilier that resolution, nor any of the other hiws, pir/ii/'/fi if him tn take in payments to the United States the notes of any bunk whieli did tiot pay its notes, on demand, in the leual euriH-ncy of thu United States; while another existing law, which will lie here- after referred to, expressly proliibited him from pa\iiig out Mich notes. The suspension of specie payments by tlu' l)aiiks was extended, as well to their public and i)rivate deposits as to tlieir notes, and they, therefore, would not answer the drafts of tlie Treasurer in any currency or medium whitli the law permitted him either to receive or disburse. Tlie drafts of the Treasurer for the moneys held on deposit by the banks, at the time of their discontinuance as depositories, were consequently protested for non-payment and returned, and little or notliing was realized, from the means on hand at the time of the suspension, to meet the current expenses of the government. To a very great extent, and from the operation of tlie same causes, the accruing revenue was cut off, and the public treasury threatened to be left wholly without means to meet the calls upon it. The notes of the non- specie-paying banks could not be received in payment of the revenue from customs ; and as the merchants could not, when their bonds fell due, obtain specie from the banks, either f.»r the bank-notes or for their own private deposits, they could not make payment, and the bonds lay over unpaid. It is true the revenue from the public lands had been, for some months, collectible in specie only, except the few payments in Virginia land scrii); but the suspension by the banks put it out of the power of those wishing to purchase lands to obtain specie to so great an extent as to render this resource wholly inadequate to the supply of the treasury. "Under these circumstances the President issued Ins procla- mation to convene Congress on the Hrst M lay of September last. In the meantime the debtor banks and debtor merchanta were in the hands of the executive officers of the government. 766 Life anb Times of Silas Wright. and, until Congress interposed, were subject to the treatment Avhich those officei-s should choose to extend toward defaulting debtors. Did they meet a spirit of hostility ? Was a warlike course of measures adopted ? Did they find a disposition to exter- minate manifested in the lenity and forbearance extended, cer- tainly without law, if not against law ? No such charge or pre- tense, from the parties interested, has reached the committee, and certain it is that no foundation for either exists in the true history of the events. " Next in the order of time came the message of the President, communicated to Congress at the commencement of the extra session, and in this, and the annual message of December last, are supposed to be found recommendations by which to sustain this charge of hostility against the State banks. " What are these recommendations in substance ? As the com- mittee recollect and understand them, they are that the connec- tion which had existed between the government and the State banks for the time, to the extent and in the manner before related, which had become dissolved by the action of the banks themselves and which had proved so disastrous to both during its continuance, should not be renewed; that thereafter the money of the people should be kept and disbursed by the ser- vants of the people, and not by the ofiicers of private incorpora- tions; in short, that a system for the management of the finances of the country, substantially similar to that forced uj^on the gov- ernment by the suspension of the banks, should be adopted. What, then, is that system ? The committee believe they can answer truly that, so far as the State banks are concerned, it is a system in its general outline and action very similar to that prescribed and practiced upon by the Bank of the United States, ameliorated by the absence of that fearful rivalship in the busi- ness of banking which constituted the most prominent feature of that overshadowing institution; ameliorated in some other, to State institutions, important features, and merely transferring the agency for the treasury from an incorporated bank to public oifi- cers selected and appointed according to the provisions of the Constitution and the law, and responsible to the people and the regularly constituted tribunals of the country for their faithful- Life and Times of Silas Wuiaiir. 707 ness in their tmsts. A very brief analysis of the I wo HVHteiim, comparing the one with tlie other at eaeli slep uf 1 lir piuccsH, will illustrate this position of the. eoniinittce. "The system recommended by the President proposes to nv^k^^ public officers, at the points required, the liscal ai,'eiils of the trea- sury, and not the State banks. "The charter of the Bank of the United States niadt- il uu.! itn branches the fiscal agents of the treasury, and not the Stale banks. "The system recommended by the Prcsidi^nt proposes that tlio public officers to whom the duty shall be assigned l»y law sliall be the depositaries of the public money, and shall receive, keep and disburse the same, and not the State banks. " The charter of the bank made it and its branches tiie deposi- tories of the public money and the agents of the treasury to receive, keep and disburse the san\e, and not the State banks. "The system recommended l)y the President neces.sarily excludes all use of the public money and all business by the fiscal agents of the treasury which can come in competition with the business of the State banks. "The system established in and under the bank create«l expressly a competitor too powerful for the State banks with- out any portion of the public patronage, and then threw into its lap the whole pecuniary patronage of the government, thus plac- ing the State banks entirely at its mercy. " The system recommended by the President does not propose so to legalize any bank-notes as a currency as to make them a tender in payment of debts at the treasury. "The charter of the bank made all its notes 'payable on demand' a tender in payment of debts at the treasury, but did not give that preference to similar notes of the State banks. " The operation of the system recommended by the President would be to disburse, in payments to the public creditors, any notes of the State banks which should at any time be allowed to be received, and the disbursement of which the existing laws and the choice secured to creditors should authorize. "The practice of the bank was to disburse no bank-notes but its own, and to present all the State bank-,>otos it received in 7G8 Life and Times of Silas Weight. payment of the revenue, at least once in every week, to be redeemed with specie; and to receive no State bank-notes in such payments except those of the banks located at the places where the bank and its branches were located. "These points of comparison might be carried further, but the committee trust the above are sufficient for their purpose. The charge they are considering is that of hostility on the part of the government against the State banks, as drawn from the recom- mendations of the President. These recommendations have, under the imposing appellation of the ' sub-treasury scheme,' been made to occupy a large share of the attention of the coun- try, and to excite the deep alarm of a great proportion of those interested in the State banking institutions. It is not to be dis- guised that the strongest charges of hostility have come from those who are friendly to the system of a national bank for the management of our finances; and hence the committee have believed it fair to institute this comparison, so far as the influ- ence of either upon the State banks is concerned, between that and the system recommended by the President. Can the friends of the former claim a superiority for their system in the benefits conferred upon the local banking institutions ? Can they claim superior exemptions from the checks and deprivations which those institutions are to experience under either system? Let the comparison answer. "In reference to any benefits anticipated from financial agen- cies proceeding from the treasury, both systems are equal to the State banks. Both deprive them wholly of those benefits. " In reference to the benefits derived from the deposit and use of the public money, both systems are equal to the State banks, for both deprive them of those benefits. " In reference to the embarrassments proceeding from compe- tition, the system recommended by the President is wholly favor- able to the State banks. It constitutes no rival and prevents all rivalship growing out of an exclusive use of the public money. The national bank system has for its principal object the creation of a commanding and an all-powerful rival, and proposes to give it the sole and exclusive benefit of the use of the public money. " In reference to the benefits derivable from a bank circulation Life and Times of Silas Win out. 7(10 growing out of the management of the public iinan.-.s, tho sy«tcm recommended by the President is also wholly favorable to il.o State institutions, as compared with the other. If „o b:iiik-nof,.H be received in payment of the public revenue <.r .lisbursnl to tl... public creditors under this system, it will tli.n be exactly equal in its operation upon the State banks with the national bank syH- tem; as, while the notes of the bank, under the latter system, are to be made a legal tender in payment of the public revenue, 'it is to receive in such payments the notes of no State banks which are not at its door and cannot be presented ' at least once in every week' to be redeemed with specie, a nominal favor which can be of no practical value, and may, at periods of embarrass- ment, be a serious injury to the State banks whose notes are received for such a purpose. So far as disbursements are con- cerned the two systems must, upon this hypothesis, be always equal to the State banks. If, however, Congress shall permit, to any extent or for any period of time, the receipt or disbursement, or both, of bank-notes in the management of the public revenues, the State banks, under the system recommended by the President, would have all the benefits to be derived from such permission ; while the whole benefits would be exclusively confined to the national bank under that system, the disbursements being always confined to its own notes. "Is the government, then, justly chargeable with hostility to the State banks, because the President has recommended such a system of finance for the approbation of Congress ? Can such a charge come with propriety from the friends of a national bank ? The State institutions survived and prospered under the national bank system. Surely, then, under one so very similar in many of its features, and so greatly ameliorated in others so far as its action upon them is concerned, they cannot be exterminated; nor can it be said with reason or fairness that a system so ameliorated toward them has been devised for their destruction or recom- mended from an unfriendly spirit toward them. "What is required at the hands of Congress to rebut this unfounded presumption of hostility? To make the notes of the eight or nine hundred banks of the country a legal tender so fast as those banks shall resume specie payments. Sweeping remedy, 49 770 Life and Times of Silas Wright. truly, for an imaginary disease ! The Congress of the United States is asked to change its whole policy, to abandon the hope of extending and rendering stable and firm a specie basis for the paper currency of the country, to throw away the occasion now offered when coin is flowing into our ports, and to adopt and legalize bank pajjer as the standard of currency for the national treasury — and for what? Simply to rebut the suspicion that the government is hostile to the banks. " It may be said that the passage of this clause of the resolu- tion is not made desirable by this cause singly, but that the inducement it will hold out to the banks to resume specie pay- ments renders its passage proper and expedient. That a return to specie payments by the State banks is desirable and important to every interest, public and private, the committee know and feel; but can it be safe or proper for Congress to pass a law which, so far as its action can go, shall make the currency of the country exclusively paper, as an inducement to the banks to pay specie — or rather to agree to pay specie — when specie will be no longer demanded? Is it incumbent upon Congress so to legislate as necessarily to drive all specie from the country, by interposing a legal substitute of bank paper, as a means of ena- bling the banks to pay specie? Will the Senate go further in holding out inducements to produce a return to specie payments, by way of indorsing the paper of the banks, than the States which have created them will consent to go? The committee believe that some of the States have made the notes of such of their banks receivable, by law, at the State treasury, as are owned in part or principally by the State itself; thus doing in this respect what Congress did do in reference to the two Banks of the United States. But it is not believed that any State has made the notes of its banks in which the State has no interest a legal tender in payment of debts due to itself, and yet most of the States have legislated with express reference to their banking institutions since the suspension of specie payments in May, 1837. "Another argument urged for the adoption of this provision is, that the times require the extension of unusual favor toward the banks. The committee have reviewed the condition of our mone- tary affairs in 1816, immediately after the close of the late war Life and Times of ISilas W uhnii. 771 with Great Britain, and also the extreme in.lul-..,,,-.. whirl, l',>„. gress couki then be brought to exteii.l tc tlic Sl:ih. hanks „f thai day; and will it be pretended that the State .hanks nnu ,,r,s.„i stronger claims upon the patronage and favor ami iu.lulgi.nee ..f this government than did those of 18 ic,? There is a wi,|r a... I marked difference in the relations existing between ih.- gMV.Tii- ment of the United States and the banks in 181(5 and at the pres- ent time. Then the principal embarrassments of the banks were brought upon them by their advances to tlie government to assist it through the war, which money the government cotdd nut pay. Now, the principal embarrassments of the government are brought upon it by having advanced money to the banks for safe-keeping, which they cannot pay. Still, in 181U, if the con- struction of the resolution of that year, as given by the commit- tee, be correct. Congress would only permit the reception of tlie notes of the banks at the treasury, at the option of the fiscal officers of the government, after they should have resumed spe- cie payment. If Congress is not disposed to go further now to favor the banks than it went then, it is sufficient to say that the resolution then passed is still in force, and as applicable to bank- ing institutions now as it was then if they will bring themselves within its provisions; and to allay all cause of apprehension uj)on the subject, either as to the understanding of the collecting offi- cers of the government or as to the exercise of their discretion under that resolution, it is proper to state tliat information hab already reached this city that, in a few commercial towns where a resumption is known to have taken place, the notes of the resuming banks are freely received in ijayment of duties, post- ages and all other public dues. "Is it desirable, for any purpose, that a wider circulation should be given to the notes of these specie-paying banks by the action of this government; that they should be made a legal ten- der in the payment of debts to the United States in all parts .'f the Union? The committee think this is not desirable an/sf t.ikc lli.- papiT, ..r wait his (the agent's) pleasure for the specie? An.l who d.H.« not also know that this, to the Indian's feelings aMi the United States, for the year one thousand uij^ht Imn.ln'.l an. I thirty-six,' passed on the 14th day of April, is.ft;. TluiL 80(;ii<»i» is in the words following: "'Sec. 2. And be it fartJuT enacted, That, hereafler, no bank-note of u 1cm denomination than ten dollars, and tliat tVoni and after tlio lliinl day of March, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, no l)anknotf of u less denomination than twenty dollars, shall be oll'tTcd in payment, in any case whatsoever in which money is to be i)aid by the United Slates or ihe Post-office department; nor shall any bank-note, of any denomination, l)c so offered, unless the same shall be payable, and paid on demand, in gold or silver coin, at the place where issued, and which sliall not be equivalent to specie at the place where offered, and convertible into gold or silver upon the spot, at the will of the holder, and without delay or loss to him; pro- vided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to make anythiii;,' but gold or silver a legal tender by any individual, or by the United Slates.' "If the second and third clauses of the resolution be read together, and the connection between them marked, it will be seen that the third must be understood to require the disburse- ment of any bank-notes which the second permits to be received. The last clause of the fifth section of the deposit law of 183G prohibits the receipt, in the collection of the revenue, of any bank- note of a less denomination than five dollars. It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned whether the second clause of the resolution should not be so construed as to repeal this prohibition of the deposit law, and compel the receipt of all notes, of any denomination, which any ' sound bank ' shall issue and make payable, and pay on demand, in the legal currency of the United States; but, with- out raising that question, that clause undoubtedly authorizes and compels the receipt of all notes of denominations not prohibited by that section of the deposit act, and consequently the third clause must repeal the first part of the section above quoted from the pension act, confining the disbursements to notes of higher denominations. The second provision of that section cannot stand, because this third clause of the resolution compels the offering of bank-notes, at all places, and in payment of all public creditors, without regard to the limitations there imposed and prescribed. This covers and repeals the whole section, except the proviso ; and besides the consideration that it falls with the 778 Life and Times of Silas Wright. section, if the views entertained by the committee, as before expressed, be cori-ect, this resolution will so operate as to make bank-notes, in effect, ' a legal tender ' by as well as to the ' United States.' " The committee will close this i-eport by saying that, up to this time. Congress has seemed to suppose that the tendency to use bank paper in payments from the United States was suffi- ciently strong, without either its encouragement or compulsion ; and that the safety of the public treasure, and the necessities as well as convenience of the public disbursements, required that the Treasurer and his fiscal agents should have the power, at pleasure, to convert the bank-notes received in the collections of the public revenue into coin. This has ever been the power pos- sessed by those officers, as well in reference to the notes of the two Banks of the United States, the receipt of which at the trea- sury was compulsory, as to the notes of the State banks, the receipt of which was merely permissive. Hence the Bank of the United States adopted and pursued the system of converting into coin, ' at least once every week,' all the notes of State banks received by it in payments of the revenue of the United States. This practice was approved and applauded in that bank, as add- ing to the security of the public treasure and imposing a health- ful and salutary check upon the local banks. Will not the same good results follow from a precisely similar practice on the part of the Treasurer of the United States, and any other fiscal agents of the treasury which the law may appoint ? Can the same act, performed by a national bank, be useful and salutary, and, per- formed by an officer of the government, be evil and mischievous, and require interdiction by law ? Would the public treasure, in the shape of State bank-notes, be unsafe in the keeping of a national bank, and therefore require the weekly conversion of those notes into coin ? And will that same treasure, in the same shape, be safe in the keeping of the State banks themselves, or in that of public officers, so as to require a prohibition against its conversion to coin, and to force its disbursement in paper in payment of the debts of the government ? These questions seem to the committee to admit of but one answer, and that answer, in substance, is, that this part of the resolution ought not to become a law." Life and Times of ;^jlas W uuiut, 77^ Chapter Lyyill. REPORT ON THE FINANCES OF THE (,;o\ EILN.ML.NT. The Senate, on the thirty-first of May, (lir.rt.,1 i)i.> Committee on Finance to take into considmiiKMi ciitnin provisions of the deposit act of 1836, mid iv|Mirt tlinvon. That committee, by Mr. Weight, its chainiiaii. mad.- tli.5 following report on the 8th of Jnne, 1888 : " The Committee on Finance, to wliidi was refer ri'd the reso- lution of the Senate of the thirty-lirst iiltiino, directing certain inquiries as to various provisions of an act entitled 'An ai-t to regulate the deposits of the public money,' passed on the '_':ul day of June, 183G, respectfully report : " The resolution instructs the connnittee ' to take into considera- tion the act of the 23d of June, 1836, entitled "An act to regn- late the deposits of the public money," ' and to make inquiry upon these points, viz.: " ' First. Whether, according to the provisions of that act, it is now com- petent for the Secretary of the Treasury to employ any bank which has heretofore been selected as a public depository, and whicli, since the passage of that act, has suspended specie payments.' " The committee have examined the act with attention, and find that, all other objections being obviated, it is competent for the Secretary of the Treasury to employ, as a public depository, any bank which has heretofore been selected for that service, 'and which, since the passage of that act, has suspended specie payments.' The eighth section of the deposit act prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from discontinuing any deposit bank, and from withdrawing the public money therefrom, e.xcept for certain enumerated causes, one of which is in the following words: " ' Or if any of said banks shall, at any time, refuse to pay its own notes in specie, if demanded.' "Upon this cause being presented, it is made the express duty 780 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the Secretary, by the same section of the act, ' to discontinue any such bank as a depository, and withdraw from it the public moneys which it may hold on deposit at the time of such discon- tinuance ; ' but when the bank shall have again resumed specie payments, nothing is found in this language to interdict its rese- lection as a public depository. " The fourth section of the act sets out the terms and condi- tions upon which the banks shall agree to receive the public moneys before they shall be employed as depositories. The second of these terms is prescribed in the following words : ' ' ' Secondly. To credit as specie all sums deposited therein to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, and to pay all checks, warrants or drafts, drawn on such deposits, in specie, if required by the holder thereof.' "The breach of this condition on the part of the bank would be a refusal to pay its depositors in specie, and consequently a suspension, to that extent, of specie payments; and the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to discontinue it as a depository and to withdraw the public money from it would become impera- tive by the language of the eighth section, before referred to, which assigns, as another cause of discontinuance and withdrawal, that ' at any time any one of said banks shall fail or refuse to per- form any of said duties, as prescribed by this act and stipulated to be performed by its contract.' "This contingency, therefore, like the former, would take from the bank its character as a depository for the time being, would forfeit the existing contract and render its discontinuance and the withdrawal of the public money from it an imperious duty; but the committee see nothing in either of the causes to prevent a second contract with the same bank when it should again resume specie payments, again consent ' to pay its own notes in specie, if demanded,' and again ' pay all checks, warrants or drafts drawn on the public deposits in specie, if required by the holders thereof.' They find no provision in any other part of the act interdicting a second contract with the same bank, when the first shall have been terminated for either of these causes, and they therefore express their opinion that 'it is now competent for the Secretary of the Treasury to employ any bank which has heretofore been selected as a public depository, and which, since Life anjj Times of ;Sil.\s II/.-/,; ///■. 781 the passage of that act, luis susjKn.h ,1 sjn-cic j.av bemg no other obstacle in the way of such sccuiia iMui.loy.ncnt than the act of suspension of specie paynieiils. "The next point to which the resulmiu,, directs the iii-iuiry .,f the committee is in the following words- '"■Second. Or which has, since the 4th day of July, 1830, iKiid oiil iioles or bills of a less deuominatiou than five dollars.' " To cause the inquiry to be clearly understood it is necessary to connect the preceding language with the words above (iu<»tfd, and the inquiry will be ^ohether, according to the j»-ovisionn <>/ thai act (the deposit law of 1836), it is now coinpetcnt /nr (he Secretary of the Treasury to employ any bank which has, since the ith day of July., 1836, paid out notes or bills of a less denomi- nation than five dollars. "In answer to this inquiry, the committee liiid \\\v two tir.st clauses of the fifth section of the act to be in the following words: " ' Sec. 5. And he it further enacted. That no bank shall be selected or con tinued, as a place of deposit of the public money, which shall not redeem its notes and bills, on demand, in specie; nor shall any bank be selected or continued, as aforesaid, which shall, after the fourth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, issue or pay out any note or bill of a less denomination than live dollars.' "The last of these clauses meets and answers the inquiry directly, and shows that it is not competent for the Secretary of the Treasury, under this act, now to employ as a public depository any bank which has, since the 4th day of July, 1836, either issutd or paid out notes or bills of a less denomination than five dollars; while the first clause interdicts the selection or continuance, at any time and under any circumstances, of any bank 'which siiall not redeem its notes and bills, on demand, in specie.' "These two points of the inquiry seem to the committee to assume the expediency of a course of legislation wiiich shall revive and introduce again into practice the deposit system established by the act of 1836, as the system upon which tho public money is to be kept and disbursed. Under this supposi- tion, the opinion of the committee as to the first inquiry d.^s nut indicate the necessity of further legislation; while the plain and 782 Life and Times of Silas Wright. unquestioned construction of the act as to the second compels an answer which, to the minds of those who desire the reintroduc- tion of that system, may seem to point out such a necessity. "Not so with the majority of the committee. While left by the Senate to the free exercise of their own opinions, they carniot recommend any legislation the effect of which will be to reunite the public treasury and the banks, by a return of the public treasure to the uses of banking ; to stimulate and compel the banks to discount upon the public money, by exacting from them an interest for its use ; to promote an expansion in the paper issues of the banks, exactly proportioned to the fertility of the public revenues, and a correspondent embarrassment of the pub- lic treasury, when a sterility of revenue shall call for the public money which has passed into the hands of the customers of the banks. Such, they believe, have been the effects of the system of deposits, the revival of which the resolution seems to contem- plate. That system compelled the deposit of all the public money in banks ; it placed it in those institutions upon general deposit, and thus made it, in fact and in law, the money of the banks and not the money of the people ; it not only held out an inducement to the banks to use the money for the purposes of discount and banking, but in this way gave them the right so to use it, in defiance of the popular will and of the public authori- ties ; it went further, and compelled them to convert it to some profitable employment, by demanding interest from them while it was in their keeping. Time and experience have shown the consequences of such a policy, and, were there no other reason, these consequences would forbid the committee from recommend- ing any legislation calculated or intended to revive that system. " The action of the Senate, however, appears to them equally to stand in the way of any such recommendation. A special convocation of Congress, in September last, was a necessity imposed by the failure of this system of deposits, and the embar- rassments to the public treasury thereby occasioned. Recom- mendations for the keeping and management of the public money, without the aid of the banks, and especially for a permanent separation between the treasure of the people and the business of banking, were then laid before Congress by the President. These Life and Times of Sieas \V/:/<;iir. 7s:J recommendations were deliberately ami dclinitn riy act.',! ii|...ii and adopted by the Senate, but failed (o ivccivc the a-^^Mit ..f the other branch of Congress. At llir .•..miiiciiccinciii ,,r ih,' |,rrsriit session the same reeoninHiHlatioiis, substantially, wm- rt'iicwcd and again the Senate lias, after long (idilKiat ion and d.'l.ai.-, adopted them, in the shape of a bill, and tlin- srwi tjicin i.. the House for its concurrence. If that bill shall heroine a law, ilic whole deposit system, recognized and legalized Iiy the .l.i.osii ad of 1836, will be superseded. Will the Senate, thm, by its own action, supersede its own bill? Will it, in [hr ai)sence of all information as to what may be the fate of that nieasnif in the co-ordinate branch of the Legislature, or rather with the know- ledge that it has not yet been considered there, send another iiill upon the same general subject, based up(»n adverse principles V "The committee can only repeat, what Iheylnive found it to be their dutj^ to say upon a kindred bi-anch of this subject, that whether such duplicate action, by the same legislative body, be consistent with established parliamentary law, with the economy of legislation, or with the uniformity of decisions which should characterize all deliberative bodies, are questions which properly address themselves to the Senate and not to them; but upon the merits of the propositions they must be permitted to feel entire confidence that no sufficient reasons for a change of opinion or action can be presented. " The remaining inquiry embraced in the resolution is in the following words : " ' Third. And also to inquire into the expediency of repealing or modi- fying those provisions of the said act which prohibit the receipt, in pay- ment of debts and dues to the United States, of the bills of all banks which issue bills of less denomination than five dollars.' "This inquiry relates to the last clause of the fifth section of the act, which reads as follows : " ' Nor shall the notes or bills of any bank be received, in payment ofany debt due to the United States, which shall, after the said fourth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, issue any note or bill of a less denomination than live dollars.' "This provision of the law of 18MG was inserted in furtherance of a policy some years since adopted by Congress, as will be seen 784 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. by the eighth section of the proposed rechaiter of the Bank of the United States of the year of 1832, which reserved to Con- gress the power, from and after the 3d of March, 1836, to pro- hibit that institution from issuing or circulating notes of a less denomination than tAventy dollars. That act did not become a law, but this feature of it met the approbation of the two Houses of Congress, while the objections of the then President to the bill made no mention of this provision as exceptionable in his mind. On the contrary, his whole policy, and all his recommendations in relation to the currency, after that date, and especially after the time when the power could have been exercised, favored the policy of this limitation. Various legislation of Congress, in the year 1836, distinctly indicated a determination to adhere to and carry out the policy, and, by limiting the circulation of bank-notes of the smaller denominations, to secure a currency of coin only for the minor transactions of business, for the payment of day laborers, for the change required in pecuniary dealings and the like ; and in this way, also, to give a more broad metallic basis to our whole paper circulation. Many of the States of the Union fell into the policy thus adopted and pursued by this government, and conformed their legislation to the object proposed. It seemed to be universally conceded that these two objects could only be secured by the exclusion of small bank-notes from ordinary cir- culation ; and all adopted the policy as wise and worthy of pur- suit. The powers of this government could effect little, as the paper circulation to be suppressed was that of the notes of banks existing by and acting under State authority; but what it could do was proposed to be done by the provision of the deposit law above quoted. As a more direct and much more efficient move- ment, a very general and vigorous effort was made by the States and the people to exclude from circulation bank-notes of a less denomination than five dollars; and several States, whose banks had, theretofore, been authorized to issue notes of the denomi nations of one, two and three dollars, took from them that authority, while the banks of several other States had either never possessed that authority or had been deprived of it at a previous period. The progress in this attempted reform of the currency was materially retarded by the fact that all the States Life and Times of /Silas Witwur. 7>s5 did not enter into and act upon it, so as to restrain tlic issue <»f small notes by their banks, and that the Ijaiiks of tl„. |5riti«.h provinces upon our north-western boundary cuntiniicd t.» isHuu small notes, which found a more or less extended eirciilaiiiui in the contiguous States of the Union. Slill, the a«lv;mcf lowar.l an entire metallic circulation for all sums below livf duMars was as rapid as, in the tlien situation of the country and banks, coiild reasonably have been expected ; and additional States wen- tak- ing measures for the gradual exclusion of the small notes of their banks, when the suspension of specie payments, with very few exceptions, by all the banks of all the States, in -May, 18:}7, arrested the salutary improvement. "The suspension was, to everj"^ practical extent, pei-fect. Tlu> banks, as a general rule, did not pay specie upon any denomina- tion of their notes or to any class of their creditors. An unavoidable consequence followed. All the coin in circulation, the most of which had been put in circulation by the policy aiul measures before adverted to, was either gathered into the banks, not to be again given out for the circulating currency of the country, or was hoarded by private holders, to whose minds tlu' suspension had communicated a feeling allied to panic, incliiiiiiLj them to treasure up all they had which was money, precisely in nro- portion to the diminution of their confidence in the value of that circulating medium which had, theretofore, represented money, but could not do so during the continuance of the entire suspen- sion of specie payments by the banks. Hence, either an absence of any medium for business transactions under five doHars, or the worst of all media which an enlightened publio feeling couUl tolerate, soon became, in many sections of the Union, an evd ot the first magnitude, and one against which the interference of the State Legislatures was comraandingly invoked, lii obedience to calls of this description from a suffering constituency, the Legislatures of several of the States, whicli had adopte-.l and prosecuted the policy of substituting the circulation of coin for that of small bank-notes in the minor pecuniary transactions of society, felt it to be their duty to retrograde in their action, and again to confer upon their banking institutions the power to issue and the right to circulate notes of the denominations 50 786 Life and Times of Silas Weight. below five dollars. In some cases this change of policy, in the action of the States, has been made general and unlimited, while in others, as the committee think more wisely and fortu- nately, it has been made temporary, and adopted with an evident design not to abandon the policy, but to meet the particular grievance, and, that being obviated, to return to those sound measures which, as permanent regulations of law, cannot fail to have a most salutary influence upon our currency generally, and especially upon the interest of the poorer and by far the most numerous classes, in its soundness and reality. " Still the committee suppose that nearly all the banks in many entire States have, in obedience to and in conformity with this change of policy in the' legislative action of the States under whose authority they exist, violated the restriction imposed by the clause of the deposit 'law of 1836 last above quoted, and thus put it out of the power of the fiscal ofiicers of this govern- ment to receive any of their notes in any payment to the United States while that restriction remains in force and without modi- fication. Under such circumstances, the committee are not pre- pared to say that this provision should be so rigidly adhered to as to perpetuate the exclusion of the notes of these banks from the public receipts, while the notes of other banks, no more safe, are received. Such a rule would not aid the policy which the committee earnestly advocate of giving greater stability to our paper circulation, but would merely establish an invidious dis- crimination between the different local banking institutions, founded, so far as they can discover, upon no defensible principle. Had these violations of the restriction imposed by the deposit law been entirely voluntary on the part of the banks; had no suspension of specie payments, and no consequent derangement of the whole paper currency intervened, and, even under these pressing inducements, had not the interference of the Legislatures of the States authorized the violations, and, in some cases, at least, rendered the issue of the small notes almost, if not alto- gether, a duty in the estimation of the surrounding community, the committee would be the last persons to suggest even, much less to recommend, the remission of the penalty which this law of Congress imposes upon the act. Life and Times of Silas Wruhit. yyj "After what has been said, it will not bo expec-,tc some of ih,. nniarks of the Senator from Massachusetts. What he had i.. sav would not be in reference to tlie proposition the gciitlenian liad '_;i\.ri notice of his intention to introduce, but in reCerence to u sort of surprise he expressed that a measure wliich he rei'errecl to, and which, having passed this body, had been sent to the other House and was there pending, would be taken uj) and acted on. The gentleman spoke of the taking up of this mi'asure and act- ing on it by the other House as something new and surprising. He knew, Mr. W. said, that there had been an attempt, vast and persevering in its character, to inculcate the heliel' throughout the country that this measure was ended for the present — or, to use the language of a gentleman on that floor, that it was ilead and buried. He was not able to contradict the allegation; hut he knew that when it was first made here he expressed his own dissent, and declared that he had never renounced the hope that the other branch of Congress would, l)efore the end of the ses- sion, consider and decide on that subject with which the feelings and interests of the country were so closely connected. He had therefore hoped that any movement respecting it would not have been represented here as altogether new atid surprising, lie knew of no expectations that an effort would be made here to consider that measure. He himself had no intention to make such an effort. He also knew that, by a large number, a disposi- tion had been entertained that it should iu)t be again considered in either House. But it was not right that it should bo rei>re- sented anywhere that that measure was ended and not again to be considered; that to take it up and act on it in the body in which it was pending was new and surprising. If such were the expectations of the Senator from Massachusetts, he had drawn them from a source not known to him, Mr. W. He could not consent to sit by while the Senator was making such allegations without expi-essing his dissent to them. Again, the Senator told them that within a few weeks the country was springing into new life, that prosperity was returning and business reviving, 790 Life and Times of Silas Wright. but that this administration had started up a measure which had thrown them back again. " We have seen that measure the subject of constant agitation and unreasonable anxiety, and yet they were told that it was dead and buried, and that the attempt to revive it would pro- duce alarm, embarrassment and distress. It was against such inferences that he was compelled to speak. He had heard it announced from the same quarter that, in consequence of the passage of a measure to which some importance was attached, a resumption of specie payments was soon to commence by the Bank of the United States, and that fact had been announced by their great ally himself. Was that ally to recede so soon from his purpose, and that, too, in consequence of the apprehended attempt of this administration to revive the independent treasury bill ? If this proclamation is not to be carried into effect, was it intended to lay the blame at our door? The Senator knew that all those who advocated and supported this inde^^eudent treasury bill here had never abandoned it, and he should not be surprised that they still advocate it, and represent them as bringing up as something new that which had been consigned to the tomb. He ought not to represent it as consigned to the tomb till it really is so. At present, said Mr. W., we do not agi-ee that it is, "Mr. Weight understood now the difference between the Senator and himself. It was not here, then, that the impi-ession existed that an attempt would not be made to take up the mea- sure pending in the other House, but the impression existed abroad. He di(i not know but that strong efforts had been made to produce that impression; but in a paper of the opposi- tion where he had seen it declared that the measure was dead and buried, and could not succeed, he had also seen the declara- tion that it would pass. Now he did not know but this last declaration was a better move than the other, or whether both were not made for the purpose of producing a conviction on the public mind unfavorable to the measure. But the Senator knew that when the vote to which he alluded was taken, in the other House, that the House was thin — that there were some twenty or thirty members absent. The Senator knew, also, as well as he did, that from that time to this there had been a strong contro- versy in the public mind as to what would be its ultimate fate." Life and Times of .^^ilas W innnr. 79] Chapter LXXIV. POSTPONEMENT OF THE FOURTH INSTALLMENT OF THE DISTIUBUTION. The first postponement of the fourth install m.-nf lUKh'r the distribution act was to the 1st of .Jumiury, \s\\\). Soon after the meeting of Congress, on the first Monday in December, 1838, the Secretary of the Treasury sent u communication to Congress on the subject of this install ment, which was referred to the Committee on Finaucf. As chairman of this committee, on the thirteenth of December, Mr. Weight made a report in favor (j[ an indefinite postponement. Mr. Clay desu-ed to amend the bill presented by Mr. Weight to postpone the paynuMit only to the 1st of January, 1840, upon which a discussion arose, in which Mr. Weight participated and said : " Mr. Weight observed that he was not then disposed to occupy the time of the Senate by discussing the subject of this bill. The committee had reported it with a view to the state of the treasury, as indicated by the Secretary iu liis annual rejiort. That exhibit showed that by the first of January there would he no monej^ in the treasury for the payment of this fourth install- ment, and there was no anticipation of that uthcer that there would be any moneys for the purpose by the first of January thereafter. The committee believed as he did, that the time had arrived when the treasury had parted with all the money that it could spare, and carry on the operations of the government, without calling on the States for the repayment of the in^-tall- ments they had already received. He knew of nothing wliich promised that the treasury would be able to spare this money by the 1st of January, 1840, and therefore must oppose the amend- ment. Having made this explanation, he would content himself with asking for the yeas and nays on the question. 792 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " After a brief discussion of the subject Mr. Weight replied that it was BOt his intention now to enter into a discussion of the lamentable defalcations which had lately come to light. He had not the information to enable him to speak to that body intelligently on this subject. All he knew in regard to them was derived from glancing at the very voluminous report of the Secretaiy, which had been ordered to be printed, and which was not yet laid upon their tables. He was as much devoid of information on the subject as the Senator who last addressed them. But this much he would say, that if this matter was not thoroughly understood hj Congress and by the whole country, before the close of the session, it would not be his fault. It was his fixed purpose to have a thorough investigation of the whole subject, and to let his constituents know the whole truth. Then, as to the bill before them, it was not his purpose to liold out to the States expectations that he did not believe could be realized. In September last the Committee on Finance proj^osed the same postponement of this installment, and on the same terms that they now did. Vov himself, he thought that the time had gone by when they were authorized to hold out any expectations to the States from a surplus in the treasury, though, at the same time, he agreed that he had no power to look forward and say precisly what would be the condition of tlie treasury at the end of another year. He had no information which enabled him to say that this installment could be met on the 1st January, 1840, easier than it now could. " Mr. Wright, in reply to Mr. Clay and Mr. Tallmadge, said that with regard to the bill, the Committee on Finance, so far as he was aware, had, in reporting it, conformed to what they believed to be the views of a very large majority of the Senate. He would now frankly answer the question asked by the gentleman from Kentucky. If the bill, as reported, should be passed by that body, the gentleman must never expect him to vote for the payment of this fourth installment, should the question ever come up. He voted against the whole bill when it was first before them, and he was equally opposed to the principle that it con- tained now. Though he impeached the motives of no man who differed with him in opinion, he had changed no opinion that he Life and Times of ;Sii,.is (I /.7^• //■/•. 7((:{ held when the subject was firsL l>i'()iiL;lit IkI'.,!-,. iIhim, an. I, if called on to make this distrihutit)ii, lie iu\ cr could ^ivc Ids con- sent to do it. He hoped the Senator considered liinisclf answcrd • for, so far as lie Avas concerned, lie had L;i\cn liini an answer. He had remarked that the committee I'ell IpMuml, in niM.iiint,' this bill, to act with regard to the known opinions ol a majtiritv of that body; and he hoped that, so long as he continind a inember of it, they Avould always be disposed to frame llieir Idlls in con- formity with the known sense of liie body, so far as i heir sense of duty could conform to it. These were tlie feelings uliich liail always governed him; and it was in aecoivhuice willi tln-in that he had reported the bills of this and tlie hist session on the snb- ject before them. The Senate had changed ihe bill of the last session, and they could do so now. The Senator I'luni Kentucky asked, again and again, if they were alVaid to trust Congress. Why, if this bill passed as reported, would it not lie in the power of Congress to repeal it? Even if the bill passed, what was a law of Congress against Congress itself? IJut, said Mr. AV., wo propose to delay the payment at our own ]»leasure; and the terms of the amendment were to delay it till the 1st of January, is-io. Now, was there any one present who believed that there would be money in the treasury to pay this installment by that time? Not only was there no money to pay this installment now, but every one believed that there would not be any by the Isi of Jamiary, 1840. This was the true state of the case, and on it In- was con- tented to rest the question," The debate closed on the seventeentli, and Mr. Chiy's proposed amendment was voted down by 26 to 17, nml the bill was ordered to be engrossed for a tliinl n-adiiig without a division. We find no record of any action of the House on the bill at this session. 794 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. Chapter LXXV. MR. RIVES' RESOLUTION. Those wlio took sides with the banks, against Mr. Van Buren's administration, made the management of our financial affairs the principal ground of objection. The popular belief was that Mr. Rives, of Virginia, and Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, among the leaders in this movement, had theu' jealousy excited by the marked exhibition of public favor manifested toward Col. Benton and Mr. Wright, and that they entered this paper-money by-path to get ahead of them ; but, instead of succeeding in doing so, wandered from the true path to wliich they intended to return, and became lost in the enemy' s coun- try, and, from the force of circumstances, entered into service with its combatants. They and others left the democratic ranks and joined the whigs, and fiercely fought those with whom they were once proud to serve. On the 19th of December, 1838, Mr. Rives introduced a resolution making a most extensive call upon the Sec- retary of the Treasury for information, useless for any purpose except to enable him to open his batteries upon the administration for not deserting democratic principles and conforming to those of the whig party. By the rules of the Senate, this resolution must be before it one day before it could be acted upon. On the next day it was considered and discussed, and agreed to without a formal division. Mr. Rives opened the debate in remarks assail- ing the administration and its friends. Mr. Weight responded in his usual calm, dignified and inoffensive manner : Life and Times of ISilas Wu/anr. 7!r. "Mr. Wright said the Senate would notcxpccl l.iin to utu-.uj.i to reply to so elaborate a speech as that to which ihcy h:i.i j.i.t listened. He came to his seat with no expectuliun of .su.l, ;i debate. When the resolutions of the honorable Senator |M,-. Rives] were oflered yesterday, they excitod in hi. ,nin,| i,.. .-miici. pation that an elaborate and set discussion would be ontc-riHl upon at this stage of them. They were mere resolutions of inquiry. Their whole apparent object was to obtain facts, to h'lirn the truth of the matters to which they related, and he could not have expected a debate upon the merits until the testimony had bcuu obtained. "He should not, therefore, attempt to follow the gentleman in his extended remarks, or to reply to any part of his argunu-nt. It was his intention to occupy but a few moments of the time of the Senate, and to make but a few observations of an incidental character. " When the resolutions were offered, their object seemed to be fully and minutely expressed upon their face, and he was ghul the honorable Senator had come forward with them. The inquiries were such as he desired might be made and fully answered, but he could not have anticipated that conclusions would be drawn and expressed here, before the facts were known, or that a call for testimony would be made to follow a judgineni upon the issue. " He was as ignorant as the honorable Senator [3lr. Ifives] who bad spoken with so much warmth, and in terms of sucli strong censure, as to the nature, or character, or extent of the connection which had been formed between the public treasury and the Pennyslvania Bank, nor was the gentleman more desirous than himself that the truth as to that connection, whatever it might be, should be fully known; that all the facts should be exposed to the view of the whole country; that nothing should be hidden or concealed in relation to it. Hence he Avas pleased to see the resolutions, and should cheerfully vote for them. "It was true, he had learned, through the public prints, tliat the Secretary of the Treasury had, during the vacation, sold one of the bonds held against the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States, which, by a special law passed at the last session of Con- 796 Life and Times of Silas Wright. gress, he was expressly authorized to do. He had also heard through the same channel, and from the same authority, that the sale had been made to the bank itself, to the institution against which the bond was; but the information caused no surprise, no alarm, in his mind, because he supposed that the state of the treasury and the amount of appropriations by Congress were such as to require the sale of at least one of the bonds, to enable the department to pay the public creditors. Neither had the cir- cumstance that the sale had been made to Mr. Biddle's bank, to the institution which owed the debt, given him any apprehension, as he had been confiding enough to believe that the only offer or the best offer to purchase had come from that quarter, and that, for that simple reason, the Secretary had made the sale there. The law compelled the Secretary of the Treasury to get the best price he could command in the market for the bonds, in case he found it necessary to sell them, and prohibited him, in any event, from selling at a price below the par value of the bond. Mr. W. had been credulous enouoh to believe that the sale was made to the Pennsylvania Bank, because the law compelled the Secretary to sell to that institution, it making the only or the most advan- tageous offer for the bond placed in the market. It was possible he had been too confiding; but he had believed, when he first heard of the sale, that this was its explanation, and he had not now a doubt that such would prove to be the truth of the case, whenever the Secretary of the Treasury should have an opportu- nity to answer the inquiries of the Senator. " If the honorable gentleman did not entertain the same con- fidence in the executive officers of the government as himself, he could regret the fact, but it gave him no riglit to complain, nor did he complain that it was so; though, when the Senator had assumed to himself the character of an inquirer after the facts, and then had felt at liberty, before his inquiry was made, to draw inferences and pronounce conclusions of a highly censorious and condemnatory character, which inferences and conclusions could, with justice, only be drawn from the facts to be inquired after, he did feel and must express disappointment and regret. Had it been his case, whatever might have been his feelings toward the executive officers concerned, however much he might Life and Times of ;Sjlas Wukhit. '[)-; have distrusted their intelligence, or int. grit y, nr ojlicial r:iiil,r„|. ness, if he had i.rojiose.l to inqnirc and to call ii,m.ii ili.'in |.. answer, he wonld liave allowiMl tlum tlic o|,|h.ii imiiy to aiisw.-r, before he would either liavc ceiisurc'd or (•(.iMlnmicI ; ;ni.i |„. must say that it would have afforded him sincere gratiru-ation if the Senator from Virginia liad found it consistent with his fe.-l- ings and sense of duty to have jiursucd that in.nc jll^l and generous course. "At the opening of the lu)norable Senator's speech, .Mr. W. was led to suppose that an opportunity for sincere congratulation was to be afforded to himself and the majority of tlie Senate. They had long looked upon tlie (hmgers and miscliicfs attendant upon any connection between the treasury of the nation an.l banks of any character, as among the most serious anil alarming evils which had growii up under tlie admin is Ira lion of our repid)- lican system of government, while the Senator had, heretotore, but too successfully defended that connection. His early remarks seemed to present it now to his mind, charge.l with such liorrible and frightful consequences, that Mr. W. could not but sujipose that he and those with whom he had acted wcw^ again to have the powerful co-operation of the able Senator in i)reaking up and eradicating forever that unnatural, improper and vicious connection. In this, however, he had met hasty disappointment, as it seemed to be the connection with a single hank, and not a connection with banks generally, which had given the Senator his deep alarm, and drawn down ui)on the Secretary of the Trea- sury and the President his unmeasured censures. It was a con- nection with Mr. Biddle's bank, with the IVunsylvania I'.ank of the United States, which had thus aroused the Senator's eloquence and indignation. "Even here, however, Mr, W. found cause for earnest con- frratulation. He well remembered that, upon repeated occasions within the last two years, when he, and other friends who enter- tained opinions in accordance with his own, had made their feeble attempts to arouse the honorable Senator liimself, the Senate and the country to a sense of the dangers ami corrup- tions of that giant institution, they had been calndy and con- fidently told by the Senator, and others who then acted with 798 Life and Times of Silas Wright. him, that they were practicing an imposition upon the country; that they were attemj^ting to conjure u]:) the ghost of a buried enemy, a phantom, a mere shadow, to produce alarm and appre- hension; that the Bank of the United States, in any form of existence, was effectually destroyed, was dead and buried, never again to be disinterred to alarm or injure the people ; that our apprehensions were too late and were unreal. " Notwithstanding these repeated and positive assurances, which, coming from the sources they did, he always desired to consider friendly and sincere, Mr. W. had never for a moment permitted himself to be misled or deceived by them. There never had been a moment when he had considered the dangers from that institution at an end, or materially lessened. The change of its form, from a national to a State institution, con- nected with the facts which accompanied and characterized that change, had given no relief to his apprehensions, and they were now, at this moment, as lively and active and strong as they had ever been. " Not so with the honorable Senator. There had been a time when he had considered these dangers as not sleeping merely, but buried forever; and that he had now again become sensible of their existence, of their magnitude and of their impending- character, was a matter of just congratulation to Mr. W. If they could not agree about the banks generally, the Senatoi-'s speech of this day had proved that about this particular banking institution they did and could agree. Here again they could meet and unite their labors for the general benefit of the whole country. Not a man in these seats could have failed to feel the dangers and mischiefs of this great banking institution, as the Senator had so eloquently and forcibly and vividly depicted them. To Mr. W. the effort had not raised new apprehensions, but confirmed all former impressions; and he would now promise the Senator, and all others, his most anxious co-operation in any efforts finally and forever to remove the particular dangers so clearly pointed out, and all dangers to our republican institutions of a like character, come from what description of banking insti- tutions they might. He would repeat that he was entirely igno- rant of the connection now formed between the treasury and this Life and Times of Silas Wuiciit. 7ank of the rnilcd States have given foundation for the transactions complaiiu'd of, a very brief notice of tliose rehitions will, in my estimation, con- tribute essentially to a full and clear understanding of the mntlLTS under discussion. The first of these relations was that of a [)art- nership in banking, and the second was that of a creditor and debtor ; and out of both have grown the proceedings which form the subject of this debate. " The Bank of the United States, as a national institution, com- menced its chartered existence on the 4th day of March, 18 IG. By the terms of the charter, the United States were to hold the one-fifth part of its whole stock, an amount equal to $7,000,000. That stock was taken, and, with very trifling exceptions compara- tively, was held throughout the term of twenty years which the charter had to run. I believe that some transfers of stock, from the general treasury to the navy pension fund, had varied, very limitedly, the amount of that direct interest ; but the variation is immaterial to the purposes of this argument, and, as the trans- fer was made to a trust fund, in the safety and protection of which an interest was felt, and actually existed, equal to that for the safety and protection of any other equal portion of the public treasure, the real public interest was not at all changed. "Upon the expiration of the charter of the bank as a national institution, in March, 1836, this great interest was left subject to the management of the directors and other ofiicers of the bank durino- the two vears allowed by the charter for the winding up of its affairs, and left, almost necessarily, in an unproductive state. Hence the early interest felt and manifested, as well in Congress as by the chief fiscal officer of the government, to give prompt and eflicient attention to this portion of the public trea- sure. The charter of the bank expired during the session of Congress; and, before its adjournment, a law was passed consti- tuting the Secretary of the Treasury the agent of the United States to superintend this interest, with full power to liquidate the amount, to receive payment, or to take security for payment at a future day, submitting to his sole discretion the forbearance to be extended and the sufficiency of the security to be offered. 808 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " In the meantime, and at about the period, if not upon the very day, of the expiration of the charter, a proceeding was had by the boai-d of directors of the bank which I must be permitted to call singular, at the least, and especially so as it was a pro- ceeding to which the government was in no sense a party. The whole bank, its stocks, debts, credits and effects, of every name and character, were sold and transferred to a banking institution chartered by the State of Pennsylvania. This transfer took place in March, and the law of Congress, last referred to, did not pass until the twenty-third of June after. The transfer was to an institu- tion in which, upon the face of its charter, the United States were prohibited from holding stock, so that the government could take nothing in the new bank by this sale of its property in the old. Such was the condition of this public interest at the time Congress adjourned in 1836. "It is proper to pause here, and see what was the state of the public treasury at this period, that we may estimate the willing- ness, on the part of all the piablic functionaries, to accept security for the payment of this debt at a future day, instead of payment in hand, and consequently the willingness of Congress to submit the time of payment to the Secretary of the Treasury alone. The treasury was, at the time referred to, full to overflowing, and statesmen of the greatest experience and deepest reflection consid- ered the abundance of our revenues and the surplus of onr treasure as one of the severest evils which then did, or which ever had, threatened the purity and permanency of our institutions. So great was the desire to discharge the country from the corrupting and demoralizing influences of this flood of money, that, on the very day on which this agency over our interest in the bank was given to the Secretary of the Treasury, a law was passed to set apart from the general and ordinary uses of the treasury, and dis- tribute to the States, in the form of a deposit, more than thirty- seven millions of dollars of the public money. This law stands upon the statute book next before that which authorizes the Secretary to extend a credit upon the debt due from the bank. " I will now pass to the next session of Congress — the annual session of 1836-37. On the 1st day of January, 1837, the balance was to be struck, and all the money found in the treasury, deduct- Life and Times of Silas Weight. 809 ing five millions of dollars to meet outstandiiig appvopi-iations, was to be laid aside, and deposited with the States in the ratio of their representation in the two Houses of Congress; the one quarter on that day, one other quarter on the first day of April, the third quarter on the first day of July, and llic remaining quarter on the first day of October, of that year. This left the treasury with five millions of dollars of means, and something more than fourteen millions of dollars of out- standing appropriations. The current revenue of the year, therefore, must meet the balance of outstanding appropriations beyond the five millions of dollars left in the treasury, and also the current appropriations of the year, or the money placed in deposit with the States must be called back to pay the defi- ciency. This, I think, was about the state of facts, and the condition of the treasury, on the 1st day of January, 1837; though I have not looked at the figures for this occasion, and, speaking from memory, may not be precisely accurate. During this ses- sion of Congress, a report was received from the Secretary of the Treasury, detailing the efforts which had been made under the law of 1836 to liquidate, settle and secure the bank debt; giving the then state of the negotiation, and showing that no definite or satisfactory result had been reached. It appeared, however, that examinations had been made, facts ascertained and conclu- sions formed, as to the fair value of the interest of the United States arising from their stock ; and that distinct offers to sell the claim to the new Pennsylvania bank, at a given price, and upon specified terms, as to time and interest, had been made by the commissioners appointed by the Secretary, but that no answers had been obtained to their propositions. "After this report was laid before Congress and the public, the board of directors of this Pennsylvania bank, through their president, addressed a memorial to Congress, giving their accept- ance of one of the offers which had been made to them, and Congress, on the 3d of March, 1837, passed a concurrent resolu- tion, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to take the security offered, and close the business. " The whole value of the claim, as liquidated by the offer and acceptance, was 17,946,356.16. This was the amount conceded 810 J^iF^ ^^^ Times of Silas Wright. to have been due to the United States on the day after the expi- ration of the charter of the bank as a national institution, the 4th day of March, 1836 ; a. id, by the terms of the bargain, pay- ment was to be made in four equal installments of $1,986,589.04 each, the first to be paid in the month of September, 183*7, and the remaining three installments in one, two and three years from that time, with interest upon the whole amount from and after the 3d day of March, 1836, until paid, at the rate of six per centum per annum. The Secretary proceeded to carry into effect the resolution of Congress, to ascertain the amounts as above stated, and to take the bonds of the United States Bank of Penn- sylvania to secure the payments, that being the security agreed to be given by the terms of the acceptance. " In this way the claim of the United States was transferred from the Bank of the United States chartered by Congress, to that chartered by the State of Pennsylvania; and thus the bonds against the latter institution, which have given rise to the trans- actions principally complained of, came into existence. These bonds were each for the same amount, $1,980,589.04. Each bears an interest of six per centum per annum from the 3d day of March, 1836 ; and the first was payable in all tlie month of Sep- tember, 1837, the second in 1838, the third in 1839 and the fourth in 1840. All tliese bonds bear date on the 10th day of May, 1837; and it is impossible not to mark the singular coincidence of dates between the conclusion of this negotiation, which postponed the payment, and placed beyond the power and control of the treasury this almost eight millions of dollars, and that universal suspension of specie payments by the banks of the country, which instantly deprived the treasury of means to pay the public credit- ors, and compelled an extra call of Congress. I have stated that the bonds were dated on the 10th day of May, 1837. They were, therefore, executed on that day, either at Washington or Phila- delphia, while at New York, on the very same day, specie pay- ments were suspended. I speak from recollection upon this point, but feel sure that the suspension took place at New York on the 10th of May, 1837; and it was certainly followed, almost instantly, where it had not been preceded, by nearly every bank- ing institution in the whole Union. A consequence of this was Life and Times of Silas Wrkhit. ^11 to render unavailable, for leoal payments, all tlic balances in iIk; deposit banks, and to throw back upon tlic treasury, thus (hprive.l of its means, masses of outstanding drafts which had lucn .liawn upon these deposits, but which had not reached their phices of destination and been presented for payment when the suspension was proclaimed. At this crisis the bank debt would luive been a most timely and important aid, if it couhl have been realized in cash; but the consummation, on the very day of the suspension by the banks, of the terms of a compromise, tendered on the ))art of the government when the treasury was more than full, and accejDted by the bank several months after it was tendered, had postponed payment upon this debt for one, two, three and four years. " Under circumstances like these, the proclamation of the President was issued, bearing date on the 15th of May, 1837, and calling a special meeting of Congress for September of that year. The deposits with the States, to be made on the first of January and first of April, of between nine and ten millions of dollars each, had been nearly completed, and drafts had l)een issued for the i^rincipal part, if not for the whole, of the deposit, of like amount, to be made on the first of July, when the suspension of specie payments by the banks placed the very moneys, out of which these deposits were to be made, beyond the control of the law or of the fiscal ofticers of the government. The consequence was, that many of the outstanding drafts for the July deposits, and some few of those for the previous installments, were dis- honored by the banks upon which they were drawn, and I'eturned upon the treasury for payment, while the whole means of the treasury, to meet these and other payments, were locked up in the suspending banks. Hence the aid of Congress was invoked, at the earliest practicable period, and the ability of the treasury to wet on until the commencement of the extra session was ren- dered extremely doubtful. So rapid was our transition, in a public sense, from superabundant wealth to extreme poverty, from plethoric fullness in the public treasury to extreme want and almost perfect destitution ! "It will now be proper to see what legislation was adopted by Congress affecting the public treasury at the extra session of 812 Life and Times of Silas Wright. September and October, ]837. In the way of supply, a bill was passed, on the twelfth day of October, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue paper, upon the credit of the govern- ment, in the shape of treasury notes, as the wants of the treasury should require, not to exceed, in all, the amount of $10,000,000, but with such restrictions in the law as to prohibit the reissue of any single note which should fall into the hands of an officer of the government, in payment to the United States, while all the notes were made a legal tender for all such payments. " On the other hand, nearly every ordinary resource of the treasury was cut off, for a period, by a law which suspended, for the space of nine months after maturity, all payments upon all outstanding duty bonds, and gave a credit of three and six months upon such cash duties as had become due and were unpaid, or should become due upon importations to be made pre- vious to the month of November, 1837; and by another law which, at the option of the deposit banks, suspended payment upon the balances due from them, for previous deposits, for periods of eight, fourteen and twenty months, and required that the bonds of the institutions for payment, at the expiration of those periods, of equal third parts of their respective debts, satis- factorily secured, should be received in lieu of payments in hand. "Another law was also passed, at this extra session, materially affecting the treasury in both directions. I allude to the law ' postponing the payment of the fourth installment of deposits with the States.' This law relieved the treasury from this call of between 19,000,000 and $10,000,000, until the 1st day of January, 1839; but it, at the same time, prohibited the Treasurer from drawing, under any circumstances, or for any purpose, upon the $28,000,000 which had been previously deposited with the States in obedience to the provisions of the deposit law of 1836. Its effect, therefore, was to deprive the treasury of three dollars of means for every one dollar of demand from which it was relieved. " With the exception of the necessary appropriations made at the extra session, no other legislation materially affecting the public treasury has been discovered. Life and Times of Silas Wright. SI.:} "I will now pass on to the annual session of Contrrcss of 1837-38, and see in what manner the legislation of that session was made to influence the operations of the treasury. On the 21st of May, 1838, a law passed giving to the Secretary of tlie Treasury the power to issue new treasury notes in the place of all those which, having been issued under the law of the extra session, had been paid in and canceled or should be so paid in and canceled under the provisions of that law. The same pro- hibition, however, against a reissue of the new notes was retained in the law of 1838, while these notes also Avere made a legal ten- der in all public payments. "The only other legislation of this session intended for the supply of the treasury was the law of the Vth of July, 1838, authorizing a sale in the market of the tAvo bonds against the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania which were to become due and payable in September, 1839 and 1840, being the third and fourth of the four bonds taken in the manner before related to secure the debt due to the United States from the late Bank of the United States chartered by Congress, for the stock held by the United States in that institution at the time of tlie expiration of its charter. It will be remembered that the first bond was made payable in September, 1837, which time had passed and that bond had been paid and canceled. The second bond, made payable in September, 1838, would fall due so soon after the pas- sage of the law that it was not thought advisable to include in it a provision for its sale, as the money might be received upon it from its maturity before a negotiation for the sale could be brought to a successful termination. Hence the law provided for the sale of the two last bonds only ; and this law it is, and the practical execution of it by the Secretary, which has given rise to this discussion and now compels me to obtrude myself upon the attention of the Senate. "The law made the Secretary of the Treasury the agent of the government for the sale of the bonds; limited him to tlie par value of each bond in the market, ' calculated according to the rules for estimating the par value of securities upon which inte- rest has run for a time, but which securities have not reached maturity;' opened to him the markets of our own and foreign 814 Life and Times of Silas Wright. countries, and directed that the sale should be made for ' money in hand.' " This brings me to an examination of the facts in relation to the execution of this law, and for them I must refer to the reports under consideration and to the documents accompanying them. From this time forward I shall, as far as practicable, let the reports and the correspondence speak for themselves; as, not- withstanding the tediousness to myself and the Senate of read- ing documents here, I prefer that the facts themselves and the language of the parties, rather than my understanding of either, should guide the judgment of this body and the country upon the issue presented. "It will be proper here to remark that but one of the bonds authorized to be sold has as yet been sold under the law — the bond to become due in September of the present year — that to fall due in September, 1840, being yet held by the treasury as the property of the United States. It will, however, be seen that various negotiations, all at the instance of the bank, have been carried on between that institution and the Secretary of the Treasury, the object of which was to arrange the mode and man- ner of payment of the second bond, to fall due in September, 1838, and, as an inducement to the officers of the treasury to yield to the mode and manner desired by the bank, offering on its part to anticipate portions of that payment, at times which should be most desirable to the government in reference to the calls for public disbursement. It is indispensable to a perfect understanding of the transactions that the negotiations for this object and those for the sale of the third bond, under the law before referred to, should not be confounded ; while the dates and order and manner of the correspondence ujDon the two sub- jects, and the similarity of the propositions from the bank in both cases, require some care to preserve the separation perfectly, and at the same time to comprehend the whole force of the facts as ap])licable to each transaction. " Hence I propose to examine all the facts in relation to the time, mode and manner of payment of the second bond, due in September, 1838, and Avhich was not sold, before I refer to the Life and Times of Silas Wrkiht. s .) facts attending the sale of the third bond, which was sold lu the bank. " The first question which arises in tlus course of iii(|tiiry is, was the state of tlie treasury, at the time the uegolialioii was concluded for an anticipation of tlie payment of two-thirds of this bond, and a postponement for the ]X'riod oL' lU'leen days oidy of the remaining third, such as to warrant the arrangement, on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury, as one calculated to promote the public intei'ests, and to secure more certainly I lie payment of the public creditors ? This question the Secretary of the Treasury himself shall answer. And as the same (|uestion will necessarily arise in reference to the sale of tlie third boml, and as the report of the Secretary, in answer to the call of the Senate, frequently speaks of the condition and necessities of the treasury in reference to both of these negotiations in the same sentence, his answer as to both shall be given here. I read first from page four of the report, Avhich relates more pailicnlarly to the payment of the second bond, to fall due in Sc})tember, 1838, though clauses of the extract allude also to the sale of the third bond. The Secretary says : " ' To avoid the payment of the bond that was to fall due on the first of October being made in new treasury notes, not reissuable, nor available in any way to discharge appropriations, and which event loas apprehended by tiio department, the written agreement was made with the bank, which will be found among the documents, stipulating, among other things, for the pay- ment of that bond on drafts to the public creditors, and in specie or its equivalent. This, though collateral to the sale of the otlier l)()nd, was a part of the same negotiation. " ' It was very clear at the time, and has been confirmed by subsecpient events, that the payment by the bank of its bonds in such treasury notes, and a failure to make that arrangement, the only practicable one for the sale of the third bond, would render either a special call of Congress or a sus- pension of payment of some of the demands upon the treasury inevitable. The department did not feel itself at liberty to hesitate in deciding between an exposure of the public service to either of those extremities, by insisting upon having the whole of these large sums of money paid at one time, and placed elsewhere in other suitable depositories, if any covild be Umm\ in the present imperfect state of the law, or a consent to leave them in the hands of the public debtor until they were actually wanted, and then to draw for them, in specie or its equivalent, when and where the public service required. Especially could the department not hesitate, when this course was not injuri- 816 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ous to that service, and it was unable at tliat time to withdraw those funds except by the debtor's voluntary consent.' "Again, on page five, with more exclusive reference to the arrangements in relation to the second bond, and to the places and manner of disbursement required by the wants of the public sei'vice, he says : " ' In relation to another inquiry concerning " the period when the sum of $1,600,000, in part payment of the second bond of the Bank of the United States, was placed to the credit of the treasury," I state that $800,000 was placed to his credit on the loth day of August, and $800,000 more on the 15th September, 1838. As to the "nature of the " whole agreement on that subject, I reply that it will be found in the correspondence annexed. " ' The substance of it was that about one-third of the amount of the bond should be paid in the middle of August, one-third in the middle of Septem- ber, and the other third in the middle of October, as these periods and amounts of payments were deemed likely to promote the convenience of the treasury, if not of both parties, better than to pay the whole large sum of near $2,500,000 at once at the close of the month of September. It was further stipulated that interest should cease on each of the installments thus paid on the day they were placed to the credit of the Treasurer, and made subject to his draft. As the money was wanted at different points to meet the public expenditures near them, the drafts of the Treasurer on the bank, payable at those several points, were engaged to be met there Avith promptitude, and in specie or its equivalent.'' "Here is a condensed, but full and clear, statement of the result of the negotiations as to the mode and manner and times of payment of the second bond, with suggestions as to the con- venience to the treasury of this manner of payment over that of the receipt of the whole sum of about $2,400,000, in a single pay- ment, on the first day of October, while the extract closes with showdng that the payments, at the times and places stipulated, were to be made ' in specie or its equivalent.' "Again, upon pages two and three of the report, and refer- ring principally to the sale of the third bond, the Secretary goes more fully into the state of the treasury, and shows most clearly the necessity for the sale and anticipation of the proceeds of this bond, which were not to become due until September, 1839, to meet the appropriations of 1838, which, he says, 'proved to be unusually great.' It need scarcely be said that, if such was the condition of the treasury and the anticipated wants of the public Life and Times of Silas Wright. 817 service in July as to prove the necessity for the sale of the third bond before the close of that fiscal year, the same facts must have proved, more clearly, the necessity of anticipating, so far as that could be done, the payments upon the second bond, tlie vs^hole of which was to fall due on the first day of October. The language of the Secretary is : "'The appropriations actually made having proved to be unusually great, and the expenditures anticipated during the two next ensuing months being much larger in amount than the immediate means which the department could expect to derive in money from other sources withm those mouths, I at once addressed letters to the bankers of the United States at London, and to our minister at Paris, requesting that measures might be taken, without delay, to obtain offers for those bonds, if possible, from capitalists in Europe. To these letters answers were received in due season, stating that, from the short time the bonds had to run, the absence of the guarantee of the United States for their eventual payment, and other causes, no sale could probably be effected of them either in London or Paris within the limits fixed by law. In the meantime, however, finding that the demands for the public service during the month of June had exceeded $4,500,000, and expecting, as the fact turned out to he, that they icould equal about $7,000,000 in July and August, and finding, also, that the available balance in the treasury, applicable to general purposes, and subject to draft, fell beloio §1,000,000, a7id that payments were making at times in new treasury notes, which could not be rendered at all available, I considered it necessary to effect a sale of at least one of the bonds at an earlier day than advices could be received and any proceeds realized from Europe. Particular inquiry was, therefore, instituted in the city of New York, and elsewhere, concern- ing the probability of selling soon one or more of the bonds, and also a public advertisement was issued, inviting proposals generally for their purchase. " ' The result was, that from the abundance of State stocks in the market, at very reduced prices, the lower rate at which other securities of tJie bank were selling, and the want of a guarantee by the United States, the sale was found, with the exception hereafter stated, to be wholly impracticable in this country, and was expected to be so abroad, under the conditions pre- scribed in the act. Indeed, no bids icere at any time made for either of the bouds, in conformity to those conditions, except that of Charles Macalester, Esq., of Philadelphia, who offered to purchase both of them within the terms of the law.' " Here is the most full and clear answer to the question. The expenditures for June had been more than '$4,500,000;' those for July and August were expected to be 'about $7,000,000, which expectation was realized by the fact, and the ' balance in 52 818 Life and Times of Silas Weight. the treasury, apitlicable to general purposes and subject to draft, fell below |1, 000,000.' Hence the Secretary 'considered it neces- sary to effect a sale of at least one of the bonds at an earlier day than advices could be I'eceived and any proceeds realized from Europe.' " I will now proceed to notice the correspondence, and first, that in relation to the payment of the second bond. And here it will be interesting, if not useful, to notice dates and coincidences between the proceedings in Congress toward a sale of the bonds, and the efforts on the part of the bank to gain possession of them or make arrangement for their payment. "On the 5th of April, 1838, the Senate, by a resolution, instructed the Committee on Finance to inquire into the state of the treasury, and, in case there should be a prospect that more means would be wanted than had been provided by Congress, further to inquire into the expediency of raising those means by a sale of the bank bonds, " On the twenty-first of the same month, Mr. Macalester addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury a note, making dis- tinct propositions for anticipating the payment of the second bond, to fall due in September, 1838, and inviting a correspond- ence. The documents exhibiting this negotiation will be found appended to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, now under consideration, commencing at page 11, and are marked A 1 to 7 inclusive. The negotiation was unsuccessful, because the parties could not agree as to the medium in which the projDosed l^ayments should be made; but there are certain points in this correspondence which I consider it important to notice, for futui'e reference, and will, therefore, read to the Senate a few short extracts. The Secretary, in his rej)ly to Mr. Macalester's first note, under date of twenty-eighth April, writes as follows : "'111 the meantime, as you do not state that the proposal contained in your letter is made under authority from the bank, and as the discussion of such a proijosal, unless made dii-ectly by the bank, or its authorized agent, might be liable to misconstruction, and lead to no useful result, you will see the necessity, before my replying fully, that any arrangement desired should be made in that form.' "In reply to this part of the Secretary's note, Mr, Macalester, under date of the second of May, says : Life and Times of iSjlas W Wkiiit. sI!> '"Sir.— I have the honor to ncknowlcd-c ilic icccii.l ol' vmr IcUcr of tweuty-eiiilith ultimo. In answer to winch 1 have to stale that I am aullmr- izecl by the Bank of the United Stales, eiiartered by Pennsylvania, to enter into the arrangements proposed in my letter of Iwenty-lirst ultimo.' "This establishes the laet tliat Mr. M:ieah>ster was here iictinrr as the agent of tlie bank, with full power to niaki' I he arnni<,'e- ment he proposed; and as he couliiiues, throughout all the nego- tiations as to both bonds, to act as the principal a<«-cnt and instrument of the institution, without anylliiui;- liirtlun- a])pearing upon the face of the papers as to his character or jiowers, thw above inquiry and answer were, doubtless, considered l)y both parties sufficient upon tliat point. " In the answer of the Secretary to Mr. Macalester's note of the second of May, fi-oni whicli the above is extracted, and in which he maizes formal propositions as to the tinges, places and maimer of payment of the second bond, is the following para- graph, which closes the letter : " ' To prevent misapprehension, it should be distinctly understood that, with the exception of treasury notes, the general course has been to accept no credit unless the deposit is made in speck or its equivalent, or unless the deposit has Ijeen received by some ])ublic claimants as equivalent to specie. The right of every claimant to be paid in the legal currency of the United States is fully recognized by this department; and considering the opinion entertained by the executive, and at least one branch of the Legislature, tJie idea must be expressly excluded that the notes of the second Bank of tlie Unitsd States, chartered in 1816, can he permitted to bo employed in any of the transactions growing out of this arrangement.^ "This letter bears date on the third of May, and, under date of the fifth of May, Mr. Macalester replied, which teniiinated that negotiation. Among other things he says: ' I did not and could not have intended to proj^ose a negotiation on the basis of a specie pai/ment.'' " These are the only references to this corres])ondence neces- sary to my purpose, and they are necessary because they establish the character of Mr. Macalester as agent of the bank, and the further fact that the Secretary of the Treasury, in the negotiation, adhered to 'the basis of a specie payment, or a payment equiva- lent to specie.^ " This correspondence covered the time from the twenty-first 820 Life and Times of Silas Wright. April to the fifth of May. We have before seen that, on the fifth of April, the Committee on Finance was instructed to inquire as to the inexpediency of a sale of the bonds, and the inquiry was general, relating as well to the second as to the third and fourth bonds, all of which remained unpaid. On the second of May the committee reported a bill providing for the sale of the third and fourth bonds, but not affecting the second ; and on the fifth of the same month, the negotiation as to anticipating the payment of this latter bond w^as terminated by the agent of the bank, unless some other than a specie basis for the payment could be acceded to. On the eleventh of May, the bill for the sale of the third and fourth bonds passed the Senate, and, on the seventh of July after, it became a law. " On the twenty-third of July, a second negotiation was opened by Mr. Macalester, by inviting the Secretary of the Treasury to make specific propositions for the payment of the second bond in three installments, to be paid on the 15th days of August, Septem- ber and October, 1838, the bond being payable, by its terms, on the first day of October of that year. To this invitation the Secre- tary answered, under date of the twenty-fourth of July, consent- ing to the times of payment proposed, and naming the places of payment, and the sums to be paid at each place, and closing with the following language: " 'In all cases, however, it is, of course, understood that payments will be made in specie or its equivalenV " These terms Mr. Macalester accepted, by a note dated the twenty-fifth July, merely requesting that the negotiation might be considered open in relation to the places of payment, and the sums to be paid at each, so far as the convenience of the treasury and the wants of the public service would permit. On the twenty- seventh the Secretary replied, consenting to make such changes in the places of payment, and the amounts at each, as could be made without material inconvenience to the department. This correspondence will be found annexed to the report of the Secretary, commencing at page 34, and marked inclosures No. 1 to 4 inclusive. " On the thirteenth of August, the negotiation in relation to the payments upon the second bond was renewed by a letter from Life and Times of Sir. as Wright. 821 Mr. Biddle, the president of the hank, to tli(> Scci-ctarv ol' the Treasury, suggesting such changes in the places ol" payment, and in the amounts to be paid at each phice, as he desired to have made, and referring to the correspondence, above (h't;iil(>(l, willi Mr. Macalester as the basis of the arrangement in nlation lo iliis bond. This correspondence, thus reopened, was continued be- tween the officers of the bank and those of the treasury up to the eighteenth of August, when all the places of payment, and the sums payable at each, were niutiially agreed upon, and the negotiation was completed; but, in the nieantinu', and on the fifteenth of August, a certificate of deposit, to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, was issued by tlie bank, and transmitted for the first installment of '$800,000, payable on that day toward the second bond. These documents will be found appended to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, now under consideration, commencing at page 37, and marked F 8, 10, 11, 12. " This gives a distinct and separate view of all the material negotiations in relation to the payment of the second bond, the times of payment, the places of payment and the manner of pay- ment. From the facts detailed, it will be seen that the bond was to be paid, and was paid, in three equal installments of about 1800,000 each, on the 15th days of August, September and Octo- ber, 1838, which would occasion the first installment to be paid forty-five days before the bond became due and payable, the second installment fifteen days before, and the third installment fifteen days after that time; that each installment, on the day it became payable by the arrangement, was to be, and was, deposi- ted in the bank to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States; that upon the strength of these deposits the Treasurer was to draw his drafts upon the bank, payable at the several places named, and for the several sums agreed upon in the arrangement; that those drafts were to be paid by the bank at the places at which they were made payable, without being first presented at the bank or returned to it for payment; and that interest was to cease upon the two installments anticipated wlien the money was placed to the credit of the Treasurer in the bank, 822 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and was to continue upon the thii'd installment until that, also, was so placed to his credit. "Tliis is the arrangement which the Secretary of the Treasury did make for the payment of the second bond, which, uiDon its face, became due and payable on the 1st of October, 1838. That the state of the treasury required the anticipated payments secured by the arrangement seems to be made certain by the report of the Secretary, and that the ijlaces and manner of pay- ment were such as best suited the public wants and the con- venience of the department is shown by the whole correspondence. If, then, there be fault on the part of the Secretary, in consenting to the arrangement, it must be because it was wrong to enter into a negotiation with the Bank of the United States, chartered by the State of Pennsylvania, and to conclude an arrangement for the anticipated payment of a debt which the wants of the public treasury required, upon terms not only convenient and advantageous to the public interests and the public service, but upon which alone payments could be anticipated, and because it was wrong, by such an arrangement, to secure those payments in money, which otherwise might be made in treasury notes, and thus rendered wholly unavailable to supply the wants of a reduced treasury. Deep as my feelings of hostility have been, and still are, against this bank, both as a national and State institution, I cannot carry those feelings so far as to censure a faithful public officer for acts like these; nor, when by our legislation we have driven him to these resorts to supply our treasury placed under his charge, can I suspect him of improper motives for having consented to negotiate with a dangerous banking institution, when it was the only alternative left to him to preserve the pub- lic faith, carry on the business of the nation and maintain its credit, or condemn him for having accomplished these great results by such means. " I pass now to the sale of the third bond and the negotiations which preceded and accomplished that object. The law author- izing that sale, as has been before remarked, was introduced into the Senate on the second of May, and the resolution of inquiry on the fifth of April previous. With his accustomed vigilance, the Secretary of the Treasury anticipated the action of Life anjj Times of jSjlas W iuhut. H2-J Congress by opening, on tlie eighth of May, a eoircsjMni.h-iicc. with an intelligent banker in each of the cities of New \ i)vk arnl Philadelphia, to inform liiniself whether, in case of tiic jjassage of a law like that proposed, a sale coiiM pi-oli,il>ly lie ina(h' of one or both of the bonds, either in the markets of our own oi- a I'orcign country. Copies of the bill were transmitted to e.ich of these gentlemen and their early opinions solicited. Answers Lo these letters were returned within a very few days, and both expressed opinions wholly unfavorable as to the prospect of a sah' in this country, unless to the bank itself, without tlie guarauly of tho government for the payment of the bonds; while one of the writers supposed that a sale might be effected in Eui'o[ie upon advantageous terms, and that the agent of the l)ank in Loiidoa might be induced 'by weighty considerations to enter the field as a purchaser;' and the other said, ' tiie bonds liave too short a time to run to w^arrant any reasonable expectation of a sale of them in Europe on favorable terms, during the present rate of exchange.' These letters will be found accompanying tlie report of the vSecretary, marked B 1, 2, 3. "The bill became a law, without any alteration of form, on the seventh of July. Under date of the ninth the Secretary wrote to N. M. de Rothschild and Sons, bankers, of London, sending them a copy of one of the bonds and requesting them to nego- tiate a sale in England if possible. A copy of the law was also transmitted. On the eleventh similar communications were addressed to the American minister at Paris, with a request that he would consult certain bankers named, and such other persons as he might think proper, and learn if a sa'le of the bonds could be effected in France within tlie terms of the law. On the seventeenth of July a gentleman of Baltimore, of known and approved qualifications for such a service, was addressed by the Secretary to learn if he would consent, for the compensation of eight dollars per day and the payment of his expenses, to go to Europe as the agent of the department to make sale of the bonds. In the meantime, and on the ninth of July, letters were addressed to the president of one of the leading banks in each of the cities of New York and Boston, and to a gentleman in Xew York known as the resident agent there of the banking-houses of the 824 Life and Thies of Silas Wright. Rothschilds in London and Paris, invoking the advice and aid of these individuals as to the sale of the bonds in this country or in any foreign market. "Such were the efforts promptly made by the Secretary to secure a sale of these bonds in conformity with the provisions of tlie act of Congress, and upon the most favorable terms which could be obtained. The condition of the treasury, and the consequent necessity for the sale of one or both of the bonds, has been already seen in the extracts from the report of the Secretary, before given. "Under date of the twenty-third of July, the gentleman applied to to act as agent for the sale of the bonds abroad re^Dlied to the Secretary's request, expressing an opinion that, as the state of the money market in Europe was peculiarly favor- able, the bonds might probably be sold there within the limita- tions prescribed in the law, and possibly upon terms more favorable 'if the agency is judiciously executed;' but charac- terizing the bonds as 'a less current or salable description of securities' than are ordinarily 'tendered for sale in any market,' and declining the agency at the compensation proposed, but offer- ing to undertake it for a commission of one-fourth of one per cent upon the amount of the bonds if sold, and for the pay and mile- age of a member of Congress in case of a failure to effect a sale. [See documents C, 6 and 7.] " The letters of the Secretary to the gentlemen in New York and Boston were promptly answered; the one from the agent of the foreign banking-houses containing an offer for the bonds, which did not come within the limitations of the law; and the two others holding out no prospect of a sale of either bond in this country, within the terms of the law. The correspondence with the two New York gentlemen was continued to great length, covering the time from the ninth to the twenty-seventh of July, and embracing efforts to effect a sale as well abroad as at home, but without any prospect of success. " Inasmuch as the Secretary is now charged with a willingness, if not a desire, to be driven to make the sale of these bonds to the bank itself, it will be but just to him to make one or two references to his correspondence with these gentlemen, as indica- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 825 tive of his feelings upon this point. I will iva.l ficm Lis letter of the sixteenth of July, written to Geo. Newbukl, Esq., president of the Bank of America, New York. It will be foiiinl on pages 23 and 24 of the report under consideration, and is marked 1), (J. The first paragraph of this letter is in the foUowino- words • "'Sir. — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the four- teenth instant. I wrote you on yesterday iu consequence of observing iu the Philadelphia newspapers some intimations affecting the credit of llie bonds of the Bank of the United States in tlie market. It seems to be evident that the maker of these bonds intends that no other corporation or individual shall purchase them. So many suggestions injurious to tiieir value have been made, and, what is more remarkable, considering their obvious origin and motive, have been listened to, that I shall probably be compelled either to sell the bonds to Mr. Biddle, who is expected here in the course of the present week, or to send them abroad for sale.' "Does this language, I ask, Mr. President, does tliis look like a desire, or even a willingness, to make the sale to the bank ? Does it look like a wish to be compelled to make the negotiation with Mr. Biddle ? Do you believe, sir, that the president of the Pennsylvania bank will look upon this language as conveying such a kindly feeling toward himself and his institution ? I will read the last paragraph of this same letter. It is in these words : " ' Any bank which co-operates iu the purchase of these bonds, at a point like New York, canuot fail to derive great advantage from the operation. The money will probably be required to be drawn for at the rate of about half a million monthly. The drafts will be mostly sent to the south and southwest, and the greater portion of them will be out thirty, sixty and ninety days before presented at bank.' " Here are the very benefits, which the charge j^resupposes it was the desire and intention of the Secretary of the Treasury to confer upon the Pennsylvania bank, specifically pointed out and earnestly urged upon the Bank of America in New York, and which, be it remembered, that bank would not accept. It cannot be necessary that I should trouble the Senate with further extracts from this correspondence to rebut so groundless and improbable a charge. ' " The correspondence to which I have hitherto alluded, in rela- tion to the sale of these bonds, will be found among the docu- 826 Life ajsd Times of Silas Wright. ments appended to the Secretary's report, commencing at page 20, and marked D, 1 to 17 inclusive. " This brings me, in point of time, to the negotiations which did take j^lace between the bank and the Secretary of the Treasury, and resulted in the sale of one of the bonds upon the terms pre- scribed in the law. The first step in this negotiation is a letter under date of the twenty-first of July, written by Mr. Macalester to the Secretary of the Treasury, and is in the following words : " ' Washington, July 21, 1838. " ' Sir. — I have the honor to submit to you the following proposition for the purchase of two bonds of the Bank of the United States chartered by Pennsylvania, referred to in your advertisement of eighteenth instant. " ' I will give, for one or both of them, the par value, calculated according to the rules for estimating the par value of securities upon which interest has run for a time, but which securities have not reached maturity ; the settlement to be made on first of August next, on which day I will deposit the amount thereof, to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States in special deposit in the Bank of the United States, in Philadelpliia, in specie oritsequioalent; this being done, you will then execute to me an assignment of the bonds. " 'I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, " 'C. MACALESTER. " ' Hon. Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury.^ " The reply of the Secretary to this proposition is under date of the thirtieth of July, and is an acceptance only so far as relates to the one bond to fall due in September, 1839. The following is the letter : *' ' Treasury Department, July 30, 1838. " ' Sir. — Your offer of the twenty-first instant, to purchase one or both of the bonds of the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States, at the par value, as limited in the act of Congress, is accepted lor the bond due in September, 1839. " ' The proposal being to deposit the monej'- to the credit of the Treasm-er, in special deposit in said bank, on the first day of August next, I have caused a computation to be made of the amount then payable by you. It is sup- posed to be $2,254,871.38, and is ascertained in the mode of calculation explained in the letter annexed. " ' That sum can be deposited ; and if any error is found in the calculation, it will be corrected. On receiving the certificate of deposit, I will execute t(; you an assignment of the bond. It is understood that the bank is to Life and Times of Silas Weight. 827 keep this money safely till drawn ont by the Treasurer, without niukini,' any charge to the United States for keeping or paying it over on his drafts. " ' I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, '"LEVI WOODBURY, " ' Secretary of tlui TreuDury. " ' Charles Macalester, Esq., Philadelphia.' "In conformity with this proposition und acceptance, llic piTsi- dent of the bank writes to the Secretary, nmU'r date of tlie tii-st August, as follows : " ' Bank of the United Statks, . I ////««/ 1, 18:^S. " ' Sir. — You will be informed by Mr. Macalester of his having this day deposited in this bank the sum of $3,254,871.38, to the credit of the Trea- surer of the United States. " ' In your letter to Mr. Macalester of the thirtieth ultimo, directing that the money should be deposited in the bank, you add: " It is understood that the bank is to keep this money safely till drawn out by the Treasurer, with- out making any charge to the United States for keeping or for paying it over on his drafts." " ' On the part of the bank I confirm that understanding. " ' With great respect, yours, '"N. BIDDLE, President. " ' Hon. Levi Woodbury, " 'Secretary of the Treasury, Wasliingtoii, D. C' " Of the same date the cashier of the bank transmits to the Secretary of the Treasury, or to the Treasurer of the I'nited States, the following certificate of deposit, being for the precise amount mentioned in the Secretary's letter of acceptance, al)ove given : " ' Bank of the United States, August 1, 1838. " 'I hereby certify that Charles Macalester, Esq., has this day dei)osited to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, in special deposit, the sum of $3,254,871.38, subject to the drafts of the said Treasurer. '"J. COWPERTHWAIT, Cashier: "This presents the negotiation, the sale and the payment of the third bond, in the language and acts of the parties, and from it a few inferences are to be drawn. '■'■First. The negotiation proceeds from the bank, and not from 828 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the Secretary of the Treasury, He does not solicit the bank to purchase, but the bank solicits him to sell, and offers its terms. " Second. Although the proposition from the bank is before the correspondence between the Secretary and the president of the Bank of America was closed, and on the same day on which the agent of the foreign banking-houses closed the correspondence between him and the Secretary, by a letter written at N ew York, yet the Secretary does not accept that proposition until nine days after its date, and three days after the final close of every other negotiation for the sale of the bonds in this country, with- out the least prospect of success. " Third. It was the only proposition for the purchase of the bonds coming within the limitations of the law, which he had been able to obtain, or was likely to obtain, in this country. " Fourth. The proposition was accepted as to one bond only, although it was an offer to purchase both upon the same terms, and those the terms prescribed in the law. " Is it possible, then, that the Secretary was desirous of a con- nection with this bank, and to benefit it by a sale of these bonds to it ? If so, why did he not invite this bank to purchase during the ten or twelve days upon which he was so faithfully soliciting offers from other banking institutions, and from individuals ? Why did he not accept at once the proposition of this bank, when made on the twenty-first of July, and not wait till the thirtieth, and until all prospect of obtaining an offer from any other quarter was put entirely at rest by the final close of two separate negotiations, both of which were open, so far as his knowledge extended, when this offer was received ? Why did he not accept the proposition as to both bonds, and thus confer upon the bank double the benefits which were conferred, if bene- fits they were, by his partial acceptance ? Until these questions are answered, the charge that the Secretary sought this transac- tion with the bank, or sought the advantage of the bank in the sale of these bonds, should cease to be made. But the Secretary had not heard from the negotiations oi:)ened by him in England and France for the sale of these bonds, and how, it may be asked, did he know that favorable propositions might not come from those quarters ? Or why did he not wait Life and Times of Silas Wkioht. 829 to be informed upon those points, before he closed the transac- tion with the bank, by the sale of the third bond? Tliis iiujuiiy has already been answered in the extracts read from tlie report of the Secretary now under consideration, lie says at page 3 of the report: "'In the meantime, however, finding that the demands for the public service during the month of June had exceeded $4,500,000 and expect- ing, as the fact turned out to be, that they would equal about $7,000,000 in July and August, and finding also that the available balance in the treasury, applicable to general purposes and subject to draft, fell below $1,000,000, and that payments were mahing at times ia neic treasury notes, which could not be rendered at all available, I considered it necessary to effect a sale of at least one of the bonds at an earlier day than advices could be received and any proceeds realized from Europe.^ " This is the answer of the oificer himself, made upon his offi- cial responsibility, in reply to the inquiry above antici})ated, made by the Senate itself. What is it ? That the state of the treasury would not permit him to wait for a sale of both of the bonds; that it was, in his opinion, '■necessary to effect a sale of at least one of the bonds at an earlier day than advices could be received and any proceeds realized from Europe.' Is this answer true ? Does any one here doubt it ? Will any one here attempt to impeach it ? Then the inquiry is answered, and here is the reason why the Secretary, in July, and before he had received returns from his foreign correspondents, accepted the oifer of the bank as to one and not as to both bonds. "These correspondents abroad, however, were heard from in due time, and Avhat Avere their answers? That the bonds were too larffe and could not be divided into smaller sums for the market; that they had too short a time to run to make them an object for the investment of such heavy sums; and that their final payment was not to be guaranteed by the United States; that for these reasons, principally, they could not be sold in Eng- land or France within the terms of the law. I will not trouble the Senate with reading this correspondence. It will be found among the documents appended to the report, marked C, 1 to 5, inclusive. " It is further complained that the Secretary of War took a part in this negotiation with the bank. He did so, and what was it? 830 Life and Times of Silas Weight. He shall answer for himself, as his language upon the subject will convey the truth more clearly, concisely and intelligibly than any I can employ will do it. I read from the documents appen- ded to the message of the President of the eleventh instant, in answer to the call made by the Senate upon him for all the infor- mation upon this point, being the report of the Secretary of War in reply to the interrogatories propounded. , At pages 1 and 2 of the document the Secretary says: " ' I have the honor to state that, some time in July last, in order to facili- tate the speedy and successful termination of a negotiation at that time pend- ing between the Secretary of the Treasury and Mr. Macalester, I acceded to the proposition of the latter that, in the event of the sale of the bond being perfected, the amount of the purchase-money should be absorbed by the expenditure of this department, and the funds to be placed by the bank at such points and in such amounts as they might be required, not to exceed $500,000 a month from this source; and gave him an assurance that this arrangement should be carried into effect, provided no objection were made to it by the Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Macalester was accordingly furnished Avith a statement, showing at what places and periods and in what amounts these funds would be wanted, a copy of which is herewith tur- nished, marked A. This arrangement was, on proper explanation, subse- quently concurred in by the Secretary of the Treasury, and its details have been carried into effect through his office ; and I have reason to believe that it aided essentially to produce the favorable issue of the negotiation. It has been carried into effect in a manner perfectly satisfactory to this depart- ment, the public creditor having been paid in such funds as he preferred to receive. I think it proper to mention that, while Mr. Macalester was con- ducting his correspondence with the Secretary of the Treasurj^ in April, he applied to me to know the probable requirements of this department for the residue of the year; and tinding that in all jirobability they would be very heavy, he expressed a desire, which was subsequently reiterated by the bank, that the purchase of the bond should be negotiated by me and the bond be transferred to the use of the War department; to which I replied, as stated by Mr. Biddle in his published letter to the Secretary of the thir- teenth August, that such an arrangement could not legally be made. That subsequently entered into by this department with Mr. Macalester, on which in a great measure depended the success of the negotiation for raising the necessarj'- funds for carrying on the operations of the government, and which was afterward sanctioned by the Secretary of the Treasury, being both legal and advantageous to the interests of the United States, I deem it unnecessary to saj' more than to repeat the opinion expressed by the Secre- tary of the Treasury in liis report on this subject, that the agreement finally Life and Times of Silas Wright. 831 concluded with the bank was forced upon the government by tlie conditions imposed upon the sale of the bonds, and was entered into ujion tlie fulk-st conviction — which subsequent events have proved to be wcll-fjrounded — that it was not only the most advantageous wiiieh could be uiade for the interests of the government, but presented at that time, in connection witii the arrangement for the mode of paying the bond due in September, 18:iH, the only means by which a failure to meet the pecuniary engagements of the United States or the alternative of another call of Congress by the Presi- dent could be avoided. Under these circumstances andwilh Ihcse convic- tions, I regarded it to be my duty to use my best endeavors to assist in bringing the negotiations for the sale of the bond to tlie bank to a success- ful issue, especially as these funds were required to carry on the important operations of this department, on which at that particidar period the peace and the character of the country so essentially depended.' "From the facts here stated, we learn that the bank, in making its propositions for anticipating the payment of the secoml ImukI, to become elite in September, 1838, as well as to purchase the two bonds which did not fall dne until September, 1839 and 1840, kept steadily in view the disbursements of the War department, and constantly manifested the intention of making tlie payments by meeting those disbursements. Hence, in April, when IMr. Macalester was holding his correspondence with the Secretary of the Treasury, and making his propositions, as the agent of tlie bank, for anticipating the payments npon the second bond, which correspondence has been before particularly referred to, lie ajtpiied to the Secretary of War, as is here stated, to ascertain the require- ments of that department for the residue of the year 1838, and, finding they would be large, urged that the bank bonds should be assigned to tliat department, so that the negotiations of the bank might be can-ied on wdth it. Being informed that sucli an assignment could not be legally made, the negotiation was prose- cuted to its unsuccessful termination with the Secretary of the Treasury, as has been before seen. On the twenty-first of July, and after the law had passed for the sale of the third and fourth bonds, a negotiation was opened by the bank with the Secretary of the Treasury for the sale of those bonds, and again, as apjieai-s by the above stateiuents of the Secretary of War, tlio same appeals were made to him, and the same desire expressed that (he payments by the bank might be made in the disbursements of his department. Being convinced that payments in that manner 832 Life and Times of Silas Wriget. would, by the bank, be made an essential condition in the nego- tiation, the Secretary expressed his willingness to accept the pay- ments as desired, provided such an arrangement should meet the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury. " On the twenty-third day of July Mr. Macalester reopened the negotiation with the Secretary of the Treasury, for an arrange- ment as to the payments upon the second bond, which negotiation was continued open until the fifteenth of August, when it was closed, by an agreement that that bond should be paid in three monthly installments of equal amounts, and that the drafts of the Treasurer, for the money, should be met by the bank, at the places where they should be made payable, which places, and the amount of drafts to be drawn upon each, constituted a material part of the treaty. " If, now, we bear in mind that the same mode of payment of the purchase-money for the third bond was the object of the collateral negotiation carried on with the Secretary of War, anterior to the purchase of that bond by the bank, we shall be able to understand the facts, without the danger of becoming confused by blending the two distinct transactions. The Secre- tary of War tells us that, being convinced it was necessary to a favorable issue of the pending negotiation for the sale of this third bond, he entered into the stipulation to have the proceeds of this bond devoted to the disbursements of the War depart- ment; to have the payments made at stipulated places in the south and west, in stipulated amounts at each place, and to draw but about §500,000 monthly from this source, upon the condition that the Secretary of the Ti*easurv should consent to the arrangre- ment; that he supposed the matter was subsequently submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and concurred in by him, and he now thinks the agent of the bank closed the contract for the purchase of the bond with this understanding, and that the suc- cessful tei-mination of that negotiation, in a great measure, depended upon that collateral arrangement. He also expresses his full conviction of the necessity of the sale of this bond for the successful prosecution of the affairs of government intrusted to his charge, ' on which, at that particular period, the peace and character of the country so essentially depended.' Life and Times of Silas Wright. fS:J:i " Not a Senator in these seats can, for a momcMit, mistake the important and delicate interests to w lii.li the Secretary ol' War refers in using this language. None liere can forget tlie intense interest felt throughout the whole country in the successful removal of the numerous and powerful tribes of Indians from the south and south-western States. None here are ifrnorant of the vast sums of money the government had stipulated to pay to extinguish the title of these Indians to their lands witliin the States, to pay the expenses of their removal, and to subsist them at their new homes; and none anywhere who know anything of the Indian chai'acter can be ignorant of the necessity of having, at the moment, the money stipulated to be paid to or for him. If money is due to the Indian, he must have money; and he must have it when you have stipulated to pay it, or your business trans- actions with him are at an end. You cannot tell him of embai-- rassments or disappointments. You cannot talk to him of credit, beyond the letter of your bond, and retain his confidence. Who, then, will be surprised at the anxiety manifested, and the respon- sibility assumed by the Secretary of War to secure, by the sale of this bond, the requisite funds in the treasury to accomplish that complete removal of these great tribes which has been accomplished during the past year, and which does, and will, reflect so much honor upon that capable and persevering public servant ? " I am aware that some of the correspondence would seem to imply some misunderstanding betweA the Secretaries of the Treasury and of War, in relation to this collateival arrangement as applied to the proceeds of the third bond, and the correspond- ence renders it more than probable that the one or the other had labored under a misapprehension, and had interpreted verbal con- versations intended to be applied to the mode and manner of payment of the third bond as relating to the mode and manner of making the anticipated payments upon the second bond. Still, the facts show that the agent of the bank made these stipulations essential to the closing of his contract in both cases, and that he was authorized to believe that they were understood by all the parties to constitute a component part of that contract. The facts also show that the money to be derived from both negotia- 53 834 Life and Times of Silas Wright. tions was indispensable to the healthful operations of the public treasury, while national interests of the gravest character depended upon the ability of the treasury to redeem the plighted faith of the country. "What, then, I ask, Mr. President, with some confidence, is the judgment to be rendered upon these transactions ? Are the executive officers of the country to be censured and condemned for having entered into any negotiations with this bank in relation to the payment of these bonds, and the supply of an exhausted treasury from that source ? And, if so, upon what ground ? Had Mr. Woodbury said to Mr. Biddle, ' I, sir, am opposed to your bank; the political party to which I belong, and with which I act and feel, are strongly opposed to it, and I will not, therefore, negotiate with you about your bonds; I will not sell to you upon any terms, be the consequences what they may; my political hostility, and the hostility of my political party, forbid that I should have any business transaction with you ; ' had our Secre- tary of the Treasury taken this course, and failed to realize the money upon the bonds, in time to meet the calls upon the treasury, as in that event he must; and had we returned here and found the Creeks and Cherokees not removed from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee; the military force withdrawn from Florida for want of subsistence; the western and northern frontiers unguarded and the public works abandoned, what would have been the pub- lic judgment upon the conduct of the Secretary then ? What would have been the judgment of this body ? Who then would have stood up here to defend the conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury, and who to accuse and condemn him ? " Sir, so broad and untenable ground as this will not be assumed ; but it may be said that the informal and collateral understanding, to which the Secretary of War was a party, has vitiated the trans- actions and gives cause for censure. Let us, for a moment, look at the facts. The money could be realized upon the bonds, in time to meet the wants of the treasury, from no other quarter than this bank. It could not be realized from the bank but by consenting to these collateral arrangements as to the times, places and manner of payment. The money was to be placed in the bank, ' in special deposit,'' to the credit of the Treasurer, and it Life and Times of Silas Wrigut. ^35 was so placed. Upon the strength of this (h'posit the Troastirer was to draw his drafts for the public disbursements in stipuhited amounts, and make them payable at stipulated places, and, wiiii- out presentment at the bank, it was to pay them at those places 'm S2)ecie or its e<2uivalent,'' and there is no allegation thai they were not so paid. The places oL' payment were naiuL-d by the heads of the departments which had the superintendence of the disbursements, as were also the sums to be paid at each, and both with a strict reference to the wants and convenience of the public service ; and it has not been asserted that inconvenience or loss arose to that service from either, while the contrary is positively shown by both the reports under consideration. The negotiation for the sale of the third bond was closed, and the money paid, on the first of August; and that for the payment of the second bond, and the first installment paid, on the fifteenth of the same month. On the thirteenth, two days before the last payment mentioned, the bank resumed specie payments, so that, however much these negotiations may have contributed to. that highly desirable result, the bank became a specie-paying bank before a single draft upon the money in deposit to the credit of the Treasurer could have passed from the hands of the oflicers and agents of the government, if any such drafts bad been drawn at that period. "These are the facts, and would they have justified the Secre- tary of the Treasury, even supjjosing him to have known and assented to the collateral stipulations as to the manner of pay- ment for the bond sold, in refusing to accept the terms offered by the bank, and thus to have incurred the consequences to which I have before alluded ? I think not, Mr. President ; but, as my task in reference to this part of the connection between the government and the Pennsylvania bank is performed, as I liave recounted the facts and the history of the transactions, I know tediously, but I hope faithfully, I cheerfully leave the Secretary of the Treasury, and all the other actors in them, to the judgment of the Senate and the country. If condemnation is to follow, I only desire that the judgment may rest upon the truth, and that I have attempted to exhibit. " Another connection has been formed between the government 836 Life and Times of Silas Wright. and this bank, which is represented as still more alarming and ominous than the one from which we have just passed. I con- gratulate the Senate, and certainly myself, that the facts, in this latter case, are concise, simple and plain. I propose, therefore, to read them all to the Senate ; first seeing out of what relations they have arisen. " The Bank of Kentucky was one of the deposit banks, under the laAV of 1836, 'to regulate the deposits of the public money.' It, with almost all the banking institutions of the country, sus- pended specie payments in May, 1837, then having a very large amount of the public money in its hands, for which it could not account according to law. This bank availed itself of the pro- visions of the law of the extra session of Congress of 1837, granting time for payment to the deposit banks at their option, and gave bonds to secure the payment of the amount due from it to the treasury in three equal installments ; the first to be paid on the 1st day of July, 1838, the second on the 1st day of January, 1839, and the third on the 1st day of July, 1839, with six per cent interest. The installment due in July, 1838, was paid, and nothing more was due ixpon the bonds until the first day of the present month. Still, under date of the 5th day of September, 1838, the president of the bank wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury as follows : " ' I shall, during the course of the present week, remit to you a check on Philadelphia, for ,$300,000, in part payment of the debt due by this bank.' " Under date of the tenth September, the president of the bank again writes from Louisville, Kentucky, to the Secretary, in the following words : " ' Sir. — I hand you, inclosed herewith, a check on the Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, in your favor, for $300,000, intended as a pay- ment on the amount due the Treasurer of the United States by this bank.' "On the seventeenth day of September, McClintock Young, the chief clerk in the Treasury department, and, at the time, acting as Secretary of the Treasury, during a temporary absence of the Secretary, acknowledges the receipt of the check mentioned in the above note from the president of the Bank of Kentucky, in the following language: Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. 837 " ' Sm. — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the tenth, with its inclosure. I have specially directed the check for !{;;jOO,000, (h-awii by your cashier upon the Bank of the United Slates, in favor of Levi Wootibury, Secretary of the Treasury, to be placed to the special credit of the Treasurer of the United States, with whom all accounts are kept, and to wIkhii :ill payments and transfers of balances of that kind sliould be made. Whether the bank will consider my indorsement sufficient for lh:it purpose, remains to be seen.' " On the same day Mr. Young, acting in the same character, writes to the cashier of the Bank of the United States of Penn- sylvania, at Philadelphia, as follows: " ' SiK. — The inclosed check has been this day received from the Bank of Kentucky; and I will thank you to place the amount ($:}00,000) to the spe- cial credit of the Treasurer, and acknowledge the receipt of the sum to him.' " The request of Mr. Young was complied witli by the bank, and the amount of the check placed to the special credit of the Treasurer of the United States upon its books. These are all the facts in this case, and, from them, some see a most dangerous and alarming evidence of a disposition, on the part of the executive officers of the government, to reunite the treasury of the country to this banking institution, in its new character of a State bank. Is such a conclusion fairly deducible from the premises? The Bank of Kentucky was, at this perioil, indebted to the United States in the sum of about $600,000. No part of the amount was due until the 1st of January, 1S39, and therefore the officers of the treasury w^ere not authorized to expect remittances from that quarter, until the receipt of the notice from the president of the bank on the fifth of September. In five days from the date of that note the draft followed, which must have been before the notice could have reached the Treasury department. On the seventeenth of September the draft comes, in the absence of the Secretary of the Treasury. It is drawn payable to him in his individual and official name, and is upon the Pennsylvania bank. Was it wrong in Mr. Young to take a draft upon that bank in payment of a debt due to the treasury, provided it should be duly honored? Much as I have and do dislike that institution, I am not prepared to say that the officers of the government would be justified in visiting it with that 838 Life and Times of Silas Wbight. measure of proscription, and I do not suppose any will pronounce censure upon that act. Mr. Young took the check and acknow- ledged its receipt in the language above quoted, informing the president of the Bank of Kentucky that it ought to have been made payable to the Treasurer, not to ' Levi Woodbury, Secre- tary of the Treasury,' and that he did not know whether the Pennsylvania bank would consider his indorsement sufficient to warrant the payment of the amount to the Treasurer. He must send the check to the bank to determine this point, and he must send it there for collection. The bank was then holding a large sum on deposit, to the credit of the Treasurer, as the proceeds of the bonds, and was meeting the drafts of the Treasurer for dis- bursements, at a greater number of points, and to larger amounts, than any other banking institution in the country. The money to be realized as the proceeds of this draft would be as valuable at Philadelphia as at any point in the country, and more valuable than at any other points except New York and Boston ; and for disbursements in the south and south-west, it would be even more valuable at Philadelphia than at the latter place. There were no general deposit banks holding public money under the deposit law of 1836, to which the proceeds of this draft could have been transferred, without depreciating the funds, and placing them more inconveniently for public use. By what obli- gation of duty, then, was the Secretary of the Treasury called upon to transfer this amount at all, for the mere purpose of safe- keeping? Will it be pretended that the money was unsafe in the Pennsylvania bank ? I presume not. Little as is my con- fidence in the institution, in any sense, it is not yet so per- fectly impaired as to enable me to believe that this money is not secure, for the short time it may remain in its vaults, before it is called out for the use of the public creditors. I cannot, as yet, by my public acts, express such an opinion of this bank. Why, then, I again ask, was the Secretary to withdraw the money from that resting place but for purposes of public disburse- ment? That bank was, at the time, a depository of public money of a special character, and for a temporary purpose and period, but it was making disbursements and meeting the drafts of the Treasurer, and was therefore a convenient location, so far Life and Times of Silas Wright. 8"-3!) as the public service was concerned, for ihis inDiioy. Tf ilic Sec- retary had transferred it, he must cither have placed it in some other bank, which was also a depository of a special clianu^ln-, holding the trust, like this bank, by the selection and :it tliu pleasure of the Secretary, and not under the law of 18:U), ov to a general deposit bank inconveniently located, and whei-e the money would be less valuable. Was it his duty to do eilla'r; and, if so, upon what ground ? Not to secure the safety of the funds, because they were as safe where they were as in any place it was in his power to place them. Not to make the money more valuable, because it was at a point where it was as valuable for public disbursement as any point which the country presented. Not to promote the convenience of the public service, because that convenience was best consulted by leaving the money where it was. He did not put the money in this bank. It was to be paid to the Treasurer there; it was paid to the Treasurer there, and there the Secretary of the Treasury, acting through his chief clerk, Mr. Young, left it in safe-keeping until the wants of the treasury should call it thence. This is his fault, if fault he has committed. Was he, then, bound to transfer this money, merely to show his hostility against this particular banking institution 'i If transferred at all, it must have been transferred to some other bank, for neither the laws of Congress nor tlie practice of the department authorized the Secretary to transfer the proceeds of this draft to any public officer of the country, simply for the purpose of safe-keeping. Was the Secretary of the Treasury, then, bound to transfer these funds to a general deposit bank, where their value to the public would be diminished, or to some other special deposit bank of his own selection, not for any pur- pose of public utility, but merely to show the hostility of himself and his friends toward this particular bank? This is the plain, direct and simple question presented, and this the issue formed in relation to this deposit in the Pennsylvania bank, " It may be, Mr. President, that blame to the Secretary of tlie Treasury, and blame to other executive officers of the country, should proceed from this transaction. It is not my province, nor is it my desire, to pronounce the judgment which the Senate or the people will form. It is enough for me that I have exhibited 840 Life and Times of Silas Wright. the facts fully, and presented these consequences, which were unavoidable in any course the Secretary might have chosen to take. That being done, I leave the matter to this body and the country, with a respectful confidence that the motives of that officer will be spared, in any event, who has had the magnanimity to sacrifice his personal feelings and strong hostilities to the profit and convenience of that branch of the public service committed to his charge, " I now pass, sir, to a very difierent branch of the facts pre- sented in the case before us. I refer to the published letter of Mr. Biddle, the president of the Pennsylvania bank, which has been adduced to the Senate as evidence of the improper connec- tion between the government and his bank. The paragraph of that letter to which I particularly allude is in the following words : " ' In the month of July the government agreed to receive an anticipated payment of tlie bonds of the bank to the amount of between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000, in a credit to the Treasurer on the books of the bank — and arrangements were made for the more distant pubhc disbursements in the notes of the bank. These arrangements, as honorable to the executive officers as they were beneficial to the public service, brought the government into efficient co-operation for the re-establishment of the currency, and opened the way to a resumption of specie payments. The resumption accordingly took place throughout the middle States on the thirteenth of August, and in many of the southern and western States soon after.' " If I have been at all successful in my exertions hitherto, the Senate now fully understands the whole afiair of the ' anticipated payment of the bonds,' and is able clearly to judge how far this brief and easy mention of a compliance, on the part of the officers of the government, with the repeated and untiring solicitations of this bank to arrange the payment of one of these bonds partly by anticipation, and to sell another of them to the institution, from an utter inability to find another purchaser in the markets of the whole world, makes a true representation of the facts of the case to the mind of the reader, — how far the public, to whom this letter is given by its author, would be likely to be impressed with the truth from this assumed representation of it. An agreement to make payment in a 'special deposit' to the credit of the Treasurer is converted into an agreement to antici- Life and Times of Silas Wright. S4I pate the payment of the bonds 'in a credit to tlie Treasiiier on the books of the bank,' while the certificate of the bank of the special deposit is a matter of record in the Treasury (hp.irt nu'iii. An agreement to pay 'm specie or its equivalent^ an iii\ ;irial)lu qualification to all the stipulations, is converted into ' ruianirc- ments' 'for the more distant public disbursements in ilir notes of the bank.' This is the evidence from this source, and muIi is the witness upon whose testimony before the country, vidunta- rily given, our highest executive officers are to be condennied unheard. How far this witness is supported by the facts I most cheerfully leave the Senate to determine; but I must, on lu'liall' of the officers concerned, protest against the compliment so con- fidently and so injuriously forced upon them by the president of the bank. They can bear the hostility of this institution but they cannot bear its praise, and most certainly not when that praise is shaped — as it is in this part of the letter from which I have read — to suit the views of a malignant opponent. " To give to the writer of the letter, however, all the founda- tion which possibly can be claimed for his statement of the facts, I will detain the Senate to make a few references to another docu- ment. I refer to the message of the President, of the ninth instant, in answer to a call from the Senate for all orders and instructions issued by heads of departments, heads of bureaus and the Post- master-General relative to the kind of money and bank-notes which might be paid out on account of the United States, since the 14th day of April, 1836. The message communicates answers to the call from all the heads of all the departments and bureaus who have issued any such orders or instructions within the period mentioned, but the present purpose does not require that I should refer to any other than those from the Secretary of War and the heads of bureaus in that deparlinent. These references shall be as brief as the occasion will permit, and it is here also my intention to let these officers speak, princi- pally, for themselves, "The Secretary of War, in submitting to the President the answers to the call from his department, says: " 'In submitting these reports, it is proper to remark that the circulars from the Paymaster's, Quartermaster's, Engineer and Indian departments, in 842 Life and Times of Silas Wright. October, were issued at a period which required the exercise of great forbear- ance and discretion in the management of the fiscal operations of this depart- ment, in order to avoid, as far as practicable, embarrassing the money concerns of the country. I had been informed, from credible sources, that a rigid exac- tion of specie to meet all our disbursements in the south and west would retard the resumption of specie payments, embarrass the operations of those banks that had resumed, and prove seriously prejudicial to the interests of commerce in that portion of the country. " 'Influenced by these impressions and acting under these views, which I had urged upon all branches of the department, these circulars were issued, and in some respects exceed what was intended; and upon being brought to the notice of the present chiefs of bureaus they have modified them so as to ren- der the instructions more strictly and distinctly conformable to existing enact- ments. At the same time it must be borne in mind that the Bank of the United States was, at the period of issuing the circulars, a specie-paying bank; and that to have exacted specie from the banks in the south and west which were indebted to that institution, or in which it had deposited funds to meet the drafts of the treasury for war warrants, would not only have been of no aid to the public service, but would have inflicted iujuiy alone upon those banks and been prejudicial only to the trade of the south and west!' " Here we have tlie views of the Secretary, and the motives and policy by which he intended to be governed in the adminis- tration of the affairs of his department. The time was one of great difficulty. The banks of the north and middle States had resumed specie payments and those of the south and west were struggling to reach that desirable point. The disbursements of his department were to be principally made in the south and west; and the drafts of the Treasurer for that purpose were, by the arrangement with the Bank of the United States in relation to the payment of two of its bonds, to be met, to much the great- est extent, by that institution. The supposition of the Secretary was natural and necessary, that those drafts would be met by calls upon its debtor banks in those sections of the Union wdiere the payments were to be made, and by deposits of funds in the banks there. Hence his proper and laudable anxiety, so far as an observ- ance of the law and of the unquestioned rights of the public creditors would permit, to make those heavy disbursements in a manner the least injurious to the banking institutions, the trade and commerce, and the business generally of those sections, and so as, in the least possible degree, to 'retard the resumption Life and Times op Silas Wright. 84:i of specie payments' in the south .and west; and lience, too, lio urged these views and this policy 'upon all llic hiaiichcs of tlie department.' Still, he tells us that the orders and instructions issued by some of the heads of bureaus in the department 'in some respects exceed what was intended.' "Satisfied that the motives of the Secretary, as avowed l»y himself, must be i;niversally approved, and that the policy he adopted for the government of his department was proper and right, so far as it was wisely pursued and proiicrly carried out, I now proceed to refer to such of these 'orders and iiist nidions ' as, if any, must be considered exceptionable. The first, in the order of time, is a direction given by the Secretary himself, in relation to the payment of pensioners. The date of this circular is May, 1837, the month in which all the banks of the country, comparatively speaking, suspended specie payments, and is in the following language: " 'In the present state of the currency, and during the general suspension of specie payments, it would be unjust to tlie pensioners to witliliold from them the means of purchasing the necessaries of lite, by a rigid adliercnce to the letter of the law. The agents, therefore, will be authorized to pay them in such currency as the receivers demand and are willing to consider an equivalent for specie.' "This order furnishes upon its face the best justification of which it is susceptible, and, therefore, without a single other remark, I pass to the circular of the Chief Engineer, which bears date 6th October, 1838, and is in the following words: '"SiR._It will conform with the understanding existing between the department and the depository banks, that whenever your payments on the public account cannot be made by checks on the banks, a tender of the notes of the bank on which the treasury draft was drawn will Ijc made, and that in no case specie be exclusively exacted, unless the notes of said bank will not be received by the public creditor. " ' The observance of this rule will be of general accommodation, and be sustained by the department.' " This is one of the ' orders ' to which the Secretary expressly applies the remark, in his report above quoted, that they ' in some respects exceed what was intended.' It will be proper here to add that, under date of the 20th October, 1838, the head of the Indian bureau issued a circiilar in the precise language of this 844 Life and Times of Silas Weight. one, and that the present heads of both these bureaus, when the existence of these directions from their respective branches of the department were made known to them, instantly so modified them as to bring them within the express and unquestioned terms of the existing laws in reference to the disbursement of bank- notes. "A circular from the office of the Paymaster-General was issued under date of the 8th October, 1838, which is as follows: " ' SiK. — Arrangements having been made with the United States bank to pay the Treasurer's drafts to a certain amount at diiferent places, and it being probable the notes of that bauk will be as acceptable to claimants, and in some cases more convenient than specie, you will, should you receive drafts on that bauk or its agents, make as many of your payments by check as you can, which will give the receiver the option of taking paper or specie; and the department has no objection to your using the paper of that bank in all your payments, so far as it can be done legally.' " The only other of these ' orders and directions ' to which I propose to refer was issued from the oifice of the Quartermaster- General, and bears date 31st October, 1838. Its language is : " ' Whenever remittances on the public account are made to you by the Treasurer of the United States in notes of the United States Bank of Penn- sylvania, or by drafts of that institution on local banks or agents, it is desir- able that, instead of demanding specie from the local banks or agents, you receive from them and disburse the bills of said " Bank of the United States," in all cases when such bills may be entirely satisfactory to the individuals to whom payment may be made.' " The Quartermaster-General states that this circular was sent to but eight oflicers of that department, and that, understanding a construction had been given to it to authorize the payment out of notes of less denominations than those allowed by the law of the 14th of April, 1836, those officers were immediately instructed that the direction was to be construed in conformity with that law, and not otherwise. " The number of orders and directions transmitted with the message of the President is very great; but, upon a careful perusal of them all, I consider those referred to above the only ones which have material reference to the disbursements to be made under the arrangements with the bank, and all which go a step to show that the bills of the bank were agreed to be disbursed, as a part Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 845 of these arrangcraents. And now, Mr. President, permit nie lo ask how far any of these orders authorize tlie assertion of tlic president of that iustitiUion that ' arrangements were madu for the more distant public disbursements in the notes of the bank?' We have seen that the arrangements between tlic Secrel.'irv of the Treasury and the bank, in fact, were thai tlie payments should be made ' in specie or its equivalent^ and so far as the collateral stipulation witli the Secretary of War may be consid- ered a part of those arrangements, that the same medium of pay- ment was required and agreed to be made by that also. In these negotiations, then, there were no 'arrangements made for the more distant public disbursements in the notes of the bank,' or for any disbursements, near or distant, in those notes, any further than they might be considered embraced in the terms equivalent to specie ; and how far that might be would, of course, in all cases, depend upon the will and choice and estimation of the public creditor to whom payment was to be made. It will cer- tainly not be pretended that orders from the head of a depart- ment or a bureau, containing simply directions for the govern- ment of the subordinates of that branch of the service, can change the terms of these contracts, or give to either parly rights which were not conferred by tlie contracts themselves. If ' arranscements were made ' between the executive officers and the bank ' for the more distant public disbursements in the notes of the bank,' the right was conferred upon the latter to make those disbursements in such notes, independent of any relations or rights between the government and its creditors, and a tender of the notes would be good payment as between the government and the bank. Is such a right pretended or claimed by the bank, growing out of the arrangements for the sale and payment of its bonds ? It has not been and is not. On the contrary, if no such ' arrangements ' were made or right conferred by the contracts, then nothing in the ' orders and directions ' from the heads of departments and bureaus to the disbursing officers could make the one or confer the other. In this aspect of the case, there- fore, the president of the bank was not authorized by the facts to say that ' arrangements were made for the more distant public disbursements in the notes of the bank.' 846 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " While upon this part of the case, another inquiry should be made. Did these ' orders and directions ' assume to confer upon the bank the right to make disbursements in its notes ? I here most freely express my dissent from the policy and practice indi- cated by some of these circulars. The Secretary tells us that some of them, ' in some respects, exceed what was intended ' by him, and I think some of them go beyond a sound and safe rule. I cordially concur in the views and policy upon which the Secre- tary acted, as expressed by himself; but I think some of the circulars go much farther, and, instead of adopting a policy which was calculated to hasten the resumption of specie payments in the south and west, and to restore the currency to a sound state in those sections of the Union, must, if continued in force and acted upon, have had a strong tendency in the opposite direction. Did they, however, assume to confer the right to make public disbursements in bank-notes? Not one — not even the broadest of them. They urged the policy of making disbursements in that medium, ' so far as it can be legally done,' ' in all cases where such bills may be entirely satisfactory to the individuals to whom payment may be made ;' ' unless the notes of said bank will not be received by the public creditor,' etc. Thus, in all cases, deferring to the option of the public creditor, and to his legal rights, the question of making disbursements in bank paper. The orders, therefore, did not assume to confer the right to make 'public disbursements in the notes of the bank,' and even they, broad and indefensible as some of them seem to me to be, do not bear out the president of the bank in the declaration referred to. Yet this individual goes on to say, ' these arrangements, as honorable to the executive officers as they were beneficial to the public service, brought the government into efficient co-operation for the re-establishment of the currency, and opened the way for the resumption of specie payments.' What ' arrangements ' are here referred to ? Evidently those spoken of in the previous sentence of the letter, ' for the more distant public disbursements in the notes of the bank.' Having shown that no such ' arrange- ments ' had been made between ' the executive officers ' and the bank, I may be permitted to hope that those worthy officers will not be made to suffer in the public estimation under the blight- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 847 ing influence of the compliment so grutuitously bestowed u])<)ii them. "Here, Mr. President, suffer me to ask, wliy do you lliiiils this letter of Mr. Biddle was given to tlie public? Was it, h- current revenue remained, besides other del'erred (h'lits; :iiid what the War department should require, which the bank was not to pay, it would be the duty of the Secretary of the 'rreasury to supply from these other sources. "Another ground assumed by the honorable gentleman is that the bonds might have been, and should have been, sold abroad, and tlint a special agent should have been sent al)road to nego- tiate the sale; and then he infers that the Secretary of the Trca- sury" was not driven to make the sale to the bank, had he pursued properly the course which the law pointed out. "I have before shown, generally, what the Secretary did do by way of effecting a sale of these bonds abroad, and, from the results of those efforts, had he any encouragement to pursue them further? This is the fair question, when we are discussing the faith and intentions of the officer. In May, pending the pas- sage of the law and almost immediately upon its introduction before Congress, the Secretary wrote to a banker of higli stand- ing in each of the cities of Philadelphia and New York to inquire- as to the prospect of a sale of the bonds, at home or abroad, within the terms proposed to be prescribed. They both answer him, substantially, that, upon the terms of the bill and without a guaranty, no sale could probably be effected in tliis country unless to the bank itself. Mr. Solms, the president of the Moya- mensing Bank, of Philadelphia, gave it as his opinion that a favorable sale of the bonds might be made in England, and seems to rest that opinion upon the then state of the English money market and the fact that the agent of the bank in London would, he thought, be induced 'by weighty considerations' to become a purchaser. This is the only direct opinion favorable to the sale of those bonds abroad which I have found among the papers, and this seems to have been formed at least as much upon the expectation that the bank itself would be the purchaser as upon any other consideration. This gentleman, therefore, did not propose to free the Secretarv from a sale to the bank by seudino; him to London for a market. 858 Life and Times oi Silas Weight. " Mr. Newbold, the president of the Bank of America, New York, says: 'The bonds have too short a time to run to warrant any reasonable expectation of a sale of them in Europe, on favor- able terms, during the present rate of exchange,' " After the passage of the law, the Secretary immediately wrote to the house of N. M. de Rothschild and Sons, bankers, of Lon- don, and requested them, if possible, within tlie restrictions of the law, to make sale of the bonds. They declined to purchase, for reasons which I have before stated, and say that a sale upon the terms prescribed cannot be effected in London. I cannot speak from personal acquaintance as to the propriety of the Secretary's selection of his English correspondents for this object, but I understand the house to be among the first banking-houses in London, and suppose it will be conceded by all that there is no fault in the course of the Secretary in this respect. " He also wrote, without delay, to our minister at Paris, and requested him to consult the best bankers in France, and effect a sale of the bonds there, if it could be done within the limits of his authority. As the gentleman has commented upon the unsatisfactory character of the reply from this quarter, I will read a part of Governor Cass's answer. He says: "'But Mr. Welles sought information from the bankers, and his views may be depended ou. He states that, after examination, he found it impos- sible to obtain an acceptable proposition, because, in the first place, the bonds are too large, and because, in the second place, bankers who made an offer would necessarily be compelled to hold themselves in readiness to comply, after information of the result should be obtained from the United States ; and would thus be bound, for many weeks, to have the money within their control, while, in tiie meantime, some event might occur to change the state of the money market, and thus to embarrass them. Mr. Welles was decidedly of opinion that a better arrangement might be made in the United States than here. Under these circumstances, and placing confidence in his representations, I do not think that the object could be effected in Paris, upon such terms as you would approve.' " Could the Secretary, after such an opinion, coming from such a source, and based upon such authority, longer hope to find, in France, a market for these bonds within the limitations of the law ? Can his motives be suspected because he relied and acted upon such evidence ? Like and Times of Silas Wright. 859 "The Secretary further, immediately after tlie passage of the law, opened a correspondence with a Mr. Belmoiil, of Vcw Voik, an agent resident there of extensive banking-houses in Lon> would,. doubtless, intend to represent truly tlic views ;iiiii tlml he was detained in New York by ill-health (lii.ii ImIii-- \\^^■ lirsi information of that character which had iciclicd ,Mr. W.), and requesting that the final question upon this l)ill uiigiil be |io^t- poned to await his arrival, which would be on the jNlouilav aller. But a few moments had elapsed, after the letter reached his hands, when he was informed that the same train of cars wluch brought the letter brought also his colleague to tlic city. "Upon this state of facts, well known to the Senator by a former explanation here, he rises in his place and again makes the charge of ' preciiDitancy and want of courtesy.' To such a charge, under such circumstances, and coming from such a (quar- ter, he had no reply to make. " His statement of facts had been made to justify himself to his constituents and the country ; it had been made to those who were Senators when the transactions took place, and could judge of the accuracy of his account of the matter. To his colleague he owed neither explanation nor reply to this repetition of such a charge. " It would be seen that some time had been allowed, after the meeting of the New York Legislature, and before the final action of the Senate upon the bill in question, for the filling of that vacancy, and the arrival of the elected Senator to take his place in the body. "He would leave to his colleague the duty of informing the Senate and the country at what time his election had taken place; at what time the notice of the fact had reached Iiini ; what time was occupied by him in traveling from the place of his residence to the city of New York ; wliat number of days ill- health had confined him there, and all the other facts which would account to their common constituents for Ins late arrival to take his seat in the Senate. He had not taken the pains to make inquiries into these facts, nor were they such as it became him to enlighten the Senate about. He did not doubt the alnlity of his colirague to give the information which seemed to be called for before'' he should become an accuser of others; but it was at his 878 Life and Times of Silas Wright. option to give the information or to withhold it. To him, Mr. W., neither course had any importance, nor had he any desire upon the subject. The facts were within the reach of those to whom they owed a common responsibility, and they would make up no judgment upon either side without giving them their true weight and consideration. " He had no disposition to follow his colleague into the discus- sion of the independent treasury bill upon this occasion. The subject was not new to either, and the views of both were fully known to their common constituents. He has further thought it proper to discuss again most of the subjects upon which we have differed since we became members together of this body. He, Mr. W., would not follow him in this review. He had been and continued to be content with their first discussions, and would rest himself iipon them. "His colleague had said, with some apparent feeling and triumph, that he, Mr. W., had upon those occasions proposed to refer their differences to their constituents, and not make them the subjects of debate and irritation here. He had done so, and he certainly had not regretted the reference. It was one which his duty not less than his feelings prompted him to make, and it was made to tliose who would take cognizance of them without their consent. " The Senator said their constituents had decided, thrice deci- ded. Be it so. He had not questioned the assertion nor was he to do so upon this occasion. He had not claimed to stand with the majority in his State, nor had he manifested any disposition nor did he entertain any wish to dispute the standing of his col- league in that particular. He felt no ambition to change places or positions. He said now, as he had said before, leave our pub- lic acts to the determination of those common constituents and not undertake to settle them here. "His colleague seemed to manifest peculiar anxiety to learn whether he would obey instructions from the Legislature of the State; a doctrine, he said, which originated in the school to which he, Mr. W., belonged. He was free to avow the doc- trine of instructions as belonging to his school, but the present remarks of his colleague were the first intimation he had received Life and Times of Silas Wrkhit. 870 that he too did not belong to that same school, ii|m.ii this point at least. He was sorry to be compelled to infer that hcic again a difference was to grow up between them, as it socnicd to threaten an entire separation in principle as well as pi-acticc "He was aware that this answer had not exactly reached the object of his colleague, and that he desired him to speak particu- larly of the resolutions of their Legislature now before the Senate. This it was not his purpose to do at present, and the only relief he could give him now was to inform him that when legislative instructions should call for it he should be ready to act promptly and decisively." 880 Life and Times of Silas Weight. Chapter LXXIX. ASSUMING THE DEBTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES BY THE UNITED STATES. It has been a favorite object with a class of politicians to induce the federal government to assume the debts of the respective States, or provide the means of their liqui- dation. State debts contracted during the Revolutionary war were assumed, at the instance of Mr. Hamilton, by Congress, upon which Mr. Jefferson made severe stric- tures. Those contracted in defense of the country have been uniformly paid, though with more or less delay. But ordinary debts of the States, contracted exclusively for State purposes, have never been paid by the general government. The money distributed — under the false pretense of making the States federal agents, under the name of "depositories" — to the several States was used by them as their own. Some of this may have been used by some States to pay their debts. Propositions to assume State debts were often made, but mainly by individuals seeking personal advancement. All such efforts, whether in the shape of du'ect assumption, or in the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, or the distribution of money from the trea- sury, rest upon the same basis, the belittling of the State governments and making the general government the tax collector for them, thereby causing them to be dependent upon an all-powerful, and to them an irresponsible, authority. The assumption of State debts had ardent friends in Congress, some of whom had their fears excited that New York was pretending that her debts were larger than they really were, to secure an undue share of Life and Times of Sjlas Wright. 881 what might be distributed. Mr. Fhigg, then Comptrol- ler of New York, had ascertained that the aggregate of State debts was near $200,000,000. Foreign creditors of these States, and especially in England, had intermed- dled in the matter and sent out a bankers' circular on the subject, in which attention was specially called to several States, and among them Mississippi and Arkan- sas, which had susi3ended payment, leaving the interest on their debts unprovided for. When these subjects were before the Senate for discus- sion, in January, 1840, Mr. Wright presented his views upon them as follows : "Mr. Weight said lie found himself compelled, from the course of remark of the honorable Senator from New Jersey [Mr, South- ard], to make an explanation of an explanation. That Senator was proceeding to blame the committee, and charge them with error in their statement of the amount of the debt of the State of New York. Feeling that, if error or blame were chargeable anywhere for that statement, the charge should be against him and not the committee, he asked leave of the Senator to explain, which was courteously granted. He had intended in that expla- nation to state the truth. He had said that he was called on by the honorable chairman of the committee, before the report was hrst made, to examine it upon this point; that he had told the chairman he thought their statement of $18,000,000 as the amount of the debt of New York excessive, but that he believed he had the means of accurate ascertainment; that he referred to the annual report of the Comptroller, the fiscal officer of the State, made to the Legislature during its present session, took the amount of the debt as he understood it to be from that docu- ment, and, according to his recollection, himself erased the sum stated in the report of $18,000,000, and interlined in his own handwriting the words 'about fifteen and a half millions;' and that this was done before the report was first made to the Senate. " This explanation he had made to exempt the committee from the charge of having stated that debt at 118,000,000, when their report was read in the Senate, and of having altered the sum 66 882 Ltfe and TuiEs of Silas Wright. after the recommitment on yesterday, as well as to exempt them from the charge of error at all, in the statement as it now appeared. In the alteration of the sum stated in the report, as well as in his explanation of it, he had intended to give the truth; and yet the subsequent remarks of the Senator had been made to show that he was in eri-or. [Here Mr, Southard rose and inquired if Mr. Weight supposed he intended to charge him with inten- tional error.] Mr. W. said, certainly not; certainly not. He begged the Senator to be assured that he had made, and intended to make, no ill-natured remarks. His object was what he had declared it to be, in reference to his alteration of the report and his former explanation of that act, to arrive at the truth, and to give that to the Senate and the country upon this point at least. " Could he have obtained the floor when he first made the attempt, and so as immediately to have succeeded the honorable Senator, he should have confined himself to a more full explana- tion in relation to what he supposed to be the true amount of the debt of the State of New York and the authority upon which he had assumed it to be what he had stated. He might now extend his remarks to a few other topics, but a severe cold made it labori- ous for him to speak, and, as well as the late hour of the day, would prevent him from being very tedious. And he would first complete his explanation in relation to the debt of the State he had the honor in part to represent here- " The honorable Senator [Mr. Southard] had produced and read from a document emanating from the State, to show that the amount of the debt was much less than the sum stated in the report of the committee, and, by necessary consequence, that he, Mr. W., had misled the coimnittee upon that point. He did not complain that the gentleman had produced the document or of the use he had made of it. It was a document proper to refer to for the purpose for which the Senator liad made the reference. It was the message of the Governor of his State, a document which ought to carry authority with it, and especially to his hon- orable coUeaofue and himself. It Avas the document to which he first referred, after the inquiry in reference to the arcionnt of their State debt was made of him by the honorable chairman of the committee. He remembered that their Governor had given a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 883 statement of the debt in his message, and there he first souglit for the true amount. An examination of the document, however, was unsatisfactory to him. It spoke of certain deductions, with- out giving the amount of tlie items, and some of them were clearly parts of the existing debt of the State. An acquaint- ance, somewhat extensive, with these matters, in years past, satis- fied him that the true amount of the State debt was not to be learned from the message of the Governor, and, having recently received copies of the annual report of the Comptroller of the State, the officer who keeps the books and accounts of the State, and whose duty it is, in this report, to show its true fiscal condi- tion, he had recourse to that document for the information sought by the committee from him. " The report was made to the Legislature of the State on the thirteenth day of the present month, and appended to it, as exhibits connected with the fiscal condition of the State, he found two tables, marked H and I. The tables he now held in his hand, and the entire document from which they had been taken was laying upon the desk before him. The first mentioned table, H, had tliis caption : ' ' ' Statement showing the amount of Canal and General Fund stocks out- standing on the 1st January, 1840, the rate of interest, and when redeemable.' " Then followed the various amounts of stock, arranged under various heads of expenditure, and there was carried out in the last column a general aggregate, the footing of which was $13,697,931.03. The table I, printed upon the same sheet, had the following cajDlion : " ' Statement of stocks issued to incorporated companies on the faith of the State, and the amount authorized to be issued.' " The table contains the names of the companies which have received portions of these stocks, a reference to the acts of the Legislature authorizing the emission, the amoimt of stock already issued to each company, and the further amount autliorized, but not issued, with the aggregate of both. The table is, therefore, clear and intelligible, not confounding stock authorized to be issued with that actually issued, and constituting an existing debt, and from it the amount actually issued is shown to be 884 Life and 2'uies of Silas Wright. $1,847,700, while that authorized and uot yet issued is $2,762,300 more. "To answer the committee, then, Mr. W. said he took the first two sums above named, as the existing debt of the State, and, adding them together, he found their amount to be $15,545,631,03, and, from data of that authority, he had inserted in the report of the committee the words ' about fifteen and a half millions ' as the amount of the actual and existing debt of his State, instead of the eighteen millions previously written by the committee. Had he given the committee the true sum ? Or had he led them into error ? Had he done injustice to the State he ought truly to represent, and brought merited censure upon a committee of this body, by the same act, or had he told the truth without regard to consequences ? " These were the inquiries which suggested themselves to his mind, and the inquiries he wished, so far as it was in his power, to enable the Senate to answer. The honorable Senator had shown to us the message of the Governor of the State, giving the amount of its debt, as stated by the Senator, at a sum not far different from $9,000,000. He, Mr. W., had given the amount of that debt to the committee, and now gave it to the Senate, at $15,500,000, or about that sum, and had rested himself upon the ofiicial report of the fiscal ofiicer of the State, and the political, and, he supposed, personal friend of the Governor. The differ- ence of amount was most material, considering the sums given by either party. A mistake or error of $6,000,000 in $15,000,000, is no inconsiderable variance from the truth, whoever may have made it. " Of the authority which ought to be ascribed to the respective documents which had been adduced, it did not become him to speak further than he had done. For their accuracy he certainly could not indorse, further than to give the official responsibility of the authors. Still he would venture to believe that no one, here or elsewhere, would be found attempting to impeach the accuracy of the tables appended to the report of the Comptroller, to which he had referred. Did their statements and results necessarily conflict with and contradict the statement of the Governor, as to the amount of the State debt ? To the casual Life and Times of Silas Wright. 885 reader the difference was, unquestionably, wide and important. Here he thought that might not be found to be true; and indeed he was not prepared to say that, here, the errors and discrepan- cies might not be charged to him, instead of the author of either document. " Had he not listened to the debates in this body, on yesterday and this day, he could not have believed that, with all the facts before us, we could have differed about the amount of the debt of a given State. Yet those debates had shown him that this difference of opinion did exist among the members of the Senate, and that the point in controversy had a direct bearing upon the question, what was, in fact and in truth, the debt of his own State ? " He referred to the position taken yesterday by several Sena- tors, that the stocks or other liabilities of the several States — - call them by what name you please — incurred for the benefit of incorporated companies and associations or individuals, are not, properly speaking, debts of the States; and that in speaking of the indebtedness of the several States these liabilities should not be considered. He would not now consider this doctrine any further than it had particular application to the debt of his own State; though he hoped, before this debate should close, to have an opportunity to give his views upon it at length, and to expose what seemed to him to be its dangerous character and tendency, as it I'espects the credit of the States, the fiscal affairs of the States and the people of the States. "What, then, was its application to the point in dispute, the amount of the debt of the State of New York ? He had given to the committee the sum of $15,500,000 as about the amount of the true debt of his State, and he had now shown that the fiscal officer of the State had given it on the first day of the present month at $15,545,631.03. In this amount, however, was included $1, 847, 700 of debt incurred for canal, navigation and railroad companies; and should this sum have been so included? Was it in truth a part of the State debt ? The Governor of the State had not so considered it and had excluded it from his statement, which accounted for so much of the difference between himself and his Comptroller. He, Mr. W., considered it a part of the 886 Life and Times of Silas Wright. debt of the State, and therefore included it in the sum given to the committee as the aggregate of that debt. Who was in error? What are the facts? The {ublic stocks of the State have been issued for these amounts in the same manner as for any other debts of the State; these stocks have been sold in the market as the stocks of the State, not as the stocks of the companies or associations to which they were issued; they are at this moment in the markets of the world as the stocks of the State, without reference at all to the companies or associations; they bear the same price in those markets as any other stocks of the State having the same time to run and drawing the same interest; and the holders and purchasers rely as confidently and as exclusively upon the State for the payment of both interest and principal upon them as do the holders and purchasers of any other of the stocks of the same State. Indeed, Mr. W. said, lie could not say whether there was anything in the form or upon the face of these certificates of stock which would distinguisli them to a stranger from the certificates of stock issued for the exclusive benefit of the State itself. "It was true that the companies and associations had made certain pledges to the State for the payment of the interest upon these stocks and the final redemption of the principal ; and the theory of the transactions unquestionably was that these pledges were sufticient to indemnify the State against its liability. It was true, too, he believed, with a single exception, and that tri- flino- in amount, that the comj^anies and associations had as yet met the payments of interest. There was one case, however, where the payments, even of interest, had ceased almost with the issuing of the stock, and the State had been compelled to make those payments since without any other hope than to be forced to redeem the principle without any indemnity. He hoped this was not a sample case for these liabilities, but a soli- tary exception. Yet was he, was the honorable committee whose report was under discussion, at liberty to disregard these stocks when giving to the Union and the world the amount of the debt of the State of New York? Were they permitted to \n-o- claim to the holders of these stocks, and to future purchasers, that the State does not owe them, — that they constitute no part of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 887 its debt? Aiul wore they to do this to sustain the credit of the State in the markets of the workl? He coidd not draw such conchisions from such premises. "There were other grounds upon whicli the Governor and Coraptmller of his State diifcred, in their respective statements of the amount of its public debt. The Comptroller has given the exact amount of the solemn obligations of the State out- standing and unpaid. The Governor has given the amount which the State would owe in case all these pledges of the canal, navigation and railroad companies were actually redeemed, and certain money of the State said to be on hand were actually applied to the j^ayment of its debts. " The state of facts in relation to one portion of the money spoken of in the message of the Governor is tliis : The Erie and Champlain Canal Fund, protected and pledged in the Constitution of the State for the payment of the debt contracted for the con- struction of those canals, has afforded revenue more than sufficient to meet the respective portions of the debts as they become pay- able. The inconvenience and risk of accumulations of money, constitutionally pledged to a particular application, have induced the State officers having charge of this money, for several years past, to offer strong pecuniary inducement to the holders of these stocks to bring them in for payment before their maturity. These efforts for the final extinguishment of that debt liave failed, as to a large amount of the stocks, they being principally five and six per cent stocks held in Europe, and not redeemable until the year 1845. The amount thus outstanding is given, in the report of the Comptroller referred to, at $2,167,558.94. For the payment of this portion of its debt, the State had done what he hoped it would always be able and disposed to do — had accumulated and was keeping the money to meet the debt when it should become due, or when it should be presented for payment. Yet, were these stocks in the hands of bona fide holders less a debt of the State, because the money to pay them was provided ? And could the debt of the State be truly given by this committee of the Senate, without including this portion of it? If the federal government were, upon this day, to assume the debts of the various States of this Union, should we be at liberty to say to 888 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. the State of New York, we will not pay this part of your debt, because you had money enough in your treasury to pay it when we agreed to pay your debts ? These stocks are iu the markets of the world, and can the State, iu justice to itself, to its credit, or to the holders of this portion of its responsible paper, say it is no longer our debt, because we have once prepared the money to meet it before it was legally payable and before you could legally demand it ? He had not been able to satisfy himself of the truth of any of these positions, and therefore he had included this amount as part of the debt of the State in the sum furnished by him to the committee. "A single other ground of difference between the amount of the State debt as given by the Governor and the Comptroller would be noticed, though he did not hold himself particularly responsible to reconcile their statements. His excellency states that nearly $1,000,000 of the money borrowed to be expended upon two of the works named has not been expended, but is yet on hand, and this money he deducts from the debt of the State. The stocks by which this money has been obtained have been issued, and are now in the hands of bona fide purchasers, or are offered in the public markets as safe transferable securities for money. And are they no jjart of the debt of the State? Could the amount of that debt be truly given, excluding these stocks ? To him it seemed not, and therefore this amount also was included in the sum given to the committee as the true amount of the State debt. Would the honorable Senator [Mr. Southard] differ from him in his conclusions upon these points ? He would give him a familiar case to illustrate his views. Had he borrowed, or should he borrow, of the gentleman $100, and execute to him his prom- issory note for the amount, payable at a future day, with interest, would that note cease to be a debt in favor of the Senator, and against himself, because he should keep the same or some other $100 of money in his pocket ? He was very well aware that the $100 in hand, if he chose to apply it, would prove his ability to pay the debt, but it would be none the less a debt against him, until the application was made, payment perfected and the evi- dence of indebtedness destroyed or canceled. He was as well aware that it had been ingeniously attempted upon the other Life and Times of Silas Wright. 889 side to show that the mention of these State debts by the com- mittee, and by the friends of the report in argument, was an insinuation of the inability or want of intention on the part of the States to pay, and in that way to introduce the doctrine for which they seemed to contend, that the disposition to pay the debts, and the ability to pay them, was equivalent to actual pay- ment, and should abrogate the debts themselves in the statements of the report. Who had attempted to impugn the faith or ques- tion the means of any one of the States to meet the debts it had contracted ? No such idea or suggestion had met his ear as he listened to the reading of the report, and he challenged gentle- men to point out any such sentiment upon its face. Who had pretended to question, here, the willingness or ability of the State of New York to pay its debt, whether it should be called 19,000,000 or 115,000,000? Certainly no one had, unless that inference was to be drawn from the attempt to show that the State does not in fact acknowledge as a debt those transferable stocks which have been issued in pursuance of its laws, and sold in the market upon the strength of its faith and credit. [Mr. Clay, of Alabama, here inquired if Mr. Weight would not give way to a motion that the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business.] Mr. W. said he was spending more time in this explanation than he had intended, and he would leave it. He desired, however, to make a very few remarks further this evening; was sorry to find he was exhausting the patience of the Senate, and he would hasten to a conclusion. " What v^^as the subject presented to the Senate for its action by the report of the committee under consideration? Was it the amount of the State debts, or their security in the hands of the holders of the stocks and bonds? Was it the sound- ness of the positions or the clearness and correctness of the reasoning of the report itself? It was none of these things. The resolutions presented by the committee were the only sub- jects upon which the Senate was requested to act, or could act. The report was nothing more than the argument of the commit- tee to sustain their conclusions, which were given in the resolu- tions. What were they ? Simple, concise and intelligible decla- rations that it would be unjust, inexpedient and unconstitutional 890 Life and Times of Silas Wright. for Congress to pass a law assuming the debts of the States, and charging their j^ayment upon this government. The amount and the existence of the debts of the States are mentioned in the report for no other purpose than that of argument and iUustra- tion to establisli the conclusions to wliich the committee have come. Still, the i-eport and not the resolutions had been made the subject of the debate for two days. References to it as the argument of the committee to support their conclusions were manifestly proper, and refutations of their positions and reason- ing was a fair mode of combating the conclusions based upon it. Had the debate hitherto seemed to have had that object ? Did there appear to be any difference of opinion among tlie members of the Senate in relation to an assumption by this government of the debts of the States ? "The committee, it was true, had been called upon to say by what authority they acted at all in this matter? How it was that they had assumed to present to the Senate a long argumen- tative rejiort and various resolutions, against a proposition which no man had made or contemplated? They had answered that they acted by special order of the Senate; that they were consti- tuted a select committee of the body solely to consider and report upon this subject ; that it had been referred to them in the form of resolutions submitted by a Senator not a member of the com- mittee ; that they were in no way responsible for bringing the matter before the Senate, and had acted upon it under the express order of the Senate, according to their best judgments, and in the conscientious discharge of what they believed to be their public duty. These answers of the committee had not appeared to be satisfactory, and the complaints against them for having acted at all upon the subject were continued, while all seemed to express astonishment at the very idea of an assumption of the State debts by this government. This he understood to be the spirit and tendency of the remarks of the honorable Senators from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] and Massachusetts [Mr. Web- ster], yesterday, of the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston], on both days, and of the honorable Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Southard] to-day. [Mr. Webster here rose to explain. He said he did not express astonishment at the idea Life and Times of Silas Wright. 891 of the assumption, lint at the manner in which the subject had been brought before the Senate, without the application of a single 8tate in the Union, or even of any individual citizen.] Mr. W, said he asked the pardon of the Senator. He certainly did not intend to misrepresent him. He had listened attentively to his remarks addressed to the Senate on yesterday, and had inferred from them that he was distinctly opposed to the assump- tion, and astonished that the matter should be treated as one in the serious contemplation of anybody. If he and his friends were in favor of the assumption, he had wholly misapprehended them, and was glad to be corrected, as he would not designedly misrepresent their opinions upon this or any subject. [Mr. Web- ster rose again in explanation. He said he had not declared him- self in favor of the assumption; and he called upon the Senator to refer to anything he had said which constituted such a declara- tion.] Mr. W. said he was again at fault, but certainly uninten- tionally. He had quoted the honorable gentleman as against the assumption, and was corrected. He had now spoken of him as for it, and was again corrected. It was evident, therefore, that he did not understand his position, and he woiild leave its expla- nation to himself. He had been felicitating himself that there was no division of sentiment in the body in relation to the reso- lutions tendered by the committee, but in that, too, he was pro- bably mistaken. "He was very properly reminded, by a Senator near him, that the question now depending was simply upon printing the report and resolutions. Upon that question he had not one word to say. He had followed the course of the debate hitherto, and if he had wandered from the proper point for remark, that had led him away. " He must follow it one step further, which should close what he had to say at present. This report had met a resistance, upon its very entrance into this chamber, which had been offered to very few papers of any character since he had had the honor of a seat here. The principal matter of the charge, too, had sur- prised him quite as much as the time and manner of it. What was the great and grave objection which had been rolled with so much force and energy from this to the other side of the hall ? 892 Life and Times of Silas Wright. It was that the report was an attack upon the sovereign States of this Union; a violent infringement of State rights; a servile war upon them. A proper regard for the rights of the States, as members of tlie confederacy, was said to be one of the pro- fessed doctrines of the party to which he belonged, and yet a flagrant violation of every principle of it was supposed to be proclaimed in this report. For himself, he could say, as did the honorable Senator who sits before him [Mr. Crittenden], he had never made much pretension upon this point, but he believed he regarded the principle and the duty of preserving the State sovereignties in our system as deeply as most public men. Yet he was bound to say the danger to them from the paper presented by this committee, and now upon the table of the Secretary, was not so perceptible to him as it seemed to be to those who had not even j^rofessed to belong to the State-rights school. " What was the violation of right complained of, and whence the danger apprehended ? Giving the amount of the debt of a State was the violation of its sovereign right, and talking about that debt was to be the destruction of its public credit ? Talking about it how ? Suggesting the inability of the State to pay ? No; for no such suggestion is contained in the report, or has been made in debate. Impeaching its faith and intention to pay? No; for no such impeachment is put forth, or even insinuated, in or out of the report. Talking, then, of the debts as existing, of their amounts, of the revenue arising to the States from the objects of expenditure for which the debts have been contracted, and of the impolicy of separating the one from the other, and of leaving the revenues to the States, while the debts, interest and principal are thrown upon this government for payment? This is the manner in which the report speaks of the State debts, and here, if anywhere, must be found the suj^port for the grave charges which are made against it. " Mr. W. said he would take his own State for an example. The report assumed to state the amount of its debt. It was appre- hended that the statement was excessive, and yet the report declares that the revenues annually accruing from the objects of expenditure are more than sufficient to meet the interest upon the amount of debt given. Is the statement of these facts, in a Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 893 report to the Senate by one of its committees, an infringement of tbe sovereign rights of that State ? Are the facts stated calcu- lated to destroy its credit at home and abroad, and thus to bring unmerited injury upon it ? In short, Mr. President, said Mr. W., is the credit of any one of the free and proud States of this Union so frail and feeble, and sustained upon so unreal a basis, that the simple truth, told in relation to its pecuniary liabilies, will destroy it ? Will any man in these seats claim the fact to be so as to the State he represents here ? Will any one assert or believe it as to the State from which I come, and of the financial affairs of which I suppose I am permitted, at all times, here and elsewhere, respect- fully and truly to speak ? Sir, she has hitherto paid her debt faster than it has fallen due, and so long as wisdom shall guide her counsels she will continue to do so. She has the means to preserve her faith and her credit, without depending upon the iirnorance of the world as to her liabilities ; and if the time shall come when she shall be willing to pledge the former, or to send forth the latter for a market, relying upon such a dependence, that will be the time when the truth should be known, regardless of the consequences to her. "Take her debt, sir, and who believes it unjust to her to urge the inexpediency of separating it from her rich revenues, and throwing it upon this government for payment ? To her it is lio-ht, because, in the course of its contraction, she has laid the foundation for permanent revenues more than sufficient to meet the accruing interest. Transfer it here, without those revenues, and it becomes a dead-weight. So with the debts of all the other States. They, too, must be separated from the revenues, which have been made consequent upon them, if they are assumed by this government ; and in such a general arrangement, the exist- ino- burdens of New York could not be lessened, while they might be fearfully increased. Her proportion of any debt of this government would rest as directly and as heavily upon her people as an equal amount of her own debt, while the interest would be met, and the principal redeemed, not by her revenues, set apart for the purpose, but by the heavy operation of the taxing power here. " Think you, sir, she will call upon you, under such circum- 894 Life and Times of Silas Wright. stances, and with such prospects, to assume her debt ? I confi- dently hope and believe not. She has been to you once. I believe she was the first to ask your aid for objects of internal expendi- ture. You refused her rightly theu, and I pray she may be the last to invite another refusal. " Let the States manage their own affairs in their own way, in reference to their local expenditures and the debts to be con- tracted for them. They will have the revenues to be derived, and let them meet the payments to be made; not separate the one from the other, and tie the debts, with the weight of a millstone, about the neck of this government." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 895 Chapter LXXX. REPEAL OF THE SALT DUTIES. On tlie 5tli of December, 1839, Col. Beuton introduced a bill to repeal the act "laying a duty on imported salt, granting a bounty on pickled fish exported, and allow- ances to certain vessels employed in the fisheries," approved Jnly 29, 1813, and all acts amending the same. The act sought to be repealed was passed, and had been continued, under the assumption that the fisheries were the nurseries to furnish sailors, and that the supply could not be kept up without this legislative favoritism. The law was distasteful to southern and western people. The subject was thoroughly discussed and with some evidences of warm feeling. The effect of past legislation u^on the interest of the owners of salt springs was con- sidered and discussed. ]^ew York being the owner of valuable salt springs at Salina, which yielded her a respectable revenue, it was natural that her representa- tives in Congress should feel a deep interest and partici- pate in the debate. Salt being an article of universal use, the people at large were interested in securing it at the lowest possible price. This made the measure pro- posed by Col. Benton very acceptable to the people. Mr. Wright's views on the question were those of a statesman, as the subjoined remarks will show : " ]VIr, Weight said he rose to ask what was the question before the Senate ? The debate had taken so wide a range that the real question was likely to be lost sight of. What was it ? Simply to print the papers referred to in the motion of the Senator from Missouri. Those papers had been presented by that honorable Senator to the Senate; had been, on his motion, referred to the 896 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Committee on Finance, and were now reported back by that member of the committee with instructions to ask for their print- ing. The motion to print was now before the body and was the only question presented for its action. Would any one who had listened to this debate, without a knowledge of these facts, have supposed this to be the question under discussion ? Would they not rather have supposed that the bill for the repeal of the duty on salt, or some measure having for its object the punishment of monopolies and frauds in the dealers in salt, was now before the Senate and about to receive its action ? It seemed to him that no other conclusion could have been formed by the impartial lis- tener to the discussion. Yet no such proposition as either of these had been presented by the Committee on Finance. " It was true a bill had been introduced by the honorable Sena- tor from Missouri, proposing to repeal the duty on salt, and that bill had been referred to the Committee on Finance; but it was also true that the committee had not yet even taken up that mea- sure for consideration, much less inade any report upon it. It remained in the hands and possession of the committee, wholly unacted upon, and was not in the possession or within the reach of the Senate for its action. Still, the debate would have com- pelled a hearer to suppose that the committee had reported back that bill, had recommended its passage and were now urging the Senate to final action upon it. Not only so, but the further impression would be produced that the Committee on Finance of the Senate had originated and presented to the Senate penal enactments against those who had attempted to govern the price of salt in various parts of the country by associated monopolies. "It was his duty, standing as he did in relation to that com- mittee, to correct impressions so erroneous and so certain to fol- low wherever a report of this debate should go. The committee, as he had already said, had not even considered the bill to repeal the duty upon salt. They had not, so far as he knew, formed any opinion in regard to that measure. Certainly they had not, as a committee, expressed any opinion upon it; much less had they attempted to assert the right in Congress to punish monopo- lies and mischievous associations in the States of the Union, of any character. They had simply recommended the printing of Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. 897 certain papers referred to them by an express order of the Senate, touching the subject of the salt bill and the fishing bounties, though he did not himself consider a j^ortion of the papers as relating very directly to any of the provisions of the bill before the committee. Yet that portion of the papers was, as he thought and as the committee thought, well worthy of publication. They disclosed facts deeply interesting to every inhabitant of the whole country, to every interest connected with the essential article of salt. "He was not very familiar with the contents of the papers. They were voluminous, and the committee had not thought it necessary to detain them for minute examination in their manu- script form, after they had seen enough of their contents to ren- der the printing, in their judgments, proper. He could not, therefore, speak particularly of the information proposed to be furnished to the Senate and the country by the printing. He would make one or two general references to parts of it, and to those parts less relating to the salt bill; and he would make the practices at the Kanawha salt works the basis of his statements, because he thought he recollected more particularly the history given in the jjapers of the fraudulent and mischievous practices there. He Avould be corrected by the honorable Senator from Missouri, who Avas perfectly familiar with the whole testimony, if he should err in his facts. " One of the practices to which he alluded was that of form- ing an association to monopolize the whole of those extensive works in the hands, and under the control, of a single com- pany; then to limit the supply of salt for the country depending upon those manufactories for the article, and thus to raise the price most exorbitantly to the consumers. The process was to possess themselves of a small number of the manufactories for actual use, and to pay a stipulated annual rent to all the others to remain idle and make no salt ; then to district the country to be supplied with salt; to appoint a selling agent for each district; to send all the salt for each district to that agent, and to him only ; and to give him, from time to tiiue, a limit or minimum of price, below which no salt should be sold in his district. To such an extent had this system been carried, that of some 160 67 898 Life and Times of Silas Wright. manufactories at Kanawha, but forty had been worked for the year, the remaining 120 being hired to remain closed; while salt to the consumers, dependent upon these works for a supply, had been raised to the enormous price of three dollars, and he believed some- times even much higher, for the bushel of fifty pounds weiglit. " Another practice was also disclosed, not less reprehensible, and perhaps infinitely more injurious to the public. This was the practice of adulterating, by system and design, the small quantity of salt made, and thus sparingly dealt out to the com- munity under the arrangements for extortion before described. The adulteration was effected by using chemical agents to retain in the salt impurities held in solution in the water, and which, without being thus retained, would be principally, if not entirely, separated and excluded by the simple process of boiling. Tallow was said to be the principal agent thus employed, and such was the effect described to be, that, while the salt made would have a more rich and white and beautiful appearance to the unin- structed eye, 100 pounds of tallow was considered equivalent to the ordinary rent of a manufactory for a season, or about 5,000 bushels of salt. " Mr. W. said he would go into no further detail as to the con- tents of these papers, nor would he stop to consider the pertinency of the facts he had stated to the salt bill in the hands of the committee. It was enough for his purpose that the statements were made, that they were laid before the Senate and the com- mittee as facts, that they rested upon responsible authority, and that they were deeply interesting to the whole country. These considerations were sufficient to induce him, as a member of the committee, to recommend the printing, and would induce him, as a member of the Senate, to vote for it. "The charges against the manufacturers of and dealers in salt are grave and particular. Are they founded in truth ? If so, the public ought to have full possession of them. Are they false ? They ought to be made known that they may be met and refuted. Why, then, should we refuse to j^i'int the papers ? Upon what grounds was the motion opposed ? Strange as it might seem, principally upon the ground that the printing would be an infringement of the rights of the States ! Life and Times of Silas Wright. 899 "An infringement of the great State-riglits principle, in our system, for the Senate to order the printing of these papers — • papers, if true, developing the most wicked system of frauds and impositions, in reference to one of the necessaries of human and animal life, which has ever been developed to an intelligent people? And how is this objection to the printing sustained? By a reference to his own State ! He is told here that she is the greatest monopolizer of salt in this Union, and that the printing of these papers will damnify her important interests in the arti- cle. Is this so? No, sir; no. Her interests in her extensive and useful salt works are not to be injured by developing the frauds and impositions practiced elsewhere. On the contrary, her direct interest is to have these papers printed, and the truth known in reference to the whole matter, and especially that she may thus show the superiority of her system of police upon this subject. She has not submitted the manufacture of salt, at her works, to speculators and monopolizers, so far as the purity of the article is concerned. That power she has retained in her own hands. Every drop of water boiled, or evaporated, is supplied by State agents and under the suj)ervision of State officers, and every bushel of salt made is carefully inspected by a competent State officer, and its jiurity thoroughly tested, before it is per- mitted to seek a market among the consumers. Without fraud and perjury in these officers, or smuggling on the part of the manufacturers, no imposition can be practiced upon the public in the quality of the New York salt. The same police is a perfect defense against the monopolies complained of in these papers. They could not exist without the knowledge of the officers referred to, and they would be faithless to their duty to suffer them to exist for a day without being made known to the whole State and to the whole country. This obligation would arise from their moral duties as public servants; but there is another obligation upon them more direct and immediate. The State imposes a duty per bushel upon the salt made, and to guard and protect and foster that revenue is the especial duty of these officers. Any association, therefore, to diminish the quantity of salt made, would be, to the same extent, a conspiracy to diminish the State revenue, and would, in that way, come within the 900 Life and Times of Silas Wright. especial jurisdiction of those officers, and call upon them for prompt exposition. " It is not new to the experience of that State that great frauds may be j^racticed in the adulteration of the salt made, nor is it that extortion in the price of the salt may be attempted by the manufacturers. Hence the retention by the State of its minute control over the whole mattei", and its constant and continued ejfforts to furnish a pure and wholesome quality of salt. It is not enough, upon this point, that frauds and intended adultera- tions are guarded against. Expense must be incurred, the nicest processes of manufacture must be adopted, and the extremest vigilance used to expel from the water its impurities and make it yield a pure salt. To these points the constant attention of the State inspectors has been directed, and the results, within the last twenty yeai's, have been triumphant. " Is that State, then, to be told that her interests depend upon secrecy in these matters — that her revenue is to be destroyed by the publication of these papers, and the exposition of abuses, such as he had pointed out, existing elsewhere ? Are her dignity and sovereignty to be infringed by such a publication, a proclamation of frauds connected with other salt works in the country, similar to those which her experience has taught her would exist at her own but for the vigilant supervision which she has been wise enough to retain over them ? " No, Mr. President, said Mr. W., New York has no such fears to entertain from this harmless motion. She has, however, a direct interest in the publication of these papers. Her salt is a pure article. It goes into the market without combinations to raise the price. Her works can supply any quantity for which a fair market can be found, and her revenue is graduated by the quantity manufactured and sold. If, then, it be shown that, in consequence of frauds at other salines, she can furnish a better and cheaper article to their customers, her interests are promoted by the development. What is the fact now stated by the hon- orable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] ? That he has, for the last year or two, obtained his supply of salt from the New York works, and that he has received a pure article at a fair price. Whei'e are the Kanawha works, compared with those of New X Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 901 York, iu i-eference to him ? And, if the New York salt can descend the Ohio to the point required to supply the honorable Senator, what portion of the country is there, accustomed to depend upon the Kanawha works for a supply of salt, which can- not be supplied from Onondaga ? Let the facts be known, then. Let it be understood that a wide and open market exists for pure salt within the reach of the New York works, and he would be responsible for the injury to her interests, her feelings or her sovereignty, from the publication of the fact. " Suppose, sir, that the charges contained in these papers were directed against the New York salt manufactories, would it be my duty to rise in my place here and resist their publication ? No, sir. Whether true or false, that State would exact no such duty from her representatives here. It has never been her prac- tice to conceal any attempts at fraud connected with her exten- sive and rich salines. On the contrary, she has always sought to give to every imposition upon the public the most extensive pub- lication, and she will not require of those who represent her here to attempt to make secrets of that information in relation to others, which she invariably makes public in relation to herself. "Another objection to the printing of these papers is urged, not less singular than that which has just been considered. It is said that the motion savors of agrarianism; that the attempt to expose these monopolies and frauds here by a publication of the proof of their existence and extent is acting upon a principle which, carried out in practice, would lead to the distribution of property and the other leveling doctrines of the agrarians. Mr. W. said it would be difficult to make any distribution of property by which he should not be benefited in a pecuniary sense, but it was nevertheless a doctrine which he repudiated, and he should be compelled to vote against the motion if he could see that princi- ple in the order to print. He could not, however; and he was surprised to hear the opinion advanced. No legislation is pro- posed, and all that is asked is the simple publication of most important information upon a subject of universal interest. If the statements contained in the papers be true, he was sure no one would attempt to justify the practices complained of. Should they not, then, be made known ? 902 Life and Times of Silas Weight. " Suppose it were charged here, with the authenticity of this testimony, that a number of farmers in western New York had combined to raise and control the price of provisions, and that to accomplish their object they had hired three-fourths of the farmers of that fertile wheat-growing region not to cultivate their farms for a given season ; would it be his duty, as a rej^re- sentative of the State here, to resist the publication of the fact? No. It would be his duty, as well to his State and the people he represented as to himself, to give it publication, to proclaim it to the world, and thus do all that it is in our power to do to arrest the intended evil. " The honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Preston] bad said that we do not represent the people here ; that we are the representatives of the sovei-eign States, not of the people of the States ; that one Senator may represent a million of popula- tion and another one hundred thousand, and yet we are all equal here. This is true ; and yet, where rests the sovereignty of the States but in the people ? Who are the sovereigns of the States but the people ? And would he have those of us who represent populous States forget our increased obligations, growing out of the increased interests committed to our charge ? Would he make us unmindful of the fact that we represent millions instead of thousands, and of the interests, the wishes and the safety of those millions ? [Here several Senators, among whom the voices of Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay were heard, said ' Yes, that is the rule ; we ought to represent the people of our respective States.'] Mr. W. said he thanked the gentlemen for reminding him of the tendency of his remark. It would save him a future explanation. He had said upon that point precisely what he intended. He held it to be his duty truly to represent the wishes and interests of the people of the State which had honored him with a seat here, and he should continue to govern his acts and votes by what he believed to be those interests and wishes, unless arrested in his course by the command of another and a controlling voice. He hoped this explanation would satisfy the gentlemen upon the other side of the House, who had manifested so kind an interest in his faithfulness to his constituents." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 903 Chapter LXXXI. THE CUMBERLAND ROAD BILL. In 1806 Congress made an appropriation to construct a road from Cumberland, in Maryland, to the Ohio river, payable out of a two per cent fund derived from the sales of public lands within the limits of certain States, usually granted to States on their admission. By different enact- ments this road, by 1831, was authorized to be extended through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to the Mississippi river. Some appropriations were made direct from the treasury. It was claimed that this road added to the value of the public lands and promoted their settle- ment and sales. After a time Congress authorized the erection of toll-gates on it by the States through which it passed, and in the end the road was abandoned by the government, and by act of Congress was transferred to the States through which it passed. It was a great work in its day, but is now hardly known by its former name, or in anywise much distinguished from other roads in the western States. On the 31st of March, 1840, when the bill for the con- tinuation of this road was before the Senate, Mr. Clay, of Alabama, moved to strike out the two per cent clause. Mr. Weight addi-essed the Senate, and fully explained his position and the reasons for his former votes and the one which he now intended to give. " Mr. Wkight said he did not rise to debate the merits of the Cumberland road bill. That duty he left to those who, from local position and more extensive acquaintance with the utility of the work, could better discharge it. Still, he had for some years now last past given his vote for these appropriations, and he desired 904 Life and Times of Silas Wright. to do so now. He was anxious that the bill should retain its usual form — the characteristics which had distinguished appro- priations for this road from those for internal improvements generally. This work was thus distinguished from the peculiar circumstances which had led Congress to undertake it, and appro- priations to continue it could have his support only upon the con- dition that those distinctions were carefully and fully preserved. " From these remarks it would be seen that his object was to discuss, not the general merits of the bill, but the particular motion of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Clay], If that motion prevailed the bill would be placed beyond the reach of his vote, and, as he had learned, of the votes of several other Senators. He hoped the motion would not prevail, and he must ask a small portion of the time of the body for an attempt to show to the friends of the measure that it should not prevail. " What was the motion ? It was to strike out from the bill the following words : " ' Which said appropriations are made upon the same terms, and shall be subject to all the provisions, conditions, restrictions and limitations touching appropriations for the Cumberland road contained in the act enti- tled "An act to provide for continuing the construction and for the repair of the Cumberland road," approved the third day of March, eighteen Imn- dred and thirty-seven.' "A reference to the act of 1837 would show the effect of this proposed amendment, by showing the 'provisions, conditions, restrictions and limitations' contained in that act, subject to Avhich the bill, in its present shape, proposes to make these appropriations, but from which the amendment, if adopted, will free them, and leave the appropriations open, general and uncon- ditional. He was satisfied, too, that this examination would prove that the proposition to amend was even broader than the honorable mover intended or desired ; that there were ' conditions and limitations' in that act which even he did not desire to remove; from which he would not wish to relieve these appro- priations, in case they were to be made. " What, then, were the ' conditions, restrictions and limita- tions,' in the act of 1837, referred toV " The first was found in the first section of the act, in the fol- lowing words : Life and Times of Silas Wright. 905 " 'That the said road within the State of Illinois shall not be stoned or graveled, unless it can be done at a cost not greater than the average cost of stoning or graveling said road within the States of Ohio and Indiana.' " This, be presumed, was a ' limitation ' which the honorable mover of the amendment, and those who would vote with him, did not desire to repeal. "The second was in the same same section, and in the follow- ing words: " ' That, in all cases where it can be done, it shall be the duty of the super- intending oflBcers to cause the work on said road to be laid off in sections, and let out to the lowest substantial bidders, after due notice.' " Here, again, was a ' restriction ' which he did not suppose the opponents of the bill would be anxious to remove. " The third ' condition ' was found in the second section of this act of 1837, in the following words : " ' That the second section of an act tor the continuation of the Cumber- land road in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, approved the 2d day of July, 1836, shall not be applicable to expenditures hereafter to be made on said road.' "The section of the act of 1836, here referred to, requires that the moneys appropriated shall be so expended as to complete the greatest possible continuous portions of the road, ' so that such finished parts thereof may be surrendered to the said States respectively.' Should the amendment prevail, this section of the act of 1836 would be again restored and made one of the 'limita- tions ' upon these appropriations, from which the second section of the act of 1837 had relieved them. This would be in no way objectionable to him, though he supposed it would be to the more immediate friends of the w^ork, inasmuch as the limitation, having been imposed in 1836, had been removed in 1837, at their instance. " These were the ' conditions, restrictions and limitations ' which he supposed the honorable mover of the amendment had not considered, and some of v/hich, at least, he presumed he would not desire to remove. He felt sure that some other Senators would be unwilling to part with the first two, as he well recol- lected they had been inserted in the act of 1837, after a severe struggle, and were then relied upon, by the honorable Senator 906 Life and Times of Silas Wright. who moved them [Mr. Clay, of Kentucky], and those who acted with him, as highly essential. " Yet it was not his object to discuss these points. He had simply referred to them, that Senators might not, unwittingly, adopt an amendment which should relieve these appropriations from conditions and limitations to which they had, upon former occasions, been strongly attached. "He was aware that the honorable mover of the amendment had another object, viz.: to get rid of the fourth section of the act of 1837, which was in the following words: " ' That the several sums hereby appropriated for the construction of the Cumberland road, in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, shall be replaced by said States respectively out of the fund reserved to each for laying out and making roads under the direction of Congress, by the several acts passed for the admission of said States into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States.' 'T>' "This is the real point of controversy involved in the amend- ment ; this the ' condition ' which it is the object of the honorable mover to test by a vote ; and this is the distinctive feature of these appropriations which he, Mr. W., wished to retain. To this point, therefore, this two per cent fund, and the propriety of continuing to jDledge these appropriations upon it, he should direct his remarks. He would be as brief as possible ; but an examination of the origin of that fund, of the appropriations for the Cumberland road, and the present state of facts as to both, would be necessary to make his argument clear and intelligible. " The cession by the State of Virginia to the United States of the territory north-west of the River Ohio contained, among others, the condition, that of that territory there should be formed not less than three nor more than five free republican States, which, under certain limitations prescribed, should be admitted into the Union upon an equal footing in all res^^ects with the original States. " The State of Ohio first made application for this admission, and, on the 30th day of April, 1802, Congress passed an act enti- tled 'An act to enable the people of the eastern division of the territory north-west of the River Ohio to form a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Life and Times of Silas Weight. 907 Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes.' Among other provisions in this act, Congress, by the seventh section thereof, offered to the convention of the people of Ohio, ' for their free acceptance or rejection,' three several proposi- tions, intended for the mutual benefit of the State and the United States, and declared that, if accepted by the convention, they ' shall be obligatory upon the United States.' The third of these propositions is the one material to this discussion, and is in the following words : " ' Third. The one-twentieth part of the net proceeds of the lauds lying within the said State, sold by Congress, from and after the thirtieth day of June next (1802), after deducting all expenses incident to the same, shall be applied to the laying out and making public roads, leading from the navi- gable waters emi-)tying into the Atlantic, to tM Ohio, to the said State, and through the same ; such roads to be laid out vv^Ur the autlwrity of Congress, with the consent of the several States through which the said road shall pass. Pramded, always, that the three foregoing propositions herein offered are on the con- ditions that the convention of the said State shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of tlie United States, that every and each tract of land sold by Congress, from and after the thirtieth day of June next, shall be and remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under the authority of the State, whether for State, county, township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale.' " Here was a compact between this new State and this govern- ment, for the convention of Ohio did freely accept the proposi- tions and conform to their terms and requirements; and here was the compact which gave existence to the Cumberland road, and threw it upon the hands of the United States. "A'single step further will show the origin of the two per cent fund, as contradistinguished from that five per cent fund, or ' one- twentieth part of the net proceeds of the lands,' constituted by the compact last referred to, and devoted to the construction of roads from the Atlantic waters ' to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same.' "On the 3d day of March, 1803, about eleven months after the passage of the act containing the propositions tendered to the convention of the people of Ohio, and which propositions that convention accepted and complied with. Congress passed an act entitled 'An act in addition to and in modification of the propo- 908 Life and Tuies of Silas Wrioht. sitions contained in the act entitled,' etc., being the act of the 30th of April, 1802, before referred to. This act conferred ujDon the new State many other and further advantages beyond those covered by the tliree propositions tendered to the convention in the former act ; but the only one of its provisions affecting this discussion is that found in its second section. It was unnecessary to read the section, which was long. The substance of it was, that three per cent, of the five per cent reserved in the ordinance whicli has been read, was directed to be paid over to the State, to be applied ' to the laying out, opening and making roads within the said State, and to no other purpose whatever,' thus leaving but two per cent of the net proceeds of the lauds to be expended * under the authority of Congress,' in ' laying out and making- public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same.' This act constituted the two per cent fund, by taking from the hands of Congress and giving to the State for expenditure three per cent of the five reserved to Congress by the original ordi- nance. " Still, the obligation upon Congress remained of expending the two per cent in the ' laying out and making public roads, leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same;' and to discharge that obligation, this great and troublesome and expensive work, the Cumberland road, was commenced. "The chronological order of events would here call upon him to examine the first appropriations for the road; but he thought he should be able to accomplish the task he had undertaken with greater brevity, and make himself more perfectly understood, by following first the admission of the States, as far as that should be necessary for the question presented. " The next free republican State admitted into the Union from the territory north-west of the Ohio was Indiana, and the act of Congress for her admission was approved on the 19th day of April, 1816, The course pursued by Congress was very similar to that finally adopted with the State of Ohio, and it will not, therefore, be necessary to detain the Senate by the reading of either of the propositions submitted to the convention of the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 909 people of this State. It will suffice to say that, iipon this point, they varied from the original propositions submitted to tlie con- vention of Ohio in three particulars, viz. : " 1. Two per cent of the net proceeds of the lands only are reserved to be expended under the authority of Congress, and that fund is to be expended in laying out and making roads to and not through the State. " 2. Three per cent is reserved in the ordinance for and to be paid to the State. " 3. The three per cent is to be expended by the State in making roads, or canals, within it. "In all other substantial particulars the compact with Indiana was similar to that with Ohio. "The State of Illinois came next in the order of admission, the act of Congress for the purpose having been approved on the 18th of April, 1818. The compacts with this State differed, in some respects, from both the former, but a short statement should relieve the Senate from reading the propositions, which were long. " 1. The two per cent fund is reserved, as in the case of Indiana, to make roads to, not through, the State ; but, as in the other two cases, is to be expended for that purpose, ' under the direc- tion of Congress.' " 2. The three per cent is reserved for, and to be paid to, the State, but is to be ' appropriated, by the Legislature of the State, for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university.' "3. The equivalents are an exemption of military bounty lands from taxation for three years after patents issue, if they continue to be the property of the patentee or his heirs, and a stipulation that lands belonging to citizens of the United States, not residing in the State, shall never be taxed higher than the lands of resident citizens, in addition to the exemption from taxes of all government lands for five years after a sale. " Two remarks seemed to be called for from the compacts wltti the two last named States. The first was that the two per cent fund, to be expended 'by the authority of Congress,' or 'under the direction of Congress,' was reserved in both. The second 910 Life and Times of Silas Wright. was, that the three per cent reserved for, and to be paid to, the State, was not reserved, in the last two cases, with any reference to the continuation of any road ' leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic,' to either of the said States, and consequently not to the Cumberland road, because, as to Indiana, the fund might be applied to the making of roads, or canals, within the State, at its option; and as to Illinois, the Legislature was compelled, by the very terms of the ordinance, to apply it ' for the encouragement of learning.' The two per cent fund, therefore, was relied upon for the roads mentioned in the various ordinances, to be made under the direction of Con- gress, whether they were to be continued to or through the States which were parties, and not the three per cent, which was reserved for the States, was to be expended by them, at their pleasure, or for works or objects of a charactei" different from these roads. "He was now prepared to go back, in point of time, and exam- ine the appropriations for the Cumberland road to see how far the action of Congress hitherto had conformed to the basis of these appropriations laid in the ordinances which admitted the three States into the Union. " On the 29th of March, 1806, the President of the United States [Mr. Jefferson] approved an act of Congress entitled 'An act to regulate the laying out and making a road from Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio.' This act gave existence to the Cumberland road, and an examination of its pro- visions will sliow, what its title so well imports, that it was an earnest beginning of the fulfillment on the part of the United States of that compact with the new State of Ohio which has been before recited; that it was the commencement of a road 'leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic to the Ohio, to the said State.' It was not material for his pur- pose to review the provisions of the act, any further than to examine the appropriating section and see whether it kept to the terms of the ordinances and to the fund thereby reserved for the object. The sixth section of the act Avas this one, and was in the following words: " 'Sec. 6. And he itfurtJwr enacted. That the sum of thirty thousand dol- Life and Times of Silas Wbigiit. 911 lars be and the same is hereby appropriated to defray the expense of laying out and making said road. And tlie President is hereby authorized to (h-aw, from time to time, on the treasury for such parts, or at any one time for the whole of said sum, as he shall judge the service requires. Wfiich sum of tliirty tJiousand dollars shall be paid, first, out of the fund of two per cent reserved for laying out and making roads to tM State of Ohio, by virtue of the seventh section of an act passed on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and two, entitled "An act to enable the people of the eastern divi- sion of the territory north-west of the River Ohio to form a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes;" three per cent of the appropriation contained in the said seventh section being directed by a subsequent law to the laying out, opening and making roads within the said State of Ohio ; and secondly, out of any money in the trea- sury not otherwise appropriated, chargeable upon and reimbursable at the treasury, by said fund of two per cent as the same shall accrue.'' " Here we are shown fully the origin of this work called the Cumberland road, the basis upon which its adoption by Con- gress rested, and the fund from which the expenditures were to be defrayed. In every respect the work was peculiar, as a work of internal improvement prosecuted by the authority and under the direction of Congress. " This very first act, too, as its terms fully show, adopted the principle of anticipating the avails of this two per cent fund by a general appropriation from the treasury, charged upon the fund and to be reimbursable out of it. It was not necessary for liim to defend the wisdom of this policy at tliat early day. It was sufficient that it was then adopted and was one of the exposi- tions by the then fathers of the powers and duties of Congress growing out of these new and peculiar compacts with the new States. It was too late for him now to question the soundness of the principles upon which they acted or the wisdom of the policy Avhich guided their course. Nearly every Congress, from 1806 to the present time, had followed in their footsteps, and every President of the United States, from Mr. Jefferson to tlie present incumbent, had approved bills appropriating money for this road. " Had these bills followed the form of appropriation found in the law of 1806 above quoted? lie had taken great pains to answer this inquiry correctly and truly, and, with two single 912 Life and Times of Silas Wright. exceptions, upon which he would particularly remark, he believed that every appi'opriation for the survey and construction of the road had been expressly, in the law making it, charged upon the two per cent fund and made reimbursable out of it. He had found some bills appropriating money for the repairs of those portions of the road which had been once called completed which did not contain this pledge, as he thought they should not. These were mere appropriations for the preservation and security of the property of the United States, as this road, when finished, clearly was, until transferred to the States or otherwise disposed of. It was barely possible that there might be some further exception of appropriations for survey and construction, but he could not think there were, as he had intended to make his examination full and accurate. " How, then, did the two exceptions stand ? The first is an act of Congress, approved on the 15th of May, 1820, when Mr. Mon- roe was President. It is peculiar in itself, and perhaps ought not to be considered an exception to the rule under discussion. Its title is, 'An act to authorize the appointment of commissioners to lay out the road therein mentioned.' This will show that the whole object of the act was a survey. The act has a preamble, which is in these words: ' Whereas, by the continuation of the Cumberland road from Wheeling, in the State of Virs^inia, throuo^h the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the lands of the United States may hecome more valuable; ' thus placing the legislation upon a ground separate from and independent of the compacts with the States and the fund therein provided. The act then goes on to provide for the survey of a road from Wheeling to some point on the left bank of the Mississippi river, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois river, and appropriates #10,000 generally, to be paid out of any unappropriated money in the treasury, to defray the expense of the survey. The second section of this act contains this emjihatic proviso: " ' Provided always, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That nothing in :his act contained, or that shall be clone in pursuance thereof, shall be deemed or construed to imply any obligation on tlie jiart of the United States to make, or to defray the expense of making, the road hereby authorized to be laid out, or of any pai-t thereof.' Life and Times of Silas Wright. 913 "Such was tlie tirist exception lie had been able to discover, and he remarked again, that it was very doubtful how far it could fairly be considered an exception, within the proj>er limits of the discussion. The act was certainly sal geueris, as a piece of legislation relating to the Cumberland road; but such as it was, he had felt bound to present it as an exception to the rule for which he was contending. "The second and only other exception which his research bad enabled him to discover was a bill approved on the 2d of March, 1833, at the close of Gen. Jackson's tii'st term. This was a plain case of departure from the rule of charging these appi-oj)riations upon the two per cent fund, as the appropriations made in this law for continuing the construction of the road in the three States, separate from the appropriations for repairs, were direct in manner and lieavy in amount. He was happy, however, to be able to destroy the force of this exception as a precedent, upon the authority of the then President himself. He spoke from personal information from that distinguished indi- vidual when he said tliat his approbation of that bill was an oversight, suffered in the hurry of business, at the close of a short session of Congress, when all who have been here know that a great majority of the bills of the session go to the Presi- dent durino- the last eveninu". All who were here at the session of 1832-33 Avill remend>er that it was one of the most exciting periods of our history, and that an unusual number of bills, of the deepest interest, finally passed the two Houses, and reached the President Avithin the last fcAV hours of the session, which closed with Saturday, the second of March. "An examination of this bill will present a further and strong apology for the oversight of the President. Instead of being the usual and ordinary appropriation bill for the Cumberland road, it is an appropriation bill of an anomalous character, coup- ling harbors, rivers, roads and a variety of other subjects in the same bill. Its title is a very imperfect index of its contents, and yet it is evidently made up of the substance of the titles of three or four originally independent bills. It is 'An act making appro- priations for carrying on certain works heretofore commenced, for the improvement of harbors and rivers; and also for continu- es 914 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ing and repairing the Cumberland road, and certain territorial roads.' It embraces more than thirty separate and independent appropriations, which take from the treasury more than one mil- lion of dollars. In such a bill, and reaching the President at such a period, it was not in the least surpi'isiug to him that the absence of this qualification to the Cumberland road appropi'ia- tions was not noticed. " Still, whether the apology should be deemed sufficient or not, he was able to state the fact that this omission was not noticed, and that tlie bill would not have received the approbation of the then President, however important these and the other appro- priations it contained, if the omission had been observed ; so important did he consider the retention of the two per cent clause, as it is called, as a principle upon which the appropria- tions for this road rest, and a marked characteristic to distinguish them from open and unrestricted appropriations for internal improvements. " He was aware it had been said, and would again be said, that the expenditures already made upon the road had more than consumed the two per cent fund reserved and applicable to its construction, and therefore that the clause in the present bills was wholly useless. He wished to meet this objection to the clause, as he did all other points of this argument, fairly. He was, therefore, willing to admit that he did not expect the two per cent fund of the three States would be sufficient to reimburse the treasury for all past expenses uj^on this work; but that did not, to him, constitute a good reason for separating this essential feature from the bill, and passing it without it. The practice commenced with the commencement of the work, to anticipate the moneys which this fund was to yield, and if those anticipa- tions had been pushed too far, it was no reason, to his mind, why we should abandon our hold upon that portion of the fund which remains. " All the three States yet embrace within their limits unsold lands, and consequently portions of this fund are yet to be col- lected from all. The amount, too, is considerable. He had been favored with an official statement from the General Land Office, brought down to the close of the third quarter of the last year. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 915 wliicli showed that the lansold lands in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, at that time, amounted to 20,835,234 acres. Even at the present minimum price of the public lands, the two per cent from this quantity would, if lie had made no error in the calculation, yield to this fund more than $670,000. If, as some suppose, the State of Missouri should be embraced in the estimate of future revenue to the fund, it would be more than doubled. There are 32,154,897 acres of unsold land in that State, and, at the minimum price, that quantity will pay more than |800,000 to this fund. But when it is considered that the unsold land in all these States must become more valuable as settlements increase, and improvements in its vicinity are extended, who shall say what limit shall be tixed to this contingent fund ? In any event it seemed to him a plain dictate of duty to secure whatever it is to yield to reimburse the treasury fur this expensive work. " Shall we do this, if we pass the amendment now proposed, and thus, by our own act, release the pledge for the future? What is our daily experience now as to the other States ? But a few days since the Senate passed a bill to pay this fund to the State of Mississippi. Another bill is now upon its passage, or has already gone to the House of Representatives, to make the same payment to the State of Alabama. These States have come here with demands for the money, which we have not found our- selves able to resist. To Michigan and Arkansas the whole five per cent was yielded as one of the terms of their admission into the Union. Other new States will come, after these examples, and who can make himself believe that, if we strike out this clause, and thus release our hold upon the future accruing reve- nue to the fund from the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, those States will not come, when their road shall have been completed, and tell us, up to 1840 you held and expended this portion of our two per cent fund, but in that year you, by your own express act, refused longer to pledge it for the Cum- berland road, and the money which has come into your treasury since that period is ours, upon the principles which have governed your conduct toward the other new States? Who can convince himself that our successors will be able to resist such an applica- tion from these States ? 916 Life and Times of Silas Wright. "To the unconditional opponents of this bill he was aware that this reasonin-j,- would be unavailing; nay, that his very dec- laration of the imijortance of tlie i)rovision to hiiu Avould add to their anxiety to press the motion, that they might force him and others who held similar opinions to vote against the whole measure. Such he knew to be the condition of the honorable mover of the amendment. He was conscientiously opposed to the bill in any shape, and its defeat is the object of his motion. This was fair and gave no ground of complaint. Any fair and open and manly opposition he had a right to practice — indeed, with his opinions, it was his duty to practice — and such was his present proposition for amendment. "To those, however, who were the fi-iends of this road, who desired appropriations for it, he felt that he had a right to appeal with success upon this question. To them the pledge of this fund could not be objectionable, even if they did not consider it any longer useful. It could do no luirm, even if it was of no substantial service to the treasury, and they certainly would indulge those who consider it essential, so long as they ask nothing more tlian what is looked upon as a nugatory provi- sion. They will not bring the fate of the bill into jeopardy rather than not discharge it from what they consider, at the worst, but harmless surplusage; and that, too, after they know that others equally friendly consider the provision projjosed to be stricken out one of essential, — of vital importance. "He must be permitted to believe, therefore, that however far he may have fallen short of producing conviction upon the minds of either the foes or the friends of tlie measure, as to the impor- tance of retaining the pledge of this two per cent fund, the sim- ple information that he and others so held it would induce every friend to the Cumberland road to vote against the proposed amendment." Life and Times of Silas Wright. 917 Chapter LXXXII. ABOLITION PETITIONS. At the first session of the twenty-sixth Congress peti- tions for the abolition of slavery were often presented to both Honses. On the 13th of February, 1840, Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, presented one from Michael H. Barton, praying for the abolition of slavery. This produced a stormy debate, in which Mr. Whight took part, more on account of what was then said than because he partici- pated in the feelings which the petition occasioned. He thus addressed the Situate : " Ml-. Wright said he had never before, he believed, attempted to address the Senate when an abolition petition was under con- sideration. If he justly appreciated his duty, it was quite likely he should remain silent now, though he had not risen to discuss abolitionism or to protract this very desultory debate. Still, some remarks had fallen from his colleague, and from the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], which his duty to absent friends seemed to him to require him to notice. " Tlie honorable Senator [Mr. Clay] has taken the liberty to refer to a vote lately given in the other branch of Congress in reference to the disposition of these petitions; to allude to the fact that some of the members of the New York delega- tion, the political friends of Mr. W., had voted for the rule adopted in the House, and then had stated that all parties in the Legislature of the State were now expressing their decided repre- hension of that vote. He should not feel at liberty to make the action of either of these leo;islative bodies the subject of remark upon this occasion, had he not been forced to do so by the course pursued by the honorable Senator; and he wished it to be distinctly understood that, in making the short reply he intended, he was not acting as the authorized apologist or defender 918 Life and Times of Silas Wright. of the friends who had given the vote complained of. If the vote required apology, they would be found ready to make it for themselves. If it required defense, they were much better able, from character and talent and influence, to defend themselves than he was to defend them. They were responsible for their acts to the constituents who had sent them here, not to himself or to this body. "Still, as the honorable Senator had referred to the vote and to the action of the State Legislature, not this year simply, but the last also, it was proper in itself, and due to those who were censured, that he should state the facts as he understood them to exist. The Senator had spoken of the expression of the Legis- lature of New York last year, upon this subject of the disposition of abolition petitions in Congress, as having followed a political revolution in the State, and of the form of that expression. He must remind the gentleman that the expression to which he alluded as having been made last year, was made in but one branch of the New York Legislature. The political revolution of which he spoke had not then reached the State Senate, and that body did not unite in tlie expression in favor of these peti- tioners. The House of Assembly, the popular branch of the Legislature, was then in tlie hands of the political friends of the Senator, and it did make a strong expression, supposed to favor the abolitionists. It did declare the Atherton resolution, so called, a denial of the right of petition. He did not now recol- lect the exact form of the resolutions or the substance of the expression beyond this point, but as to this he was sure he could not be mistaken. The Atherton resolutions were denounced, because it was said they were a denial of the right of petition. What disposition did the Atherton resolutions make of abo- lition petitions ? They were to be received and immediately laid upon the table, without reading or printing, and without debate. This was the denial of the right of petition last year, according to the expressed sense of the whig branch of the New York Legislature. " Now, certain of the democratic members of the House of Representatives from that State had voted to establish a rule of that House, pressed upon them upon the motions of prominent Life and Times of Silas Wright. 919 whigs, by which these petitions were not to be received. In other words, they had voted for a rule which was, in fact and in terms, just what their opponents in the Legislature of their State, one year ago, declared to be the true and practical effect of the Atherton resolutions. This was what these members had done, and his object was accomplished in giving the facts. He knew not what either party in the Legislature of the present year were doing upon this subject, except that he had noticed in the public papers that some resolutions had been introduced into the popular branch of that Legislature, by a prominent federal' member, cen- suring those who had voted for the rule lately adopted in the House of Representatives. If there had been action upon them, the account of it had not met his notice. " His honorable coUeao-ue had discussed at some length the politics of their State, and of the various pai-ties in it; the ques- tions, which were democratic and which federal; which were and which were not abolition, and the like, and had pronounced his conclusions with some positiveness. In doing this, he had, as Mr. W. thought, done injustice to a political friend of his, or he would not have entered into the discussion. He understood his honorable colleague to say that the member of the popular branch of the present Legislature of their State who was, at its organ- ization, the candidate for Speaker of the administration party in the House, had, upon the late election of a United States Senator, and when his colleague was elected, voted for a prominent abo- litionist, a gentleman by the name of Gerrit Smith. If he cor- rectly understood the remarks of his colleague, this vote was said to have been given by the gentleman alluded to upon the open viva voce vote for Senator in the House of which the gentle- man was a member. Did his colleague so state ? [Mr. Tall- madge replied, yes, that was the way I understood it.] Mr. W. said he had not made this inquiry thus minutely for the purpose of contradicting it upon his own responsibility, as he had no personal knowledge how the fact was; but he had done so for the purpose of expressing his belief that the statement was erroneous, and giving the grounds of that belief. " He well remembered that, pending the proceedings in the Legislature of the State touching the election of a Senator, a 920 Life and Tlues of Silas Wright. report sprang iip in this city, and in one wing of tlris capitol, that all the friends of the administration in the popular branch of that Legislature had voted for this ai'dent abolitionist, this Gerrit Smith, as their candidate for the Senate of the United States. The rumor produced deep feeling here. He was called upon by a great number of members of Congress, from all (piar- ters of the Union, for information as to the fact. He had none to communicate. He had receiAed no intimation of any such action on the part of his political friends; but the mails from the north were deranged by the stormy and severe weather of the period, and he was unable to say what action had been had, or what information others might have received. He entertained the most confident belief that the report was false, and so stated to his friends, but he could not give it authorized contradiction. This report, however, necessarily led him to examine that vote with deep interest and gi-eat care, when it did reach him. The Albany Argus, a public journal to which his colleague had alluded as a leading federal paper, was his authority, and was it fedej-al, democratic, or democratic republican, which last his colleague seemed to suppose the real name of his party, it was authority upon which he relied with a quiet confidence. The vote given, lapon the election of a Senator, in both branches of the Legisla- ture, he found in the columns of that paper in detail; the name of every member voting, and the name of the candidate voted for by each being distinctly stated. He examined the account with care, and could not say he felt much surprise when he per- ceived that not one single individual of any party had given his vote for the supposed formidable abolition candidate, Gerrit Smith. "He could not, however, in justice to his own feelings, leave this matter here, and permit the inference that the mistake of his colleague was wholly without foundation. He would, therefore, relate what he had understood had taken place at some stage of the proceedings preliminary to the election of a Senator. He supposed the account had ajjpeared in the public papers, but he had not seen it there, and related it from mere report. It was this: a law or resolution was before the Legislature, designed to prescribe the time and manner of electing a Senator. To mem- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 921 bers of the minority of the House, other candidates, taken from the ranks of their political opponents, were more acceptable than his colleague. Some of these members proposed to make the election directly by inserting the name of the Senator in the bill or resolution, and thus declaring the election instead of pre- scribino- the time and manner for future action. Pursuing this feeling, the names of a variety of candidates were proposed, and among them Gerrit Smith, — his abolitionism out of the question, a most bitter opponent of this administration. That name might have come from the gentleman alluded to by his colleague, but it was under such circumstances and for such objects, as he verily believed; if it came from him at all, which fact lie could not assert. It was a choice among his enemies, not his voluntary preference as a politician or a citizen, as his viva voce vote upon the election should have been. This explanation of the error of his colleague he had given, as he had before stated, rather from rumor than from any referable authority; but he did not doubt it was the real explanation and the only one of which his state- ment was susceptible. " He was now brought to the apparent object of the remarks of his colleague, and that was the point of most materiality and most delicacy, the interests of others having been disposed of. Why was the statement of his colleague made, but to show that his friends and the friends of the administration in the north are the abolitionists there? He could see no other object, and other portions of the remarks of his colleague seemed to him to have a similar object and tendency. " In reference to all such remarks, calculated to produce per- sonal irritation, he would take this occasion to say to his col- league that it was now something more than six years since they had taken their seats together in this body; that their public acts had been known to the Senate, if not to their constituents and the country ; that it was therefore folly for them to discuss the question here, which was a democrat, which was a federalist or which was a democratic republican in politics. Their acts, not their words, must determine that point; and the Senate itself would judge, indepeiulently of their impressions, what the pro- per classification of each was. So also with the question of abo- 922 Life and Times of Silas Wright. litionism. Plis action upon that disturbing subject was known to this body and the country. If it made him an abolitionist, it was in vain for him to reason against the conclusion. If it did not, any remonstrances and declarations from him against the charge, come from what quarter it might, was unnecessary here. So with the President of the United States. His declarations and acts and votes as to these petitions and this whole subject were perfectly known to every individual they addressed; and was it necessary for him, as the avowed personal and political friend of that officer — as he had been since he had had the honor of a seat here and still continued to be — was it necessary for him to defend the President against the charge of aboli- tionism? Not here ! not here ! "Why, then, Mr. W. asked, were these points debated here upon such an occasion, and these charges directly made, or impli- edly made, by his colleague? During the whole of their public service together hitherto, however wide might have been their political differences of opinion, it gave him sincere pleasure to state that there had not been one particle of personal unkind- ness between his colleague and himself. This condition of their personal relations he earnestly hoped mignt continue ; and to that end he would now, as he had upon all former occasions, care- fully abstain from all remarks calculated to excite unkind feeling. He hoped his colleague would imitate him in this, and relieve them from the necessity of disturbing the Senate by their per- sonal or local differences. They had both had experience enough in the body to know that all such collisions were unpleasant to the members of the Senate. Should they, then, thus afflict them ? For himself, nothing but a sense of self-respect could induce him to do it. When they came there together they were political friends. Those members from other States whom he had found there as political friends, and who yet remained there, with very few exceptions, were yet personal and political friends. Those whom he had found as political opponents, with exceptions still less numerous, were at this moment his respected opponents in the body. Still, he had experienced personal kindness from all, as he knew his colleague had also; and should they now strive to make all unhni)py ^'7 their personal or local collisions? Life and Tuies of Silas Weight. 923 He would not lead in such a course, and, if compelled to follow, it would be with reluctance and regret. " He had never charged federalism upon his colleague, nor had he charged abolitionism upon his party, notwithstanding their course in the last Legislature. He was not in the habit of char- acterizing men or parties by names, as epithets. He chose to state facts and let conclusions follow. His colleague had referred, with some triumph, to a political revolution in the State. As a fact, he could state that that revolution brought into office and place a Lieutenant-Governor who was an abolitionist, as far as his responses to the abolition committee could make him one. Yet, he was not disposed, even upon that fact, to pronounce the whole party abolitionists, nor would he do so. He preferred to let acts and principles and associations determine these points, as he did, who were democrats and who were federalists. The truth and the facts were his material reliance for himself and his friends. [Mr. Tallmadge said he would take the explanation of his colleague, as he thought the variation was of no material importance. He coincided in the sentiment that this was not the proper place for political explanations between himself and col- league. His colleague, some years since, in his usual complacent way, told him that, as to their political differences, their common constituents would settle that question. They have settled it, and settled it three times over. They have pronounced their opinion of this destructive administration, and of the sub-treasury bill, which, in his haste to get it through this body, the patriotic zeal of the chairman of the Committee on Finance had impelled him to override the common courtesies of legislation. The per- sonal relations of himself and his colleague had always been of a friendly nature, and on his part they should continue so; but he was not to be read lectures to by his colleague, and it was not necessary to remind him of their personal relations.] Mr. Wright said he was aware of his trespass upon the feelings of the Senate in again throwing himself before it. He rose to reply to a single remark of his colleague, and but one; and he did that because he was convinced, without an explanation, that remark would be misunderstood and misconstrued to the prejudice as well of his colleague as himself. 924 Life and Times of Silas Weight. " The remark to wliicli he alluded was, that he had been want- ing in courtesy in his action in relation to the independent trea- sury l)ill. If his colleague referred to courtesy to the Senate, as toward those who were members of the body when that bill was acted upon, he had to say to him that those were points he could not discuss with him; that the Senate, as it was at the time, and those who were Senators at the time, were his judges as to the propriety or impropriety of his course upon the passage of the bill in question. If any of those gentlemen, who were his coactors and his witnesses, had charges to make against him for the man- ner in which his duties were discharged in relation to that measure, it would be his duty, as it would be his pleasure, to listen to them, and to admit their justice or show their injustice, as the facts might warrant; but by others he could not be called to account for his courtesy, or want of it, to them. " If his colleague intended to charge want of courtesy toward himself, as he, Mr. W., was infonned that charge had been made by friends of his colleague at the seat of government of their State, it was proper that the Senate, and their common constiu- euts, thould understand upon what foundation such a charge must rest, and upon what facts it must be sustained, if sustained at all. To make that explanation was his present object. "The bill in question finally passed the Senate on Thursday of the week, he believed the twenty-third day of January last. The order for engrossment was made on the Friday previous. By the mail which arrived from the north on the evening of Saturday, the twenty-fifth of January, he received from his colleague a letter dated at the Astor House, in the city of New York, on the twenty-third day of the month, the very day on which the bill finally passed the Senate. This letter gave him the first informa- tion of the ill-health of his colleague, and of his having been detained by sickness when on his way to take his seat here. The letter contained a request from his colleague to himself to have the final question upon this bill postponed, until he could be in his place. In a few moments after the letter reached his hands, he learned that the same conveyance which brought the letter to him brought also his colleague to the city. "These are the facts. He had sjiokeji of dates from memory. Life asd Times of Silas Wright. 925 but belived lie was not mistaken. And under this state of facts he was well ini'ormed that a friend of his colleague had reported at Albany that this request had been made from his colleague to him, and that he had refused the delay asked for. He would not suspect his colleague of having been instrumental in ffiviuff existence or circulation to the falsehood, but, without this explanation, those who had heard the statement and should see the remark of his colleague to which he was now replying, would be likely to connect the present charge of want of courtesy with this story of the letter, and to all such his silence under the charge would be considered as an admission of its truth and of its applicability to the report referred to. To prevent that con- sequence to his colleague or himself, was his present object, and having accomplished that, he had nothing more to say." 926 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LXXXllI. THE NEW YORK INDIAN TREATY. The New York Indians adhered to the Crown during the Revolutionary War. In 1784 and 1789, all, except the Mohawks, treated with our government, ceding to it all their lands west of the State of New York, and having confirmed to them all lying east of the specified line. The Mohawks, with Brandt, whose sister had been the wife of Sir William Johnson, retired and settled at the west end of Lake Ontario, in Canada. Massachusetts originally claimed all the lands west of that State to the Pacific under her charter. New York claimed all within her present boundaries and to tlie far west, and volunta- rily ceded to the old confederacy whatever belonged to lier west of its limits. Both conceded that the Indians had possessory rights. It was finally agi-eed between these States that New York should have the political or government Jurisdiction, and Massachusetts the right of soil in the western part of the State, with the exclusive right to acquire the Indian title. The United States claimed the right of prohibiting sales by the Indians without their consent, and that all purchases should be by a regular treaty made by their lawful representatives and consented to by the Senate of the United States ; all of which were assented to by both States. This pre-emp- tive right Massachusetts conveyed to Robert Morris, reserving to herself the right to be represented when the Indian title should be acquired. Morris conveyed his rights to individuals called the " Ogden Land Company." The Indians had conveyed all their rights to the pre- emptors except four reservations — the Tonawanda, Buf- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 927 falo Creek, Cattaraugus and Allegany — and these they sought to acquire. In the fall of 1837, unsolicited. President Van Buren requested the author to act as commissioner in negotia- tions for the sale of these reservations, and he attended and subsequently formed a treaty with the Indians. Gen. Henry A. S. Dearborn represented Massachusetts during a portion of the negotiation, and J. Trowbridge, of Buffalo, during the residue, ceding these reservations, and which had been amended and the amendments duly assented to. This treaty was under consideration, in executive session, on the 25th of March, 1840, when Mr. Weight addressed the following remarks to the Senate, which he carefully wrote out with his own hand for publication in the Con- gressional Globe : " Mr. Wright said he must precede the direct discussion o± the treaty by a few preliminary remarks, calculated to show the grounds upon which he acted, and the considerations which had governed him, in the examination of the complicated case pre- sented in the book of printed documents which had been laid before the Senate. " And his first remark of this character was, that, if he knew himself, his principal motive, in urging the final consummation of this treaty upon the Senate, was his dee}) conviction of the benefits, present and future, which would be conferred upon the sinking bands of Indians, who were parties to it from its final confirmation. He was well aware that, in making this declara- tion, he was subjecting himself to double suspicion. These Indians were within his own State, and it would be assumed that the whites were anxious for their final removal out of tlieir way. Not so, in fact, to an extent wdiich would warrant a removal in any degree unjust. The bands had become too small, too much worn away by that contact with the whites which is destruction to the Indian, to leave any fear, from their remaining, upon the minds of their white neighbors. The territory they retain, too, had become too small to excite an extensive cupidity for its pos- session, or any strong hope of profit from its purchase by the white 92H Life and Times of Silas Wright. man. Then the treaty contained no provision for the forcible removal of any of these Indians, and tlierefore considerations of this character could have but a (|ualified influence in the mattei'. "The real truth was, and he owed it to his constituents to state it, that a just and rational sympathy for this perishing rem- nant of a once mighty savage confederacy prevailed much more strongly in favor of the treaty than any motives of individual or associated interest. True it was that all the bands Avere in the midst of a dense population, and that one portion of one of them was upon the border of a large and growing city, imbibing its vices with the readiness with which the dry earth absorbs the rain which falls upon it; and yet all that dense population, even that incommoded city, would be the last to urge a removal of these Indians against their interests, and the first to censure him if he sJiould ui-ge the proclamation of a treaty, for that purpose, which Avas not palpably beneficial to the suffering red men. " He Avas liable to suspicion, too, as favoring the interests of the company who held the pre-emptive right to the lands of the Seneca band of these Indians, when they shall surrender the pos- session. He believed the members of this comjjany Avere mostly, and perhaps entirely, residents of his State ; and hence it might be believed that his action was infiuenced by their persuasion, or influence, or interest. It Avould become his duty, in the course of the discussion, to speak more particularly of this company and of their rights; but it Avas eiu)ugh now to say, that but one single member of it, to his knowledge, had ever mentioned the subject of this treaty to him ; that this Avas a call Avithin the last tAvo or three days, and since his opinions had been formed, his course marked out, and his preparations made for this discussion ; that the individual Avas Thomas L. Ogden, Esq., of the city of Ncav York, a gentleman of the legal profession, of advanced age and great eminence, and whose call Avas made upon him as a known friend of the treaty, and not to persuade him to become so. " If, then, he should hereafter be able to shoAV that the treaty was beneficial to the Indians, he hoped he should be credited in the declaration that his anxiety for its final confirmation Avas predicated upon their interests, rather than upon the interested Life and Thies of Silas Wright. 929 wishes of his constituents, or the selfish desires of the pre-emption company. " His next preliminary remark was, that, in discussing the merits of this treaty, he should pass entii-ely over that mass of evidence which had been collected against it by those mistaken philanthropists — mistaken in his judgment — who opposed its confirmation upon the ground that they were, at some future day, to civilize these Indians in their present locations. To the purity of the motives of these enthusiasts he yielded the fullest belief; but in the reality of their hopes he had long since lost all confidence. The idea of civilizing the Indians of our continent had once been a rich source of hope to him ; but practical obser- vation and experience had compelled him to abandon the delu- sion. Many worthy and good men yet retained their confidence in the practicability of the undertaking ; but he could only say to them that, when he should see the deer of the forest the domestic animal of the farm, and the partridge of the woods the familiar fowl of the barn-yard, then, and not till then, should he again hope for the practical civilization of the Indian. " A further remark was, that he should enter upon the discus- sion with a full and perfect understanding, assented to upon all sides of the Senate, that the character and standing and credit of the commissioner who negotiated the treaty on the pai't of the United States remained unimpeached and unimpeachable, and that his statements of fact were to be implicitly relied upon in all matters touching the execution of the treaty by the Indians. [To this position the honorable chairman of the committee and all the dissenting members assented.] Another rule for the dis- cussion on his part would be, that the commissioner on the part of the State of Massachusetts, Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, was pres- ent at all the transactions, the validity of which are now in dispute, and is a respectable, credible and disinterested witness to every fact to which he gives testimony. "With these preliminary remarks, he would proceed to the discussion of the treaty and the facts upon which it rested. "A question had been raised as to the right of the New York Indians to their 'Green Bay lands,' so called; but inasmuch as the history of that matter had been fully gone into by the honor- 59 930 Life and Times of Silas Wright. able chairman of the committee [Mr. Sevier], and by his honor- able friend from Georgia [Mr. Lumpkin], he would not consume time with it here. The treaty between the United States and the Menomonee tribe of Indians, of the 8th of February, 1831, by which the latter ceded to the United States, for the benefit of, and 'as a home to, the several tribes of New York Indians,' 500,000 acres of land in the now Wisconsin territory, and the former paid in money for that cession the sum of $20,000, was sufficient for his purpose. It established the right of the New York Indians to that land, independently of any action of their own; though certain of the bands — the Senecas not included — had long previously purchased of the Menomonees, for the bene- fit of the Six Nations, a much larger tract of country, and had paid some $12,000 in cash as purchase-money therefor. Yet dis- putes arose between them and the Menomonees as to the author- ity of the persons with whom they contracted either to sell the lands or to receive the pay therefor; and, the proceeding having taken place in pursuance of a consent previously obtained from the President of the United States [Mr. Monroe] by the New York Indians, the treaty of 1831 was negotiated by the United States as a compromise between the Six Nations of New York and the Menomonee tribe. Hence the estate of the New York Indians in their Green Bay lands. "He was aware that the original cession from the Menomonees required that the New York Indians should remove to the lands, and reside thereon as their home, within three years from the date of the treaty ; but the cession to the United States was positive and perfect; the condition of forfeiture a forfeiture to the United States and not to the Menomonees; and hence the whole title was in the United States and the New York Indians. This being the fact, the United States had, since the treaty of cession from the Menomonees and before the expiration of the three years, entered into a further treaty with the New York Indians, by which they were released from the condition of removal to the lands witliin three years, and the time of their removal was to be fixed by the President. That time has never been fixed, and therefore their right remains precisely what it Life and Times of Silas Wrigut. 931 was after the execution oi the treaty of 1831 with the Meuo- monees. "It is now said that this right dei^ends upon the mere indul- gence of the President, and that the known determination of these Indians not to remove to Green Bay places it in his power to terminate the right at pleasure, by fixing a day for their removal to these lands. The soundness of this position, in technical law, is freely admitted; and does anybody fear a sacri- fice of the interests of the New York Indians from the admis- sion ? Had such been the policy of this government as to Indian claims and Indian title? If physical power and technical law were the rules by which these people were to be dealt with, they had no rights. We had never recognized in them any other estate in lands than that-of simple occupancy, a mere possessory title; and if we were to canvass that right by the rules of the courts, the Indian might as well abandon his claim. His occu- pancy would be too limited, or too questionable, to give him a resting place, and might would make right on the side of the whites when such rules came to govern the questions. Such, however, was not, and was not to be, our Indian policy; and no technical action of the President was to forfeit the right of the Indians to their Green Bay lands. The treaty, therefore, upon this point, required no more support than was given to it by foi*- mer compacts of the same character, " What, then, was this treaty, in its essential provisions, so far as the rights of the United States and of these Indians were con- cerned ? The entire instrument was too long to trouble the Sen- ate with, while a very short statement would give the points upon which the discussion must rest, "Article 1 cedes to the United States the lands of the New York Indians, at Green Bay, not otherwise disposed of, computed at 435,000 acres. "Article 2 secures to these Indians a country in the Indian territory, west of the Mississippi, equal to 320 acres of laud for each soul, the whole computed at 1,824,000 acres. "Article 15 stipulates to pay to the Indians, from the treasury of the United States, $400,000, ' to aid them in removing to their new homes and supporting themselves the first year after their 932 Life and Times of Silas Wright. removal ; to encourage and assist them in education, and being taught to cultivate their lands ; in erecting mills and other neces- sary houses; in purchasing domestic animals and farming utensils, and acquiring a knowledge of mechanic arts.' " These were the principal provisions of the treaty, in a pro- perty sense, as affecting the pecuniary interests of the government or the Indians. Some other articles there were stipulating for the payment of small sums to some of the smaller bands, but the amount in no single case exceeds |5,000, and the aggregate amount is but about $20,000. "As connected with this branch of the subject, however, are two separate treaties: the one between the Seneca band of Indi- ans, the pre-emption company and the State of Massachusetts, and the other between the Tuscarora band and the same parties. The first conveys to the pre-emption company all the remaining lands of the Senecas within the State of New York, consisting of four reservations, as follows: Acres. " The Buffalo Creek reservation, containing 49,920 " The Cattaraugus reservation 21,680 ' ' Tlie Allegany reservation 30,469 " The Tonawanda reservation 12,800 "In all 114 "As the consideration money for the purchase, the pre-emption company stipulate to pay to the Seneca Indians the sum of $202,000 in money ; and the tenth article of the treaty with the United States, now under consideration, stipulates that the United States will receive, hold and invest for these Indians $100,000 of this money, and will pay them the annual interest thereon forever; and that the improvements upon the reserva- tions, being the property of individual Indians, shall be appraised, and the $102,000 be paid to the owners thereof in just proportions. " The treaty with the Tuscarora band cedes to the pre-emption company their small reservation of 1,920 acres, called ' the Tusca- rora reservation,' or ' Seneca grant,' for which the pre-emption company sti^Hilate to pay the sum of $9,600 in money. " The title of the respective bands to the lands last mentioned was the ordinary Indian title of possession and occupancy, the Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. 933 company, as will hereafter appear, having long since purchased the pre-emption right from the State of Massachusetts. " By the fourteenth article of the treaty with the United States, the Tuscarora band cede to the United States 5,000 acres of land which they own in fee, situate in Niagara county, in the State of New York, to be held for them in trust, and to be sold at the value as appraised and the money to be paid to them, so far as the value of the improvements are concerned, and invested for their benefit, and the annual interest thereon paid to them for- ever, so far as the value of the soil, separate from the improve- ments, shall be realized; the expenses of survey, appraisement and sale being first deducted. " This was a concise view of the pecuniary stipulations of the three treaties, and upon them the discussion had hitherto rested, and must rest, as he had heard of no complaints from any quarter as to the other stipulations with any portion of these Indians. "It would now be proper to examine the condition of the ques- tion before the Senate, in order that a clear understanding of the case presented piay be had. What, then, is the real question before the body, and how has it come here ? " We find the first printed paper, in the large file upon our tables, to be a message from the President of the United States, transmitting this treaty to the Senate, with the volume of papers which accompany it, and expressing his clear convictions upon the following points: " 1. That the removal of the Indians is essential to their pros- perity and welfare, and even to their preservation as a people. " 2, That the true interests of the sections of country where they are require that they should be removed. "3. That the terms of the treaty are liberal toward the Indians in every respect. " Yet it is not proclaimed by the President, but returned to the Senate for a further expression on its part. And what expression is sought? Whether, in its judgment, this liberal treaty has been assented to by the Indians, in conformity with the rule established by the Senate for giving that assent. This is the single point presented, and upon which an expression of the Senate is desired. 934 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " How have doubts ai'isen upon this point ? Certainly from the peculiar action of the Senate upon the treaty at some former stage of that action, or from the peculiarity of the assent which the Indians have in fact given, or from both. An examination of the history of the treaty will show where rest the difficulties. " The original treaty, which forms the basis of this discussion, was concluded between the New York Indians and the United States on the 15th day of January, 1838. About the due execu- tion of that treaty by the Indians there has not been, and is not, any question. It was presented to all the bands, convened in a common council, and was assented to by all, to the satisfaction of the Senate. "That treaty, thus made on the part of these bands, was sub- sequently, and during the annual session of the Senate of 1837-38, transmitted to this body for its ratification by the President of the United States, in the usual form of transacting such business. It was referred to the proper committee of the Senate for exami- nation and advisement. The committee found many of its pro- visions objectionable to them, from being too vague, and present- ing too uncertain a responsibility on the part of this government. The removal of the Indians, their subsistence for one year, the erection of mills, school-houses, blacksmith shops, churches, and many other expenditures, were stipulated, without any amount stated as the maximum of expenditure to which the treasury of the United States might be subjected. The committee, as he understood at the time, and now believes, referred these matters of ordinary expenditure to the head of the Indian Bureau, for an estimate of the amount of money required to meet them, and framed their fifteenth article of the amended treaty upon the esti- mate returned from that officer; thus giving, for the objects enumerated in that article, the full amount of that estimate, but limiting the amount which could be called for to the $400,000 therein stipulated to be paid, that being the amount estimated. " There were other articles in the original treaty, stipulating for the payment of gratuities to individual Indians by name, providing funds for a university, and the like, which the com- mittee wholly rejected, without proposing any equivalent. " Thus an amended treaty was formed by the Committee on Life and Times of Silas Wright. 935 Indian Affairs of the Senate, and reported to the body for its acceptance, which met with its unanimous concurrence. It was ratified on the 11th of June, 1S38, and returned to the Indians for their assent, Avith a special resohition, which has hxid tlie foundation for the present controversy. "It was proper here to remark that the resohitions of the Senate of the llth of June, 1838, were a complete ratification of the amended treaty on its part; tliat the instrument, in all its parts, was thus made perfect, so far as the constitutional action of this body, in the formation of a treaty, was concerned, and that the only thing which remained to be done was the p-ivino- of the requisite assent, by the several bands of Indians, accord- ing to the resolutions for that purpose which the Senate adopted. That resolution was made part of the proceedings of ratification on the part of the Senate, was, upon its face, to be adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the Senators present, and was, therefore, if met by the Indians with the assent required, the final close of our action on the subject of the treaty in our executive character. The resolution was in the following words : ''' Provided always, and be it furtlier resolved {two-tJiirds of the Senate present coneurrinc/), That the treaty shall have no force or effect whatever, as it relates to auy of said tribes, nations or bands of New York Indians, nor shall it be understood that the Senate have assented to any of the contracts connected with it, until the same, with the amendments herein proposed, is submitted, and fully and fairly explained, by a commissioner of the United States, to each of said tribes or bands, separately assembled in council, and they have given their free and voluntary assent thereto ; and if one or more of said tribes or bands, when consulted as aforesaid, shall freely assent to said treaty as amended, and to their contract connected therewith, it shall be binding and obligatory upon those so assenting, although other or others of said bauds or tribes may not give their assent, and thereby cease to be parties thereto. Provided, farther , That if any portion or part of said Indians do not emigrate, the President shall retain a proper proportion of said sum of $400,000, and shall also deduct, from the quantity of land allowed west of the Mississippi, such number of acres as will leave to each emigrant 330 acres only.' " With its full ratification and this conditional resolution, the Senate returned the treaty to the President as amended, for him, as the executive of the nation, to carry its orders into effect, but 936 Life and Times of Silas Wright. most clearly without anything further on its part to be done to make the whole a valid and operative treaty. " The President, during the vacation of Congress, caused the treaty, as amended by the Senate, to be again submitted to the Indians for their assents, according to the resolution of the Senate above given. "On the 21st of January, 1839, the President, by a message, Teturned the amended treaty to the Senate. For what ? For ratification again by this body ? No ; but for this body to say whether the assents given by the various bands of Indians was in conformity with our resolution of the 11th of June, 1838, and was sufficient to authorize him to proclaim the treaty. As to all the bands, except the Senecas, the President expresses the opinion, in his then message, that the assents had been ' entirely satisfac- tory.' As to the assent of the Senecas he seems not to have been satisfied, and for that reason to have returned the treaty and papers to the Senate. " The whole matter was then again referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs of this body, and underwent before them a laborious investigation, including the examination of numerous witnesses. The result was an inability, on the part of the coni- mittee, then consisting of four members, to come to any conclu- sion, or to recommend any specific course of action to the Senate. " Under these circumstances, the subject first came up for the consideration and action of the body on Saturday, the 2d day of March, 1839, at that time universally supposed to be the last legislative day of the session. It was immediately apparent, as all who were then here will recollect, that no decisive action could take place, without protracted debate, as the documents were voluminous, the statements complicated and contradictory, and the opinions of Senators, as well as of the different members of the committee, strongly conflicting. " The public appropriation bills, also, with a large share of the other legislation of the session, remained in an unfinished state, and it was impossible for the Senate to devote its time to a sub- ject of this character at that period of a short session. " To pass the subject over, therefore, and not permit the treaty and the whole negotiation to drop, for want of consideration and Life and Tjiies of Silas Wright. 937 action, the Senate passed its resolution of the 2d of Marcli, 1839. That resolution was oftered by his honorable colleague, a friend to the treaty, and after a very little conversation and some slight verbal modifications, suggested by others and promptly accepted by the mover, was adopted, as his present impression was, by two-thirds of the Senators present. It was in the following words : " ' Resolved, That whenever the President of the United States shall be satisfied that the assent of the Seneca tribe of Indians has been given to the amended treaty of June 11th, 1838, with the New York Indians, according to the true intent and meaning of the resolution of the Senate of the 11th of June, 1838, the Senate recommend that the President make proclamation of said treaty, and carry the same into effect.' "With this resolution the treaty was remanded to the Presi- dent for the further action of the executive department. Inas- much as the President had returned the amended treaty to the Senate for an expression of its opinion as to the sufficiency of the assent of the Seneca band, and as the resolution above given did not express an affirmative opinion upon that point, that officer very naturally supposed that further efforts on his part to obtain the assent of this band were contemplated. During the vacation of 1839, therefore, he sent the Secretary of War, in person, to hold a council with this band, and again lay the amended treaty before their chiefs in council, for their more formal assents. " The council was held on the 13th and 14th days of August, 1839, and 'talks' were interchanged between the Secretary, the agent of the New York Indians, and the chiefs and principal men, not of the Seneca band merely, but of several of the other bands. These ' talks,' on the part of the Indians, were principally strong recriminations between the friends and the opponents of the treaty, and resulted in nothing decisive, either in favor of or against the measure, as applicable to the Seneca band, or to any other portion of the New York Indians. A full report of the proceedings of this council is found with the printed documents before the Senate ; and is all the evidence of any efforts on the part of the executive to obtain the farther assent of any portion of the Indians to the treaty, after the passage of the resolution of the Senate of the 2d March, 1839. 938 Life and Times of Silas Weight. " Under this state of facts, the amended treaty, with a mass of dociaments in favor of and against it, was returned to the Senate by the President, during our present session, accompanied by his message of the fifteenth of January, before referred to. " All the papers have been again referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs of this body, and, after full consideration, the committee unanimously report that the state of facts has not been changed, so far as the action of the Senate is concerned, since the treaty was last submitted to us ; that the question now is, as it was in 183 9, when the amended treaty was before the Senate, upon the submission of the President, with his message of the twenty-first of January of that year. Have the Seneca band of Indians given their assent to this amended treaty, in con- formity with the spirit and intent of the Senate's resolution of ratification of the 11th of June, 1838 ? " This is the simple question for the Senate to decide, and this long history shows in what manner, and under what circum- stances, it has come before us. "Before proceeding to discuss this question, justice to the President requires a few words in explanation of his course. It has been already more than intimated that his reference of this question to the Senate is improper ; that the point was one for him to decide, as his action alone is called for to render the treaty perfect and operative. Differing with the President, as he did, in reference to the sufficiency of the assent of the Senecas, within the fair intent and meaning of the resolution of the Senate of the 11th of June, 1838, yet his convictions were clear that that ofticer had discharged his duty most properly in again referring the question of doubt to the decision of the Senate. Where was the doubt, and how had it arisen ? Out of the acts of the Indians, by way of assent or dissent ? No ; but out of what should be considered the true construction of the resolu- tion of the Senate, under which that assent was to be made. The President tells us he thinks we intended that the chiefs should assent ' i7i council,'' and he says, ' no advance toward obtaining the assent of the Seneca tribe to the amended treaty, IN COUNCIL, was made, nor can the assent of a majority of them, in council, be now obtained.'' This language refers expressly Life and Times of Silas Weight. 939 to the efforts made by the President, through the Secretary of War, after the passage of the resolution of tlie Senate of tlie 2d of March, 1839; and, while it shows the construction which he was inclined to put upon the resolution of ratification of the 11th of June, 1838, proves also that he supposed the resolution of the 2d of March, 1839, contemplated further measures on his part to obtain the assent of this band. Still he was not confi- dent, as his message abundantly shows, that his construction of the resolution of ratification was that which the Senate intended ; and hence his reference again of the whole matter to this body, that we might put our own construction upon our own act. A different course on his part would necessarily have been a final rejection of the treaty, inasmuch as there is no pretense that a majority of the Seneca chiefs assented ' in council.'' So long as there was doubt, therefore, it was his imperative duty to make the reference he has made, and to leave it to this body to say what it intended, and whether, from all the facts in the case, which he has most properly laid before us, the spirit and intent of our resolution has been complied with. "This brought him to the real question presented for discus- sion; and tedious as he had been compelled to be in his manner of reaching it, he hoped he had succeeded in so far clearing the ground as to render the position in which he now stood perfectly perceptible. Had, then, the New York Indians — and especially the Seneca band — given their assent to the amended treaty, according to the spirit and intent of the resolutions of the Senate of the 11th of June, 1838, by which the Senate ratified that treaty on its part and tendered it to these Indians for their assent? This was the question. If they had, the matter was at an end. The contract had received the sanction of both the contracting parties, and it was in the power of neither to annul it without the assent of the other. If they had not, it was no treaty as to the bands not assenting, and nothing which the Senate could do would make it valid as to them. The question was one of fact. The evidence was all before us and we were the jury by which that fact was to be found, and the consequence, whatever should be our verdict, would necessarily follow. " What, then, was the fact ? The resolution of the Senate con- 940 Life and Ti3ies of Silas Wright. tained two prerequisites to the consummation of the treaty by the Indians : " 1. That it, with the amendments of the Senate, should be sub- mitted and fully and fairly explained, by a commissioner of the United States, to each of said tribes or bands separately assem- bled in council. " 2. That each of the said tribes or bands shall have given their free and voluntary assent to the treaty as amended. "It is admitted on all hands that the first of these prerequisites has been fully and fairly and honestly complied with; that the commissioner of the United States has submitted the amended treaty to each of the tribes or bands separately assembled in council, and has there fully and fairly explained the same to them, according to the terms and spirit and intent of our reso- lution. Here, therefore, he felt at liberty to dismiss that branch of the discussion. "It only remains to determine whether the Indians have given their free and voluntary assent to the amended treaty. "Here, again, the ground is narrowed down to the Seneca band, as all admit — the President in his message of 1839, and the Committee on Indian Affairs in their rej)orts at the last and present sessions of the Senate — that the assent of all the other bands has been satisfactorily given. "The majority of the committee now rej^ort that the Seneca band have not so assented, and their honorable chairman has made a most able and forcible argument to sustain that report. He did not flatter himself that he could so well deserve the atten- tion of the Senate, or that he could discuss the question so clearly and forcibly, as he could not pretend to have made himself so thoroughly acquainted with the volume of documents to be examined. Yet he would try to maintain the opposite side of the argument, and to trespass as lightly as possible upon the patience and attention which might be extended toward him. "To establish the number of chiefs of the Seneca nation entitled to be consulted, and authorized to act in making trea- ties, was first necessary. It would appear singular, to those who had not examined these papers, that this should be a question of dispute even among, not the Indians simply, but Life and Tuies of Silas Weighs 941 among their admitted cliiefs; and nothing could more forci- bly demonstrate the perishing state of these unfortunate rem- nants of the Indian race of the north than this single fact. They have lost the number, and are ignorant of the persons of those who are entitled to exercise the supreme power of their nation. Yet he felt authorized to assume that the real number of chiefs, or in any event the highest number which the papers would authorize us to assume, was eighty-one. This was the number assumed by the President, by the head of the Indian Bureau, by the committee, and by the honorable chairman in his argument; and this was the number he should assume as the proper one to test the execution of the treaty. "It was assumed that the assent of a majority of the chiefs was requisite to constitute a valid execution of the treaty on the part of the nation, and, of course, that the signatures of forty- one of the eighty-one chiefs was the least number which could constitute an assent. Without admitting that the action of a majority of all these eighty-one chiefs was requisite to the for- mation of a valid treaty, or even that it was necessary or proper to call for the action of a majority of all the chiefs of all grades for such a purpose, he should argue the question upon the hypo- thesis that the concurrence of a majority of the whole was necessary in this case; and he should do so, because he felt entire confidence that even under that rule the Senate would be able to decide that the assent of the Seneca band to the amended treaty had been obtained. " To those, however, who, with the honorable chairman, had made up their minds that the signatures of this majority of the chiefs must have been given in ' council,' and that any assent of a chief given elsewhere, however freely and fairly, is to be treated as a nullity, he had no argument to make. There was no pretense that a majority of the chiefs signed the amended treaty 'in council,' and if that was to be held as a prerequisite to a valid execution, the assent of the Senecas had not been obtained. He did not so read or so construe the resolution of the Senate of the 11th of June, 1838. He had before divided the resolution according to his understanding of its meaning. The amended treaty was to be ' submitted, and fully and fairly 942 Life and Times of Silas Wright. explainecl, by a commissioner of the United States, to each of said tribes or bands, separately assembled in council.' This, it is admitted on all hands, was done with all the bands, and as well with the Senecas as the others. Then each tribe or band was to give ' their free and voluntary assent thereto,' to render the amended treaty valid as to it. " Has the Seneca band performed this condition on its part ? Have this tribe, through a majority of their chiefs, acting in or out of council, ' given their free and voluntary assent ' to the amended treaty ? " He was happy to observe, from the argument of the honor- able chairman, that there would be no substantial difference between them as to the facts connected with the assents of the Seneca chiefs, in the manner in which those assents had been given, and that the differences were as to the conclusions to be drawn from admitted facts, and as to the fairness, good faith and validity of the conceded acts of the chiefs. " This would enable him to state the facts very concisely, and relieve him from the labor of reading tedious extracts from the reports of the commissioner, and the other papers. " It is, then, conceded that sixteen of the chiefs signed the amended treaty ' in council.' " The commissioner states that subsequently thirteen other chiefs affixed their signatures at his room, in the presence of Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, the agent appointed by the State of Massachusetts to attend the negotiations with the Seneca and Tuscarora Indians, four of which thirteen signatures were affixed by attorneys of the chiefs duly appointed and empowered to perform the act, and the remaining nine by the chiefs in per- son. The commissioner adds that the sio-natures of two other chiefs, who were too unwell to attend in council, were taken at the rooms of the chiefs, also in the presence of the Massachusetts agent ; that all the fifteen chiefs who thus signed out of council, were persons who well understood the subject, and that all the signatures 'were freely and voluntarily given;' that the four who signed by attorney were well known as chiefs friendly to emigra- tion — were persons who signed the original treaty ; that three of the powers of attorney were properly acknowledged before a Life and Times of Silas Wright. 943 judge of the county, and the fourtli executed in his own presence, before tlie amended treaty was submitted for signatures in covm- cil ; and that he had no doubt that all the powers were fairly obtained. "Here is shown the assent of thirty-one of the eighty-one chiefs given, sixteen in and fifteen out of council ; and these were all the signatures obtained by the commissioner from chiefs of the Senecas during his first visit to obtain the assent of the several bands to the amended treaty. "The commissioner states, in his report to the head of the Indian Bureau, that he directed the local Indian agent to keep as accurate an account as was possible of the number of chiefs attending in council from day to day, and also of the entire num- ber of chiefs who appeared in council at any time during the negotiations, inasmuch as chiefs and warriors attended in council together, and sat together, as did also individuals of the other bauds, so that it was not in his power to tell which were Seneca chiefs, any farther than the prosecution of his duties made them known to him — that the agent reported to him that not moi-e than sixty-one chiefs of the Senecas were present in council at any one time; and he then raises the question for the decision of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Avhether the thirty-one assents obtained, being a majority of sixty-one, the whole num- ber of chiefs present in council at any one time, the amended treaty might not be considered as sufficiently assented to on the part of the Senecas. Upon this ground only did the commis- sioner intimate that the assent of this band could be considered as sufficiently given. " The next fact, which seems to be material here, is given by the commissioner in the following words: " 'Since I commeHced this report, I have received, by mail, the written assent of live persons known by me to be recognized by tlie nation as chiefs. They all signed the treaty last winter. These appear to have been proved and acknowledged before Hezekiah Salisbury, a commissioner of deeds in the county of Erie, in the State of New York. He is certified to be duly commissioned as such officer by the clerk of the county. The persons who have subscribed their names as witnesses are known to me to be respectable. I have no doubt these assents were fairly given. Added to those taken in my presence, they make thirty-six in all, and are probably u majority of the 944 Life and Times of- Silas Weight. whole number who attended during the council. I observe in each of these papers is incorporated a power to you and to me to add their respective names to the assent which I now hand you. Whether these powers should be exercised or not, you can best judge.' " This is an extract from the report of the commissioner to the head of the Indian Bureau, made at Washington under date of the 25th of October, 1838; and it presents the further question, whether if the thirty-one signatures, being a majority of the number of chiefs who attended council at any one time, should not be considered a sufficient assent, the thirty-six, being a majo- rity of the whole number who appeared in council at any time, would not be so considered ? "He must be permitted here to remark that his friend, the honorable chairman, criticised these suggestions of the commis- sioner with what appeai-ed to him to be undue severity, when he said that the commissioner appeared to have returned to Wash- ington for the grave purpose of submitting to the War department the question whether thirty-one, or thirty-six, were a majority of eighty-one. The suggestions were such as he had stated, and they seemed to have been very properly and very sensibly made. If a vote had been taken in council, and a majority of the chiefs present had approved of the amended treaty, and then signed it, the very ground upon which the honorable chairman rests his argument would have made that a valid and satisfactory assent ' in council.' Was there, then, anything very absurd or censur- able in the inquiry of the commissioner, whether that same assent, given partly in council and partly out of it, was satisfactory; and if not, whether the assent of a majority of all the chiefs who at any time appeared in the council would be sufficient? He thought not. " Upon the facts here presented, the Commissioner of Indian AiFairs made his report to the Secretary of War, under date of the 29th of October, 1838, strongly questioning the sufficiency of the assent, as to the Seneca band, and, under date of the thirtieth of the same month, he writes to the commissioner as follows : " ' Your report and the treaty with the New York Indians, assented to as amended in the Senate of the United States, have been submitted to the Secretary of War. He is of opinion that the consent of a majority of all Life and Timhs of Hu.as Wrkuit. 945 the Seneca chiefs must be obtained, but that, as you have heretofore met the requirement of the Senate by full explaualiou to them in couucil, you may proceed to the Seneca reservation, and there obtain the assent of such Indians as have not heretofore given it.' " Thus instructed, the commissioner repaired again to the Seneca reservation to perform the additional duties assigned to him. Under date of the 11th January, 1839, at Washington, he thus reports his doings to the head of the Indian Bureau. " ' On the receipt of those instmctions I repaired to Buffalo, New York, for the purpose of carrying them into effect. On my arrival there, I was joined by Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, the superintendent appoiutcd by the Governor of Massachusetts, who continued with me until the close of my visit there. He was present and witnessed every signature to the assent, except one, which was taken while he was confined to his room by indispo- sition. Soon after my arrival at Buffalo, I directed the United States sub- agent, residing there, to give public notice to the Seneca chiefs that I was present and authorized to receive the signatures of such of their chiefs as desired to give them, and that the superintendent from Massachusetts was also present to discharge the duty assigned him by the authorities of his State. After this notice, ten additional names were received to the Seneca assent, malcing in all forty-one. Seven of this ten had previously signed separate assents, containing powers of attorney to execute such further papers as might be necessary to give validity to their assents. These papers were all proved and acknowledged according to the usual forms under the laws of New York. Five of this number personally came before me and signed the assent attached to the treaty. The other two signed by attorney. The reasons why they did not appear and sign in person are stated in two affida- vits which I hand you, marked No. 1 and No. 2. From the character of the affidavits, and information verbally communicated to me by several respectable chiefs, I have no doubt that these affidavits are strictly true.' " This completed the signatures, in fact, of forty-one out of the eighty one chiefs of this band, all but two of whom signed in person; and the two who signed by attorney, account for their doing so as is seen above. In addition to these, one chief, James Shongo, signed his assent to a printed copy of the amended treaty before the engrossed copy was laid before the council for signa- tures, but did not repeat it to the written copy. Another chief, Kenjuquide, gave his assent by attorney, after the amended treaty was returned to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, as is seen by the note to his report to the Secretary of War of the 15th of 60 946 Life and Times of Silas Wright. January, 1839. Thus, in the manner stated, the assents of forty- three of the eighty-one Seneca chiefs were obtained. " Still, it is contended that the amended treaty has not been assented to on the part of this band, and is no treaty as to them, and upon what grounds ? ^'■Flrst. That the assents should have been given ' in council,' and that those not so given ai*e not to be regarded. "He had already given his interpretation of the resolution of ratitication of the Senate of the lltli of June, 1838, and had but two other remarks to add upon this point. " He would refer the Senate to page 285 of the printed docu- ments to show, upon the authority of two members of the body, that it was not the sense of the Senate itself, at the time of the passage of the resolution of the 2d of March, 1839, that these signatures must be given ' iu council,' as it appeared from the communications of these two Senators that an amendment to that effect was moved to that resolution, proposing to add the words ' in open council,'' and that upon a vote the amend- ment was not adopted. He was aware that this proceeding was had in committee, that the vote was taken by a count, and not by ayes and noes, and that nothing in relation to it appeared upon the journal. He was also informed that the recollections of all the Senators who were present did not agree as to the manner in which the amendment was disposed of, some believing that it was withdrawn without a vote. He could merely say that his recollection of the offer of such an amend- ment was very confident, and his impressions as to the disposi- tion of it agreed with the printed statements, made by the two honorable Senators, to which he had referred. " His other remark was, that it was competent for the Senate, if it believed that the assent of a majority of the Seneca chiefs had been fairly, freely and properly given, to declare such assent satisfactory, though not given in the form and manner directed or intended by its resolution of ratitication of the lltli of June, 1838. It was upon this broad ground that he principally rested his argument, and his support of the treaty as to the Seneca band. Without discussing the question whether it was the intention of the Senate that the assents should be given 'in Life and Times of Silas Wuigiit. 947 council,' or whether the language of its resolution required that construction, all must admit that but one ol)ject was to be accom- plished, viz., the 'free and voluntary assent' of each separate tribe or band to the amended treaty. Now, if the Senate pointed out one particular place or manner for expressing those assents, and the Indians chose another place or manner for making the same expression, will it be contended that the treaty should fall rather than that the forms prescribed by the Senate should not be complied with, while the substance of their requisition had been met by the 'free and voluntary assent' of a majority of the chiefs ? This was his view of the force of the objection that the assents had not been given ' in council.' To him it was imma- terial whether the Senate intended that the assents should be given in council or not, as it was whether they loere given in council or out of it. The only material inquiry to him was, had the majority of the chiefs in fact given their 'free and voluntary assent ' to the amended treaty ? This brought him to the next ground upon which the sufficiency of the assents was resisted. ^'■Second. It is contended that the assents of the chiefs, who have given their assents in the manner before related, have not been 'free and voluntary,' but have been obtained by bribery, fraud and improper practices. " The charges of bribery ai*e not preferred against the commis- sioner or any of the agents of the United States, but against the company which had purchased the pre-emption right to the Seneca lands from the State of Massachusetts, and against the agents of that company. It was no part of his business to defend this com- pany or their agents against these or any other charges, or to justify the practices of the one or the other, but simply to see how far those practices, whatever they may have been, should be held to invalidate the execution of this treaty on the part of the Seneca chiefs. "The direct and specific charges of bribery are based upon eight several contracts made between an agent of the pre-emp- tion company and that number of the Seneca chiefs, all of which contracts were in writing, signed and sealed by the respective parties and attested by one or more witnesses. The honorable chairman of the committee, in the course of his argument, caused 948 Life and Times of Silas Wright. two of these contracts to be read to the Senate, and to save a repetition he would remark upon them, as samples of the whole. "The first was with JuhnSnow, a Seneca chief, residing on the Buffalo Creek reservation. This contract recites that the pre-emp- tion company are desirous to promote the policy of the United States in the removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi, and also to extinguish the title to their lands in the State of New York; that, in furtherance of these objects, the company had authorized nego- tiations to be opened with the Indians, and offers of money to be made to them as a permanent fund for the nation, and to compen- sate them for their improvements, and also ' deemed it advisable and necessary to employ the aid, co-operation and services of cer- tain individuals who are able to influence the said Indians to accept of the offers so to be made to them ; ' that Heman B. Pot- ter, the first party in the contract, was authorized to act f^r the pre-emption company, and to contract Avith individuals for their aid and influence, and that Snow, the second party to the con- tract, had agreed to contribute his influence and services, and, in case of the extinguishment of the Indian title by the company, to sell to them his improvements. " The parties then go on to contract, First. That Snow shall ' use his best endeavors and exertions ' to induce the Indians to sell their lands and remove west, and that he shall co-operate with, and on all occasions aid the company and their agents ' in talks and negotiations with the chiefs and other influential men of the said tribe, and in the active application of his whole influence at councils and confidential interviews, for the purpose of effecting a treaty between the said tribe and the said proprietors, for the extinguishment of the Indian title to the said reserved lands.' Second. That Snow shall and does convey to the company his buildings and improvements upon the Indian reservations, and not, in the mean time, to lease or in any other manner dispose of the same. Third. Potter, as the agent of the company, agrees to pay to Snow the sum of $2,000 within three months after notice of the ratification of a valid treaty extinguishing the Indian title to the reservations, with these conditions: " 1. That if the treaty shall contain provisions to pay indi- vidual Indians for their improvements, Snow shall receive, toward Life and Times of Silas Wright. 949 the $2,000 agreed to be paid to liini, the sum he may be entitled to receive under the treaty for improvements, and the balance only, if any, shall be paid by the company within the time limited, or as soon thereafter as it can be ascertained. " 2. That if, by the provisions of the treaty, Snow shall be entitled to receive more than $2,000 for imi)rovements, the coiri- pany shall be discharged from the payment of any part of the $2,000, and Snow shall take all that is due to him under the treaty. " 3. That Snow shall be entitled to a life lease, at a nominal rent, of a lot of land actually occupied by him, and called the ' Whipple Farm,' the lease to be executed by the company as soon as the lands can be surveyed after the treaty, and to have reference to the survey. " This is the substance of this contract; and, were all the others like it, their character and objects would admit of a more satis- factory explanation. His acquaintance with the Indians of New York enabled him to appreciate this contract. These Indians were confined within very narrow reservations, and it had long- been a practice with them to lease portions of their lands to the whites for cultivation and improvement. The improvements made by themselves or their lessees were held to be the private and individual property of the Indian, whose right of occupancy to the land in question was admitted by the band. Hence, as a necessary consequence, when it was proposed to make a sale of lands, the first object, to those who owned improvements upon the tract proposed to be conveyed, was to secure the value of their improvements, so that they should not, with the value of the soil, pass into the common national fund. This contract showed most clearly to his mind that this was the great induce- ment with Snow to enter into it. By the contract the company guarantees to him |2,000 for his improvements, satisfied, no doubt, that the |102,000, to be paid by them for the improvements of individual Indians, would give to Snow that sura. Indeed, the contract might be suspected of intentional fraud upon the rights of Snow, as a claimant to improvements, were it not that, in case his improvements shall entitle him to a greater sum than the $2,000 stipulated to be paid, he is to have the surplus, and the company are to pay nothing. 950 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. The other contracts, however, or certainly some of them, are for the payment of money, without any reference to the title of the chief to improvements, and in this sense he did not justify or defend them. They were not, in his opinion, defensible, either in principle or policy. He did not entertain a doubt that these very contracts had done more, much more, to prevent a cordial execution of this treaty than to promote it. The knowledge, on the part of the chiefs not contracted with, that others were deriving money for their influence in favor of the treaty which was not offered to them, was eminently calculated to turn their minds against it, and thus to engender an opposition much more jDOwerful than the influence purchased would be able to overcome. That such had been the practical fact in this case he found no reason to doubt, while the opposition manifested gave the strongest ground for the presumption that it had this stimulus. " It was but just, however, to say that, as gratuities to Indian chiefs, in anticipation of a treaty, these proceedings were not new in substance to these or any other Indians. Many of the present opposing chiefs of the Seneca band were now, and long had been, the recipients of annviities from this very company, given as gratuities upon the execution of former treaties. He could not say that their opposition now proceeded from the absence of similar offers to them to become the friends of the present treaty. It was fair, however, to assume that their oppo- sition could not be founded upon the vicious principle of giving gratuities to chiefs at the time of making a treaty, as they had manifested no disposition to surrender, either to their nation or to the pre-emption company, their personal claims of that character. " It is said that these contracts were secret, and therefore fraudulent and mischievous. He believed they were novel in their character, and he did not doubt that the honorable chair- man was right in saying that a parallel case had never been exhibited to the Senate ; but he could not concede that the novelty consisted in the secrecy of the transactions. So far fi-om it, he apprehended that the singularity here consisted in the open publicity of the contracts, the execution of formal deeds under seal, and attested by witnesses. Was it the custom of men who Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. 951 deliberately undertake to practice bribery to do it in this raaiiiuT ? Did they usually make a deed in writing, and call Avituesses to it? execution ? He supposed not; and it seemed to him that these facts should rather be considered evidences of a mistaken consciousness of the pursuit of a legitimate and honest object, than of a dis- position to practice secret bribery. Look for the paper evidence of the gratuities which have been given upon the execution of former treaties with this band of Indians. Look for the paper evidences of claim to the annuities which are yet paid, and some of which are not only for the life of the chief, but go to his heirs. Go to those treaties : and shall we find them ? No, sir; no. Shall we find deeds minutely drawn and formally witnessed? He had heard of no such papers ; and yet the annuities existed and were regularly paid. "He must not be understood as justifying or defending these contracts. He did not do either; but he could not see that their turpitude was to be sought for in their secrecy. " He could have but one object in referring to them, and that was to determine whether they should be held to vitiate the assent in fact given by the Seneca chiefs to the amended treaty now- before the Senate. That point would be made more clear by a brief reference to the chronological order of the trans- actions. " The first of the eight contracts bears date on the 29th of July, ISSY, and the last of them on the sixteenth of September of the same year. The original treaty was concluded at Buffalo Creek on the 15th day of January, 1838, four months after the execu- tion of the last of these contracts. That original treaty Avas laid before the Senate by the President on the 13th day of April, 1838, and the amended treaty, now under consideration, was substituted for it on the eleventh day of June after, and, as amended, was, by the resolution of this body, of w^hich so much has been said, directed to be submitted to the Indians for their ' free and voluntary assent.' " The contracts to bribe, therefore, if such these contracts are to be considered, were consummated four months before the makino- of the oris-inal treaty with the Indians; which was formed after full negotiations with them, and the ratification of 952 Life and Thies of Silas Wright. which by them, if it ever was a question with the Senate, cannot certainly be so now, after this body has acted upon it as a treaty, has amended it, has ratified it on its part as amended, and has returned it to the Indians for their assent in its amended state. No allegation was found in the papers, or had reached him from any quarter, of any attempts on the i^art of the pre-emption company or its agents, or of any one else, to make contracts of this sort as an inducement to the assent of the Indians to the amended treaty. Indeed, he was not now aware that charges of bribery of any sort had been preferred in relation to the assents to the amended treaty; although the charges of that character relating to the formation of the original treaty had, so far as he recollected, been principally embodied and brought forward since the amended treaty had been submitted and assented to in the manner before related. ** " It was fair to say that all these contracts depended upon the final ratification and confirmation of the treaty by the United States, and that, therefore, the interest created under them in favor of the chiefs who were parties to them might have con- tinued to influence their conduct in relation to the assents to the amended treaty; but, to his mind, this was giving to the charges of fraud and secrecy a meliorated influence and greatly mitigated force. The contracts were completed in September, 1837. The amended treaty was submitted for assent in the fall of 1838, and again in the summer of 1839; and if the convictions upon the minds of these chiefs of the beneficial effects of the treaty to themselves and their nation, existing in the fall of 1837, whether produced by the contracts or otherwise, remained and continued to govern their voices and acts in 1839, two years after; and after the existence of the contracts had become known, if a suflicient number of their associate chiefs were willing to unite with them in assenting to the amended treaty to form a majority of all the chiefs of the tribe, the conclusion can but be evident that strong and good reasons for the ratification of the treaty on the part of the Indians, independent of these contracts, must have existed and had their influence upon the minds and feelings and action of that majority. Life and Times of Silas Wright. 953 "Were, then, the assents of this majority of the chiefs fairly and freely and voluntarily given ? " He had remarked at the outset, and had received universal assent to the proposition, that he should commence the discussion with the assumption that the commissioner on the part of the United States who negotiated this treaty stood unimpeached and unim- peachable, and that all his statements of fact were to be fully credited. He was not about to draw heavily upon his testimony in relation to this point, but a single short paragraph from his last report became necessary to corroborate the evidence of the disinterested witness he was about to call upon the stand. The commissioner says: " ' In every iustauce where a signature was received, either Gen. Dearborn or I distinctly inquired of the person offering to sign whether he fully under- stood the subject, and whether he freely and voluntarily signed tlie assent. In each case a distinct affirmative answer was given.' " He now turned to the statements of Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, the agent appointed, on the part of the State of Massachusetts, for the single and only purpose of seeing that the interests and rights of the Indians w^ere protected in every part of the negotia- tion. He had made the preliminary remark that this was a dis- interested witness, and one whose character and fairness had been indorsed as well by the opponents as the friends of the ti-eaty. Upon the point now under discussion, therefore, he should rely wholly upon his testimony, and he should do it with the most perfect confidence that none of his statements would be even doubted. "Before proceeding to quote his remarks, he would, to prevent confusion and misunderstanding, remind the Senate that this gentleman did not represent his State at the making of the origi- nal treaty. A citizen of Buffalo, in the State of New York, of high standing, had the honor of being deputed to represent the State upon that occasion. Complaints having been made con- nected with that negotiation, as had been before abundantly seen, when the amended treaty was to be submitted to the Indians, the Governor of that Commonwealth, with a just regard to his own elevated standing, to the character and responsibilities of his State, and to the rights and interests of these dependent red 954 Life and Times of Silas Wrioht. men, appointed Gen, Dearborn, the Adjutant-General of the State, to represent it upon the occasion. It was from the official reports of that officer that he should make his quotations; and he would detain the Senate by such only as were pertinent to the question whether the assents of the Seneca chiefs to the amended treaty were fairly, freely and voluntarily given. " In his report to the Governor of Massachusetts, under date of October, 1838, at Lewiston, New York, after the thirty-one assents had been obtained, he says : " ' lu previous conversations, I have represented the deplorable condition of the Seneca Indians, and the reasons why I have come to the conclusion that the only chance for tlieir reformation and continued existence as a dis- tinct people is an immediate emigration to tlie mild climate and excellent tract of land offered them by the national government; and I am perfectly satisfied, were it not for the unremitted and disingenuous Exertions of a certain number of white men, who are actuated by their private interests, to induce the chiefs not to assent to the treaty, it would immediately have been approved by an immense majority. " 'Not an objection or complaint has been made, by a smgle Indian, during the whole progress of the council, as to the price obtained for their right of possession ; and I have not seen an individual, other than the per- sons above named, who does not think the offer of the government a most generou3 and favorable one for the Indians; and who does not concur in the opinion that it is not only for their individual and national interests to remove, but that their fate will inevitably be disastroiis — • that they will be overwhelmed with poverty and misery, and soon become extinct, from their idle, intemperate and other vicious habits, if they do not abandon their present position. " ' The same liberal terms wJiieh have been offered to these Tndidns, if extended to any county in New England, would nearly depojmlate it in six montJts. " 'The conduct of the Hon. Ransom H. Gillet, the commissioner of the United States, during the whole session of the council, has been such as to merit the confidence which had been reposed in him by the general govern- ment, and to meet my entire approbation, from tlie unwearied pains he has taken to fully, fairly and clearly explain tlie provisions of the treaty, and present the character of the soil and climate, and the advantages which the Indians would derive from accepting the territory which is offered them beyond the Mississippi. He appeared to be solely actuated by an earnest desire to advance their interests, and induce them to comprehend the beneficent objects of the government in making such a munificent provision for the advancement of their present and future comfort, independence, happiness and prosperity.' Life and Times of Silas Wright. 955 " This is the testimony of Geii. Dearborn, as to the first effort to obtain the assent of the Senecas to the amended treaty. " In his report to the Governor, after his second visit, wlien the ten additional assents were obtained, imder date of the 2d of Jannary, 1839, he says: " ' I invariably asked each of the chiefs, in the presence of all the persons present, whether they were perfectly satisfied with tlie treaty and the con- tract for the sale of their right of possession to the lands on which they resided, and willingly and freely came forward to sign the treaty, and they all answered in the affirmative; and I am full)' of the opinion that they have done so from an anxious desire to avail themselves of the privilege of remov- ing into the Indian territory, west of the State of ]\Iissouri, on the liberal terms offered them by the government of the United States, and from tlie conviction that the condition of the nation would become annually more deplorable, so long as they remained on their present reservations, wliere there was no hope of amendation in morals or the habits of industry. I sincerely believe that nearly all the other chiefs would have cheerfully given their assent, were it not for the conduct of certain white men, who are inte- rested in the continuance of the tribe on their several reservations of Alle- gany river, Cattaraugus, Buffalo and Tonawanda creeks, and the danger they apprehended from the party of a few chiefs, who, from ambitious motives and political consequence, are adverse to a change of residence, having threatened with fatal consequences such as should give their assent, as stated in my former report, and illustrated in the deposition of John Jamison, marked F and G.' " He wonld not take the trouble to make firrther extracts upon this point. He had sliown that a majority of the Seneca chiefs had, in fact, assented to the amended treaty, not in council, but with a full knowledge of the instrument, and a perfect under- standing of the consequences of their acts; and here was the concurring testimony of two persons, whose duty it was to know the facts, and who could have no possible interest in misrepre- senting them, proving that those assents were fairly, freely and voluntarily given. " From this state of facts, it would seem to him to follow, as a compulsory duty, that the Senate shottld declare these assents satisfactory; but if this was too strong a position to occupy, and there was yet discretion left to the body, it did appear to him impossible that he should be mistaken in assuming that he had shown enough to render it fully competent, within the sound 956 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. discretion of the members, to make that declaration, in case it should appear that such a result would be greatly beneficial to the Indians, to the whites among whom they were now located, and not injurious to the interests of the United States. " There was one other view of the matter, however, which he would suggest, before he proceeded to the consideration of the pecuniary interests involved in the controvei'sy. "Hitherto he had argued the question of the execution of this treaty upon the admission that the assent of a majority of all the Seneca chiefs, of every grade, was necessary to its validity. This was an admission which he did not make except for the sake of the argument, because it was a position in the soundness of which he did not believe. So far as his acquaintance expended, it was a new principle connected with the making of Indian treaties, by this or the State governments; and he believed, also, that it was new to the laws and customs of the Indians themselves. "He would call the attention of the Senate to two short extracts from the report of Gen. Dearborn of the 2d of January, 1839, which would enable him to express his opinion upon this point in an intelligible manner. The first extract is as follows: " 'There are eight claus or families in each of the tribes of the Six Nations, which are designated by the names of Beaver, Turtle, Wolf, Bear, Snipe, Deer, Hawk and White Crane or Heron. It is expressly prohibited by a law of the tribes for persons of the same clan to intermarry^ and it is considered as immoral and irreligious as would be a union within the for- bidden limits of consanguinity among the Jews and Christians; and I have been assured that an instance of such a matrimonial connection, as would be considered by the humblest Indian a wicked and monstrous indecency, has never been known.' ' "The second is as follows: ' ' ' There are eight great sachems of the tribe in the Seneca nation of Indians, who are also chiefs. It is the highest title and rank, and the office is hereditary, like that of the other chiefs. The present sachems are Little Johnson, Daniel Two Guns, Captain Pollard, James Stevenson and George Liusley of the Buffalo Creek band; Captain Strong and Blue Eyes of the Cattaraugus reservation, and Jemmy John of Tonawanda, six of wlioni have «igned the treaty. Half of them are Christians and the others Pagans.' "Now, if the agent had been more particular, he would undoubtedly have told us that, of these eight sachems or princi- Life and Times of jSiijAS Wrkiiit. 957 pal chiefs, one belonged to each of the eiglit families or clans of which he had before spoken, and the symbolical names of each of which he had given. He would have learned that they were the great fathers of the nation, the civil chiefs upon whom the trans- action of the business of the nation is devolved; and he, Mr. W., did not doubt that, had this treaty been negotiated with the State of New York, the signatures of a majority of these sachems would have been held sufficient to have constituted it a valid treaty, and that any other signatures of chiefs of a lower grade would have been considered a mere matter of personal gratitication and not of essential substance. He had, therefore, no doubt upon his own mind that the concurrence of six of these sachems in this amended treaty was of itself a valid execution of it, according to the laws and customs of the Seneca nation. " Still, he had argued the question upon the other hypothesis, because an examination of the papers had satisfied him that a majority of all the chiefs of all grades had given an assent which the Senate must consider satisfactory. "He would now consider, as briefly as he might, the pecuniary interests of the various parties to this treaty; and, '■'■First. The interests of the State of Massachusetts. " According to his understanding in the matter, tliat State had now no pecuniary interest whatever in these questions. The charters granted by the Crown of Great Britain to the colonies of Massachusetts and New York conflicted as to boundaries, and both colonies claimed the territory west of a meridian line pass- ing through or near the Seneca lake, and Avithin the present limits of the State of New York. By an amicable adjustment between the two States, in the year 1786, Massachusetts released to New York the sovereignty and governmental control over the terri- tory, and New York surrendered to Massachusetts the right of soil, subject to the Indian title, and the right to extinguish the Indian title in her own way. Not many years after this period Massachusetts sold to private individuals her pre-emption right to the whole country, reserving that power of guardianship over the Indians which the old States have ever exercised within their limits, and which the United States has exercised without the limits of the States, and within those limits where 958 Life and Times oi Silas Wright. the right of pre-emption from the Indians belonged to this government. In this way, and for this reason, it is that Mas- sachusetts has been represented in all the transactions with the Seneca and Tuscarora Indians in relation to this treaty, the reser- vations of these lands being within the limits of her original right of pre-emption; but since the sale from her to individuals, nnder whom the present pre-emption company hold, he did not understand that the State had any other interest than the duty remaining upon her, as a government, to see that the rights of the Indians were fairly and faithfully protected. " Second. The interests of the pre-emption company. " The interests of this company would be seen from what had been said in relation to the connection of the Stat^of Massachu- setts with this matter. As purchasers from that State, they hold the exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title, whenever the Indians shall be induced to surrender the possession and occu- pancy of the lands. By virtue of that right, they have already extinguished the Indian title to an extensive and fertile country, and the present treaty proposes to complete the operation by the extinguishment of that title to all which remains, being about 116,000 acres. " The interests of this company are direct and palpable. The purchase from Massachusetts was made in 1796 or 1797, and, so far as these lands are concerned, the purchase-money paid to that State has been unproductive capital to the company from that day to the present time. It is abundantly shown, too, that the present reservations are constantly becoming less valuable, by being stripped of their timber, which, in their natural state, con- stituted the chief value of two or three of them. This considera- tion renders it a matter of direct interest to the company to extinguish the Indian title, and obtain the actual possession at the earliest practicable day. " As much had been said of the vast speculation which this company would make by the ratification of this treaty, he had taken some pains to form an opinion upon that point, and had therefore endeavored to ascertain what had been paid to the State of Massachusetts for the right to extinguish the Indian title. As nearly as he could learn from the documents which Life and Times of Silas Wuhiut. 959 had come within his reach, ubout £800,000, New Engl.aiid cur- rency, equal to about $1,200,000, had been paid for the whole purchase, and that somewhere from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 acres of land were covered by the purchase. He therefore concluded that the price paid to Massachusetts for the rig-lit of pre-emption from the Indians, say in 1797, must liave been somewhere from twenty-five to thirty cents per acre. He had not taken the pains to make a calculation to see what, at a fair rate of investment, that price would bring the cost of the land to at this period, but, when added to the $212,000, or thereabouts, now to be paid, and the gratuities which have been and are to be given in case the treaty be finally ratified, he had satisfied himself that the specu- lation of the comp)any would be much less than had l)een imagined, and that a prudent man, who had the money, would pause before he would take the property off their iiands at prin- cipal, interest and costs. " Still, the interests of this company were nothing to him. It was not their advantage which he felt called upon to consult, or which induced him to urge the ratification of the treaty. As constituents of his, as he believed most of them were, and as highly respectable individuals, so far as he knew them, he would, as far as lay in his power, do them justice upon this as upon all occasions; but he would not urge this treaty upon the Senate, to the detriment of the Indians, because this company might be benefited by its ratification, as he certainly would not vote for its rejection, to the detriment of the Indians, for fear this com- pany might profit from its operation. " Third. The interests of the State of New York and her citizens. " The State, as such, had no interest in this question, separate from the interests of the citizens to be atiected by the continu- ance or removal of the Indians. The extent of these interests would be best shown by brief statistical statements. " The Senecas are scattered through the six counties of Alle- gany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee and Orleans. This band of Indians, together with the Onondagas and Cayugas, who reside with them upon their reservations, number 2,623 souls, and the white population of the counties in which they are, as shown by the State census of 1835, was 244,144 souls. 960 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " The Onondagas, at Onondaga, number 300 soiils, and are in the county of their name, which had at the same period a white population of 60,908 souls. "The Oneidas, at Oneida, are 620 souls, and are in the county of their name, with a white population of 77,518 souls. "The American party of the St. Regis number 350 souls, and are in the counties of St. Lawrence and Franklin, with a white population of 54,548 souls. "The Tiiscaroras number 273 souls, and are in the county of Niagara, which has a white population of 24,490 souls. "The Stockbridges, Munsees and Brothertowns, so far as they remain in New York, are scattered among the other bands, and number, together, 709 souls. " Thus it will be seen that all these bands and remnants of tribes of Indians are scattered through eleven counties of the State; that they number, altogether, 4,885 souls, and that the white popu- lation of the counties in which they are, was, in 1835, as shown by the State census, 461,608 souls, or almost 100 whites to one Indian. " P^'rom this it will be seen that nothing like apprehension from the presence of these Indians can be felt by the whites; that the inconvenience of the reservations to the white settlements, in many cases, — the desire to bring into profitable settlement and cul- tivation the lands they occupy, — and the injurious effects upon society, in all cases and with both races, of tamiliar intercourse between them, are the prominent interests which the citizens and State of New York have in the ratification of this treaty. To the city and town of Buft'alo, immediately bordering upon one of the largest and most populous of the Seneca reservations, and the city and town containing a white population of full 20,000 souls, this question was one of more deep and pervading interest, as it was also, properly considered, to the Indians residing upon that reservation. But he believed he should be justified by the fact, if he were to say that, even in the counties where these Indians are, the strong feeling for their preservation from the accumulated evils which surround them, and which, it is seen, are rapidly pro- ducing their extinction, creates a deeper interest with the whites for their removal to the Indian country, than any considerations Life and Times of Silas Wkioht. 961 of convenience or property anticipated from the accomplishment of that object. " Fourth. The interests of the United States. "Much of the debate had turned upon this point ; and he was bound to confess that he thought it the strongest ground upon which the treaty could be resisted. Yet he hoped to show that even this ground of resistance was not well taken ; and for that purpose he would recur to the facts in the case touching the national treasury. " He had before remarked, that the small suras to be paid to the various bands amounted to about $20,000, and that the gene- ral payment stipulated to be made to all the bands, in a propor- tion per capita as they should remove west, was $400,000. These payments together would be about $420,000, but of the whole sum he did not believe an amount exceeding $10,000 would be called for during the present year. Such was the condition of all these Indians, that he did not suppose it possible that any considerable proportion of them, if even a single Indian, could remove, after this advanced period of the spring, and after the appropriations under the treaty could be made. Of the sums payable to the various bands, he recollected but one sum, of $1,000 to the St, Regis, which was payable before removal, and that sum was not required to be paid until the expiration of one year from the final ratification of the treaty. The immediate demand upon the treasury, therefore, was not to alarm any one; but the ultimate payment was considerable; and how was the treasury to be compensated for it ? Tins was the essential inquiry; and if it could be satisfactorily answered, he hoped this objection to the treaty would be considered obviated. " The answer, then, was that the first article of the treaty cedes to the United States the tract of land owned by these bands of Indians at Green Bay, in the territory of Wisconsin, being 435,000 acres. At the present minimum price of the government for the public domain, this land will bring into the treasury $543,'750; while its location upon the Fox river, and its quality, are said to give it peculiar prominence and to insure its instant sale for immediate settlement. He thought it, therefore, fair to antici- pate, in case of a prompt survey and sale, that this land would 61 962 Life and Times of Silas Wright. bring into the treasury all the money required to carry the treaty into effect as soon and as rapidly as it would be wanted, and would afford a surplus more than equal to the expenses of the survey and sale. "To this extent, therefore, no argument against the treaty was to be drawn from the demands it would create upon the public treasury. Another argument had been used, however, having the same tendency, which required examination. It was that the country stipulated to be given to these Indians, west, was more than an equivalent for their Green Bay lands, inasmuch as 320 acres for each soul was given in lieu of 100. "The answer to this was, that the country west was a part of that great country west of the States which the United States, in the prosecution of a wise and humane policy toward the remaining Indian tribes, have set apart for their permanent and peaceful and undisturbed homes, and for the appropriation of which forever to that object the faith of the nation has been most solemnly pledged. It was wholly immaterial, therefore, in a pecuniary sense, what Indians should occupy any particular portion of this territory. The whole was set apart for Indian occupancy; and in no treaty heretofore made with any Indians in the Union, with a view to their removal to the Indian country west of the Mississippi, had the value of that portion of that country to be assigned to them been taken into the account, or made a matter of estimate, in the purchase from them of their possessions within the States. This country had been set apart from the extensive domain of the Union as a home for the red men, whom the cupidity of the whites had driven from the homes and hunting grounds of their fathers, and many of whom had not, for this cause — like many of these remnants of bands yet linger- ing in New York — any country to exchange for that quiet home thus offered to them. The policy, therefore, had been to pur- chase their possessions and pay the estimated value of them, independently of the new country to be assigned to them; and he believed, if the treaties were carefully examined, it would fur- ther appear that the expenses of their removal and their subsist- ence for one year at tlieir new homes had been paid from the public treasury, over and above the value of the lands purchased Life and Tjmms of Silas Wright. 963 from them. Not so in tins case. The value of tlu; lands pur- chased was not problematical. They were already in the middle of a settled and rapidly settling country. Their quality was well known and. their location of the most desirable character, and yet at the minimum price of the government lands they would bring more than $100,000 beyond every sum to be paid under the pro- visions of this treaty. Nay, they would bring into the treasury more money than was to be paid under the treaty, and the cost to the United States of the country to be given to the Indians west besides. "Was. this treaty, then, to be rejected, on account of its unfa- vorable influence upon the pecuniary interests of the United States ? He trusted not. "There was another view of this point which would i)lace the interests of the United States in a very different light. It was admitted on all hands that the treaty had been assented to, and was perfect and binding as to all the bands except the Senecas. It had been before seen that the Green Bay lands were the pro- j)erty of the New York Indians generally and equally. A portion of those lands, equal to 65,000 acres, had been, by a late treaty, granted in severalty to that portion of the Oneidas now at Green Bay, and they had ceased to be any longer parties to this treaty. The quantity of land remaining was 435,000 acres, the common property of all the bands, this portion of the Oneidas only excepted. The population of all the bands, as given in the sche- dule annexed to the treaty, and forming part of it, was 5,485 souls. Deduct the Oneidas at Green Bay, 600 souls, and there would remain a population of 4,885, owning the 435,000 acres of land. Of this population the Senecas and the Onondagas and Cayugas, residing upon their reservations, numbered 2,633. These taken from the 4,885 would leave 2,252, as to whom the treaty was admitted to be ratified and perfect. Now, the right of all these Indians in the Green Bay lands is a common, undi- vided right ; and if, therefore, the treaty be not confirmed as to the Senecas, the United States will be the owner of the 2,252 shares in common with the Senecas, who will remain the owners of the 2,633 shares, the whole being in common and undivided, and the common interests of all the proprietors being in and to 964 Life and Times of Silas Weight. every part. The United States, therefore, will be unable to realize anything for their interest, because they can neither con- vey nor give title to a single separate foot of the land. " Still, by the last article of the treaty, the United States must pay that proportion of the $400,000, which 2,258 bears to 2,633, because as to the 2,252 Indians the treaty is perfect. In other words, the United States must advance the gratuities to the small bands, amounting to $20,000, and must pay about half of the $400,000, and will have, as a compensation for these pay- ments, a common and undivided right with the Senecas to about one-half of the Green Bay lands, a right of which it cannot avail itself for any useful purpose whatever, while thus held in com- mon with the Indians. On the contrary, confirm the treaty as to the Senecas, as it is confirmed as to the other bands, and the right to the Green Bay lands becomes perfect, and the treasury will be fully indemnified for all the payments required to be made under the treaty. " Could anything more be required to show the true pecuniary interests of the United States to be favorable to the confirmation of the treaty ? It was due to the Territory of Wisconsin, too, if within the fair exercise of the powers of the Senate, that these Green Bay lands, within the immediate neighborhood of one of its most important trading towns, should be disincumbered and opened for a market and for settlement. This was an interest of the United States which could not be disregai'ded, whether it was looked at in reference to the sale of our other lands there, or to our duty toward the present inhabitants of that territory. '•'•Last and most important. The interests of the Indians, parties to the treaty. "In a pecuniary sense these interests are clear, strong and decided. They are, altogether, 4,885 souls, and they are to receive from the pre-emption company about $212,000 in money, and from the United States about $420,000 more, and at their new homes, secure from the encroachments of the whites, 320 acres of land to each soul, man, woman and child, of all the bands. All this they are to have in addition to the annuities which they now annually receive from the United States and from the State of New York, and which are to be regulary paid Life and Times of Silas Wright. 965 to them by an express stipulation of the treaty. These annuities tocrether cannot fall short of the sum of $20,000, and are believed to exceed that amount. Then all or nearly all the bands, except the Senecas and Tuscaroras, have lands to sell to the State of New York, and for which, by the long-established practice of the State, they will receive the full appraised value in money, or in permanent annuities, as they shall choose. " Was ever an entire community so rich as these Indians will be in lands and money? Well has Gen. Dearborn said: " ' The same liberal terms which have been offered to these Indians, if extended to any county in New Enghxnd, would nearly depopulate it in six months. ' " If such are the clear and strong advantages to the Indians pecuniarily from this treaty, what are they to expect from the change proposed in their physical and moral condition ? It was only necessary to look back to the days of the American Revo- lution, to answer this inquiry. Then the New York Indians were the mighty Iroquois, an enemy almost as terrible to our Revolu- tionary fathers as the civilized enemy with whom they were con- tending. Even in a divided state, and with one of their strongest bands, the Oneidas, arrayed upon the side of the patriots in that glorious contest, the five remaining allied bands held our arms at bay for years, and rather advanced upon than were driven from the settlements, though opposed by some of oui- most brave and skillful generals. Some sixty or seventy years have passed, and now the New York Indians are the miserable scattered remnants of these powerful nations, and also of the St. Regis, the Stock- bridge, the Brothertown and the Munsee tribes, and numbering in all less than 5,000 souls. Some of the bands of the Six Nations have entirely disappeared, and others are reduced to a few families, and have no home but such as they enjoy from the generosity of their allied neighbors. The same generous attach- ment to their race has given a home among the Six Nations to the Stockbridges from Massachusetts, the Brothertowns from Rhode Island and Connecticut, and the Munsees from Pennsyl- vania, from the Wyoming country, all the remnants of once pow- erful Indian nations, driven from their lands and their homes by the (to them) desolating march of civilization, and having not 966 Life and Times of Silas Wright. where to rest their feet, until our faithful allies, the Oiieidas, tendered them a resting place and a home in their country. " What has produced this startling change in these hardy children of nature, within the short space allotted to the life of a single man '? The answer stares us in the face. Not war, nor pestilence, nor famine, but the friendly touch of the white man ! The progress, not of arms against them, but of settlements and civilization around them. Look at the Senecas. They constitute a moiety of all the Indians now in New York. In the war of 1812-15, they numbered their thousand warriors, and sent them to the field, led by the gallant Frasier, to strengthen our army upon the frontiers and within the territory of the enemy. Where now are those thousand warriors of the Senecas ? Did that war reduce their number? No, sir; peace and friendly intercourse with us have done it, and already that thousand has become reduced to four hundred, if not within that number. " He spoke from a statement given to him by two intelligent chiefs of the nation. The statement was too lono- to trouble the Senate with, but it gave a history of the perishing condition of that people, which could not fail to move all to their relief. They were perishing from their contact with the whites; while, so far from improving from the civilization around and among them, they are, as a people, worse fed, worse clad and worse provided, than they were when they had never seen a white man. The labors of philanthropists have been sedulously performed among portions of this tribe for a series of years, without being able to arrest their downward and rapid march toward complete extinc- tion. While some are made wiser and better by their white associates, a vastly larger number are made more idle and more vicious. " The paper before him gives a description of the state of society upon the Buffalo Creek reservation, produced by the proximity of the large and populous town of Buffalo, which can- not be read without pain and loathing. Superadded to all the other vices which have never failed to be imparted to the Indian from association with our cities, seduction and prostitution of the Indian females are said to have become frightfully common; and that the most dreadful of all the consequences of pollution of this Life and Tiiies of Silas Wright. 967 sort has reached the tribe, and is rapidly spreading itself among this portion of it. Thus a scourge, more deadly and fatal than any other which has ever afflicted the Indian — a scourge unknown to the natives until the white man was known — is sweeping over this small remnant of the once proud Seneca nation, sowing the seeds of a slow and misei'able and lingering death around the germs of life. The statement before him expressed the confident belief that a majority of the children born alive in the nation die within the age of twelve months, many from (ixposure, from wniit of proper nourishment and oi-diuary comforts, from the careless- ness of parents, and not a few from disease inherited from the jnother. "He would not, he could not, dwell upon this picture; and yet there are those whose mistaken sympathy would hold these people where they are, to perish under the load of vice wliicli surrounds them, pervades their society in every form, and is sweeping them into the gi'ave with unexampled i-apidity. Not so with him. He would change their condition. He would remove them from the contamination which surrounds and is overwhelming them. He would place them where they may again be Indians; where they may again have the motives before them of ambition, of enterprise, of pleasure, of profit, which stimulate the Indian; and where, secure from the encroach- ments of the whites, they may again become independent and free and virtuous. "But, Mr. President, said Mr. W., reject this treaty; combine, as you will then combine, the cupidity of the pre-emption com- pany with that of the white settlers who now surround them, and from interest resist the company and the execution of this treaty — for the common object of both is gain from the Indians and from their lands — and when they find that a division of interest defeats either, a combination may be easily formed which will favor both; I say, accomplish this, and then what will be the condition of the New York Indians? How long will they be able to withstand a combination of interests so strong and so strongly wielded ? They cannot withstand it, sir; and a few years will show you their history in that of the Stockbridges, the Brothertowns and the Munsees. They will be found miser- 968 Life and Times of Silas Wright. able wanderers among their red brethren in some remote part of the country, without a home, or the means to procure one; with- out the comforts of life, or provision for their future support; their members but a fraction of the present population, and their last hope buried with the last council fire which burned upon those reservations they have been compelled to abandon to their white neighbors to avoid perfect extinction. " May I not hope I have succeeded in proving that it is within the power of the Senate to declare the assents of the Senecas to this treaty satisfactory, and thus to save them from a fate so certain and so sad ? " Life and Times of Silas Wright. 9G9 Chapter L XXXIV. THE BANKRUPT BILL OF 1840. The overtrading m lands and merchandise, between 1836 and 1840, had produced not only bankruptcy, but actual insolvency, to a very great extent. A vast num- ber of active men were so badly embarrassed as to prevent their doing business. Consequently there was an exten- sive call for a general bankrupt law, as authorized by the Constitution. Mr. Weight favored a uniform one, con- ferring upon creditors as well as debtors the right to institute proceedings, and to subject corporations to them the same as individuals. He contended that the effect of a bill containing merely the voluntary provi- sion would leave the creditor without remedy, and would seriously affect, if not destroy, the credit of oar citizens in foreign countries. He expressed a doubt whether a law without this provision would be within the meaning of the Constitution. He moved several amendments, which were engrafted upon the bill which passed the Senate on the 24th of June, 1840, by yeas 24, nays 23, Mr. Wright voting in favor of it. It did not pass the House at this session. At the next it passed both Houses, and became a law on the 19th of August, 1841, but was repealed on the 3d of March, 1843. 970 Life and Times of Silas Wright. Chapter LXXXV. THE BANKS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. The subject of the charters of the banks in the District of Columbia came up again at the first session of the twenty-sixth Congress, in 1840, and was much discussed. The objections entertained, by Mr. Weight and others, were to tlie details of the provisions presented for con- sideration, as the following remarks by him will show : " Mr. Wright had no strong feeling on the subject before them. He did not desire to be captious in legishition ; but he wished the Senate to look at the gituation in which it was placed. A new bill, and one complicated in its provisions, came from the House of Representatives, adopting former legislation as a part of its substance, and what were they told ? Why, that that bill was to become one of the laws of the United States this day, or the most serious consequences, which gentlemen feelingly portrayed, must ensue. Now, he would ask gentlemen, in the spirit of candor, if it was expected or believed that a bill of this kind could take its second reading, pass into committee of the whole, be discussed, amended, ordered to a third reading (and let it be remembered that when it comes to a third reading the same difficulty will occur as now), and go back to the other House, be enrolled, sent to the President of the United States, and returned by him with his signature, all in one day '? Had any Senator believed that all this could be performed between this time and twelve o'clock to-night, in the face of a fair, intelligent and determined, though not a captious, opposition ? He could not believe it, and he begged the Senate not to wipe out its rules with such little promise of utility. He knew that many members of the Senate were anxious, and honestly so, for the passage of the bill. For him- self, he differed with them. He did not believe in the abatement of suits when the clock strikes twelve to-night. He appealed to Life and Times of Silas Wright. 971 the Senate to say whether it was worth while to try to run these bills through in so hurried a manner. We know and see, con- tinued Mr. W., that it cannot be run through unresisted. There was an opposition here, though small, to a certain class of these institutions, but there was none to a different class of them. In reference to such a law as would save all the rights of these cor- porations, and enable them to wind up their affairs, he knew there would be no opposition to it. But in opposition to that legislation which would continue to them the power to discount, upon irredeemable paper, there was a small but determined minority. He believed they could not make that bill a law to-night, if they were to wipe out every rule of the Senate ; and a failure of one minute to them would be as fatal as the failure of a month. Then, said Mr. W., let us look at this matter coolly. Let us act on it as a legislative body should — act liberally and rightfully, but let us act with due deliberation." The bill was finally lost by a vote of 20 to 16, Mr. Wright voting for it. On a motion to reconsider, the vote was ayes 18, nays 21, and so the bill was fiually lost. Mr. Weight to Alvin Hunt. " Jamestown, Chautauqua County, ) "15^A October, 1840. \ "My Dear Sir. — I have intended to visit Jefferson before the election, and have given encouragement to our friends in the county that I would do so. I now find that my engagements in this quarter of the State will probably put it out of my power to do so. I am to attend a mass meeting here to-morrow, at Buffalo on Monday, Batavia on Wednesday, in Niagara or Orleans on Friday, and Rochester on Saturday, the twenty-fourth. From there, it is my intention to take the first steamboat I can get for Ogdensburgh. It will, in my judgment, be too late to make it useful to attempt a mass meeting in Jefferson, even if it should be otherwise desirable, and therefore I make no calcula- tion to stop there. If I could, I would tell you when I should be at the harbor, but I do not know the days of the boats, and at this season of the year I suppose they will not be regular. 972 Life and Times of Silas Wright. " Will you do me the favor to give this information to our friends at your place, as they may have expuected to hear from me on this subject at an earlier day. I have not a moment to say anything to you of prospects in this quarter. " In great haste, most truly yours, " SILAS WRIGHT, Jk. "Alvijst Hunt, Esq., Watertown, N. Y." Me. Weight to Lucius Moody. "Canton, Sth JSTovember, 1840. " My Dbae Beother. — I arrived home in safety the morning after I left you at Oswego, though we made so slow a passage that I did not get a chance to stop at all, but left the boat and went directly into the stage. I found Clarissa in better general health than she has enjoyed before for some time, and she ascribes her improvement to her trip to Toronto. All our friends here are well; and mother, Luman and Horace have made us a visit this evening. " I have made a statement of your interest on the Heaton land contract, since my return, and have given it to Luman, this evening, with eighty-six dollars and seventy cents, the same which I made your due, I have left, with the statement, your draft and the small receipt you gave me for one year's interest, y^ou can draw on Luman for the above sum, eighty-six dollars and seventy cents, and when you are here you can look over the papers, and if there are mistakes I will rectify them hereafter. " We are off on Wednesday morning ; and as the appearances to us here are that the whigs have whipped us, and that old Tip, and Tyler, too, and log-cabins and coon skins are to have a reign, it is not unlikely we may make a short absence this time. "All wish to be affectionately remembered to yourself, Julia and Master Horace, and if you will occasionally write us, at Washington, we will pay in kind or in documents. "In great haste, most truly yours, "SILAS WRIGHT, Je. " Capt. Lucius Moody." Life and Times of Silas Weight. 973 Chapter LXXXVI. REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT TREASURY. The independent treasury bill became a law on the 4th of July. 1840, and steps were taken by Mr. Van Buren's administration for putting it in 023eration. Should this be completed and meet the expectation of its friends, its repeal and the substitution of a national bank would be no easy task. Agitation was calculated to prevent the public mind settling down in its favor. On the 15th of December, 1840, Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, offered a resolution instructing the Committee of Finance to report a bill for its repeal, upon which he opened a discussion in which a large number of Senators par- ticipated. Mr. Wright, as chairman of the Committee on Finance and author of the bill, was looked to as one of its most appropriate defenders. He performed this duty to the satisfaction of his friends, and addressed to the Senate the following pertinent remarks : " Mr. Wright said he caine from one of the nineteen States ahuded to by the Senator from Kentucky, and he was happy to say to that Senator that he rejoiced to tind it was the disposition of the party about to come into power to make precisely the issue tendered by this resolution. He thanked that Senator, therefore — as he would have done yesterday, when the resolution was presented, had it been proper — for presenting that proposi- tion to them. He could say to that Senator that, for one — and perhaps he could say it with more propriety than any otlier member of that body — he did not desire further to discuss that measure, either before the Senate or the country; he could only say that, when the Senate was called upon to act upon the pro- position, he was desirous that it should be with an understand- ino- of what it is, and tliat the Senate might be as full as may be, 974 Life and Times of Silas Weight. coiisisteut with the attendance of members in the city. To-day he did not desire to act upon it, for one Senator now in town was sick and not able to be in his phxce ; and another left town after the last adjournment of the Senate, prior to yesterday, with the confident expectation of returning last evening, who had not yet resumed his seat; but if there was a disposition in the Senate to act upon the resolution, and make an expression which would not mislead the public mind, he should desire that expression to be made now and upon this resolution. It would be a work of supererogation, in a short session like this, to pass the resolution, and instruct a committee to rejDort a bill for the proposed repeal, without any expectation that the bill would meet the approbation of the Senate. Hence he wished that all the members in attendance might be present when the vote should be taken. But he could not excuse himself if he allowed the ojjportunity to pass without some slight reference to the remarks of the Senator by whom the resolution had been introduced. That Senator had become deeply impressed with the result of the late election; and on the point whether it was or was not a full and free and fair expression of the popular will, he, Mr. Wright, did not stand there to express an opinion. He would merely call to the honor- able Senator's mind that they had just passed through the first election, under this government, when principles on the part of the dominant party were not declared, when measures were not avowed, and when men stood before the country, not to proclaim to the people their principles and measures, but to apologize for saying nothing in reference to their measures or the policy which they proposed to adopt. That being the case, the Senate would pardon him for calling their attention to the fact that he, and other Senators who had sat there with him from 1832 and 1833 to the present time, had seen election after election, when it was the fashion of candidates and of parties to avow their principles, and had heard the honorable Senator, with an ingenuity which cannot be surpassed, parry the issue his, Mr. Wright's, friends had made, and contend, almost with success,that nothing was prejudged by the popular voice in those popular elections. Take the very measure which it was now" proposed to repeal, and what was the Life and Times of Silas Wright. 975 judgment of the people, and what was the public expression at the congressional elections of 1838 and 1839? Then, if ever, a distinct issue or proposition was presented to the people of this country. That was the issue that was pending during the war of more than thi'ee years' duration, of wliich the honorable Senator had spoken — that was the only jtoint in controversy; and wliat was the result? There was a popular brancli of the national Legislature unfavorable to this measure in 1837 and 1838, and one was returned in its place, in 1838 and 1839, favorable to it; ami it was adopted in pursuance of a pronunciation of the will of the people of this country, pending the controversy as to the measure itself. That popular mind may have changed — it may be differ- ent now; but if it be, and if the pronunciation of the popular opinion has been against the independent treasury, of what measure, as a substitute, has it been in favor ? Has the pronuncia- tion of the late election declared the popular voice of the country to be in favor of a national bank ? Will the Senator contend that it was so, and will his party assume it ? Or has it declared in favor of the policy of another political party, and a return to the system of State bank deposits ? Would the honorable Sen- ator admit that ? He, Mr. Wright, did not say the honorable Senator would admit either or both, but he had a right to ask the question. " But the Senator says the result of the late election has been a triumphant pronunciation against this measure. How is it ascertained ? By what declaration of policy or principle on the part of that party Avhich has become predominant ? Why, he should suppose — and he made the remark without intending disre- spect anywhere — if the result of the late election could be claimed as proving anything, it was to prove that they were to take down the splendid edifice in which he then stood, and erect a log cabin in its place; that instead of the rich draperies and valuable pictures before them, they were to hang around their chamber coon skins, cat skins and other trophies of the chase. But the Senator does not claim such to be our duties, resulting from the late expression of the popular will. No, such is not and has not been the result of the pronunciation of tlie will of the freemen of this country; and yet, could they not prove such conclusions 976 Life and Times of Silas Wright. with double force and double testimony over that which the honorable Senator seeks now to establish — the condemnation of the sub-treasury measure? And yet they were called upon to be silent, to submit and to obey this foregone decree. Against the popular pronunciation made at the late elections he should not intentionally utter one word; the decision of the people he should respect, for they were yet, thank God, the highest tribunal known to our country and her institutions. When the powers which that election has brought into existence shall constitu- tionally take their places, he should be one of those who, whether as a private citizen or in the high position in which he then stood, would be found ready to render a constitutional submission; but he was not ready to admit that, in rendering its verdict, the popular voice had pronounced its decision against this measure; or, if it had, that it had decided in favor of any other measure in its place. What, then, was the argument of the gentleman in favor of this precipitate repeal ? Was it that the measure was doing mischief to the country and was working evil to the peo- ple? He, Mr. Wright, did not understand him to say so. It was that it was not carried out in its terms and sj^irit, — that the law was not observed, but that it was violated, by the officers appointed under it. Well, the honorable Senator might be right, for he, Mr. Wright, had not that acquaintance with bank- ing institutions which would enable him to pronounce on the fact. If that was so, however, did it follow that the law must be repealed because the law was not observed ? And should they expect from the honorable Senator that mode of getting rid of a salutary law which was not executed? Should not, rather, an inquiry be instituted to ascertain whether the officers did discharge their duty? He knew not what the fact might be anywhere, but he confessed it w^ould have pleased him better if the honorable gentleman had consented to take Philadelphia instead of New York as an example; and he knew the New York banks wei*e specie-paying banks; and he knew it was the consti'uctive duty of the Receiver-General to receive three-fourths of the revenue there in the. notes of specie-paying banks; but does the Philadelphia Receiver-General take checks upon non-specie- paying banks? And if the Receiver-General of New York, Life and Tj3ies of Silas Wrioht. 977 instead of compelling the merchants to bring specie to his vaults, takes a certified check that is payable in specie and presents it for payment himself, is the law violated or is the community injured? What, then, is the argument? Why, that there had been but little salutary influence from the practical operation of this law, and therefore it was better to repeal it. Repeal it for what? To take the revenues out of the reach of Congress and place them again where they had virtually been since the suspen- sion of the banks, in 1837, until the passage of the law, — in the hands of the executive ? Will it be better to put them exclu- sively in executive hands, or to keep them within the power and provisions of a law, even if it does not suit the Senator, until a better system can be devised ? What is the course of wisdom, and what has been the popular voice in the matter? But lie was going further than he had intended, and therefore he should sus- pend further remark. He did not desire to foreclose the debate by a motion to postpone now; but when the Senate came to act upon this resolution he desired that the decision should be the sense of the Senate, and of as full a Senate as the attendance of members of the Senate in the city would permit. For the pres- ent, he would only ask that the vote be taken by ayes and noes." The debate on this resolution was continued to the 20th of February, 1841. Pending the discussion, Mr. Allen, of Ohio, proposed to amend the resolution by striking out all after the word "resolved," and inserting the following : "That the financial policy established at the origin of this government, by the first acts of its legislation, and especially by the thirtieth section of the 'Act to regulate the collection of duties, etc.,' approved by President Washington July 31st, 1789, and by the fourth section of the 'Act to establish the Treasury department, etc.,' approved by President Washington September 2d, 1789, was in strict conformity to the fundamental principles of the Constitution. ''Resolved, That, by a long series of subsequent acts tending to the great detriment of the public welfare, that policy had been departed from, and was, by the 'Act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer and disbursement of the public revenue,' 62 978 Life and Times of Silas Wright. approved by President Van Buren July 4, 1840, fully restored, and ought to be adhered to; and, therefore, '■'■.Resolved, That tlie government ought to collect no more taxes from the people, either directly or indirectly, than are absolutely necessary to an economical administration of its affairs. ^'■Resolved, That the taxes paid by the people ought not to be lent out by the government to individuals or to corporations. ^^Resolved, That the taxes so paid by the people ought not to be placed by the government in the custody of agents who are not made, by the Constitution and the laws, responsible to the people. ^'■Resolved, That, in the transaction of its own affairs, the government ought to receive and tender in payment as money nothing but that which is made a legal tender by the Constitution." This amendment was considered, but no evidence is found of its adoption or rejection. On motion of Mr. Sevier, at the close of the discussion, Mr. Clay' s resolution was laid on the table, by the following vote : "Yeas — Messrs. Allen, Anderson, Benton, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, of Alabama, Cuthbert, Fulton, Hubbard, King, Linn, Lump- kin, Mouton, Nicholson, Norvell, Pierce, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Wall, Williams, Wright, and Young — 27. " JVays — Messrs. Bayard, Bates, Clay, of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Dixon, Graham, Henderson, Huntington, Ker, Kniglit, Mangam, Merrick, Nicholas, Phelps, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Ruggles, Smith, of Indiana, Southard, Tallmadge, Webster, and White — 25.'' Life and Times of Silas Wright. 979 Chapter LXXXVII. FINANCES OF THE COUNTRY. On the 14tli of December, 1840, Mr. Wright moved that so much of the President' s message as related to the finances of the country be referred to the Committee on Finance. At the instance of Mr. Webster the considera- tion of the motion was postponed. When it came up for consideration, on the seventeenth, Mr. Wright thus addressed the Senate : " Mr, Weight said the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] had felt it to be his duty to open this discussion upon the message of the President, pending a simple motion to refer the portions of it to which he had alluded to the appro- priate committee of the Senate, under the apprehension expressed by him that the publication and distribution of the statements and views of the President might produce erroneous impressions upon the minds of the people of the country. A similar appre- hension, entertained by Mr. W^kight as to the remarks of the Senator, moved him to make this reply to that gentleman. A belief that his remaks were calculated to give erroneous impres- sions as to the message, and the fiscal condition of the country at the present time, made it his duty to notice some of the posi- tions and arguments of the honorable Senator, and to correct, as far as he might be able, the errors of fact and conclusion which seemed to him to have been committed. This he intended to do as briefly as possible; and in the discussion he should endeavor to imitate the courtesy which had so clearly distinguished the lanffuage and manner of the honorable Senator. "The Senator first referred to page eight of the message, where the President speaks of a national debt and a national bank. The Senator did not, at that time, consider it within his object to make any remarks in reference to the President's observations as to a 980 Life and Times of Silas Wright. bank; but it was to the views expressed in the message on the sub- ject of a national debt to which his attention was directed, with that point and force which always characterize the Senator's mind, and, he might perhaps say, on this occasion, the ingenuity which sometimes characterizes his arguments. He had asked if the Presi- dent supposed, or if anybody supposed that there was a party in this country friendly to a national debt, per se. He, Mr. Wkight, did not believe that position met the President's remarks at all, for he did not understand the President as offering his views and urging his reasons against the contraction and perpetuation of a national debt on the ground that it was a debt to be contracted for the single and sole love of the debt for itself. He understood the President as taking other and higher ground, and as endeavoring to impress upon his countrymen, on the occasion which called forth that message, the evils of debt — under any circumstances, how- ever, under whatever circumstances, and for whatever considera- tion contracted — and attempting to convince them that it should be avoided at all times and upon all occasions, and for all con- siderations, when the safety and honor of the nation will permit. Such he understood to be the drift and purport of the message upon this very important topic. Yet he, Mr. W., was prepared to go farther than the President had gone, and say what he had not said. He would say, not tliat there is a political party in this country in favor of a national debt, per se, but that there are interests in this country so in favor of a national debt — interests which ever had, do now, and ever will favor the exist- ence and perpetuation of a national debt, per se, for itself, for the advantages they derive from it. He believed those interests existed in every civilized country — he believed they were ever active — and he believed they constituted an influence, against which it was one of the prominent objects of the President to warn Congress and the country. What are those interests which naturally favor a national debt, per se ; a national debt for itself, and for the benefit to be derived from its existence? Retired capitalists, men who have withdrawn from business, with a capi- tal which they wish to preserve for themselves and their families, constitute one such interest. Such persons naturally desire a permanent and safe investment for their money; and it is most Life and Times of Silas Wright. 981 rational that they should vastly prefer their country as their debtors, if it be of good standing and credit, to any other. Look at England. What supports and perpetuates the aristoc- racy of wealth there Init the British national debt ? It rests upon the debt, and could not be sustained without it, and the indebtedness of the country is its strength and powL-r. Mr. W. said he spoke not of this interest, as now existing in this coun- try, in censure; it was as natural as existence itself; it must grow up in every prosperous community; will ever exist in some form, and can only be curbed and controlled by a people and govern- ment free from debt. " But was there not another interest, and an important one in every commercial community, which was benefited by, and there- fore was in favor of the existence of a national debt for itself ? He spoke of that great interest connected with foreign com- merce, and desirous of a medium of convenient remittance between its own and foreign countries. Why, he had seen fre- quently the utility of a national debt pressed upon the country for this cause; and quite recently articles had appeared in the public newspapers — and articles written with great ability — stating that since the extinguishment of our debt, fluctuations in our paper system had been more frequent and more deleteri- ous, and contending that the existence of a national debt, and its influence on commercial transactions, were necessary to give that system stability. But a year ago, a proposition was delib- erately put forth of that character, recommending that this country should create a debt, not singly to furnish these com- mercial accommodations, but urging that these would be neces- sary incidental benefits, while other great objects, valuable in the mind of the writer, were supposed to warrant the contrac- tion of the proposed debt of hundreds of millions. These were not all. "There was a third interest, which embraced that class of enterprising, acute persons, who seek a living, and their fortunes, by dealing in stocks — the class of brokers. They, as a class of men, must be attached to a national debt, ^:>e;- se ; for nothing could be more desirable in the stock market than an abundance of national stocks and securities, and that abundance of custom- 982 Life and Times of Silas Wright. ers, seeking investments and a market, which a full supply of superior stocks would never fail to present to that department of trade. Such securities, too, must have a tendency to keep the prices of stocks more stable, and thus render the profits of the broker more certain, and his calling more safe, if not more lucrative, "A further interest, having the same natural tendency, was the money incorporations of the country, authorized to deal in stocks and exchange, or practically so dealing with or without authority. These institutions, more naturally than the brokers, must favor the existence of a national debt, />er se ; inasmuch as the profits of their business would be equally involved, while their own stability would be much more essentially promoted. He did not enumerate this interest with any political reference. It was an existing interest in our country, and in every commercial country in the world; and it would, most likely, continue to exist, so long as trade and commerce existed. Properly restrained, it was a healthful interest to trade and commerce, while, without restraint, it was a fearful interest. It was always active, and at times powerful beyond the careless estimate of a confiding people. Yet it was an interest which a people free from debt need not fear, but from which any people loaded with debt, public or pri- vate, had everything to apprehend. It was a corporate interest, representing no feeling to which human beings are susceptible, and destitute, from its nature, of all human sympathies. " There was still another interest Avhich should be, in his judg- ment, in favor of a national debt per se. He referred to the men and interests in the country which favored the establishment and preservation of a national bank as an institution to regulate our currency and credit. He did not speak of this interest as that of a political party in the country, or as connected with any existing political party. His object was to follow the course of argument of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, and take a financial view of the topics under discussion; and he believed in his heart that every man who desired the establishment and perpetuation of a national bank in the United States should desire, as the only safe and secure foundation for such an institution, a permanent national debt. In his opinion, that was the only safe corner-stone, Life and Times op Silas WmnnT. 983 the only secure defense for a national bank in this country. It was not his object, upon the present occasion, to question tlie patriotism or purity of purpose of any friend of a national hank. He would not, if he could avoid it, make this discussion political, much less partisan. "He had looked at our own history, and found that a national debt had been the apology, and, as he thought, the controlling cause of our two former national banks; and he believed, further, that the existence and continuance of the debt had given to l)oth the most of the permanency arid stability which they had mani- fested to the country as money institutions controlling our cur- rency and credit. "He had also referred, himself, to the pecuniary institutions of England, and became equally satisfied that the national bank there could not sustain itself for an hour, with its conceded power over the paper system of that commercial country, if dis- connected from the British national debt. The capital of the bank consists of the debt, and the country is its debtor for the credit it commands. How, then, is the country to get rid of the bank but by the payment of the debt, and how can the debtor, though the proudest government in the world, control the creditor while these embarrassing relations exist ? It cannot be done, and hence the Bank of England must be as enduring as the debt of England. " So here; so everywhere. When a government is in debt and requires a permanent credit beyond its means of payment, it may require a government bank to manage and regulate its fiscal affairs; to extend credit when its necessities reqiure, and so regu- late private business as to make that extension safe and profitable to itself. " He must then repeat that, in his judgment, every man and every interest in this country, favorable to a national bank, should be also favorable to a national debt, as the only safe foundation upon which such a superstructure can be erected with any reasonable promise of permanency. " He must conclude, therefore, that there were in this country interests, strong, powerful and active interests, in favor of a national debt pei- se ; that these interests have favored, do now 984 Life and Times of Silas Wright. favor, and will continue to favor the contraction and perpetuation of a national debt for the advantages which they may derive from it, and that the President was wise in warning his country- men against their influence in this direction. Other interests might be added to the enumeration, but these were suflicient to elucidate the argument and show the danger to be constantly apprehended. " The honorable Senator, if Mr. Weight had understood him correctly, admitted that the views of the President, as expressed in his message upon the subject of a national debt, were correct and sound, but seemed to question his right to give them to his countrymen, because, as he contended, they were contrary to the practice of the administration, and of the President as its head. " To prove this position, he asserts that the present is the first administration, under our institutions, which has begun a national debt in time of peace. The assertion is true; and yet, is it a fair presentation of the point intended to be discussed ? Is it calcu- lated to do justice to the President or to his administration ? Why did not the Senator tell us that the adminstration of Gen. Jackson w;Is the first, under our institutions, which ever paid a national debt ? It would have been as true ; and yet the asser- tion, presented in this way, would have been calculated to do injustice to every administration preceding that of Gen. Jackson. The fact is that no administration, prior to that of Mr. Van Buren, had ever existed, under our Constitution, which could begin a national debt, because every preceding administration had found a national debt in existence. Such a debt was con- tracted during the war of the Revolution, before our present government was formed, and was first finally extinguished during the administration of Gen. Jackson; and yet he believed he was safe in saying that every administration had borrowed money, and thus added to the existing debt, and had made payments toward its extinguishment. While, therefore, it was true that no administration, prior to that of Mr. Van Buren, had begun a debt, either in a time of peace or war, and that no administration, prior to that of Gen. Jackson, had paid off and extinguished our national debt, it was also true that all administrations, as well in Life and Times of Silas Wright. 985 peace as war, had borrowed money, contracted debts and paid debts. The simple assertion of the Senator, then, tliat Mr. Van Buren's was the first administration which had begun a del)!, in time of peace, did not, in his judgment — and he pronounced the opinion with deference — present fairly to the country the Presi- dent or his administration. "It might be proper here to remark that, if the subsequent positions of the Senator were sound, no debt had beeu begun under Mr. Van Buren's administration, because a national debt had not ceased to exist. That which had been treated as our national debt, in our laws and in our fiscal accounts, was extin- guished during the administration of Gen. Jackson ; but if the items of Indian and other claims, referred to by the Senator, are to be set down as items of national debt, then has our national debt never been paid, and the administration of Mr. Van Buren cannot have ' begun ' such a debt. "The true and fair question is, however, why and under what circumstances has any portion of debt been contracted under this administration ? " It would not be necessary for him, Mr. W. said, to spend much time in answering this inquiry, as most of the Senators present were members of the body in 1837, and would retain per- sonal recollections of the whole matter. All would remember that Congress was convened extraordinarily, for the single pur- pose of supplying the treasury and enabling it to preserve the public faith and honor ; that this call was not made at a time of scarcity or want in the public funds, but when our revenues were most abundant, when we had millions on deposit with the banks, and millions due from them ; that their inability to pay the drafts of the Treasurer, in conformity with the laws of Congress, created the want and compelled the call of Congress ; and that the same inability of the banks compelled us, by the admission of all, to borrow money upon the credit of the people to keep the national treasury in operation. " This new debt was not, then, contracted, or, in the language of the Senator, ' began,' because the extravagance of the adminis- tration had expended our substance. No, but because our trus- tees—because those with whom the money of the people had 986 Life and Times of Silas Wright. been placed for safe-keeping, could not pay upon demand accord- ing to our laws ; because our millions upon millions were without our control, in the keeping of banking institutions, and the credit of the people w h ivsoi-LciI to to sustain the fiiith and honor of the country. What was the extent of the power then conferred upon the administration to contract a debt ? If his recollection served him, it was -$10,000,000. And what were our dues from the banks alone? If he was not mistaken, some 113,000,000 or 114,000,000; and, beyond that, one of the prominent and worthy objects of the loan was to extend indulgence upon duty bonds to the merchants of the country, who were equally distressed with the public treasury from the revulsions of the time, Under such circumstances it was that the present administration ' began a debt in time of peace.' " The next position of the honorable Senator is that the admin- istration of Mr. Van Buren has expended much more money annually than the accruing revenue. Tliat, he, Mr. Wright, believed to be true; but he did not propose to follow the Senator at all in the data given to prove the position; he would say what he was sure would not be controverted, that the administration had expended, year by year, just so much and no more money than Congress had appropriated and ordered to be expended; that every year the appropriations of Congress had exceeded, by millions, the estimates of expenditure presented to it by the executive departments, and that it was a matter for Congress to provide the means to meet the expenditures itself directed. But it would not have been unjust to that administration if the honor- able Senator had said, in passing, that during eveiy year of its existence the mass of the public expenditures had been materially and rapidly reduced. The expenditures of 1838 were shown, by the President's message and the Secretary's report — the two documents to which the Senator had referred in this discussion — to be less than those of 1 83 V. Those of 1839 were some six millions less; those for 1840 had been from two to three millions less than those for 1839, and the estimates for 1841 were materially less than those for any preceding year. This, then, was both sides of the book, — it was the present administration as it is, in refer- ence to expenditures. During its term, those expenditures had Life and Times of Silas Whkiiit. 987 been undergoing a rapid reduction, from the commencement of its four years to the present hour. Tliis was a just and entire view of the matter. "The next position taken by the honorable Senator was the most material one in his argument, and without whicli Mr. W. mio-ht not have felt himself called upon to make tl\is rei)ly. Tlie Senator did not even assert his point, but, in a manner most courteous, expressed his opinion that the President had made a variety of mistakes and omissions in his statement of the present national debt, as given in his message; that the country is, in fact, more in debt than the President and Secretary of the Trea- sury have represented it to be; and that, without his correction of these mistakes, these excesses of debt might be charged over to the coming administration, and the present might retire under appearances more favorable than the facts would warrant. " To examine these opinions and apprehensions of the honor- able Senator, and to try them by the facts, should now be his aim and effort, and was the purpose which had principally induced him to appear before the Senate upon the present occasion. " It was admitted that the President had referred to the balance of outstanding treasury notes truly. He had stated that the amount unredeemed did not exceed four and a half millions of dol- lars, but the complaint was that he had represented that as the w^hole debt of the country at the present time, and as the amount which would constitute the whole debt at the time when he should hand over the administration of its affairs to his successor. Now, how had the Senator sought to show that the President had been mistaken? By referring to what was called the Trust Funds, and principally, and he believed entirely, to those portions of those funds which appertain to the Indians. In reference to the Indian trust funds, he said not that the fact was so, but that, on examination, he was inclined to believe that portions of them had been actually expended for the ordinary uses of the treasury, and were now a debt resting upon the country; that the moneys stipu- lated by Indian treaties to be invested had not been all invested, but that some hundreds of thousands of dollars of these moneys had been paid out and expended, and were now a debt against the treasury. He, Mr. Wbight, had taken as much pains to 988 Life and Times of Silas Weight. obtain information upon these points as the time which had elapsed since the Senator's remarks were made would permit; and as he designed to state the facts fairly, plainly and truly, as far as he was able, and as the various Indian treaties varied in their j)rovisions as to the trusts constituted under them and con- ferred upon the United States, he would be compelled to speak of certain treaties and certain trusts separately, each by itself, to make himself understood and to enable others to understand the facts. He would refer, then, in the first place, to the treaty with the Chickasaw Indians, as that treaty was peculiar, and the trust constituted and assumed was novel in our dealings with the Indian tribes. In this case, the United States had become the voluntary trustee of the Chickasaws, and had stipulated to sell their lands as the public domain of the United States is sold, to deduct simply the expenses of the treaty, of the survey and sale of the lands, and such other expenses as might be incurred for account of the Indians, not including any commissions or other compensation to the trustee, and to account to them for all the moneys which shall remain unexpended. In other words, the treaty binds the United States to sell the lands of these Indians to the best advantage, to account to them for the whole proceeds, and to manage such of their cash funds as shall remain in the hands of the government, without charge for trouble or responsi- bility. " Upon inquiry at the Treasury department, he learned that a law of Congress had placed the principal part of the money to be received under this treaty in charge of the head of that depart- ment, for the purpose of investment; that small portions belong- ing to Chickasaw orphans, and to certain members of the tribe denominated 'incompetent Chickasaws,' remained in charge of the Secretary of War; that of the money in charge of the Secre- tary of the Treasury, all has been invested, over and above the portion consumed in expenses in conformity with the treaty, which there has been time to invest since the receipts; that the money is mostly paid in at the Pontioc land office, in the State of Mississippi, and some time is required to get the returns of sales and to bring the money into the treasury; that there may be now from $20,000 to |30,000 of these funds in the land offices, Life and Times of Silas Wjiiojit. 989 in transitu, and in the treasury; but that no portions of llicni have been expended for tlie general uses ol' tlie treasury, and that investments are invariably made as soon as the sum accu- mulated is sufficient to autliorize a negotiation for stocks. The honorable Senator will see, therefore, that his conjecture that some 1300,000 or |400,000 of these funds had been expended is mistaken, and that no addition to the puljlic debt is to be sought in this quarter. "Whether or not there were small sums arising uiuler this treaty in the care of the War department, and not yet invested, he did not know, as time had not allowed him to call upon tlic head of that department for the information. Still, he supposed this information immaterial for this argument, as money in the charge of the War department could not be in the treasury, and therefore could not be reached by a warrant upon the treasury or expended in the ordinary calls upon it. "It was proper here to remark further, that the only Indian money in the charge of the Secretary of the Treasury for invest- ment is the portion of the Chickasaw fund before pointed out. All those moneys arising under other treaties are, by the treaties, committed to the charge of the Secretary of War, and Congress lias not yet transferred their custody to the treasury. " Investments of Indian moneys, to large amounts, had been made both under the direction of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Treasury, and accounts of the transactions had been laid before Congress, The honorable Senator had referred to them, and had spoken of the prices in some cases paid for stocks, in a manner to give the impression that he suspected the investments had not been prudently and cautiously made. Mr. Wright believed all the investments had been confined to stocks of the States, a description of security which he felt sure that Senator would not willingly depreciate or disparage; and if he would refer to the dates of the respective investments, and to the prices current of the stocks in the principal markets of the coun- try, at the several periods, little ground w^ould be discovered for complaint upon this point. " He would now pass to another class of references made by the honorable Senator, and where, in the opinion of Mr. Wright, 990 Life and Times of Silas Wright. he approximated more nearly to the discovery of a debt, techni- cally speaking, which is not noticed by the President. He alluded to the Senator's reference to several Indian treaties in a group, viz. : " Oue with the Ottawas and Chippewas $200,000 " Oue with the Osages 69 , 120 " One with the Delawares 46 , 080 " One with the Sioux of Mississippi 300,000 " One with the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi 200,000 " One with the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri 157,400 " One with the Wiunebagoes. 1 ,100,000 " One with the Creelis 350,000 " One with the Saways 157,500 $2,580,100 "These treaties severally stipulate that the sums above named shall be invested by the United States for the benefit of the seve- ral tribes of Indians named, and he believed it to be true that, as yet, none of the sums had been invested, but that Congress had preferred to appropriate annually the interest upon them, as a part of the current annual expenses of the country. All of the treaties except one, that with the Delawares, had been coucluded since the commencement of the year 1837, and his information was that, in all the cases, very few sales of the lands, ceded by the respective treaties, had yet been made; not enough, in manj^ cases, to cover the expenses of the treaties, and in none suiiicient to bring into the treasury any considerable portion of the capital required to be invested. "Another reason exists for the non-investment of these sums, which has its foundation in the Constitution of the country. It is that Congress has neither provided nor appropriated the money required to make the investments; and without an appropriation by law, neither the Secretary of the Treasury, nor the President, can take money from the treasury for these or any other pur- poses. The treaties create the liability against the United States for the $2,580,100, but it is not a debt within the law, and cannot be noticed as such by the fiscal officer, until Congress recognize it, and provide for it by the proper constitutional aj)propriation. The treaties are the acts of the President and Senate, the treaty- Life and Times of Silas Wright. 991 making power of the country; but Congress and the President — the law-making power — can alone pay money, even iimlci- a treaty. If, then, every acre of tlie land ceded l)y the Indians, and purchased by and for the beneHt of the United States under these several treaties, were to be sold to-morrow, and the money paid into the treasury, neither the Secretary of War, nor the Secretary of the Treasury, nor any other person, could legally or constitutionally invest one dollar of it, or pay it out under any provision of the treaties, until Congress shall have appropriated it by law, and directed its application. In these cases, as he had before said, the lands had not been sold, the monej' had not come into the treasury, and Congress had preferred rather to appropriate the annual interest, than to borrow the money in advance, for the single purpose of funding it. " He cheerfully admitted that the amount was a debt, as far as the treaty-making power could impose a debt upon the country; but it was not a liability upon the treasury, within tlie laws of Congress, and could not, therefore, be recognized as a debt by the Secretary of the Treasury, in presenting the state of the treasury, its means and liabilities, to Congress. The government was bound to pay the interest upon these sums to the Indians, or foi'feit its faith, pledged through the treaty-making power, or it was bound to invest the principal so that the Indians might receive the interest from other debtors. Congress had exercised its option and preferred to appropriate the interest simply, and wait the sale of the lands to realize the capital to be invested. [Here Mr. Webster inquired, 'Where did Congress get the option ?'] Mr. Wright asked, does it not follow from the very nature of the transactions between the parties'? The Indians sell and convey their lands to the United States, and surrender the title and possession together, upon the faith of treaty stipula- tions. In consideration of the lands sold, the United States agree to hold certain portions of the purchase-money, and invest them for the Indians, The United States alone are trusted, and the receipt by the Indians of the annual interest upon the sums to be invested is a good compliance with the contract to them. Would it not be a perfect technical compliance, if the government were, by way of investment, to issue to the Indians its own stocks ? 992 Life and Times of Silas Wright. And can it be material, so long as the United States choose to remain the debtors, whether this form be gone through with, or the treaty be left as the evidence of liability, and Congress annu- ally appropriate the interest on the money as it would upon the stocks? It seemed to him that the inquiry of tlie Senator raised a distinction without a difference of interest on either side, and questioned the right of Congress to its option in a case where the option could not but exist from the nature of the transac- tions. The most the Indians can claim is the liability of the United States for the interest and principal of their money. That they have by the solemnity of treaty stipulations, while the money is not invested. When it shall be, they may have securi- ties of a less desirable character, but in conformity with their contract. The only question, then, which could influence Con- gress, in its option, was the interest of this government and the convenience of its treasury. "Could it be wise for Congress, in the fulfillment of treaties of this character, and with such parties, and at a time when there was not a surplus of money in the treasury, to have directed loans upon the credit of the people for the payment of debts, the payment of which was not a matter of feeling or interest with the creditor, and for the eventual payment of which an ample fund had been provided by the terms of the contract which made the debt ? Could loans have been made at a rate of interest less than that stipulated to be paid to the Indians ? That will not be pretended. " Where, then, is the cause of complaint or of fault ? It is simply in the assumption that here is a debt not mentioned by the President, and still a debt against the public treasury and the people of the country. " Is this so, in the sense in which the complaint has been pre- ferred by the honorable Senator against the message of the President ? Mr. Wright had admitted that there was a liability to pay, and an ample fund in the lands ceded by the Indian treaties to make the payment, and had attempted to show that Congress had acted wisely in appropriating the interest upon the money merely, until the sale of the lands should bring into the treasury interest and principal, and thus enable the investment to be made without the contraction of a permanent debt. Ltfe and Times of Silas Wright. 993 "Was there anything in all t liis new or singular, or peculiar to this administration? How long Imd this government \mvn mak- ing treaties with the Indians for the purchase of their land, and contracting obligations with them? And if these are items of the public debt, why not their annuities for the purchase of the same lands, which are of a large amount? They are debts in the nature of investments, but they are never reported as part, of the public debt of the country. Neither are to be, found in any report heretofore made from the financial department of the government, under any administration which has ever existed, as items of our public debt. They are not so by the law, and they have never been so treated in practice. He had in his possession a document which he had obtained for another purpose, and which contained a schedule of the entire Indian treaties up to last year. He should think — for he had not taken the trouble to count them — tliat there were several hundreds, and on cast- ing his eye over them this morning he found they commenced, at the latest, as early as 1790, and had been made constantly, if not strictly annually, up to this time. "The practice of stipulating to invest sums of capital, though not new in the administration of our Indian attairs, had greatly increased within the last few years. He had had occasion to become personally acquainted with an old case. He referred to the deposit, by the Seneca Indians of New York, of th ' sum of 1100,000 Avith the United States, being part of the consideration money for their possessory title to their reservations under the stipulation o\\ the part of this government, as he was informed and believes, that they should receive six per cent interest upon their capital so loaned. He spoke from recollection,* and would not be confident, but his impression was that the contract was entered into in 180G. He could further inform the Senator that, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, this money had been invested in the three per cent stocks of the United States then outstanding, and that Congress, while he was a mem- ber of the other branch, as he now recollected and believed, appropriated the other $3,000, or about that sum, to make up to the Indians the interest to which they were entitled. This Avas an old case, and he spoke from memory in regard to it; but from 63 994 Life and Times of Silas Wright. it the lionorable Senator could see that, if we were now to oo back to the commencement of our Indian relations and bring up a new account of public debt, we should be compelled to look far behind the time of Mr. Van Buren, as well as to begin an entirely new calculation of debt. If the honorable Senator would look for the investment of this Seneca fund of $100,000 he thought he would look in vain; and yet it had never appeared in any statement from the treasury, as an item of our public debt. An estimate for the interest would be found in every annual esti- mate of expenditure since the redemption of the government stock in which the last investment was made, but the capital was not mentioned, because it had not been reappropriated for a dif- ferent investment. Still, the Senator would not be disposed to charge this $100,000 to the present administration, as a debt con- tracted by it and to be unjustly palmed off upon its successors. " Yet this was but a fair sample of the policy of going back into these Indian relations to find an existing debt, not disclosed, against the present administration. If we adopt the idea, we must go back, not to 1806, but to 1790, and bring up the account through all the administrations which have existed under our Constitution, and then solve the question whether that adminis- tration is to be most censured for contracting debt which has succeeded in extinguishing most Indian title to the public domain of the country, or whether the debts so contracted have been and are considered as resting upon a sure fund for their redemption in the lands purchased; while the treaties are, in every other respect, beneficial to the country, to its population and prosperity, and to its treasury. " He believed the last and the present administrations had extinguished more Indian titles, and brought more of the public lands into the market, and within the reach of settlement, than any other two, if not more than all preceding administrations; and, as a necessary consequence, the amounts of purchase- money paid, and agreed to be paid, in the shape of annuities, investments and otherwise, would be greater than under pre- vious administrations. But what had hitherto been the estimate placed by the country upon such policy successfully prosecuted? Had we been in the habit of setting down these purchases of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 995 Indian lands as bad and losing bargains, — as imposing burdens upon the treasury and debts upon the country, — or as improv- ing the public revenues and strengthening the treasury, while tliey enriched the country ? Had it ever been supposed that the lands purchased were not much more than sufficient to pay the debts contracted ? " If, however, this movement was the indication of a change of policy by the coming administration in regard to the lands; if the fund thus provided to pay these debts is to be separated from the debts; if the lands, or their proceeds, are to be given away, and the liabilities incurred under the Indian treaties are to be left unpaid upon the hands of this government, then indeed the amounts due to the Indians, as well in annuities as in invest- ments, or otherwise, may justly be counted as debts, as perma- nent, enduring debts, only to be paid by taxation upon the people. He would tell the Senator, however, that that adminis- tration and that party which shall adopt this new policy, and give away the lands without discharging these obligations incurred for their purchase, will be the administration and the party which will charge these sums upon the people as debts, and which .must bear the responsibility of the act. " The honorable Senator proposes to have a new set of books opened, to protect the next administration from the debts and liabilities incurred by this; to establish what he calls ' a rest ' between them, Mr. Wkigiit would go with him to do this ; but he should insist that the accounts be fairly stated and the books fairly kept; that when the Senator had charged the administra- tion of Mr, Van Buren with the debts due to the Indians, he should credit it with the lands which formed the consideration for the debts. In this way, the account would present the whole truth, and he did not fear the responsibility of balancing the books so kept. "He was aware that one most expensive treaty had been made, not by this, but the last administration, without profit to this government. He referred to the last treaty with the Cherokees, for the extinguishment of their title to their lands. These lands were principally in the State of Georgia, and the Indian title was extinguished for the benefit of that State, and not of the 996 Life and Times of Silas Wright. national treasury. Yet this treaty was but a late fulfillment of an obligation i-esting upon this government in favor of that State, and almost as old as the government itself; an obligation entered into to acquire its title to a large portion of the public domain, and upon which, therefore, the moneys paid and payable under that treaty are justly chargeable, and from the proceeds of which they should be reimbursed to the public treasury. " Still, this treaty being included, the proceeds of the public lands Avould clear all former administrations, as well as the present, from any resi)onsibility for debts contracted under Indian treaties. Let the new set of books, then, show both sides of the account, and contain a full and fair statement of the whole matter, and Ave shall not hear that this or any other admiu- istration has run the country in debt by the extinguishment of the Indian title to our immense public domain. Let the proceeds of the lands stand against the moneys paid and the liabilities incurred, and see if these have been bad and unprofitable and losing bargains. " Is this to be charged at this day, and from that quarter ? How long is it since we heard a very different account of these Indian contracts ? Since he had been honored with a seat here, the charge had been made in this chamber, and repeated much more loudly and widely out of it, that our Indian policy was a swindling policy; that we were pur- chasing their lands for a song, and driving them to the ends of the earth for a resting place. Then, the charge was that we were making cruel bargains with the ignorant savages, the poor Indians! Now, it is that the administration has been loading the country with debt by making these same bargains. It will not do, said Mr. "VY. ; it is too soon to make this short turn, and wholly change the character of the complaints growing out of our Indian relations. The facts will not sustain the last position. The bar- gains, as a whole, have been profitable, vastly profitable, to the public treasury, and the lands yet unsold constitute a fund a hundred-fold more than sufficient to discharge every remaining liability. So much for this mode of showing the President in error in his statement of our public debt. " The honorable Senator proceeded to enumerate other heads, Life ajsd Times of Silas WuiauT. 997 undei* which he did not assert, but expressed his suspicion, that there were existing debts, lie did not attempt to enunierale items of debt, and it was im^jossible lor Mr. Wjugut to conjec- ture what the items were, or for what the debts were suspected to have been contracted. The heads enumerated were, debts for the public works, debts for tlie Florida war, debts for Indian depredations at the north, and debts for other things. "Well, now, as to the debts for public works; there might be such, but he, Mr. Wkigut, did not know what they were — he did not know that there were any. He was sure it could not be possible that the Senator intended simply to inform us that there were public works commenced which it was the interest of tlie country to prosecute, and that money was to be appropriated for them. And if there was a debt for public works, other than such a prospective obligation, he was ignorant of it. If that descrip- tion of account was to be opened, he would abandon the discus- sion with the single remark that the honorable Senator would be fortunate if he found the new administration clear of obligations of that character, either at its commencement or its close, " What was the debt growing out of the Florida war ? He, Mr. Wright, was ignorant of it, unless it consisted of claims for losses sustained by citizens in consequence of that war; and did any man suppose that the President of the United States, or the Secretary of the Treasury, was authorized to present those claims to the country as a part of its public debt V Are they so, in fact '? They have been presented year after year, and session after ses- sion, to the Congress of the United States, and a Congress has not yet been found to recognize a dollar of them. And were the executive officers, in the face of this action of Congress, to declare them public debts, to state their amount, and call upon Congress for provision for their payment V The slightest reflec- tion Avould convince the Senator that such was a very uncertain and dangerous way to make up an amount of debt. It would be nothing short of executive usurpation of a fearful character. " Then the debts for Indian depredations at the north — as, if he understood the Senator correctly, this was one of his heads of enumeration — he knew nothing of them ; he knew not what or where they were. 998 Life and Times op Silas Weight. "But there were 'debts for other things;' yes; why did not the honox-able Senator bring in the $5,000,000 for French spolia- tions previous to the year 1800? That was as much a debt as the others. It was a cbiini not recognized b}^ Congress. The honorable Senator believed it was a debt ; he, Mr. Wright, did not. Why not call up the pension list V That is a debt which we must pay until the gallant old soldiers are no more. It was just as properly presented as the Indian annuities. Why not present the claims of the heirs of the late Robert Fulton ? Many supposed that a just debt. The Mead claim? Many thought similarly of that? In short, why not present the 10,000 claims which their Secretary told him would, in a day or two, be inven- toried, under a resolution of the Senate of the last session? There are 10,000 claims on the files of the two Houses of Con- gress, and are they debts to be charged to the administration of Mr. Van Buren? Was this to be done before Congress had recognized their justice, or made them debts at all? He hoped not, and he believed not. "Again, the honorable Senator said, if he, Mr. Weight, under- stood him aright, that the Secretary of the Treasury had author- ized the assumption that this administration was to throw a balance of debt on the next, by the admission that he did not anticipate the payment of the outstanding treasury notes previous to March, 1842. [Mr. Webster observed that he was not conscious of having stated that.] Mr. Weight did not wish to misrepresent the Senator, but he had so understood him, and so read his re- marks published in the Intelligencer of this morning. He would, however, refer to the seventh page of the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the present year, now upon our tables, to prove that such was not his anticipation, but that he expected the revenues of 1841 would meet the expenses of that year, redeem the whole outstanding balance of four and a half millions of treasury notes, and leave in the treasury, in money, on the 1st of January, 1842, the sum of $824,273. " The statement of the Secretary is as follows : " ' More details concerning the estimates of the next year will be proper, and will illustrate the correctness of some of the preceding results. " 'It may be stated, from the best data in possession of this department, that the receipts, under the existing laws, will probably be as foUows: Life and Times of Silas Wright. 999 " 'From customs |19,000,000 " ' From lands 3,500,000 " ' From miscellaueous !^(> , 000 " ' Add the expected balance in the treasury, avail- able on the first of January next 1 , 580 , 855 "'The aggregate of ordinary means for the next year would then be $24,160,855 " ' There will be nothing more, either of principal or interest, due from banks, which is likely to be made available, except about 220,000 " 'A power will exist, under the act of 31st March, 1840, to issue treasury notes till a year from its passage expires, but not to make the whole emis- sion outstanding at any one time exceed five millions of dollars. " ' This will furnish additional means, equal to the computed amount which can be issued at the close of the present year, being about 342,018 " ' Hence, there may be added from these several sources so much as to make the whole means for the next year • $24,723,473 " 'On the other hand, the expenditures for 1841, for ordinary purposes, if Congress make no reduction in the appropriations requested by the ditferent departments, are estimated at 19,250,000 " ' This would leave a balance in the treasury, at the close of the year, equal to $5,473,473 " ' But certain payments must also be made on ac- count of the funded and unfunded debt, unless Congress authorize contracts to be formed for extending the time of their payment. Thus, there will be required, "'On account of the funded debt, chiefly for the cities of this district $149,200 " ' For the redemption of treasury notes, if all the others be issued which can be under the present law, as then the amount returned within A. D. 1841 will probably not exceed 4 , 500 , 000 " ' Estimated balance in the treasury at the close of the next year, after all payments whatever f^^'^*^^. 1000 Life and Times of Silas Wright. "It was not, then, supposed by the Secretary that this debt of four and a half millions was to be thrown over to 1842. He expressly anticipated its payment in 1841. He would now pass, very briefly, to other topics. "The honorable Senator complained that the President, in his message, and the Secretary, in his report, had made reference to the money on deposit with the States, and called with earnestness to know whether the President or the Secretary had recommended the withdrawal of that money, or any part of it. He, Mr. Wright, found no such recommendation, and for the best of all reasons, in his judgment, — there was no necessity for it; tlie revenue of the year 1841 was expected to be equal to the expenditures of 1841, including the redemption of |4,500,000 of treasury notes. The deposit with the States was referred to as an item of jjroperty belonging to this government, but was not mentioned as in the power of the Secretary of the Treasury or of the President. It was in the hands of Congress, an accumulation of former years when taxation was heavier than at the present time, and was referred to to show that there was no cause for increased taxa- tion upon the people; that the government, as such, was pos- sessed of means to discharge every existing liability, and to present a balance of some $17,000,000 or 118,000,000 for the future disposition of the national Legislature. This certainly could be no just cause of complaint. The President and the Secretary had been in the exercise of most responsible trusts. They were about to surrender them to others, who Avould seem more directly to represent the public will and choice. It Avas their duty to present a true and full account of the public pro- perty and the public interests as they supposed them to exist; and surely a reference to an interest of some $28,000,000 of safely invested money could not be considered singular or censurable. "The honorable Senator had seen fit further to complain that the President had not recommended a modification of the tariff and an increase of taxation. Why should he have done so? The calculations and representations of the responsible oflicer charged with that duty showed that more revenue was not required for the contemplated service of the coming year. Why, then, should the President have recommended measures for an increase of revenue ? Life and Times of Silas Wrioiit. 1001. "If there had been a just anticipation of a (k'ficit'ncy of means to meet the wants of the treasury it wouhl have been incumbent upon him, as it wonbl upon the Secretary, to liave [jointed out tlie mode and recommended I lie measures to su|iply lli;il dcti- ciency. Such did not appear to be tlieir anticipations, and llicir communications to Congress liad been made to conform to tiieir sense of their public duties. It might have been very unchari- table in him, but, when the Senator was indulging in his remarks upon this point, he could not but feel that the gentleman was imjjressed with the exceedingly ditHcult question, tlie many knotty points, which the adjustment of the tariff is likely to ])re- sent to the coming administration, and that it was the manifest interest of tlie now dominant party in the country that poor defeated Mr. Van Buren should come in and make an effort to settle it in advance. It could not fail to l)e seen that portions of that triumphant party would complain of anything which any man could recommend upon this subject, and the Senator might kindly suppose that complaints could not now harm the Presi- dent. "So far from reciprocating these feelings, Mr. W. rejoiced that it had not been found necessary for the present President to touch this vexed question. And he could not be mistaken in supposing that it would have been indecorous in him, after the tremendous defeat he had experienced at the late elections, to have reached after disputed topics with a view to their finnl and permanent adjustment by himself or his friends. He was taking leave of his responsible position, and Mr. W. rejoiced to believe he was doing what he believed it was alone proper for him to do,— confining himself strictly to the discharge of those duties which his short remaining official term required at his hands. In reference to the adjustment of the tariff, he had done as he should have done: he had left the whole matter to those who are to come after him, and who should be, as they claim to be, the more inmiediate and acceptable representatives of the popular will; and he, Mr. W., did not speak untruly when he said his most ardent wish was that they might be able to adjust that difti- cnlt question happily for the country and satisfactorily to every interest involved. 1002 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. "A single word more and he would close. The honorable Sen- ator concluded with a remark which manifested a disposition to say that the friends of this administration were, or were to be made, responsible for the necessity of an extra session of Con- gress, if a convention of the new Congress should be ordered by the new President. ISTow he, Mr. Wright, was one of those who should do everything in his power to obviate any such necessity; and to accomplish that object with the greatest certainty, he should use his utmost endeavors to keep the appropriations of this session within the anticipated means of the year 1841. He believed the estimates supplied all the necessary wants, and he intended to adhere to them strictly. Having done so, he should cheerfully leave it to those who have been placed in power, by a triumphant expression of the popular voice, to call a Congress when they pleased, and to recommend such measures as they pleased. [Mr. Webster having made some remaks in reply resumed his seat.] Mr. Wright said he rose to make a very few explanations, and would detain the Senate but a few minutes. " He thought the Senator in error as to liis additional six millions of means which had been expended during the term of tlie present administration, arising from deferred merchants' bonds. He spoke frooi recollection, and would not be confident, but the only general suspension of bonds which he recollected took place under the act of Congress of the 16th of October, 1837, passed at the extra session of that year, and that was a suspension but for nine months, and could only have operated upon bonds falling due in that year. " In reference to the Senator's remark as to the President's anticipation of a further diminution of the expenses of the gov- ernment, he preferred that the President should speak for himself. The Senator said that he assigned no other cause for the expecta- tion than the diminution of the pension roll by death. What the President did say was : " ' Causes are in operation which will, it is believed, justify a still further reduction, without injury to any important national interest. The expenses of sustaining the troops employed in Florida have been gradually and greatly reduced, through the persevering efforts of the War department; and a reasonable hope may be entertained that the necessity for military operations in that quarter will soon cease. The removal of the Indians Life and Times of Silas Wright. 1003 from within our settled borders is nearly completed. The pension list, one of the heaviest charges upon the treasury, is rapidly diuiinishing by death. The most costly of our public buildings are eitlier finished or nearly so, and we may, I think, safely promise ourselves a continued exemption from border difficulties.' " His principal object, in rising at this time, was to make a correction of an error into whicli the Senator had fallen in his first remai"ks, in reference to the manner of keeping the accounts of the trust funds at the Treasury department. He had intended to make the correction before; but not having noted it on his brief, it had been forgotten. He was expressly authorized to say that separate and distinct accounts of all trust funds were kept at the department, with all the accuracy and care which characterized the keeping of any accounts there. The books containing these accounts were regularly brought up, and the statement of any such account could be regularly and accurately made from them; but the state of these accounts was not, as matter of course, communicated to Congress with the Secretary's financial report. Such communications were always made when called for, and not otherwise. The Senator would see, therefore, that his idea — that these accounts, and the moneys in the trea- sury to their credit, had become intermingled with the general affairs of the treasury, so that it was difficult to tell how the trust funds did actually stand — was a mistaken one. There was no confusion upon the subject at the department. [After a few remarks from Mr. Webster] Mr. Wkight said he wished to add a single remark which he had omitted when last up. Tlie Senator complained that the sums which were stipulated by the Indian treaties to be invested for the Indians did not appear in the annual estimates of the Secretary of the Treasury. He said the Indian annuities were annually estimated for, and there- fore were made to appear to Congress yearly as claims which must be paid. Mr. Wkight thought it was a perfect answer to the suggestion to say that the interest upon the sums stipulated to be invested, and not invested, was annually estimated for, as the Senator would find by examining the estimates for the Indian department, and this estimate showed the liability as fully as an estimate of the principal would do. The estimate is for the 1004 Life and Tuies of Silas Wright. annual interest upon a sura named and stipulated by treaty to be invested. Is it possible to specify the liability more distinctly or plainly ? Are our liabilities for the annuities more fully exliibited in the estimates '? He could not see that they were. "Another single remark would content him. The Senator seemed to suppose it doubtful, from the message of tlie Presi- dent and the remarks of himself, whether they did not both favor a recall of the moneys on deposit with the States, rather than the imposition of duties upon 'wines and silks.' Of the opinion of the President upon this subject he could say nothing, because the President had expressed no opinion ; and for him- self, he could say that he had neither given, nor intended to give, any opinion upon this point. He would not certainly favor a recall of the money deposited with the States until the treasury wanted money, and when that state of facts should be shown, and he should be asked for a vote, either to recall those moneys or to impose a duty upon wines and silks, he should not be found unprepared, or reluctant, to make the decision. " The question was then taken on the motion of Mr. Wkight [to refer to the Committee on Finance], which was agreed to." Life and Times of Silas Win out. 1005 Chapter LXXXVllI. THE PRINCIPLES OF GIIANTING PENSIONS. Pensions were originally granted to those who were made invalids by service in the army or navy. From a very small beginning, by enlarging the principles n])on which they are granted, onr pensions alone now cost tlie treasury as much, if not more, than the whole govern- ment did in Mr. Adams' and Gen. Jackson's time. In early times the widows and orphans of naval officers were pensioned and paid out of a fund created by small monthly contributions withheld from their regular pay, and by apx^lying tlie government's share of naval prizes to that object. Now they are paid directly from the treasury. Pensions were, as early as 1818 and 1832, granted to all who served in the war of the Revolution. These were subsequently extended to their widows. Now we pension those who served in the war of 1812, as well as those disabled in our late war, and the widows and children of those dying in the service. It has often hap- pened that Congress has, by special act, given pensions to those who were not included in any general law. On the 23d of December, 1840, the case of Hannah Leighton came before the Senate, when Mr. Wright addressed that body in opposition to it. He expressed his fears that the principles upon which pensions were allowed would be expanded to an alarming extent, and that indi- vidual cases might be granted, where congressional action was based solely upon sympathy. The following remarks disclose the principles upon which he acted. The bill passed by 29 to 1 3. " Mr. Wright hoped he might be indulged in a few remarks 1006 Life and Times of Silas Wright. on the subject then before the Senate ; and he owed it to himself to say, however much less sensible he might appear to be to the sympathies of the human heart than other Senators who had preceded him, it Avas with great embarrassment and pain that he opposed a case of this kind ; and were it not that he saw in it the introduction into their legislation of a principle of fearful extent, he should not be heard in opposition; but under that consciousness he had opposed it before, and he felt bound to do so again. But he begged permission to say a few words in explanation. He did not question at all the right of the present Committee on Pensions to introduce a new principle into the pension system ; he had no doubt that this case had appealed to the strongest feelings of their hearts, and that they had been induced by their sympathies to present it to the Senate ; but he desired to say that it was presented here on a principle new to him in the pension system. What had been the ground assumed as the basis of pensions hitherto ? Length of service. Upon what principle was the law of 1818 based? If his memory served him right, it was service in the regular army, and for at least nine months. Upon what hypothesis were pensions based then ? He could not say positively, for he was not in the Con- gress at that time, but he had always supposed on the hypothesis that the time of a man had been consumed in the service of his country, and that he had never been remunerated for that service, or that he had been paid in continental paper which was worth nothing ; and at that late day, that was the manner in which it was proposed to compensate him for the early service of his life in the perils of that war. That he supposed to be the predica- tion of the pension act of 1818. They passed on, then, so far as his memory served him, without any important addition to that act until the year 1828, and then they passed a very important law pensioning a certain class of officers of the Revolution. And on what ground ? Why, they had been patriotic enough to peril their lives in the service of their country. Yes; and he, Mr. Wright, was acting at the time that law was passed ; it Avas as a commutation of a promise held out to them by the old Con- gress, which had either not been fulfilled or not equivalently ful- filled ; on that he knew the action of Congress was based, or of Life and Times of Silas Wright. 1007 the other branch of it, ol" wliich lie was a member when the law of 1828 was passed. In 1832, again, a mucli more broad and comprehensive pension act was passed, but he, Mr. Wright, was not then a member of Congress. But what was its peculiar characteristic? First to shorten the term of service from nine to six months, and to comprehend the militia as well as the regu- lar army. These, according to his recollection, were the features of that law — a term of service, sacrifices, and loss of time, which had not been compensated for, was the predication of tliat law. Well, then, so far pensions were confined to persons who had performed service, and they had not then departed from that principle either in favor of widows or heirs. In 183G another pension law was passed, and a most significant and impor- tant law it Avas. He was a member of this body at the time; and he felt it to be a just reproach upon himself when he said that, when that law was passed, he was not fully aware of the extent of its provisions — he then was derelict of his duty; but what were the principles of that law ? It retained, to his understanding, the same predication; it extended pensions to the widows of officers and soldiers of the Revolution, who were the wives of such ofticers and soldiers at the time when they performed service — to widows who had them- selves sustained sacrifices, and injuries produced in their fami- lies, by the taking away the head of the family into the military service of the country. So far, then, though they had gone a step beyond the individuals who had performed the service, they had retained the broad basis on which the pension system was founded. It was in 1836 that that law was passed; and in 1838 they passed another most essential measure, as they had seen in its operation on the treasury, for he thought he was not mistaken when he said it had taken $4,000,000 from the treasury, or had added that much to the expenses of the government. These laws were passed when they had an overflowing treasury, impel- ling them on to an overflowing expenditure. This, then, was a britf review of what he understood to be the general pension laws which had been passed; he knew, as the honorable chairman of the committee said, that particular laws had passed, but he asked if this proposed law did not contain a principle entirely 1008 Life and Times of Silas Wuiaiir. new? F'rom the fact statey the Senator IVonj Massachusetts, the time was nothing, at tlie most 1ml twenty-lour hours, Init it was the service of the life of a gallant ami patriotic officer. Uut he was not the tirst man that fell, for tin- Senator from ."Massa- chusetts tohl them that five or six freemen of this country fell before the weajton was aimetl at the life of this oHiier. Could they, then, pension his wiilow, and not the widows of those other men i Could they make such a tlisliiietion ? Ves, and the next (hiy, and the next, the patriots of that period rushed to tin- battle Held; and should they siy that the widow of the man who fell on till' first day of that contest should havi- a p«nsion for her lifr, and that the widows of those who si-rveil in that patriotic struggle for a longer period, and then fell, should have no eom- pensation? Could men make this distinction ? Could theirsym- pathies imluce them to yield to this claim, and not yii-ld to tin- others? lie had spoken in admiration of tlie commilti-e, and that admiration niade it a most reluctant duty to oppose them; hut to what extent the principle might he carried, if they opened the door, he i-ould not say, ami, therefore, lie felt impelled to guard against unforeseen evils. Who had apprdieiidid, wlnn the law of is.if^ was passed, the millions on millions that had lueii taken from the treasury in that sln>rt period? \o man. he ventured to say. Who could say now, if they adopted the principle, that the living widows of other gallant sj)irits who rushed to the battle licM on the lirst day of the {{evolution wouM not elaiin to be pensioned tor life, and not only pensioned for lib-, but, as in this case, fi>r some years back? [Afr. iJenton — Nine years baek. | Mr. Wuicirr continuid. To what extent the principb* would lead, he could not conceive. If this bill were to become a law of Congress, if this case were to prevail, who