SPEECH 
 
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 BENTON, OF MISSOURI, 
 
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 ON THE 
 
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 RESOLUTION OF 
 
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 RESCINDING THE TREASURY ORDER. 
 
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 Delivered in the Senate, December, 1836. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 BLYIR AND RIVES, PRINTERS. 
 
 1837. 
 
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Dja'08 Commerce. 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
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 The following resolutions, introduced by Mr. 
 E wing, of Ohio, being at their second reading, viz: 
 
 “ Resolved by the Senate and ITo-usc of Representatives , 
 #c. That thcTreasnry order of the eleventh day of July, anno 
 IJomini one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, designating 
 the funds which should be receivable in payment for public 
 lands, be, and the same is hereby, rescinded. 
 
 “ Resolved , also, That it shall not be lawful for the Secretary 
 of the Treasury to delegate to any petson, or to any corpora¬ 
 tion, the power of directing what funds shall be receivable 
 for customs, or for the public lands; nor shall be make any 
 discrimination in the funds so receivable, between different 
 f individuals, or between the different branches of the public 
 
 revenue:” 
 
 Mr. 13EVTON said it was unusual to oppose 
 joint resolutions at their second reading; but lie 
 had given notice of bis intention to oppose this 
 resolution, not for the purpose of attempting to 
 arrest its course, but to excite attention and discus¬ 
 sion, and to lay the foundation for a motion which 
 he intended to make, namely: to send the subject 
 to a committee, and to make it the duty of that 
 committee to inquire into the operation and effects 
 of the Treasury oider propost d to be rescinded, 
 and into the conduct of the banks which affected 
 to be crippled by it. This motion, and the 
 scope and details of the inquiry, will be brought 
 forward in due time. 
 
 The resolution consists of two clauses, the first 
 clear, the second ambiguous. The rescission of 
 the Treasury order, excluding paper money from 
 the land offices, was the object of the first clause; 
 but the second was without specification; and 
 making no allusion to the constitutional currency, 
 and imposing no obligation on the Secretary of 
 Qc the Treasury to use or employ it, it seemed to him 
 that the whole revenues of the Government might 
 be made receivable in paper money. Funds is 
 the word used in the resolution; a word which has 
 no place in our Constitution, nor in our legislation 
 previous to the imposition of the paper system 
 upon us, and which has no definite or legal mean¬ 
 ing. It is a paper system phrase; and, in the jar¬ 
 gon of that system, is understood to comprehend 
 all sorts of paper credits and securities, and all 
 sorts of currencies, which can be made available 
 in the payment of debts, or in the support of 
 credit. It n a wretched phrase to come into legis¬ 
 lation, and ought to be substituted by something 
 of clear and precise import Gold and silver is 
 the language of our Constitution; and to supersede 
 them by the word “funds,” is to banish them 
 from our financial system, and to open the Trea 
 sury to the inundation of paper money 
 
 In the observations which he should make upon 
 these resolutions,Mr. B said, he should not confine 
 himself to a reply merely to the remarks of the Sen¬ 
 
 ator from Ohio, (Mr. Ewing,) but looking further 
 back, and all around, and having due regard to 
 what had preceded this motion, and which was in¬ 
 dissolubly connected with it, he should treat 
 the whole subject as it appeared before him, 
 and as it h»d been exhibited to the public. He 
 had especially in his eye a certain speech, deliver¬ 
 ed in Kentucky, in Septt mber la»t; and a certain let¬ 
 ter, written in Philadelphia, in November last. 
 Passages from each of these would be referred to 
 at proper p'ac s; and, paying due attention to 
 these givings, out, and to all the signs which had 
 been visible for some months past in the political 
 zodiac, he co Id see distinctly that two great ob¬ 
 jects ware proposed to be accomplished by the 
 instrumentality of this joint resolution : first, the 
 condemnation of President Jackson for a violation 
 of the laws and constitution, and the destruction 
 of the prosperity of the country; and, second' 
 the oveithrow of the Federal constitutional cur¬ 
 rency, and the imposition of the paper money sys¬ 
 tem of the States upon the Government and peo¬ 
 ple of the Union. In the first of these objects, 
 the present movement is twin brother to the fa¬ 
 mous resolution of 1833, but without its boldness; 
 for that resolution declared its object upon its 
 face, while this one eschews specification, and in¬ 
 sidiously seeks a judgment of condemnation by 
 inference and argument. In the second of these 
 objects, every body will recognise the great de¬ 
 sign of the second branch of the same famous re¬ 
 solutions of 1833, which, in the restoration of the 
 deposltes to the Bank of the United States, clear¬ 
 ly went to the establishment of the paper system*, 
 and its supremacy over the Federal Government, 
 The present movement, therefore, is a second edi¬ 
 tion of the old one, but a lame and impotent affair 
 compared to that. Then, we had a magnificent 
 panic; now, nothing but a miserable starveling! 
 For though the letter of the President of the 
 Bank of the United States announced, early in 
 November, that the meeting of Congress was the 
 time for the new distress to become intense, yet 
 we are two weeks deep in the session, and no dis¬ 
 tress memorial—no distress deputation—-no dis¬ 
 tress committees, to this hour ! Nothing, in fact, 
 in that line, but the distress speech of the gentle¬ 
 man from Ohio (Mr. Ewing); so that the new 
 panic of 1836, has -ill the signs of being a 1 an 
 and slender affair—a mere church-mouse concern 
 —a sort of dwarfish, impish imitation of the gi¬ 
 gantic spectre which stalked through th; land in 
 1833. 
 
 That every thing might appear in its proper 
 order, and every actor in this drama have his 
 
 
4 
 
 proper place, Mr. B. v. ould now introduce pas¬ 
 sages from the speech and letter to which he had 
 referred, reserving other passages for introduc¬ 
 tion in other stages of the proceedings. And first 
 from the speech: 
 
 “Mr. Clay proceeded to speak of the constant- takbsrino 
 with tub currency, which marked the conduct of this ad¬ 
 ministration. One rash, lawless, and crude experiment suc¬ 
 ceeds another. He considered the late Treasury order, by 
 which all payments for public lands were to be made in spe¬ 
 cie, with one exception, for a short duration, a most id advised, 
 illegal, and pernicious measure. In principle it was wiong; 
 in practice it will favor the very speculation which it professes 
 to endeavor to suppress. The officer who issued it, as if con¬ 
 scious of its obnoxious character, shelters himself behind the 
 name of the President. 
 
 “lint the President and Secretary had no right to promul¬ 
 gate any such order. The law admits of no such discrimina¬ 
 tion. If the resolution of the 30th April, 1S16, continues in 
 operation (and the administration on the occasion of the remo¬ 
 val of the deposites, and on the present occasion, relies,upon it 
 as in full force,) it gave the Secretary no such discretion as he 
 has exercised. That resolution required and directed the Se¬ 
 cretary of the Treasury to adopt such measures as he might 
 deem necessary, ‘ to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, 
 debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the 
 United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of 
 the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the 
 United States,,as by law provided and declared, or in notes of 
 banks tohich are payable and paid on demand , it*paid legal 
 currency of the United States.’ This resolution was restric¬ 
 tive and prohibitory upon the Secretary only as to the notes of 
 banks not redeemable in specie on demand. As to all such 
 notes, he was forbidden to receive them from and after the 20th 
 day of February, 1317. As to the notes of banks which were 
 payable and paid on demand in specie, the resolution was not 
 merely permissive; it was compulsory and mandatory. lie 
 was bound, and is yet bound, to receive them, until Congress 
 interferes.” 
 
 From the letter of Mr. Biddle to Mr. J. Q. 
 Adams, Mr. B. read as follows: 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 11, 1836. 
 
 “My Dear Sir: I proceed to the second subject of our con 
 variation— the present slate of \e currency —which I shall 
 treat dispassionately, as an abstra t question of mere finance. 
 
 “Our pecuniary condition seems to be a strange anomaly 
 When Congress adjourned, it le* the country with abundant 
 crops, and high prices for them—with every branch of 
 industry flourishing—with more specie than we ever pos- 
 ses-zed before—with all the elements of universal prosperity. 
 Not one of these has undergone the slightest change; yet, after 
 a few months, Congress will reassemble, and find the whole 
 country suffering intense pecuniary distress. The occasion of 
 this, and the remedy for it, may well occupy our thoughts. 
 
 i In my judgment, the main cause of it is the mismanagement 
 of the revenue—mismanagement in two respects: the mode of 
 executing the distribution law , and the order requiring 
 specie for the public lands. 
 
 “ Such a measure was of itself sufficient to disorganize the 
 currency. But it was accompanied by another, which armed 
 it with a tenfold power of mischief. This was the Treasury or- 
 d -r prohibiting the receipt at the land offices of any thing but 
 specif—an act which seems to me a most wanton abuse of 
 ower, if not a flagrant usurpation. 
 
 “The whole pecuniary system of this country, that to which, 
 next to its freedom, it owes its prosperity, is the system of cre¬ 
 dit. Our ancestors came here with no money, but with far bet- 
 i- r things—with courage and industry; and the want of capital 
 was supplied by their mutual confidence. This is (lie basis of 
 our whole commercial and internal industry. The Government 
 received its duties on credit and sold its lands on credit. When 
 the sales of land on credit became inconvenient., from the com¬ 
 plication of accounts, the lands were told for what is termed 
 cash. But this was only another form if credit; for the banks, 
 by lending to those who purchased lar is, to-jk the jflaceof the 
 Government as creditors, and the Government received their 
 noto^ as equivalent to specie, because always convertible into 
 specie. This was the usage lismay be regarded as the law 
 of th'* country. By the result-ion of Congress passed on the 
 30th of April, 1816 it was d elated that'“ no duties, taxes, 
 debts, or sums of money accru ng or becoming payable to the 
 United States as Aforesaid, ought to be collected or received 
 otherwise than in the legal currency of the. United States, or 
 Treasury notes, or notesofthe Batik of the United States, or in 
 notes of banks which are payable and r >aid on demand in the 
 said legal currency of t he United States. 
 
 “Thi? resolution presents various alterative*—the legal cur 
 rency, or Treasury notes, or notesofthe Bunk of the United States, 
 or notes ofspecic paying banks. A citizen had a right to choose 
 
 any one of these modes of payment. lie had as much right to pay 
 for land with the note ofa specie paying bank, as to pay it for du¬ 
 ties at the custom-house. If this be denied, certainly any one of 
 them might be accepted by the Treasury; but to proscribe all 
 but one—to refuse every thing but the most difficult thing—to 
 do this without notice of the approaching change in the funda¬ 
 mental system of our dealings—is an act of gratuitous oppres¬ 
 sion. 
 
 “If he prohibits the receipt of any thing but specie to correct 
 land speculations, he may make the same pr«' ibition as to the 
 duties on hardware, or broadcloth, or wines, whenever his pa¬ 
 ternal wisdom shall see us buying too many shovels, or too 
 many coats, or too much champagne—and thus bring the en¬ 
 tire industry of the country under his Control. 
 
 “It remains to speak of the remedy of these evils. They fol¬ 
 low obviously the causes of them. The causes are the injudi¬ 
 cious transfers of the public moneys, and the Treasury order 
 about specie. 
 
 “The first measure of relief, therefore, should be the instant 
 repeal of the Treasury order requiring specie for lands; the se 
 cond, the adoption of a proper system to execute the distribu¬ 
 tion law. 
 
 “These measures would restore confidence in twenty-four 
 hours, and repose in at least as many days. If the Treasury 
 will not adopt them voluntarily, Congress should immediately 
 command it ” 
 
 From these documents, said Mr. B. and from 
 the speech of the gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. 
 Ewing',) the charges which are made against Pre¬ 
 sident Jackson, and on which this resolution is 
 supported, and for which the rescission of the 
 Treasury order is demanded, are, first, a violation 
 of the laws; secondly, a violation of the constitution; 
 thirdly , a destruction of the prosperity of the coun¬ 
 try. Mr. B. would join issue upon each of these 
 charges, and take each by it re If, and ail in their 
 turn: and first of the illegality. This charge was 
 bottomed upon the alleged contravention of the 
 joint resolution of April, 1816, for the better col¬ 
 lection of the public revenue, and although partly 
 set out both in the Kentucky speech, and in the 
 Philadelphia letter, he preferred to read it enire, 
 as the first part, though merely directory, j et was 
 directory in the essential particular ef showing 
 who was to be the active agent in carrying the 
 resolution into effect. 
 
 The joint resolution q/1816. 
 
 “That the Secretary ef the Treasury be, and he hereby is, re¬ 
 quired 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 20th 
 day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of 
 money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States as 
 aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in 
 the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or 
 notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks 
 which are payable and paid,, on demand, in the said legal cur. 
 rency of the United States ” 
 
 1 his is the law, continued Mr. B. and nothing 
 can be p’ainer than the right of selection which it 
 gives to the Secretary of the Treasury. Four 
 ^different media are mentioned in which the reve- 
 *hue may be collected, and the Secretary is made 
 the actor, the agent, and the power, by which the 
 collection is to be effected. He is to do it in one, 
 or in another. He m y choose several, or all, or 
 two, or one. All are in the disjunctive. No two 
 me joined together, but all are disjoined, and 
 presented to him individually and separately. It 
 i clearly the right of the Secretary to order the 
 collections to he made in either of the four media 
 mentioned. That the resolution is not mandatory 
 in favor of any one of the four, is obvious from the 
 manner in which the notes of the Bank of the 
 
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 United States are mentioned. They were to he 
 received as then provided for by law; f >r the bank 
 charter bad ihe > just passed; and the 14th section 
 bad provided for the reception of the notes of this 
 institu’ion until Congress, by law, should direct 
 otherwise. The right of the institution to deliver 
 its notes in payment of the revenue, was anterior 
 to this resolution, arid always held under that 
 14th section, never under this joint resolution; 
 and when that section was repealed at the last 
 session of this Congress, that right was admitted to 
 be gone, and has never been claimed since. 
 
 The words of the law are clear; the practice 
 under it has been uniform and uninterrupted from 
 the date of its pas age to the present 'day. For 
 twenty years, and under three Presidents, all the 
 Secretaries of the Treasuiy have acted alike. 
 Each has made selections, permitting the notes of 
 some specie paying banks to be received, and 
 forbidding others. Mr. Crawford did it in nume¬ 
 rous instances; and fierce and universal as were 
 the attacks upon that eminent patriot, during die 
 Presidential canvass of 1824, no human being ever 
 thought of charging him with illegality in this 
 respect. Mr. Kush twice made similar selections 
 during the administration of Mr. Adams; and no 
 one, either in the same cabinet with him, or out of 
 the cabinet against him, ever complained of it. 
 For twenty years the practice has been uniform; 
 and every citizen of the west knows that that 
 practice was the general, though not universal 
 exclusion of the western specie paying bank pa¬ 
 per from tiie western land offices. This every 
 man -in the west knows, and knows that that gene¬ 
 ral exclusion continued down to the day that the 
 Bank of the United .States ceased to be the de¬ 
 pository of the public moneys. It was that event 
 which opened the door to the receivability of 
 State bank paper, which has since been enjoyed. 
 
 Mr. B. then approached an argument which he 
 deemed authoritative in this case: it was the 24th 
 article of the Poles and Regulations of the Bank 
 or the United States for the government of their 
 branches It was made sinca the passage of the 
 joint resolution of 1816, and related to the col¬ 
 lection of tiie revenue of the United States. It 
 made short work with the notes of the specie 
 paying banks of the States, excluding the notes 
 of the whole of them from all branches of the 
 revenue, except of such luniks as might be situat¬ 
 ed in the same place where the branch bank was 
 situated. The notes of these branches alone were 
 to be received in payment; if the Secretary of the 
 Treasury required others to be rec ived, they 
 would not be taken in payment, but merely noted 
 as a special deposite at the instance of the Go¬ 
 vernment. This is the article: 
 
 “ Article xxiv.—The offices of discount awl deposite shall 
 receive in paymentof the revenue of the United States, the notes 
 of such State banks as redeemed their engagements with specie, 
 and provided they are the notes of banks located in the city, oi 
 place, where the office receiving them is established. And also 
 the notes of such other banks as a special deposite on behalf of 
 the Government, as the Secretary of the Treasury may re- 
 
 IIere, said Mr. B. is selection, a selection by 
 which a few State bsnks, in no event exceeding 
 those in twenty-five places, for there were never 
 more than twenty five branches—would have their 
 
 notes received, while the mass of the State banks 
 amounting to m my hundreds, were entirely cut 
 oiT. The legality of this selection and exclusion 
 has never been questioned; yet there are persons 
 who deny to President Jackson the right of mik¬ 
 ing the same selection; and who must stand be¬ 
 fore the public as denying to the President of the 
 United States the power over the execution of the 
 laws which they concede to the President of the 
 Bank of the United States. 
 
 Mr. B. said, that it might well be supposed that 
 he had now sufficiently repelled this charge of il¬ 
 legality. He certainly deemed the charge suffi¬ 
 ciently answered; but he had other arguments yet 
 to use; arguments belonging to that authoritative 
 class to which he had alluded, and from wKich 
 the gentlemen making the charge cannot be al¬ 
 lowed to appeal. It would be recollected, he 
 said, that about a dozen years ago a committee of 
 the House of Representatives had been raised to 
 investigate certain charges against the then Secre¬ 
 tary of the Treasury, that hunted down and per¬ 
 secuted citizen, William H Crawford. These 
 charges happened to involve the point now in dis¬ 
 cussion, not as a charge, but incidentally and his¬ 
 torically; and among the members of that com¬ 
 mittee there happened to be a gentleman who was 
 ti e author of the joint resolution of 1816, who is 
 now a member of this body, (Mr. Webster,) and 
 who has signified an intention to speak in this de¬ 
 bate. That committee made a report, purporting 
 to be the unanimous opinion of the body; and 
 from that report., an extract will now be read: 
 
 “At the time of the adoption ofthis resolution, (joint of 1816,) 
 debts accruing to the United States, whether on account of the 
 sales of public lands, or at the custom house, or from any other 
 source bf revenue, were in fact received in some parts of tiie 
 country, but evidently in disregard of the law, in the notes of 
 the State banks which did not redeem their paper by cash pay¬ 
 ments. By this resolution it was obviously made the duty of 
 the Secretary of the Treasury to correct that departure from 
 law as soon as practicable; and it was, as is equally obvious, 
 imperative on the Department, after the 20th of February, 1817, 
 to allow nothing to be received in payment of debts due to the 
 United States, but the legal money of the United States, Trea¬ 
 sury notes, notes of the Bank of the United States, or those of 
 State banks, the notes of which were payable and paid on de¬ 
 mand in specie. The Bank of the United States was incorpora¬ 
 ted in April, 1816, &c. In the early (tart of the year 1817, it h 
 represented by the Secretary, and appears to be true, than an. 
 arrangement was made with the Bank of the United States, by 
 which the public funds were to be deposited in the branches of 
 that institution in all places where such branches existed, and 
 where there were no such branches, that bank was to designate 
 fei tain State banks for which it would be responsible, and in 
 which such public, moneys would be deposited: and, notes of all 
 banks which the Bank of the United States would receive in 
 deposite as cash, AND NONE OTHER, were to be received 
 on sales of public lands. It is further represented that, in tiie 
 execution ofthis engagement, difficulties and controversies arose 
 between the United States Bank and the State banks thus em¬ 
 ployed in receiving the deposites of the public moneys; a de-ra 
 long, the B ank of the United States signified to tiie Department 
 of the Treasury, that it could not continue such arrangement; 
 and llmt thenceforward it could receive nothing in deposite , 
 as cash , but Me LEGAL CURRENCY OF THE COUNTRY, 
 or its own notes. The agreement with the Bank oi the United 
 States terminated, for these reasons, on the 30tli of dune, ifilB. 
 About this period also, the Bank of the United States issued or¬ 
 ders prohibiting its WESTERN branches from issuing any of 
 their own notes for circulation, even in exchange for, or on de- 
 posite of specie.” * * * ’ “That insti ¬ 
 
 tution (the Bank of the United States,) is indeed hound to give 
 the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from 
 place to place; but this can only mean cash funds; and it is 
 bound also to receive money on deposite for the United States: 
 but it is not bound to receive in deposite os cash , the bids of 
 any hein/c whatever bu: its own , ALTHOUGH they may come 
 within the provisions of the act of 1816.” 
 
 This, Mr. President, continued Mr. B. was in 
 
6 
 
 1824. It was eight years after the joint resolution 
 of 1816 had passed, and two years after the author 
 of the letter to Mr. Adams, which has been read, 
 came to the presidency of that institution. It is, 
 therefore, the report of transactions to which he 
 was privy and party. The report speaks histori¬ 
 cal!)', in reciting an agreement between the Secre¬ 
 tary of the Treasury and the Directors of the 
 Bank of the United States, by which, among othe? 
 things, the selection of the State bank notes re¬ 
 ceivable in payment of the public lands, was to be 
 left to the Dank of the United States, and NONE 
 should be so received except such as that back 
 would agree to Credit as specie; that afterwards 
 the bank receded from that agreement, and re¬ 
 fused to receive ANY STATE BANK NOTES 
 WHATEVER, taking nothing but gold and silver 
 coin, and its own notes ; and fina iy refused to is¬ 
 sue its own notes in the WEST, even in exchange 
 for specie! and thus left nothing but specie to be 
 received; and after making these recitals, the 
 committee conclude with the express’on of their 
 own opinion of the law, that the Bank of the 
 United States was not bound to receive in deposite 
 as cash, the bills of any State bank whatever, 
 ALTHOUGH THEY COME UNDER THE 
 PROVISIONS OF THE ACT OF 1816. 
 
 These are the recitals, and this the opinion of 
 that committee; and cer'ainly they are correct, 
 both in the narration and in the judgment. What 
 then becomes of this charge of illegality in the 
 Woodford speech, and this letter to Mr. Adams, 
 thus confuted and invalidated by the conduct of 
 the bank itself? And what becomes of the pre¬ 
 tended injury of all those western banks in having 
 their notes excluded under an order from Presi¬ 
 dent Jackson, when they had been previously ex¬ 
 cluded for nearly twenty years under the orders of 
 the President of the Bank of the United States? 
 Why not complain before? Why not apply to 
 Congress to rescind the order of the bank presi¬ 
 dent, as they now apply for the rescissisn of the 
 order of the President of the Un on; and the 
 politicians and presses which have lavished denun¬ 
 ciations upon President Jackson, and wept salt 
 tears over the wrongs of these banks, and the 
 oppressions of the people, on account of the 
 spe cie order, where were these tear?, and those 
 denunciations, when the President of the Bank 
 of the United States gave previously the same 
 order so many years before, and enforced it up 
 to the day of the removal of the deposites? 
 The fact is, and all the inhabitants the 
 new States know it, that local bank paper, 
 with few and stinted exceptions, was exclu¬ 
 ded from all the land offices, from the estab¬ 
 lishment of the Bank of the United States down 
 to October, 1833. During that long interval, 
 scarcely any thing was received but specie, or 
 United States Bank rotes. Local bank paper was 
 in a state of general and permanent exclusion 
 almost the whole time, and the whole country was 
 quiet and contented. No complaint; no charge 
 of illegality; no cry of op ression; no pretext of 
 rum on die part of the banks; no lamentations and 
 denunciations on the part of politicians. But the 
 instant that President Jackson hac done what the 
 president of the bank did; the moment he has re¬ 
 
 stored things to their former footing, and put back 
 local bank paper to the state of exclusion in which 
 it had rested under the administration of both his 
 predecessors, that instant the storm of rage and 
 grief breaks out. A new impeachment must be 
 got up; a new panic must be excited; the Senate 
 Chamber is again to become the laboratory of 
 alarm: and a new chorus must become the bur- 
 hen of the song— that the specie order made the 
 distress, and nothing can relieve the distress but 
 the recis'ion of the order, or the recharter of the 
 bank/ 
 
 Surely we have accumulated proof enough up¬ 
 on this point; surely there is no necessity for any 
 thing to refute this charge, and to establish the 
 legal ty of this Treasury order. But other proof 
 Is at hand, and though unnecessary, it shall lie used. 
 High as is the authority of the report of the com¬ 
 mittee of 1824, and close as ic is to the point, there 
 is yet higher authority, and still closer to the point, 
 yet to be adduced; for it is the authority of the 
 same author of the resolution, and that before he 
 question was raised, and while the resolution was 
 on its passage; and in which he not only under¬ 
 stood them as shown afterwards ia the report of 
 the committee of which he was a member, but in 
 which he went farther, and expressed his fear that 
 the whole good effect of the resolution might be 
 lost, if the TREASURY DEPARTMENT should 
 sot execute it precisely as that Department, under 
 the splendid and beneficent administration of Pre¬ 
 sident, JACKSON has done! 
 
 Extracts from Mr. Webster's speech in the House of 
 Representatives, April 2S, 1816, on the resolution 
 offered by him for the more effectual collection of 
 the revenue in the lawful money of the country . 
 
 “ Mr. W. said, that he felt it to be his duty to call the atten¬ 
 tion of the House, once more to the subject of the collection of 
 the revenue, and to present the resolutions which he had sub¬ 
 mitted. He had been the more inclined to do this irom an ap¬ 
 prehension that the rejection, yesterday, of the bill which had 
 been introduced, might be construed into an abandonment, on 
 the part of the House, of all hope of remedying the existing 
 evil. He had had, it was true, some objections against pro- 
 ceeding by way of bill; because the case was not one in which 
 the law was deficient , but one in which the execution of the 
 law was deficient * * 4 * The situation ol the country, 
 
 (said Mr. W.) in resrard to the collection of its revenues, is 
 most deplorable. With a perfectly sound legal currency, the 
 national revenues are not collected in this currency,^but in pa¬ 
 per of various sorts, and various degrees of value. 
 
 It is quite clear, that by the statute all duties and 
 taxes are required to be paid in the legal money of 
 the United States, or in Treasury notes, agreeably to a 
 recent provision. It is just as clear that the law has beendis- 
 regarded, and that the notes of banks oi a hundred different 
 descriptions, and almost as many different values, have been 
 received, and are still received, where the statute requires legal 
 money or Treasury notes to be paid. * There are 
 
 some political evils which are seen as soon as they are danger¬ 
 ous, and which alarm at once as well the people as the Govern¬ 
 ment. Wars and invasions, therefore, are not always the most 
 certain destroyers of national prosperity, They come in no 
 questionable shape. They announce their own approach, and 
 the general safety is preserved by the general alartn. Not so 
 with the evils of a debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, 
 or a depressed and faUimr public credit. Not so with the plau¬ 
 sible end insidious mischiefsofa PATER MONEY SYSTEM. 
 These insinuate themselves in the shape of facilities, accommo¬ 
 dation and relief. They hold out the most fallacious hope of 
 an easier payment of debts, and a lighter burden of taxa¬ 
 tion. It is easy for a portion of the people to imagine 
 that Government may properly continue to receive deprdcia- 
 ted paper, because they have received it, and because it is more 
 convenient to obtain it than to obtain other paper, »r specie. 
 Hut on these subjects it is, that Government ought to exercise 
 its own peculiar wisdom and caution. It is supposed to pos¬ 
 sess, on subjects of litis nature, somewhat more of foresigh t 
 than has fallen to the lot of individuals. It is bound to Jor t . 
 
7 
 
 tee the evil before every man feels it, and to take all necessa¬ 
 ry measures to guard against it, although they may be 
 measures attended toith 'some difficulty , and not without 
 some temporaly inconvenience. ****** The only 
 power which the Government possesses of restraining the is¬ 
 sues of the Stale banks, is to refuse their notes in the receipts of 
 the Treasury. This power it can exercise now, or at least can 
 provide now for exercising it in reasonable time, because the 
 currency of some part of the country is yet sound, and the 
 evil is not yet universal. * * * But I have expressed my 
 
 belief on more than one occasion, and I now repeat the opinion, 
 that it is the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, on the return 
 of peace, to have returned to the legal and proper mode of col- 
 ilocting the revenue. * * * * it can hardly be doubted that 
 
 the influence of the Treasury could have effected all this. If 
 not, it could have withdrawn the deposites, and the count ‘nance 
 of Government, from institutions which, against all rule and all 
 propriety, were holding great sums in Government stocks, and 
 making enormous profits from the circulation of their own dis¬ 
 honored paper. That which was most wanted was the desig¬ 
 nation of a time for the corresponding operation of banks of 
 different places- This could have been made by the head of 
 the Treasury better than by any body , or every body else. 
 
 * * * ' * Thi3 Government ha3 a right, in all cases, to pro¬ 
 
 tect its own revenues, and to guard them against defalcation or 
 bad and depreciated paper. It is bound, also, to collect the 
 taxes of the people on a uniform system. * * * * As to 
 
 the opinion advanced by some, that the object of the resolution 
 cannot, in any way, be answered—that the revenues cannot be 
 collected otherwise than they now are, in the paper of any and 
 very banking association which chooses to issue paper, it 
 not for a moment be admitted. * * * * The thing, there 
 
 fore, is to be done: at any late it is to be attempted. That it will 
 be accomplished by the Treasury Department, without the 
 interference of Congress, I have no belief. If from that source 
 ; no reformation came when reformation was easy, it is not now 
 to be expected. Especially after the vote of yesterday, those 
 whose interest it is to continue the present state of things will 
 arm themselves with the authority of Congress. They will 
 justify themselves by the decision"of this House. They will 
 say, and say truly, that this House, having taken up the sub¬ 
 ject and discussed it, has not thought fit so much as to declare 
 that it is expedient even to relieve the country or its revenues 
 from a PAPER MONEY SYSTEM. * * * But while 
 
 some gentlemen oppose these resolutions, because they fix a 
 time too near, others think they fix a day too distant. In my 
 own judgment, it is not so material what, the time is, a3 it is to 
 fix a time. The great object is, that our legal currency is to 
 be preserved , and that we are not to EMBARK ON THE 
 OCEAN OF PAPER MONEY. * * * I cannot say, in¬ 
 
 deed, that this resolution will certainly produce thedesired end. 
 It may fail. Its success, as is obvious, must essentially depend 
 on the course pursued by the Treasury Department.” 
 
 Having disposed of the charge of illegality, Mr. 
 B. took up that of the unconstitutionally of the 
 ^Treasury order. He read from the published 
 speech of the Senator from Ohio, (Mr. Ewing,) 
 as found in a revised form in the National. Intelli¬ 
 gencer, the specific allegation of tins alleged un- 
 constitufionality, which ran thus: 
 
 ‘There is a provision in the constitution directly in the face 
 of this order. Those who drew up the order seemed to have 
 been aware of it, and to have avoided employing the same 
 wordsfas are U3ed in the article of the constitution. But it is 
 not, therefore, any the less in violation of its provisions. The 
 constitution declares that the citizens of each of the United 
 States shall'enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the 
 citizens of the several States; even the States themselves can¬ 
 not discriminate. But this order gives to the citizens of one 
 State a privilege which the citizens of no other State are allowed 
 to enjoy—that, of paving for public land in the ordinary currency 
 of the country. With some, this argument will have but little 
 effect, especially as it is directed against an Executive act; but 
 it is not, therefore, theles3 sound.” 
 
 Mr. B. said there was an error in the quotation 
 in this? place, and notonly in the quotation, but in 
 the gentleman’s bead also. The constitution was 
 erroneously quoted by the gentleman, and that 
 error had pervaded his argument; and if followed 
 cut to its legitimate conclusions, would present n 
 picture of the rarest absurdities and impossibili¬ 
 ties. The quotation says, “the citizens of each 
 State of the United Spates shall enjoy all the pri¬ 
 vileges and immunities of the citizens of the seve¬ 
 ral States.” The constitution said, all the ’pri¬ 
 
 vileges and immunities of citizens in the ttverol 
 States” The error of the quotation was m using 
 the definite article the, and the preposition of; and 
 this error unhinged the meaning of the clause, ancl 
 conducted the argument off on a track, which 
 would lead into boundless confusion. The clause 
 as it stands in the constitution is general and in¬ 
 definite, clearly meaning that the States were to 
 treat each other’s citizens as members ot the 
 same General Government, and not as aliens. 1 he 
 quotation, and the argument upon it, gives inch* 
 viduality and particularity to this general rights 
 and by giving to the citizens of each State t.ie 
 rights of the citizens of all the other States, 
 abolishes at a blow all State lines, and makes 
 one consolidaed Government of the who e Union. 
 Thus, by this reading, whatever any citizen can 
 do in his own State, every citizen of every State 
 in the Union may come there and do also; vote 
 with him; hold offices with him, exercise licensed 
 trades and professions with him; contend With mm 
 for the honors and emoluments of the S ate, wit 1 - 
 out owing it allegiance, or paying it a tax, or re¬ 
 siding within its limits. What scenes this would 
 give rise to! What crusading visits, or visitations 
 at the successive elections! Whole States would 
 precipitate themselves in masses upon their neigh¬ 
 bors! Some zealous partisans, by aid ot steam 
 cars, and race horses, and flying chariots, nnght 
 succeed in voting in every State in the Union. 
 Suppose the gentleman was right, and this grand 
 secret had been found out before the late presi¬ 
 dential election; what a moving flood of living 
 heads we should have seen! such as has never 
 been beheld since Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, 
 or Peter the Hermit led his countless host to the 
 Holy Land! But it will not do. The definite ar¬ 
 ticle the y and the preposition of which figure in 
 the gentleman’s quotations, and rule.his argument, 
 are not in the constitution; and so, the citizens of 
 every State are not to enjoy the rights and immu¬ 
 nities of the citizens of every other State. Little 
 Delaware is not to give two millions of votes at the 
 next Presidential election! Pursuing his error, 
 the gentleman says, the States, themselves, cannot 
 discriminate between the rights of their own citi¬ 
 zens, and those of other States. But we all know 
 that they can, and that they do, discriminate. 
 Every election proves it; every tenure of office 
 proves it; many trades and professions prove it; 
 the requiring, or dispensing with bad, proves it; 
 the whole distinction betwen the foreign and do¬ 
 mestic attachment is founded upon this discrimi¬ 
 nation. Truly, the gentleman must choose be¬ 
 tween his pride and his patriotism—between his 
 speech and his country—for his error must be 
 fatal to his argument, or fatal to the States. 
 
 Another breach of the constitution assigned by 
 the gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. Ewing,) is the 
 temporary discrimination between payments from 
 settlers and speculators. He insists that all should 
 have the privilege of paying in paper money. 
 Now, the constitution of the United States does 
 not recognise paper for money; it does not recog¬ 
 nise the existence of such currency: it i9 in vain 
 then to talk of violations of the constitution on 
 such a point. Again: if it be unconstitutional to 
 discriminate between revenue payments, then 
 
8 
 
 Gong rest cannot Ho it; and yet Congress has done 
 it, and that in relation to the lands thems elves. In 
 Mirch, 1823, an act was passed to make the for¬ 
 eign gold coins of England, France, Spain, and 
 Portugal, receivable in payment of the public, 
 lands. This was a* discrimination, and an excep 
 lion; for an act of 1819 had illegalized the circu¬ 
 lation of foreign coins. But the discrimination 
 which excites greatest complaint, is that between 
 the classes of purchasers—between the scttl rs 
 and the speculators.—What clause of the consti¬ 
 tution is to be relied upon to favor these specu¬ 
 lators* It is presumed it will be as hard to find 
 their names, as the name of paper money in that 
 instrument. But, in one respect at least, they 
 seem to be in a favorable way: they are gaining 
 new friends, and finding advocates and protectors 
 in those who denounced and stigmatized them 
 six months ago! They are now in the hug of those 
 whose kicks they received a few short months 
 ago. But there is a distinction, founded in the 
 nature of things, and recognised by laws, between 
 the settler and the speculator One is a merito¬ 
 rious class, deserving the favor of all governments; 
 the other is a pestilential and injurious class, dis¬ 
 countenanced every where. The first report ever 
 made under the Federal Government for the rale 
 of our public lands, recognised this distinction. 
 It was made by General Hamilton, Secretary of the 
 Treasury, in the year 1790, and is explicit to the 
 point* This is an extract from the report: 
 
 “ That in the formation of a plan for the disposition of the 
 vacant lands of the United States, there appear to be two leading 
 objects of consideration; one the faxiiity of advantageous sales, 
 according to the probable course of purchases; the other the 
 accommodation of individuals now inhabiting the western 
 country, or who may hereafter emigrate thither.. The former, 
 as an operation of finance, claims primary attention; the latter 
 is important, as it relates to the satisfaction of the inhabi¬ 
 tants of the western country, it is desirable, and does not 
 appear impracticable, to conciliate both. Purchase)s may be 
 contemplated in three classes: moneyed individuals and com¬ 
 panies, who will buy to sell again; associations of persons, who 
 intend to make settlements themselves; single persons, or 
 families now resident in the western country, or who may emi¬ 
 grate there hereafter. The two first will be frequently blended, 
 and will always want considerable tracts; the last will generally 
 purchase small quantities. Hence a plan for the sale of the. 
 western lands, while it may have due regard to the last, should 
 be calculated to obtain ail the advantages which may be de¬ 
 rived from the two first classes.” 
 
 Thus, said Mr. B. the di crimination between 
 settlers and speculators, and between residents 
 and non-residents, is as old as the first plan for the 
 sale of the public lands; and with these distinc- 
 tions the legislation of Congress has corresponded 
 from that dav down to the time when propositions 
 were made for dividing the proceeds of the lands. 
 Up to that day, pre-emptions were granted to 
 settlers; since that day there has been a strenuous 
 opposition to such grants. The new policy is, 
 not to settle the country with meritorious farmers, 
 but to fill the Treasury with paper money for dis¬ 
 tribution. Formerly settlers were favored; and 
 hence the settled legislation of the country for 
 above forty years. The statute book contains 
 near fifty laws in favor of pre-emptions. They 
 begin in 1792, and continue down to about 1830. 
 Six or eight of these laws were applicable to 'he 
 State of Ohio, and may easily be found under the 
 head of “ pre-emptions,” in the volume of laws 
 relating to the public lands. The pre-emption 
 system, thus founded in a distinction resting on 
 
 j the nature of things, recognised in General Ham¬ 
 ilton's report, and practised upon for above for¬ 
 ty years by Congress, makes two discrimina¬ 
 tions, one as to classes of purchasers; the other 
 as to price. The pre emptioner was a resident, he 
 paid the minimum price, without competition at 
 auction sales. Now, if these distinctions are un¬ 
 constitutional, Congress could not make them; if 
 they were unjust or unwise, forty years’legislation 
 would not have recognised them. Sir, said Mr. 
 H. the Treasury circular, in making this dis¬ 
 crimination, only conforms to General Hamil¬ 
 ton's iv port, to forty years’ legislation, and to 
 the common sense and common justice of all 
 mankind. It has the sanction of reason, law, time, 
 and precedent: and the only reason why it is at¬ 
 tacked, is because we live in times when nothing 
 that [’resident Jackson can do, or not do, can es¬ 
 cape attack! 
 
 Mr. B. having now fully answered, and, as he 
 believed, entirely refuted the legai and constitu¬ 
 tional objection to the Treasury order, would take 
 up the other branch of the general charge, name¬ 
 ly, the ruinous and pernicious effect of the order- 
 upon the banks, business, prosperity, confidence, 
 and industry of the country. The news for all 
 this approaching calamity was given out in ad¬ 
 vance in die Kentucky speech, and the Philadel¬ 
 phia letter, already referred to; and the fact ot its 
 posit’ve advent and act ual presence was vouched 
 by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Ewing) on the 
 last day that the Senate was in session. I do not 
 permit myself (said Mr. B.') to bandy contradictory 
 asseverations, and debatable assertions, across this 
 floor. I choo?.e rather to make an issue, and to 
 test assertion by the application of evidence. In 
 this way I will proceed at present. I wiil take 
 the letter of the President of the Bank of the 
 United States as being official in this case, and 
 most authoritative in the distress department of 
 this combined movement against President Jack- 
 son. He announces, in November, the forthcom¬ 
 ing of the national calamity in December; and af¬ 
 ter charging part of this ruin and mischief on the 
 mode of executing what he ostentatiously styles 
 the distribution law, when there is no such law in 
 the country, he goes on to charge the remainder, 
 being ten-fold more than the former, upon the 
 Treasury order which excludes paper money from 
 the Land Offices. Here is his picture cf distress; 
 
 “The commercial community were thus taken by surprise.. 
 The interior banks making no loans, and converting their At¬ 
 lantic funds into specie, the debtors in the interior could make 
 no remittances to the merchants in the Atlantic cities, who are 
 thus thrown for support on the banks of those cities at a mo¬ 
 ment when they are unable to afford relief, on account of the 
 very abstraction of their specie to the west. The creditor 
 States not only receive no money, but their money is carried 
 away to the debtor States, who, in turn, cannot use it, either to ’ 
 pay old engagements or to contract new. By this unnatural 
 process the specie of New York and the other commercial 
 cities is piled up in the western States—not circulated, not 
 used, but held as a defence against the Treasury; and while the 
 west cannot use it, the east is suffering for the want of it. The 
 result is, that the commercial intercourse between the west and 
 the Atlantic is almost wholly suspended, and the few opera¬ 
 tions which are made are burdened with the most extravagant 
 expepse. In November, 1835, the interest of money Iras risen 
 to twenty-four per cent.; mershants are struggling to preserve 
 their credit by ruinous sacrifices; and it cosis five or six times 
 as much to transmit funds from the west and southwest, as it 
 did in Novembej, 1835, or ’34, or ’32. Thus while the ex¬ 
 changes with all the world are in our favor, while Europe ia 
 alarmed, and the Bank of England itself uneasy at the quan. 
 
9 
 
 tiiy of specie we possess, wc are suffering, because, from mere 
 mismanagement, the whole ballast of the currency is shifted 
 from one side of the vessel to the other.” 
 
 • « i « i * « 
 
 “In the absence of good reasons for these measures, and as 
 a pretext for them, it is said that the countty has overtraded, 
 that the banks have overissued, and that the purchasers of 
 public lands have been very extravagant. I am not struck by 
 
 the truth or the propriety of these complaints.” 
 
 ****** 
 
 Now the fact is, that at this moment, the exchanges are all 
 in favor of this country—that is, you can buy a bill of exchange 
 on a foreign country cheaper than you can send specie to that 
 country. Accordingly, much specie has come in—none goes 
 out; this, too, at a moment when the exchange for the last crop 
 is exhausted, and that of the new crop has not yet come into 
 the market—and when wc are on the point of sending to Europe 
 lie produce of the country, to the amount of eighty or one hun¬ 
 dred millions of dollars. How, then, has the country overtrad¬ 
 ed! Exchange with all the world is in favor of New York.” 
 
 * * * 
 
 “The People of the United States, through their representa¬ 
 tives, rechartered that institution. But the Executive, discon¬ 
 tented with its independence, rejected the act of Congress, and 
 the favorite topic of declamation was, that the States would 
 make banks, and that these banks could create a better system 
 of currency and exchanges. The States accordingly made 
 banks; and then followed idle parades about the loans of these 
 banks, and‘.heir large dealings in exchange. And what is the 
 consequence? The Bank of the United States has not ceased to 
 exist more than seven months, and already the whole currency 
 and exchanges are running into inextricable confusion, and the 
 industry of the country is burdened with extravagant charges 
 on all the cbmmerciai intercourse of the Union.” 
 
 S . * 
 
 “ In the mean time, all forbearance and calmness should be 
 
 maintained. There is great reason for anxiety—none whatever 
 for alarm; and with narutual confidence and courage, the coun¬ 
 try may yet be able to defend itself against the Government. In 
 that struggle my own poor efforts shall not be wanting. I go 
 for the country, w'hoever rules it—1 go for the country, best 
 loved when worst governed—and it will afford me far more gra¬ 
 tification to assist in repairing its wrongs, than to triumph over 
 those who inflict them.” 
 
 Here (said Mr. B ) is a wofu! picture of dis¬ 
 tress, drawn in the same colors in which the same 
 pictures were drawn in 1833. But is it a true pic¬ 
 ture? and if it is true, what has caused it? To 
 these questions the answers are plain; fi'st, that 
 the picture is not true,* except in places where the 
 Bank of the United States, and its affiliated banks, 
 have power to make it so; and secondly, that what¬ 
 ever real distress is felt in some places, is occa¬ 
 sioned by the deposite act of the last session, and 
 the conduct of the banks acting with pohticians 
 and with the Bank of the United Slates, The 
 general prosperity of the country is great; but 
 there are places, Philadelphia, New York, and 
 some others, where the withdrawal of money under 
 the deposite act has v occasioned a pressure, and 
 where the policy to create distress, and lo throw 
 it upon the Treasury order, is seconded by the 
 ability to accomplish what is desired. This is 
 about the true state of the question; and evidence 
 will be at hand to show it. Mr- B. said it would 
 be remembered that when this resolution was 
 called up a few days ago, he had specified his inten¬ 
 tion to obtain from the Treasury Department the 
 comparative returns of many banks, both in the 
 new States, where there were public lands, and in 
 the Atlantic States, where there were none; and 
 by looking into their condition before the Trea¬ 
 sury order was issued, and since that order had 
 gone into full operation, he would be able to see 
 in what manner the banks had been affected by 
 it. He had now obtained those returns. They, 
 of course, were limited to the deposite banks; but 
 being scattered over every State in the west, from 
 the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and throughout the 
 
 Atlantic States from Maine to Georgia, the result 
 which they would present could riot be otherwise 
 than a fair index to the general condition of the 
 whole country. He had looked carefully over 
 these returns, covering, as they did, eight large 
 folio pages, and the result indicated, not only <4 
 good condition, but an improved condition; not 
 only an ability to aid the community, but aid ac¬ 
 tually given- Mr. B. then went over the returns 
 one by one, taking, for his points of comparison, 
 the months of July and November; that is to say, 
 the month before the order went into operation, 
 and the latest month at which the banks had been 
 heard from since. He examined them under the 
 three heads of 1. Loans; 2. Specie on hand, and 
 3. Circulation; and die general results were, 
 that the. loans in November were larger than 
 in July; the specie greater in November than 
 July; the circulation in many instances not 
 diminished, in some increased; and in most in¬ 
 stances the specie on hand and the circula¬ 
 tion brought to a nearer proportion to each other; 
 insomuch that banks which had eight, ten, or 
 twelve dollars of paper out for one dollar of filver 
 in their vaults, in July, were now brought to the 
 safer proportion of three or four to one in No¬ 
 vember This was proof that the banks were not 
 crippled. It was proof that they were not deny¬ 
 ing accommodations. The proof was complete 
 as far as it went, and it went all over the Union, 
 that these banks were not injured by the Trea¬ 
 sury order, but were benefitted by it; it was proof 
 that they were not only able and willing to assist 
 the community, but actual-y had assisted them. 
 On the other hand there might be banks which 
 were not assisting the community, and which were 
 accomplishing a pecuniary and a political ob¬ 
 ject at the same time, by shutting their doors up¬ 
 on borrowers, and throwing diem into the hands 
 of money dealers at three per cent, discount 
 per month. This was said to be the case 
 | in Philadelphia; that Philadelphia which was 
 the seat of the new United States Bank, with 
 her capital of thirty-f.ve millions, which one 
 short year ago was to make money so plenty in 
 that State, and to reduce interest to five per cent, 
 per annum. Three per cent, discount, equal to 
 four per cent, interest, is now the rate of usury 
 which prevails around her! And she can make it 
 six or twelve percent, per month whenever she 
 pleases. Where banks have monopolized ths 
 currency, and become the dispensers oi money, 
 they can make interest, or usury, what they 
 please. They have only to stop discounts, and 
 throw the borrowers into the hands of usurers. 
 Pretexts will never be wanting. Any thing that 
 happens, or does not happen, will do. The re¬ 
 moval of the depcsites—the issuance of the Trea¬ 
 sury order—or, the last year’s snow. One thing 
 is as good as another; for the banks themselves 
 are the sole judges of their own reasons, decide 
 without argument, and without appeal, and act 
 upon the decision without mercy and without re¬ 
 morse. 
 
 This is now going on in some of the principal 
 cities, where the deposite act, creating a real pres¬ 
 sure, gives to the Bank of the United States and 
 its affiliated institutions the power to do great 
 
10 
 
 mischief. Of this power they avail themselves; 
 but their sphere of action is limited, not general. 
 Their victims are individual?, and not the Onion. 
 They destroy individuals, or, at most, isolated 
 communities. At the most, they only do a Goliad 
 business—kill the prisoners; that is to say, the 
 debtors—a pen-full, or a pail-full, at a time. The 
 debtor part of the community, where the powers 
 of the B anfc of the United Sfates and its associ¬ 
 ates predominate, suffer severely and cruelly, but 
 the remoter parts of the Union at e safe. The 
 Bri rcrian arms of the monster no longer reach to 
 the extremities of the Union. It can no longer 
 strike down exchanges, sink the price of produce 
 and property, and demolish merchants and traders, 
 in the towns and cities of the south and west 
 The tragedy of 1833, now performing on the 
 local theatres of some of the Atlantic cities, can¬ 
 not he again extended to the country towns and 
 remote States. 
 
 Mr. B remarked, upon the statements in Mr. Bid¬ 
 dle’s letter; he chose to refer to that letter as be¬ 
 ing the revealed source of this proceeding against 
 President Jackson, and the fountain from which 
 all the arguments of the opposition are drawn; he 
 remarked upon the statements in it, that it was the 
 great transfer of specie to the west, which occa¬ 
 sioned distress in the east; that much specie had 
 gone to the west, and that NONE had been ex¬ 
 ported. Mr. B. said he had prepared himself with 
 facts to reply to these two assertions. Tn the first 
 place, a Treasury return which he held in his 
 hand, showed that no more than $1,463,656 in 
 specie had been received at all the land offices 
 under the Treasury order, and a like return shew¬ 
 ed that $312,8 i 1 in gold, and $4,123,004 in silver 
 had been exported from the United States this 
 year. Here then was an export of specie to 
 foreign countries of three times the amount of that 
 which went into the land offices; yet the public 
 are to be told by the president of the bank 
 bearing the name of the United States, that 
 no specie had been exported! 
 
 It is in this way that the public is deceived, and 
 that the Treasury order is made the pack-horse, 
 to be loaded with every thing that can be heaped 
 upon it. The export of four and a half millions 
 of specie to foreign countries is called nothing— 
 is said to be none—while one and a half millions, 
 gone into our land offices, has overset the national 
 ship, and deranged the business of a continent! 
 One million and a half out of seventy-five millions 
 has gone into the land offices. Who would feel 
 it? How could it disturb the business of the 
 country? And, especially, how could one million 
 and a half, by going into the interior of our own 
 country, do all this mischief, when four and a half 
 millions, by going to foreign countries, is not felt 
 or known? But there was another operation in 
 specie of which Mr. B. had keen informed, and 
 which he should bring under the inquiries of a 
 committi e, if he should be so fortunate as to be 
 allowed one, and which he mentioned now, not as 
 evidence to convince the Senate, but as a ground 
 for demanding a committee* His information was 
 this: that in the month of September last, the 
 merchants and bankers of New Orleans became 
 
 suddenly surprised at the mysterious scarcity of 
 specie. It had vanished as if by magic. A meet¬ 
 ing was held to know what had become of it; and 
 it was ascertained that the Bank of the United 
 States had collected and boxed up $1,800,000 in 
 that city, and refused a dollar of it to her creditors 
 there! and that a bank holding $300,000 of her 
 notes, had to send them, and did send them, to 
 Philadelphia to be cashed, at great expense: and, 
 what was more material, at greair loss of time, 
 when the city was o'herwise pressed for specie by 
 the double cause of demands to supply the west¬ 
 ern land purchasers, and failure to receive the ac¬ 
 customed supplies from Mexico, on account of the 
 Texan war. Here, then, was $300,000 mme 
 taken out of circulation by the Bank ofthe United 
 States in one month, than all the land offices re¬ 
 ceive 1 in four n onths; and if the fact was true, as 
 related to hum, the evidence was clear and incon¬ 
 testable, that this bark was itself making the 
 scarcity and pressure which it has been falsely 
 throwing upon the Treasury order, and upon Pre¬ 
 sident Jackson Mr. B. asked no one to condemn 
 the bank unheard upon this statement; but he also 
 asked that no one would refuse to have it inquired 
 into by a committee. 
 
 The real cause of the pecuniary pressure, and 
 derangement of the exchanges, experienced in 
 some of the large cities, exclusive of that created 
 hy some of the banks, was the deposite act of the 
 last session. That act causes thirty odd millions 
 of dollars, about fifteen millions of which is mo¬ 
 ney appropriated to useful and essential objects, 
 to be suddenly withdrawn from the vortex of bu¬ 
 siness, and transferred to places where it must 
 stagnate for some time before it can come again 
 into active employment. Aware of this, and sen¬ 
 sible that the public eye was fixed upon this act 
 as the real source of a bona fide distress, the at¬ 
 tempt is made to turn off the effect from the act 
 itself, to the mode of its execution. It is not the 
 transfer of these thirty odd millions, they say, 
 which has done the mischief; but the manner of 
 making the transfer! This (said Mr. B.) is a re¬ 
 petition of the old song about the removal of the 
 deposited. It was not the removal but the man¬ 
 ner of the removal, which had done all the mis¬ 
 chief in 1833. And when pressed to ex¬ 
 plain what was th s mystical manner of acting, 
 which was so magically calamitous, the Solution 
 was in the destruction of confidence. This was the 
 solution then; it is the solution now; for the Presi¬ 
 dent of the Bank of the United States expressly 
 declares, that the instant recisdon of the Treasury 
 order would restore confidence, in twenty-four hours, 
 and relief in as many days. This was the decla¬ 
 ration during the whole panic of 1833; and its 
 meaning then, and now, is the same; that the Bank 
 of the United States and its affiliated institutions 
 would cease scourging the country the instant the 
 Congress would grant its president the victory 
 and triumph which he demands over President 
 Jackson! The six month?/ cry of session 1833-4, 
 was, that the restoration of the deposites, or the 
 recharter ofthe hank, would relieve the distress 
 in tvver.ty-four hours, and that nothing else ever 
 could relieve it. Now it happens, that the test of 
 
11 
 
 ) 
 
 lime, and the letter of the President of the Bank 
 of the Unit* d States, has shown that this cry of six 
 months’ duration was entirely erroneous; for the 
 distress did cease, and unbounded prosperity has 
 ensued; while the only condition on which this 
 was to take place has never happened; the depo- 
 sites are not restored; the bank is not recharter¬ 
 ed; the distress d d cease; unexampled prosperity 
 has ensued; which is attempted to be interrupted 
 again by those who interrupted it then. 
 
 Mr. B. said, the deposite act was the offspring 
 of the land bill, and became the substitute for it. 
 Thatb 11 had passed the Senate b fore the depo* 
 aite bill was broui lit in, and, so far as the Senate 
 was concerned, had made a previous disposition of 
 the same money. That bill was carried through 
 thedSenate by the votes of those who are consi¬ 
 dered as the tutelary deities of the merchants and 
 bankers on tins floor; yet the dispos lion which it 
 proposed to make of what, was called the proceeds 
 of the sales of the public lands, was ruinous to the 
 banks and the merchants of the great Atlantic ci¬ 
 ties. It made a call for money, and a distribution 
 of money, which must have diiven every debtor to 
 these banks to the immediate payment of every 
 shilling which he owed in any deposite bank; and 
 would have produced a pressure and consternation 
 which would have pervaded the whole moneyed 
 system, and the whole business community of the 
 places where they were. This is the provision of 
 the bill. It is the third section, in the form in 
 which it passed the Senate, and went to the House 
 of Representatives. 
 
 “Sec. 3. And be it further enacted. That the 
 several sums of money received in the Treasury as 
 the nett proceeds of the silcs of the public lands 
 for the years eighteen hundred and thirty-three, 
 eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and eighteen 
 hundred and thirty-five, shall be paid and distribu¬ 
 ted as aforesaid, at the Treasury of the United 
 States, one fourth part on the first day of July, 
 eighteen hundred and thirty-six, and one fourth 
 part at the end of each ninety days thereafter, 
 tintil the whole is paid, and those which shalj he 
 received for the years eighteen hundred and thir¬ 
 ty-six and eighteen hundred and thirty seven, shall 
 also be paid at the Treasury half-yearly, on the 
 first day of July and January, in each of those 
 years, to such person or persons as the respective 
 Legislatures of the said States shall authorize and 
 direct to receive the same.” 
 
 Now, (said Mr. B.) let any banker or merchant 
 of the great commercial cities, count up the sums 
 which would have been payable in the short 
 period of nine months under this act. They 
 would have been these; eighteen millions and 
 three quarters of a million of dollars, on the 1st 
 day of July last; six millions on the 1st day of Oc¬ 
 tober last; e ghteen millions and three quarters on 
 the 1st day of January next; and six millions on 
 the 1st day of April next; amounting in the whole to 
 forty-nine and one-half million of dollars; for such 
 was the amount of the proceeds of the sales of the 
 public lands fur the years mentioned up to 1816. 
 But the section also included the proceeds of the 
 sales for 1837, which were to be divided out on the 
 first days of July 1857 and January 1838, Their 
 
 • 
 
 amount cannot be known so as to be added. The 
 Secretary of the Treasury, on the basis of hard mo¬ 
 ney payments,estimates them at five millions of dol¬ 
 lars; but if these resolution pass, and the notes of all 
 the banks in the Union become receivable for pub¬ 
 lic 1 mds, the whole national domain may be swept. 
 Every acre may be changed into paper, and that 
 paper be added to the mass of the unavailable 
 funds now in the Treasury. 
 
 Mr. B. deemed it right to bring these facts to 
 the recollection of the Senate, and to place them 
 before the e)es of those who looked upon the 
 authors of such measures as their peculiar protec¬ 
 tors. That third section of the land bid would 
 have been desolation to the great cities; it was op¬ 
 posed as such on this floor; yet it passed this 
 chamber, but hung in the House of Representa¬ 
 tives until the deposite bill was passed here and 
 sent down to supersede it. That deposite bid, 
 which proposes only thirty odd millions f r ab¬ 
 straction from the great channels of commerce, is, 
 in reality, crippling banks and merchants and dis¬ 
 tressing the great cities. What, then, would it 
 ’nave been, if forty nine and a half millions had 
 been taken from them in the short space of nine 
 months? And what wouid have been its effect upon 
 the Treasury of the United States? Bankruptcy! 
 For it is now seen that there will be in the 
 Treasury on die first of January next, but about 
 forty-one million of dollars, and that inclusive of 
 fifteen millions of unexpended balances, applica¬ 
 ble to objects of great necessity, and not com¬ 
 pleted. Let these facts and these views be kept 
 in mind, whenever the land bill and the deposite 
 act are mentioned. 
 
 Mr. B. had a question to put to the defenders of 
 the banks which affected to be crippled and half 
 killed, and unable to lend a dollar, on account of 
 this Treasury order. It was this: How comes it 
 that thete banks never felt a wound, nor uttered a 
 complaint, during the many years in which their 
 paper was excluded from both branches of the re¬ 
 venue of the Fed- ral Government, by the by-laws 
 of the Bank of the United States? Mr. B. had 
 read, for another purpose, the 24th article of the 
 by-laws of this corporation, by which the notes 
 of all the local banks of the Union were excluded 
 from receivability in any revenue payment what¬ 
 ever, except the notes of the specie-paying b.rnks 
 in the same city or place where the branch bank 
 was situated. He would now read the 25ih arti¬ 
 cle of the same bank code, which would sh >w that 
 this exception in favor of the local banks in the 
 same place with the branch, was of no advantage 
 to them, but the contrary, as it merely amounted 
 to a collection of their Motes for immediate conver¬ 
 tibility into coin- The article is in these words: 
 
 “ Article xxv. The offices of discount and deposite shall, at 
 least once every week, settle with the State banks ior their notes, 
 received in payment of the revenue, or for the engagements of 
 individuals to the bank, so as to prevent the balances due to the 
 office from swelling to an incanvenient amount.” 
 
 Here said (Mr. B ) is the condition of the whole 
 catalogue of State b mks, during the days of the 
 reign of the Bank of the United States. All ex¬ 
 cluded from revenue payments, both land and 
 customs, except those in the twenty-five places 
 where branch banks were situated, and the few 
 
12 
 
 thus excepted called upoq for the weekly redemp¬ 
 tion of their notes. This, in fact, was an exclu¬ 
 sion of their-paper, and a receipt of their specie 
 alone, and worse io them than a total exclusion; 
 for the nominal reception would cease then to be 
 taken out of the channels of circulation, brought 
 to the branch to meet revenue payments, and 
 thence sent back to their own counters for re¬ 
 demption in coin. And this continued to be 
 the case down to the day of the removal of 
 the deposites. Yet these banks never affected to 
 be unable to do business in this long sta e of total 
 exclusion from ail revenue payments by the 
 power of the Bank of the United States. It is 
 only when one halt of The same thing is done by 
 President Jackson that they pretend to be ruined 
 Mr. B.said it was time for the public to mark the 
 conduct of bank?, and to discriminate between 
 those which maintained their course as moneyed 
 institutions, and those which were nothing but 
 shaving shops and political engines. Many banks 
 had so acted as to prove that they were at the 
 beck and nod of politicians, and subservient to 
 the mischievous designs of the Bank of the United 
 States. They were ready to close their doors 
 upon borrowers, at the approach of the elections, 
 and to storm Congress with petitions in favor of 
 any movement of the Bank of the United States. 
 W ho can forget their petitions at the veto session, 
 and at the panic session, in which they stooped so 
 low as to pray to have the Bank of the United 
 S ates kept in existence to rule over them, and 
 prevent them' from issuing more notes than they 
 could pay? Who can forget their refusal to receive 
 the public deposites, when that refusal was neces¬ 
 sary to help out the Bank of the United States in 
 its attempts to embarrass the Government, and to 
 injure the country? These things, and many 
 others, must be remembered, and marked; and 
 the community and the Government must learn to 
 discriminate between institutions which conduct 
 themselves on business p inciples.and those which 
 are at the service of politicians, whenever a politi¬ 
 cal effect is to be produced, and at the service of 
 a revengeful institution, whenever it suits her po¬ 
 licy to have a panic in the country. 
 
 Mr. B. ref rred to the general state'of the 
 country, to prove its general prosperity; he refer¬ 
 red to the high prices paid for every thing, to 
 prove that money was not scarce except to those 
 whose engagements compelled them to repair to 
 the banks; he referred to the rates of exchange 
 in the south and west, to prove that the exchanges 
 of the country were good wherever they were 
 beyond the reach of the Bank of the United States; 
 and he stated the contents of letters in his posses¬ 
 sion from presidents and cashiers of banks in Ohio, 
 Mississippi and Louisiana, to show that there was 
 but one objection to the Treasury order, and that 
 was, that it na i not been issued early enough! 
 
 Having vindicated the Treasury order from the 
 charges of ILLEGALITY and UNCONSTITU¬ 
 TIONAL! i Y, and shown that it had not been 
 RUINOUS to the country, Mr. B. said he would 
 proceed to show the REASONS for which it had 
 issued, and the BENEFITS which had resulted 
 from it. President JACKSON, it was known, an 
 th e exercise of his high constitutional duty to see 
 
 the laws of the country faithfully executed, had 
 directed the issuing of this order. He stood be¬ 
 fore the ;COUntry as its responsible author. As 
 such he had been denounced. As such he was 
 charged with violating the laws, and constitution, 
 and destroying the prosperity of the country. As 
 such he is calumniated in the Philadelphia letter, 
 which calls this ouler, “ the revenge of ihe Presi¬ 
 dent. upon Congress fur passing the distribution 
 bill** As such, another condemnation, for the 
 gratification of discomfited politicians and a de¬ 
 throned national bank president—another victory 
 in the Senate Chamber for those who have been 
 defeated at the pulls—-is now sought against him in 
 this attempt to rescind that order. Under such cir¬ 
 cumstances it is not only right that he should find 
 defenders, but that he should be heard also in his 
 own defence. Mr. B. would, therefore, refer to 
 the annual message, delivered at the opening of 
 this session of Congress, and point the attention of 
 the Senate, and the country, to the whole of that 
 profoundly wise, transcendantly pa riotic, and pa¬ 
 ternally beneficent, part of the message which 
 relate* to the general currency, and to the national 
 domain. 
 
 Extract from the President’s Messsage. 
 
 <- I beg leave to call your attention to another subject intimate¬ 
 ly associated with the preceding one—the currency of the coun¬ 
 try. 
 
 “It is apparent, from the whole context of the constitution, as 
 well as the history of the times which gave birth to it, that it was 
 the purpose of the convention to establish a currency consisting 
 of the precious metals. These, from their peculiar properties, 
 which rendered them the standard of value in all other coun¬ 
 
 tries, were adopted in this, as well to establish its com¬ 
 mercial standard, in reference to foreign countries, by a per¬ 
 manent rule, as to exclude the use of a mutable medium 
 of exchange, such as of certain agricultural commodities, re¬ 
 cognised by tha statutes of some States as a tender for debts, or 
 the still more pernicious expedient of a paper^currency. The 
 last, from the experience of the evils of the issues of paper dur¬ 
 ing the revolution, had become so justly obnoxious as not only 
 to suggest the clause in the constitution forbidding the emis-'ien 
 of bills of credit by the States, but also to produce that vote 
 in the Convention which negatived the proposition to grant 
 power to Congress to charter corporations; a proposition well 
 understood at the time as intended to authorize the establish- 
 ment of a national bank, which was to issue a currency of bank 
 notes, on a capital to I.e created to some extent out of Govern¬ 
 ment stocks. Although this proposition was refused bv a di¬ 
 rect vote of the Convention, the object was afterwards in effect 
 obtained by its ingenious advocates, through a strained con¬ 
 struction of the Constitution. The debts of the Revolution 
 were funded, at prices which formed no equivalent compared 
 with the nominal amount of the stock, and under circumstan¬ 
 ces which exposed the motives of some of those who participa¬ 
 ted in the passage of the act to distrust. 
 
 “ The facts that the value of the stuck was greatly enhanced 
 by the creation of the bank; that it was well understood that 
 such woul 1 be the case, and that some of the advocates of the 
 measure were largely benefited by it, belong to the history of 
 the times, and are well calculated to diminish the respect which 
 might otherwise have been due to the action of the Congress 
 which created tlie institution. 
 
 “ On the establishment of a national bank, it became the in¬ 
 terest of its creditors that gold should be superseded by the pa¬ 
 per of the bank as a general currency. A value was soon at¬ 
 tached to the gold coins, which made their exportation to foreign 
 countries, as a mercantile commodity, more profitable than their 
 retention and use at home as money. It follo wed as a matter of 
 course, if not designed by those who established the bank, that 
 the bank became, in effect, a substitute for the mint of the Uni¬ 
 ted States. 
 
 “ Such was the origin of a national bank currency, and such 
 the beginning of those difficulties which now appear in the ex¬ 
 cessive issues of the banks incorporated by the various States.” 
 
 “ The effects of an extension of bank credits and over-issties 
 of bank paper have been strikingly illustrated in the sales of the 
 public lands. From the returns made by the various registers 
 and receivers in the early part of last summer, it w r as perceiv¬ 
 ed that the receipts arising from the sales of the public lauds 
 were increasing to an unprecedented amount. In effect, how¬ 
 ever, these receipts amounted to nothing more than credit* is t 
 
I 
 
 13 
 
 banka. The banka lent out their .notes’ to speculators; they 
 were paid to the receivers, and immediately returned to the 
 banks, to be lent out again and again, being mere instruments to 
 transfer to speculators the most valuable public land, and pay 
 the Government by a credit on the books of the banks. Those 
 credits on the books of some ofthe western banks, usually call¬ 
 ed deposites, were already greatly beyond their immediate 
 means of payment, and were rapidly increasing. Indeed, each 
 speculation furnished means for another: for no sooner had one 
 individual or company paid in their notes, than they were im¬ 
 mediately lent to another for a like pmpo. o; and the banks 
 were extending their business and their issues so largely, as to 
 alarm ansi derate men , and render it doubtful whether bank 
 credits, if permitted to accumulate, would ultimately be of the 
 « least value to the Government. The spirit of expansion and 
 speculation was not confined to the deposite banks, but p rvad- 
 the whole multitude of banks throughout the Union, and was 
 giving rise to new institutions to aggrava ethe evil. 
 
 “The safety of the public funds, and the interests of the 
 people, generally, required that these operations should be 
 checked, and it became the duty of every branch of the Gene¬ 
 ral and State Governments to adopt all legitimate and proper 
 means to produce that salutary effect. Under this view of my 
 duty, I directed the issuing of the order which will be laid be¬ 
 fore you by the Secretary of the Treasury, requiring payment 
 for the public lands sold to be made in specie, with an excep¬ 
 tion until the fifteenth of the present month in favor of actual 
 settlers. This message has produced many salutary conse¬ 
 quences. It checked the career of the western banks , and 
 gave them additional strength in anticipation of tire pressure 
 which has since pervaded our eastern as well as the European 
 commercial cities. Ry preventing the extension ofthe credit 
 system, it measurably cut off the means of speculation, and 
 retarded its progress in monopolizing the most valuable of the 
 public lands. It has tended to save the new States from a non¬ 
 resident proprietorship, one of the greatest obstacles to the ad¬ 
 vancement of a new country, and the prosperity of an old one. 
 It has tended to keep open the public lands for entry by emi¬ 
 grants, at Government prices, instead of their being compelled 
 to purchase of speculators at double or triple prices. And it 
 is conveying into the interior large sums in silver and gold, 
 there to enter permanently into the currenc-y ofthe country, 
 and place it on a firmer foundation. It is confidently believed 
 that the country will find, in the motives whicli induced that 
 order, and the happy consequences which will have ensued, 
 much to commend, and nothing to condemn. ■ 
 
 Mr. B. said it would be observed by the Senate 
 that the re asons for issuing the Treasury order are 
 introduced bv the President under the head of 
 currency , and not under the head of public lands; 
 and that in his whole manner of treating- it, the 
 currency is the object, and the land the incident. 
 The regulation of the currency is the great object; 
 and as the lands, and not the custom house, was 
 the exciting cause of the swollen, bloated, and dis¬ 
 eased state of the currency, the remedy was di¬ 
 rected to the lands, and not to the customs. All 
 this is visible in the passages read. It is also visi¬ 
 ble in ths original Treasury order itself, where the 
 discouragement of the ruinous extension of bank 
 issues, the preservation of the soundness of the 
 currency, and the safety of the federal revenue-', 
 are distinctly and prominently set forth among the 
 high inducements to its issue. Very rightly, then, 
 did the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Web¬ 
 ster) express himself on Thursday last, in the 
 few remarks which he then made: very rightly 
 did he declare this to be a currency ques¬ 
 tion, and not a land question! a financial mea¬ 
 sure ofthe greatest moment and extent, affecting 
 every interest and (ha whole Union! and rightly 
 did he claim for it that high consideration which 
 is due to a measure, not of sectional, but of na¬ 
 tional concern. The geml roan is right. The 
 Treasury order is a regulation of the national 
 currency, issued under the constitutional obliga 
 tian of the President to preserve and protect th: 
 currency of the Federal Government, and exer¬ 
 cised according to the manner pointed out by the 
 author olthe joint resolution of 1816, and accord¬ 
 
 ing to the manner, though not to the same de- 
 i gree, that the regulation of the currency was 
 effected by the Bank of the United States during 
 tile whole period of its existence. The constitu¬ 
 tion recognises nothing for money but gold and 
 silver. The President is the sworn protector, de¬ 
 fender, and preserver of that constitution. To 
 permit any part of its guaranties to be subverted 
 and destroyed, is a dereliction of duty or a defect 
 of vigilance in him. The joint resolution of 1816 
 does not giant, but recognises and enforces, his 
 constitutional duties and powers over the preser¬ 
 vation ofthe constitutional currency. The author 
 of that resolution, in the speech from which I 
 have read extracts—a speech abounding with just 
 sentiments, recognises all this authority, and pro¬ 
 claims all this duty, of the President, as attributes 
 ofthe Executive Government, existing anteriorly 
 to his resolution; a measure only rendered neces¬ 
 sary be cause these powers and dut ies had been 
 neglected. Listen to him: “There are some po¬ 
 litical evils which are seen as soon as they are 
 dangerous, and which alarm at once, as well the 
 people as the Government. Wars and invasions, 
 therefore, are not always the most certain destroy¬ 
 ers of national prosperity. They come in no 
 questionable shape. They announce their own 
 approach, and die general safety is preserved by 
 the general alarm. Not so with the evils of a 
 debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, 
 and a depressed and falling public credit. Not 
 so with the plausible and insidious mischief-, of a 
 paper money system. These insinuate them¬ 
 selves in the shape of facilities, accomodation 
 and relief. Thee hold out the most fallacious 
 hope of an easier payment of debts, and a light¬ 
 er burden of taxation. It is easy for a portion 
 of the people to imagine that G vernment may 
 properly continue to receive depreciated pa¬ 
 per, because they have received it, and because it 
 is more convenient to obtain than to obtain other 
 paper or specie. But on these subjects it is that 
 Government ought to exercise its own peculiar 
 wisdom and caution. It is supposed to possess, 
 on subjects of this nature, somewhat more of fore¬ 
 sight, than has fallen to the lot of individuals. It 
 is bound to foresee the evil before every man feels 
 it, and to take all necessary measures to guard 
 against it, although they may be measures attend¬ 
 ed with some difficulty, and not without some 
 temporary inconvenience. The only power which 
 the Government possesses of restraining the issues 
 of the State banks, is to refuse their notes in the 
 receipts of the Treasury. This power it can ex¬ 
 ercise now, or, at least, can provide now for exer¬ 
 cising it in reasonable time, because the currency 
 of some part of the country is yet sound,and'the evil 
 iynot yet universal. But I have expressed my belief 
 on more than one occasion, and I now repeat the 
 opinion, that it was the duty of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, on tire return of peace, to have re¬ 
 turned to the legal and proper mode of collecting 
 the revenue. This Government has a right, in 
 all cases, to protect its own revenues, and to guard 
 them against bad and depreciated paper. As to 
 the opinion advanced by some, that the object of 
 the resolution cannot in any way be answered* 
 ihat the revenues cannot be collected otherwise 
 
14 
 
 than they now are, in the paper of any and every 
 banking association that chooses to issu -2 paper, it 
 cannot, for a moment, be admitted. The thing 
 then is to be done; at any rate, it is to be attempt¬ 
 ed. That it will be accomplished by the Treasury 
 Department, without the interference of Congress, 
 
 I have no belief. If, from that source, no refor¬ 
 mation came when reformation was easy, it is not 
 now to be expected. The great object is that 
 our legal currency is to be preserved, and that we 
 are not to embark on the ocean of paper money. 
 
 I cannot say, indeed, that this resolution will cer¬ 
 tainly effect the desired end. It may fail. Its 
 success, as is obvious, must essentially depend on 
 the course pursued by the Treasury Department.” 
 
 Mr. B. would add nothing by commentary to 
 the power or appositeness of these quotations. 
 They were up to the exigencies of the present oc¬ 
 casion, fitted it as if made to order, and supersed¬ 
 ed the necessity of argument or illustration. One 
 thing ought to be well observed: th «t this speech, 
 going the whole length, not only of justifying the 
 present Treasury order, but blaming the Treasu¬ 
 ry Department in 1816 for not having done the 
 l.ke, and expressing the fear that it might not do 
 ii in time to come, was delivered on the 26th clay 
 o ’ April, 1816, four days before the passage of the 
 joint resolution of that year/ consequently, and as 
 the whole speech prove., all the powers and du¬ 
 ties claimed in tint speech for the Treasury De¬ 
 partment, and the Executive Government, over 
 the regulation of the currency, the restoration of 
 the constitutional money, and the exclus on of 
 State bank paper from revenue payments, were 
 independent of that resolution! were founded, 1. 
 upon the constitution; 2, the act of 1789, that the 
 customs should be paid in gold and silver coin rally', 
 3. the act of May 10th, 1800—the fundamental act 
 for the general sate of the public lands—and di¬ 
 recting that all purchasers should make payment 
 for the same in SPECIE, or in evidences of 
 the public debt of the United States! These were 
 the foundations ol the gentleman’s argument, these 
 the law:, the violation of which he had in his eye; 
 these the ground of his complaint against the ex¬ 
 isting administration; these the future ark of his 
 financial hope. These are the laws, faithful expo¬ 
 sitors of the constitution, in aid of which, and to 
 compel the speedy execution of which, the joint re¬ 
 solution of 1816 was conceived and passed. The au¬ 
 thor of the resolution said at the time that the sue 
 cess of the resolution depended upon the Treasury 
 Department, and expressed his fear that it might 
 fail of its object through the fault of that depart ¬ 
 ment; a fear in which the gentleman’s misgivings 
 were piophetic, until the splendid and benefi¬ 
 cent administration of President Jackson rose 
 upon the political horizon, to bless and exalt his 
 country; to command the admiration of the world, 
 civilized and barbarian, and to realize the gentle¬ 
 man’s own cherished and adored vision of 1816— 
 the constitutional currency restored, and the 
 bloated and pestilential carcass of the paper sys¬ 
 tem expelled from the doors of the Federal 
 Treasury. 
 
 Mr. BENTON repeated the date of the speech 
 from which he had read an extract; it was the 26th 
 of April, 1816, four days before the passage of the 
 
 joint resolution of that j ear. He now had another 
 extract from another speech of the same gentle¬ 
 man, also delivered before that joint resolution 
 was passed, and clearly indicative of his intention 
 in bringing forward that measure, to compel, as 
 soon as possible, the complete re establishment of 
 the currency of the constitution as the sole and 
 exclusive currency of die Federal Government. 
 
 It was a speech delivered in February, on the 
 passage of the charter of the Bank of the United 
 States, and in which the speaker took the great ' 
 and true ground, that the law and Treasury Depart¬ 
 ment, and not the Bank, ought to be the true regu¬ 
 lator of currency. Mr. B. only read the parts 
 which were applicable to the point in debate, 
 namely, the le.^al currency of the United States., 
 and the speedy and compulsory payment of the 
 whole revenue in that currency. 
 
 Extract from Mr. Webster’s speech on the Bank of the 
 
 United States Charier Bill, February , 18]6. 
 
 “No nation had a better currency than the United States, 
 There was no nation which had guarded its currency with 
 more care; tor the framers of the constitution, and those who 
 enacted the early statutes on this subject, were HARD MONEY 
 MEN; they had felt, and therefore duly appreciated, the evils , 
 of a paper media • ; t ey, therefore, sedulously guarded the ' 
 currency of the United States trom debasement. The legal 
 currency of the United States was gold and silver coin; this 
 was a subject, in regard to which Congress had run into no 
 folly. ' * * Mr. W. declined occupying the time of the 
 
 House, to prove that there was a depreciation of the paper in 
 circulation; the legal standard of value was gold and silver; the 
 relation of paper to it proved its state, and the rate of its depre¬ 
 ciation. Gold and silver currency, he said, was the law of tha 
 lend at home, and the law of the world abroad; there could, in 
 Hie present state of the world, be no other currency In con- 
 consequence of the immense paper issues having banished spe¬ 
 cie from circulation, the Government had been obliged, indi¬ 
 rect vio’atian of existing statutes, to receive the amount of 
 their taxes in something which was not recognised by law as 
 the money of the country, and which was, in fact, greatly de¬ 
 preciated * * * * ' * 
 
 “As to the evils of the present state of things, Mr. W. admit¬ 
 ted it in its fullest extent. If he was not mistaken, there were 
 some millions in the Treasury of paper which were nearly 
 worthless, and were now wholly useless to the Government, by 
 which an actual loss of considerable amount must certainly be 
 sustained by the Treasury. This was an evil which ought to 
 be met at once, because it would grow greater by indulgence. 
 
 In the end , the taxes must be paid in the legal money of the 
 country and the sooner that was brought about the better 
 
 9 * * * . + * * 
 
 If Congress were to nass forty statutes on the subject, he said, 
 they woul 1 not make the law more conclusive than it now was, 
 that not ittg should be received in payment of duties to the 
 Government but specie ; and yet no regard was paid to the im¬ 
 perative injunction* of the law in this respect. The whole 
 strength of the Government , he teas of opinion , ought to be 
 put forth to compel the payment of the duties and taxes to the 
 Government in the legal currency of the country.” 
 
 Now (said Mr. B.) the Senate v. ill doubtless be 
 willing to hear what was sai 1 by the friends of the 
 administration in 1816, to those powerful appeals 
 from the gentleman, who so strenuously plead the 
 cause of the laws, the constitution and hard mo¬ 
 ney. He had looked over the speeches of that day, 
 and found the whole of their answers compressed 
 into a short paragraph by Mr. Sharpe of Kentucky, 
 a gentleman of genius and ability, and whose tra¬ 
 gical death had since attracted so much Jpublic 
 notice and commiseration. 
 
 “In reply to the argument of Mr. Webster, that the remedy 
 for the evil was in the power of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 by requirina payment of the dues to the Government in specie, 
 Mr. S. said the gentleman had not demonstrated that there was 
 specie enough in the country for the purposes of the payment 
 of the revenue to the Treasury, nor that the banks have not the 
 means ultimately to force the Government to take their paper 
 in payments to the Treasury. Toe disposition was riot want 
 ing in the officer at the head of that department to appy th& 
 
 ' rtme Jy, if it was in h's power. 1 ' A 
 
15 
 
 I 
 
 This was the answer! a deplorable confession 
 of the condition to which the Federal Treasury 
 had been reduced by receiving State bank paper 
 in payment of the federal revenues! That policy 
 had began under General Hamilton, and followed 
 up by other secretaries, in violation of the laws 
 and Constitution, until nothing but unconvertible 
 paper remained in the Treasury, and little else in 
 the country. All their fine phrases about specie 
 paying banks, and paper equivalent to specie, and 
 no paper but what the collectors and depositories 
 cf the revenue would receive as cash; all these 
 holiday phrases had ended as such schemes must 
 for ever end, in the eventual genera! use of paper, 
 the eve ntual general banishment of specie, and 
 the eventual general stoppage of banks, and uni- 
 verbal depreciation of paper money. This was the 
 only answer which could be given in 1816, and 
 the only one that could be given until President 
 Jackson’s measures for restoring the constitutional 
 currency have raised that currency to seventy five 
 millions of dollars. There is now specie enough 
 in the country to make all revenue payments in 
 gold and silver; and the purchasers of the public 
 land, speculators and bank borrowers excepted, 
 have found no difficulty in getting specie to tu ike 
 their payments. Land office retui ns prov e this. The 
 sum of $1,463,656 was paid into the land office, 
 in gold and silver, from the loth of August, when 
 the order took effect, down to the middle of No¬ 
 vember, to which the returns were nude up. 
 This was a million and a half for three months, 
 being at the rate of about six millions per annum. 
 This would buy near five millions of acres of land 
 at the present minimum price; and five millions 
 of acres of public lands, in addition to other 
 sources of supply, is double as much as the pro¬ 
 gressive settlement of the country has ever re¬ 
 quired. Does the demand for this small sum—a 
 sum which does not go out of the country, but en¬ 
 ters immediately into general circulation through 
 the Government payments—cannot such a demand 
 be supplied out of the seventy-five millions in the 
 country, especially when four and a half millions 
 were exported to foreign parts this very year, not 
 to return again? Of the seventy-five millions of 
 specie in the country, the banks alone were com¬ 
 puted by the Secretary of the Treasury to have 
 forty five millions in their vaults. Can they not 
 spare a few millions for the service of the coun¬ 
 try, especially when the measures of President 
 Jackson’s administration has increased their sup¬ 
 plies of the precious metals from twenty-five to 
 for!y-five millions in three years? Mr. H. would 
 subjoin from the Treasury report, the state¬ 
 ment of specie in all the banks in the United 
 States, as far as obtained at the Treasury 
 Department, first premising that the report was 
 not complete. The number of banks in the 
 United States and their branches, are near 1,000! 
 Their names occupy twelve columns in Bicknell’s 
 Counterfeit Detector, with nearly eighty names in 
 each column! The Treasury report does not 
 include them all, but the main part, and their 
 specie is reported thus: ' , 
 
 October, 1833, - - $25,000,000 
 
 January, 1834, * - 27,000,000 
 
 January, 1835, - - 43,000,000 
 
 January, 1836, - - 40,000,000 
 
 December, 1836, - 45,000,000 
 
 Here is an increase of specie in their vaults, 
 said Mr. B. of twenty millions in three years, and 
 of five millions of dollars during the very year of 
 the Treasury order’s existence! a fact which, of 
 itself, exposes, and puts to shame, the whole story 
 of their distress and ruin, and inability to aid the 
 community on account of this order, or to furnish 
 the specie which it requires. The fact ii con¬ 
 clusive! it stamps the whole contrivance on the part 
 of the banks which have engaged in it, as a shameful 
 and fraudulent imposition upon the public. It is 
 enough of itself; but the custom house books show 
 that these banks would in reality h^ve increased 
 their specie to ten millions this year, had it not been 
 for the sums expo ted to foreign countries. The 
 exports of specie, up to near the end of November, 
 w. re $4,485,815; of which $312,811 was in gold. 
 But this is nothing, according to the Philadelphia 
 letter. . It is nothing; while the one-third of that 
 sum going into our land offices, and thence 
 through Government payments to the people, is 
 to create intense distress, derange the exchanges, 
 deprive the banks which affect to be injured by 
 tne 1 i casury o* dvr ol all capacity to make loans 
 to business men, and justify them i.-i throwing' 
 borro wers into the hands of usurers to be fined at 
 
 the rate of three per cent, per month discount_ 
 
 cquvl to four per cent, interest—for the use of 
 money. 
 
 ButMr. B. had anotlu- r test to apply to the capa¬ 
 city of those banks to furnish the small amount of 
 five millions of dollars per annum for the purchase 
 of public lands. It was ui the contrast exhibited by 
 (he one thousand banks of the United States with 
 what is done by a single banker in the English 
 county—he might almost say kingdom instead of 
 county, for Lancashire, in point of wealth, is 
 equal to the second rate kingdoms of Europe—in 
 the English county of Lancashire, and where 
 there are no local paper issuing banks or bank¬ 
 ers. He would give the sworn words of Samuel 
 Jones Lloyd, Lsq. a banker examined before the 
 committee of thirty-one members of the House of 
 Commons in 1832; a committee of which Lord 
 Althorpe was chairman, and such men as Sir Ro¬ 
 bert Peel, Lord John Russell, Mr. Goulborn, Sir 
 Henry Parnell, Mr. Baring, an\d m re than two 
 dozen scarcely their inferiors, were members,; 
 and in which such men as the Governor of the 
 -’■rnk of England, Mr. N. M. Rothschild, and an 
 hundred distinguished bankers and merchants 
 were witnesses. Mr. Lloyd, among other things, 
 testified to the quantity of gold paid weekly by a 
 single banking establishment, his own, lor wages 
 t y working people in the city of Manchester, one 
 out of the many great cities which Lancashire 
 contains. This is the part of his evidence relat¬ 
 ing to this point: 
 
 “A great amount in gold is paid at Manchester in wiges, 
 Witness’s house issues about 25,000 sovereigns weekly. Then 
 issue was formerly in one pound notes. There is no local issue 
 in Lancashire.” 
 
 Here are three statements, (said Mr. B.) which 
 ought t« be stereotyped on the head and heart of 
 friend to the constitutional currency of our Ame¬ 
 rica. 1. Twenty-five thousand sovereigns paid 
 
1G 
 
 \ 
 
 weekly by one banking hou9e, for wages to 
 working people. 2. This amount formerly paid in 
 one pound notes. 3. No local bank issuing paper 
 no?- in Lancashire. 
 
 Confining his remarks to one only of these state¬ 
 ments—the amount of weekly payments in gold, 
 Mr. B. said the annual amount was one million 
 three hundred thousand sovereigns, equal to six 
 millions and a half of dollars! This was paid by 
 a single banking house; and are we to believe that 
 the 1,000 banks in the United States cannot fur¬ 
 nish the same amount for the purchase of the 
 public lands? And are we, after attempting to 
 make them do it, to be: clamored down by a com¬ 
 bined cry from speculations, a part of the banks, 
 and politicians, that the country was paralyzed and 
 desolated by the experiment, and that all further 
 attempt must instantly cease? 
 
 Mr. B. would make a short issue with all these 
 complaining banks; they either have, or have 
 not, their proportion of the forty-five millions of 
 specie which they report is in their vaults. If 
 they have it, there «s no difficulty in furnishing 
 specie for the land offices; if thev have it not, 
 then dhsir returns are deceptive—their periodical 
 exhibitions of specie are nothing but show money; 
 and the sooner the people find out their hollow¬ 
 ness and emptiness, the better for the whole com¬ 
 munity. 
 
 But (continued Mr. B.) let the amount of specie 
 be what it may in the banks, the fact is that there 
 is about seventy-five millions in the country, and 
 a goodly part of that is in the hands of the commu¬ 
 nity. In October, 1833, when the deposites were 
 removed, the whole amount of specie in the bank, 
 was returned at about twenty live millions, and 
 that in the hands of the community was computed 
 at only four mi lions. The community is now 
 computed to have twenty-eight millions, and the 
 annua! increase is thus reported by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury; 
 
 Dates. 
 
 Specie i i active circulation. 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 October, 1833, 
 
 $4,000,000 
 
 1st January, 1834, 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 1st January, 1885, 
 
 18,000,000 
 
 1st January, 1836. 
 
 23,000.000 
 
 1st December, 1836, 
 
 28.000,000 
 
 t 
 
 Here then is a sum in the hands of the column- 
 
 nity, sufficient to supply the public l»nd demand, 
 on account of actual settlers, four times over. The 
 rapidity with which gold and silver has increased 
 since the commencement of the operations t® re¬ 
 store the constitutional currency, sh uld banish 
 all doubt on the practicability of doing it. See 
 what has been done in four years against the pow¬ 
 erful opposition, the systematic resistance, and the 
 scoffiirig.s and jeerings of a gn at political and 
 moneyed party. Four yt ars more may he equally 
 Successful, if these resolutions can be defeated; 
 and instead of seventy-five millions, one hundred 
 and twenty millions, and nearly forty millions of 
 gold, may be in the country. But nobody ex¬ 
 pects this amount to come into the country, or 
 what is in it now to remain, unless the Federal 
 
 Government can continue its onward course in the 
 reformation of the currency. If it relapses into a 
 paper money currency, the whole community 
 must relapse into it also; and the result must be, 
 what it lias been heretofore, universal banishment 
 of the precious metals, the eventual stoppage oft 
 all the State banks, and a call for the re-establish¬ 
 ment of the Bank of the United States as the only 
 safe regulator oi the State currencies. 
 
 The increase of banks and paper money, and 
 the necessity of restraining the issues of these 
 corporations, as alleged in the President’s message, 
 was next adverted to by Mr. B. He referred to 
 the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 which showed these results; 
 
 Dates. 
 
 Paper in active cir¬ 
 culation. 
 
 Near 1 October 
 
 1833 - 
 
 $80,000,000 
 
 1 January 
 
 1834 - 
 
 76,000,00;) 
 
 1 January 
 
 1835 - 
 
 82,000,000 
 
 1 January 
 
 1836 - 
 
 103,000,000 
 
 1 December 
 
 1836 - 
 
 120,000,000 
 
 Here is an increase of about forty millions of 
 paper money in two years. But it is not the 
 whole increase in that time. The computation is 
 principally made from the returns of the old banks; 
 while one hundred and six new ones, with capitals 
 of sixty millions, had been created; and twelve 
 millions and three quarters of increased capital to 
 the old banks, had been granted during ihe past 
 winter; so that fifty millions of increase of paper 
 was probably the amount when the Treasury 
 order was issued, and the increase going on with 
 a deplorable rapidity. The national domain was 
 the object that was attracting it. The temptation 
 was irresistible. A quire of paper, speckled 
 over with figures, would transmute in t 
 100,000 acres of land; a ream of paper into 
 a million of acres. One thousand engineo 
 were at work, striking this paper; hosts of specu¬ 
 lators, loaded with bales of it, were on their way 
 to all the new States. It was evident the national 
 domain was becoming a fund for the redemption 
 of ail this paper, H was all receivable in exchange 
 for lands; and the holders of these bills seem to 
 consider them as. assignats, like those of the 
 French National Convention, convertible into the 
 territory of the Republic at the will ef the posses¬ 
 sor, vnd the faster the better. This was the state 
 of things on the rise of Congress, and the two halls 
 of that body had resounded with the denunciation 
 of the ruinous aspect of this exchange of land for 
 paper, for months before the adjournment took 
 place. The President, acting .under the constitu¬ 
 tion and laws of the country, applied the I'emedj 
 vvlrch the crisis required, and which the laws 
 and constitution authorized. He saved the na¬ 
 tions) domain; he checked the expansion of the 
 paper system; he saved the Treasury from a flight¬ 
 ful accumulation of *‘unavailable fun ds;*' and 
 he prevented that catastrophe in the State banks 
 to which the Bank of the United States is anxious¬ 
 ly looking, systematically promoting, and impa- 
 
17 
 
 tiently awaiting! that catastrophe in the local 
 banks which would again disgrace and discredit 
 them, and bring forth the whole United States 
 Bank party to exclaim, ice fold you so/ we told 
 you this would be the consequence of not renew¬ 
 ing cur charter! ami now you all see it! and we 
 demand the re-establishment of the national bank, 
 as the only means of regulating the State banks! 
 President Jackson has prevented all this; arid has 
 shown that the constitutional currency tan regu¬ 
 late the State banks; and for tills he has drawn 
 upon himseif the denunciations of disappointed 
 speculators, disappointed politicians, and disap¬ 
 pointed bankers. He has prevented many and 
 great evils and among others the further 
 depreciation of the currency. Fifty millions 
 of additional paper, put out in two years 
 has enabled the banks to imprison 45 millions 
 of specie, and the whole 130 millions of pa¬ 
 per money afloat during the summer has depre¬ 
 ciated the general currency; which is seen by the 
 imports ion of wheat from Germany and the Black 
 sea, by the importation of beef and pork from 
 Ireland, bay from Scotland, rnd many other ne¬ 
 cessaries of life from Europe; which is seen in the 
 rise of price in every article which depends for its 
 sale on our depreciated currency; for articles 
 whose price depends upon foreign markets, where 
 the notes of our 1,000 banks are not taken for mo¬ 
 ney, as tobacco and cotton ha e not risen. The 
 progress and the evils of this depreciation, which 
 commenced before the Treasury order—which 
 that order has’checked, but whit h must recom¬ 
 mence with its recession, is powerfully sketched in 
 that part of President Jackson’s message which 
 relates to the currency. He savs: 
 
 “T! le progress oi'an expansion, or rather a depreciation of j 
 the currency, by excessive bank issues, is always attended by a 
 Joss to the laboring classes. This portion of the community 
 has neither time not* opportunity to watch the ebbs and flows 
 of the money market. Engaged front day to day in their useful 
 toils, they do not perceive that although their wages are nom¬ 
 inally the same, or even somewhat higher, they are greatly re¬ 
 duced, in fact, by the rapid increase of a spurious currency, 
 which, as it appears to make money abound, they are at first 
 inclined to consider a blessing. It is not so with the specula¬ 
 tor, by whom this operation is better understood,, and is made 
 to contribute to his advantage. It is not until the prices of the 
 necessaries of life become so dear that the laboring classes can¬ 
 not supply their wants out of their wages, that the wages rise 
 and gradually reach a justly proportioned rate to tha; of the 
 produ s > their labor. When thus, by the depreciation , in 
 consequence of the quantity of paper in circulation, wages as 
 well as prices be come exorbitant, it is soon found that the whole 
 effect of the adulteration is a tariff on our home industry for 
 ihe benefit of the countries where gold and pi:vc r civcu'ate end 
 maintain uniformity and moderation in prices. It is then per¬ 
 ceived that the enhancement oi the price of. land and labor, 
 produces a corresponding increase in the price of products, 
 until these products do not sustain a competition with similar 
 ones in other countries, and thus both manufactured and agri¬ 
 cultural productions cease to bear exportation from the coun¬ 
 try of this spurious currency, because they cannot be sold fur 
 cost. This is the process by which specie is banished by the 
 paper of the banks. Their vaults are soon exhausted to pay 
 for foreign commodities; the next step is a stoppage of specie 
 p iy merit—a total degradation of paper as a currency—unusual 
 depression of prices, the rum of debtors, and the accumulation 
 of property in the hands of creditors and cautious capitalists.” 
 
 Thi.<, said Mr. B. is the progress ami effect oi 
 a depreciated paper currency. The imprudence, 
 or the criminality, of t anks of issue, are equally 
 the sources of this depreciation; and the commu¬ 
 nity is equally the victim of their misconduct, 
 whether it results from accident, folly, or de¬ 
 sign. It is established in England that n sud¬ 
 den increase of one mi.hurt sterling, by Bank 
 2 
 
 of England issues, will, in many states fif the 
 moneyed system, produce a depreciation "in the 
 value of money which wi 1 be sensibly felt in the 
 kingdom; what, then is to be the effect of an in¬ 
 crease of fifty mi lions of phper dollars, in two 
 years, in this country? It must bd what every 
 person sees, and feels it to be; a deprecation of 
 at least one third of the value of paper money! so 
 that every person living on salaries, fixed income, 
 and wages, ?re in the condition < f having suffered 
 a diminution of one-third of their income. Living 
 is becoming as dear in our young and prolific 
 America as in the aged and crowded countries of 
 F.ui ope. I.et no one delude himself with the belief 
 that there is no depreciation while bank notes conti¬ 
 nue to be convertible into gold and silver phis would 
 be a great error; for it is of the very nature cl de¬ 
 preciating paper tb carry down gold and* silver 
 with it, untd things reach that point, when pru¬ 
 dent men begin to exact payments in hard money, 
 or, which is the same thing, to carry home in silver 
 at night the amount of every note received during 
 the day. When things have reached that point, and 
 about.the time when all prudent men have taken 
 care of themselves, the public mind begins to get 
 uneasy. Some cause, no nutter whatystarts 
 alarm; and, and in a few weeks the explosion is 
 universal. Such was the point to which we were 
 rapidly tending in July last. PivsiTient Jackson 
 has arrested this depreciation, and savi d the coun¬ 
 try from a dire calami y. His Treasury order 
 has saved it. It has stopped the issues of a fiost 
 of banks, and boned up the elements oi desolation in 
 their own caverns. The raging winds are now im¬ 
 prisoned: Boreas, Eurus, and Ausier, a e now con¬ 
 fined. The fabulous conception of the father of poets 
 is realized, riot upc n the ocean of watt: s, but upon 
 the ocean of paper money. The elements of de¬ 
 struction are tied up; and wo to those who, imi¬ 
 tating the rash conduct of the companions of Ulys¬ 
 ses, shall untie the fated bag, and turn loose tem¬ 
 pests, storms, and desolating fury upon the land. 
 
 Mr. B. said it would be unjust, after saying so 
 much of the expansion of the paper currency, 
 and the over-issues of the local banks, not t > add, 
 that the picture was not intended to be applicable 
 to the whole of these bank-; that he knew of 
 many honorable exceptions, an 1 there might be 
 many mme that he did not know of. Jf.s means 
 of information were limited to tin official returns 
 of the depodte banks, now about ninety in num¬ 
 ber; ar.d while, of these, he anv imny whose paper 
 dollars in circulation, to say nothing of their d po¬ 
 shes, were five, ten, fif een to one for their specie 
 doll irs in their vaults, yet there were oth> i s where 
 the proport on was the other wav. The Mer¬ 
 chants’ Bank, Boston, h ul *2 54,000 specie, and 
 $256,090 in c rculatk-y the Ba> k of A meric«, New 
 York, had £1,490,000 in specie, and $572,000 
 • otes out; the Manhattan. in the sanje p ace, hail 
 $690,000 sp c e, and $565,000 paper uut; the 
 Planters Bank, Georgia, had £497,000 specie, 
 $361,000 paper; and many oth.r*> wno«e s ties but 
 slightly exceeded their specie in h m l. It was due 
 to these banks, an d do«u tl< ss to many mor*, 
 jvhewe returns w- re not accessible to h hi, to ex¬ 
 cept them from the censure and tie complaint 
 which lies against loose whose,unjustifiable issues 
 
18 
 
 tr 
 
 < 
 
 have produced the expansion an 1 depreciation of 
 currency which is now visible to all. 
 
 Adverting- to President Jackson’s great design 
 of increasing the specie in the country, Mr. B. 
 said, there was an indissoluble connection between 
 the state of the specie in a country, and its pros¬ 
 perity or distress. They were cause and effect, 
 and rose and fell together. On this point he had 
 a table to produce which must cany conviction to 
 , every mind which was open to the influence of 
 facts and reasons. It was a table which covered 
 the most disastrous, and the most prosperous pe¬ 
 riod of our own time; and which required but the 
 application of every one’s own knowledge of 
 events to lead to just and inevitable conclusions. 
 
 Table of import and export of gold and silver coin 
 and bullion, from 1821 to 1836. 
 
 Years. 
 
 g ."I 1821 
 
 <U (V) I 
 
 " • 1822 
 1823 
 
 £ 
 
 Ss 6 . 
 
 >C m ^ V 
 
 egg r 
 
 S£| i 
 
 <D V- 
 
 w o 
 
 J 1824 
 ~\ 1825 
 ■i '1826 
 * fiS27 
 
 O G 
 
 ~-§E 
 
 1888 
 
 _. ■*-» 
 
 g £ _,Y 
 
 “3® 
 
 pjs y 
 
 I 
 
 J 1832 
 
 • 
 
 E J § i 
 
 W W 
 
 £< CD £4 
 
 !* S j 1836 
 
 m 
 
 1829 
 
 1830 
 '1881 
 
 i 1833 
 1 1834 
 f ! 835 
 
 Imported. 
 
 Exported. 
 
 $8,064,890 
 
 $10,478,059 
 
 3,369,846 
 
 10,810.180 
 
 5,097,896 
 
 6,872,987 
 
 8,379,885 
 
 7,014,552 
 
 6,150,765 
 
 8 707,055 
 
 6,880,960 
 
 4,704,533 
 
 8,151,130 
 
 8,014,880 
 
 7,489,741 
 
 8,243,476 
 
 7,403,612 
 
 4,024,020 
 
 8,155.964 
 
 2,178,773 
 
 7,305,945 
 
 9,014,931 
 
 5,907,504 
 
 5,656,340 
 
 7,070,368 
 
 2,614,952 
 
 17,911,632 
 
 1,670.258 
 
 13,131.447 
 
 5,748,174 
 
 12,166,372 
 
 4,435,815 
 
 Here (said Mr. B.) is a period of sixteen years, 
 divided into portions of four years each, by die ad¬ 
 ministrations of different Presidents- The first 
 showed a heavy export of specie, and the loss of 
 near twelve millions of dollars; the second, a loss 
 of about a million and a half; the third, a gain of 
 about six millions; the fourth, a gain of near forty 
 mill ions, and upw rds of that amount when the 
 produce ol our native gold mines were added. 
 These w re the rcsnl s; and without embarrassing 
 liis remarks with complicated details, lie would 
 take the periods of strongest contrast, the first and 
 the last f*nt* years of the sixteen. Kvery person 
 would reco Let the period of 1821, ’2, ’3, ’4. It 
 was the season of bank stoppages; of depreciated 
 paper money; of stop laws, relief laws, tender 
 laws, loan laws, property laws—the season of de¬ 
 pressed pdees of property and produce, of 
 ruin to debtors, and harvests to money holders 
 and cautious capitalists. It was the time when 
 a. creditor who should receive from his debtor 
 ten dolla s in Kentucky paper and give five 
 silver doll -rs in change, would have received 
 nothing, arid the debtor would have paid nothing. 
 It was the time when two bills for the same article 
 wasmade out in the. west; one for silver, and one for 
 paper, the latter being the. 'ormer multiplied by 
 two. Now look to the la >le This disastrous sea- 
 eon w l be seen to have been the period of least 
 importation, and greatest exportation of specie. 
 Search the ^memory, and it will inform you that 
 
 the Bank of the United States, then just recover¬ 
 ed from its own crisis of 1819, and just strong 
 enough to do mischief, was employed in evisce¬ 
 rating the whole interior country of its gold and 
 silver, and collecting it on the sea board, where it 
 was exported to counti ies unafflicted with the pes¬ 
 tilence of paper money. Look to the last period, 
 ihe present time; and, it will be seen that, dating 
 rom that era which should become national, and 
 eceive perennial honors in anniversary celebra¬ 
 tions—the most glorious era of the removal of the / 
 deposites!—dating from that era, and it will be 
 seen that we have gained near forty millions 
 of specie by importations, and that the gain 
 exceeds forty millions when the domestic 
 supplies are added. The present period, 
 then, is the season of the greatest increase of 
 specie ever known; and such also is the national 
 prosperity. Never before did the prosperity of 
 the country equal the present time; never was 
 there such exuberance of prosperity; and that, 
 after making due allowance for what is fictitious, 
 from the excess of paper, and the effect of a de- 
 prt ciatecl cum ncy. This excess and deprecia¬ 
 tion would be fatal, were it not for the seventy- 
 five millions of specie in the country. But these 
 three score and fifteen millions are the safety of 
 the land. They roaks the people independent of 
 the banks; they make them independent of panics; 
 they prepare them for the present panic, this 
 starveling concern, now in a course of prepara¬ 
 tion by the authors of the old one- Thanks to the 
 wisdom, the foresight, the energy of President Jack- 
 son: he has prepared the country for this second 
 panic; he has for ified it, and armed it for the contest. 
 Seventy-five millions of specie puts p per at de¬ 
 fiance, and enables the country to stand tli3 shock 
 of the encounter. No longer can banks set them¬ 
 selves up above law, and above Government. No 
 longer can they' stop payment, and force their dis¬ 
 honored paper upon the country. The bank that 
 would now' attempt it would instantly be put to 
 the test of insolvency, and subjected to the laws 
 of the land as w'ell as to the law of public opinion. 
 
 Her dishonored paper would be driven in upon 
 her, and the last hard dollar extracted from her 
 vaults. These being the fruits of President Jack¬ 
 son’s great measures for restoring a specie cur¬ 
 rency, who can justify the opposite course which 
 is now proposed; a course by which specie is to 
 be dispens c d with by the Federal Government, 
 paper to take its place, specie again to become an 
 article of merchandise for exportation to foreign 
 countries; and the disastrous scenes of 1821, 
 
 ’2, ’3, ’4, again realized. The crisis had approached 
 in July; paper was pouring into the Treasury; 
 specie was departing for foreign climes; President 
 Jackson checked the inundation of piper, and he 
 compelled the departing specie to countermarch; 
 to face wvst instead of east; to our land offices 
 instead of foreign ports; and in doing this, he has 
 benefited his country, and drawn upon himself 
 the denunciation of those who now attack him. 
 
 Mr. B wmuld conclude his observations on this 
 part of the subject, with calling the attention of 
 the Senate to the public imputation of wicked mo¬ 
 tives, attributed to President Jackson, in the Ken¬ 
 tucky speech and Philadelphia letter, from which f 
 
19 
 
 •extracts had been read. Christian charity for¬ 
 bids, and gentlemanly breeding avoids, the gra¬ 
 tuitous imputation of malignant motives. There 
 are cases in which delicacy recoils from a public 
 and insulting reference from one man to another. 
 But where was Christian charity, gentlemanly breed¬ 
 ing, or delicacy of feeling, when such wordsas these 
 were used in reference to President Jackson? “/ 
 hove lift If ilmbt that the specie order was the RE- 
 VENTrE of the President upon CONGRESS for 
 , passim* the DISTRIBUTION LAW." Here, said 
 Mr. B is not only a personal outrage to the Presi¬ 
 dent, but an at; erupt to excite the resentment of 
 Congress against him, and to mark him for the ven¬ 
 geance of all who are disposed io pervert the depo- 
 site act into a distribution law; and all this, too, upon 
 the gratuitous imputation of a wicked motive for a 
 measure, just, wise, legal, ami indispensably 
 necessary within itself! Motives, continued Mr. 
 B. are within the cognizance of the Searcher of all 
 Hearts. He can see them as they are; the mor¬ 
 tal eye may mistake them. It is good, then, for 
 frail humanity to be slow in charging a bad mo- 
 i live for even a questionable action: he had, there¬ 
 fore, refrained from all reference to motives for 
 the design of those coincident and twin produc¬ 
 tions from which he had made quotations, the Ken¬ 
 tucky speech and the Philadelphia letter! He 
 had not said that they were the revenge of disap¬ 
 pointed ambition, for a lost Presidential chair, nor 
 of disappointed avarice for a lost national bank 
 charter. He had not even intimated that the 
 marble palace in Chestnut street, and th^ shady 
 groves of Ashl.nd, might be conscious to the 
 embraces from which this rescinding resolution 
 has sprung; or, that the imperative requisition 
 upon this Congress to command the instant re¬ 
 peal of the Treasury order, was founded in any 
 scheme to obtain, from the representatives of the 
 people, a triumph over that MAN to whom the 
 people themselves have granted so many tri¬ 
 umphs over the same pursuers. For himself 
 he had omitted ail such intimations; and should 
 drop all further notice of them now. Leaving 
 then toe actors and accessories to this proceeding, 
 its origin and their motives, to the phasis under 
 which they themselves h ive exhibited it, lie should 
 join President Jackson in the confident belief ex¬ 
 pressed by him in the concluding paragraph of 
 that part of his message which relates to the issu¬ 
 ance of the Treasury order, “ That his country 
 would find, in the MOTIVES which had induced it, 
 and in the H \PPY consequences which have ensued, 
 much to commend, and nothing to condemn.” 
 
 Mr. BENTON said, he had stated in the com¬ 
 mencement of his speech that tw o great objects 
 were to be accomplished by this rescinding reso¬ 
 lution; first, the condemnation of President Jack- 
 son fora violation of the laws and constitution, and 
 the destruction of the public prosperity; and, se¬ 
 condly, the overthrow of the constitutional cur¬ 
 rency, and the imposition of the paper money of 
 all the State Governments upon the Federal Go¬ 
 vernment. He had spoken to the first of these 
 objects, and, as he hoped, successfully vindicated 
 the President from all the charges on which it 
 ^rested; the second object was now to be attended 
 o, and would be discussed with all the brt vity 
 
 and despatch which the magnitude of the subject 
 permitted. 
 
 This design (said Mr. B.) to overthrow the hard 
 money system of the constitution, and to enthrone 
 the paper money system in its place, is as oil as 
 the constitution itself; and has been the leading 
 policy of a great political party', from tne founda¬ 
 tion of that party, near fifty years ago, and under 
 all its mutations of name, down to the present 
 hour. Gold and silver, though not without a 
 struggle fora national bank and a national paper 
 currency, were made the currency of the Federal 
 Government by the convention which created this 
 Government. So fixed and j a ; ous was the mind 
 of the convention on this point, that even the 
 power of coining gold and silver, which had been 
 left to the States, under the articles of the confe¬ 
 deration, was taken aw ay from them by tire new 
 constitution. The members of that great conven¬ 
 tion were not only feed upon having gold and sil¬ 
 ver for the currency of the new Government, but 
 also determined upon its uniformity, so that the 
 same piece should be the same thing, in form, 
 name, device, and value, throughout the 
 Union. Tire exclusion of paper money was as 
 carefully enforced by the constitution as the adop¬ 
 tion of gold and silver was sedulously gua ded. 
 The words of the constitution and the history of 
 the times, and especially the 44 h No. of the 
 Federalist, written by Mr. IVadison, all prove this. 
 Tlie early legislation of Congress conformed to 
 the words and spirit of the constitution, and 
 adopted the plainest and strongest language to 
 guard the currency w hich it had adopted. The 
 two acts, fundamental for the collection of the 
 two great branches of the revenue—lands and 
 customs: that of 1789 for the latter, and 1800 for 
 the former, were express that gold and silver 
 coin only should be received for the customs, and 
 specie and evidence s of the public debt only, for 
 the public lands. These two great acts, being 
 faithful interpreters of the constitution, have never 
 been openly attacked in either House of Congress. 
 In all the changes which subsequent legislation 
 has made in the laws, of which lire hard money 
 enactments are part, these clauses have been re¬ 
 tained in the same, or equivalent expressions; so 
 that a hard money currency still remains the con¬ 
 stitutional and tire statutory cuirehcyof the Fed¬ 
 eral Government. Temporary enactments in la- 
 vor of Treasury notes, and United States Bank 
 note?, have ceased; and the joint resolution of 1816 
 neither does, nor can, repeal a law. Resolutions, 
 whether joint or several, are not the mode of nation- 
 al legislation. They are only declaratory of fids or 
 principles, or expressive of the opinions and pur¬ 
 poses of the House or Houses, from which they t raa- 
 nate. Thejoint resolution differs from the single in 
 nothing but in being the declaration, the opinion, or 
 the purpose of both Houses, instead of one. T his 
 being the case, and the two fundamental enact¬ 
 ments of 1789 and 1800 being still in force, ax 
 retained in subsequent alterations of the laws to 
 which they belong, the question is, how comes it that 
 they have been treated as dead letters on the sta ute 
 book, and paper money received in place of the 
 hard money which they' imperatively require? 
 The answer to this question (said Mr. B ) carrh# 
 
20 
 
 hs t>p to the time of General Hamilton, to the first j 
 year of his admin strahon of the Treasury Depart-! 
 inent, and to 1 lie foundation of the political school 
 of which he was the hea l. As Secretary of the 
 Treasury, it became his duty to carry into effect 
 Usenet of 1789, for the collection of the custom 
 house duties in gold and s l et* co n only. Instead 
 of earning 1 the law into effect, he nullified it by 
 construction. He-intetpret< d “gold and silver coin 
 only,” to be the notes of sp* cie-paying banks; and 
 a depcsite of bank notes, as cash, to he a deposit? 
 oS spec?. This was his construction, ana the 
 order which he issued to the collectors of the re- 
 -wcmie corresponded w ith it. At the ensuing sea¬ 
 son cl* Congress he just fi. (1 this construction in 
 an argumentative report; and a few extracts from 
 this report will show how the plain meaning of a 
 law can be turned upside down bjf construction, 
 and wilt reveal the source of the first imposition of 
 paper money upon the Federal Government, and 
 the seasons for that imposition. 
 
 “Tills section [30th of the revenue act of 1789] provides for 
 the receipt ot the'duties in gold an 1 silver coin only. The 
 Secretary has considered this provision as having for its object 
 the exclusion of payments in tite paper emissions'of the [-arti¬ 
 cular States, and the securing the immediate or ultimate col¬ 
 lection of the duties in specie, as intended to prohibit to mmvi- 
 d'juaip the right of paying in any thing except gold or silver j 
 coin; hut not to hinder the Treasury from making such arrange- 1 
 «n-nts as its exigencies, the speedy command ot the public re- j 
 sources, and the convenience of the community, might dictate; [ 
 these arrangements being compatible with the eventual receipt i 
 ofthe duties in specie. * * * Such were, the reflections ; 
 
 of the Secretary with regard to the authority to permit bank-1 
 notes to bo taken in payment of the duties. The expediency of j 
 doing it appeared to him to he still less questionable. The ex- | 
 tension of their circulation by the measure, is calculated to in- ! 
 crease both the ability and inclination of the hanks to aid tite j 
 Government. * * * Banknotes being a convenient spe- i 
 
 cies of money, whatever increases their circulation increases | 
 -the quantity of current money. * * * But, convinced 
 
 as the Secretary is of the usefulness of the regulation, yet, con¬ 
 sidering the nature of the clause upon which these remarks 
 arise, he thought it his duty to bring the subject under the eve 
 of the II ouse. The measure is understood by all concerned, to 
 fee temporary. Indeed, whenever a national bank shall lie ia- 
 etitu’ed. some new disposition of the thing will be a matter of 
 worse.” 
 
 Such was the argument and Mich the object 
 Tor departing from the act of 1789, and from the 
 constitution, of which i* was the faithful exposi¬ 
 tor. T he effect vv; s the gradual and general dif¬ 
 fusion of a paper currency over the country, and 
 si c«rr<-ponding general and gradual disappearance 
 and banishment of gold and silver; so that when 
 the first national bank chartc r expired, in 1811, 
 the Federal Government was left without u na¬ 
 tional currency, having neither United States 
 Bank notes nor gold, and but little silver in the 
 country. Mr. Madison’s administration was then 
 driven to the deplorable necessity of using State- 
 hank paper for a national currency; and the result 
 is too well known in the ten years’ convulsions of j 
 the paper system which ensued. Tite effect of j 
 the whole was the speedy respj t to another ration¬ 
 al bank- This bank came to its conclusion under 
 the administration of President Jackson; and he, 
 Avoiding the error into which President Madison’s 
 administration had fallen in 1811, resolved to re-es¬ 
 tablish the constitutional currency, and especially 
 to revive the circulation of gold, which had ceased 
 for move than twenty years. The success of this 
 great plan was truly flattering. 1 he gold curre-n 
 «y, in three years, had risen from nothing to about 
 fif teen millions of dollars; and the silver currency 
 
 ' C 
 
 had increased in the same brief space from less 
 than thirty m llions to about sixty millions, and 
 both against the determined opposition of a pow¬ 
 erful politic il and money ed parly. The success of 
 the experiment was established; and it was clear 
 that tlie party opposed to gold and silver 
 could no longer ellect any thing by direct 
 opposition A new mode of making head against 
 it was then fallen upon; and that new mode 
 was to expand the paper system until it burst- 
 ed, and thus to ruin the paity in power by 
 ruining the finances and the currency. The gene* * 
 rid receivabihty of local paper for public lands, 
 made it easy to inundate the Treasury, through 
 the land offices, with local bank paper; and the 
 spirit of speculation co-operating with this politi¬ 
 cal design, turned an immense flood of p*per up¬ 
 on the national domain. It was ea>y to see that 
 this mass of paper, though credited to the Govern¬ 
 ment on the books of the de posit e banks as specie , 
 was not-cash, but only promises to pay cash; and 
 that, in fact, it was destined to become a new and 
 second accumulation of unavailable funds. A 
 crisis in the federal finances was evidently ap¬ 
 proaching; and there was every reason to believe 
 —the floors of the two Houses of Congress daily 
 attested die fact—that swarms of speculators, 
 loaded with paper money, were to alight upon the 
 public lands immediately ofser ihe iise of Con¬ 
 gress. It was probable that many tens of million* 
 of paper would thus have been converted into 
 land., and that the banks which issued it, being 
 un&bie to redeem it, and the deposite banks which 
 bad improvidently credited it as ca.lt> being unable 
 to cosh it, ihe whole would have sunk upon the 
 hands of die Federal Government. I he evil of 
 such a state of things is too obvious to be depicted. 
 Not only the Federal Government would have lost 
 its land, and lost its revenues, but tite a hole com¬ 
 munity would have suffer* cl. Hut here urn energy 
 and foresight of President Jackson was again vic¬ 
 torious over the designs of emmies and the im¬ 
 prudence of friends. He determined to arrest,the 
 floods of paper which were ready to inundate the 
 'Treasury. The specie order was issued, and the 
 country was saved. The wrath which the miscar 
 r : ge of so many fine schemes occasioned, burst 
 forth upon the President’s head; the speculator 
 for the loss of his myriad of acres; the politician 
 for the escape of the Government from the dan¬ 
 ger that m - naced it; the local banks for the 
 loss of the national domain to bank upon; and 
 the Bank of the United States for thr. loss of 
 its anticipated opportunity of proving that a na¬ 
 tional bank was ind spensable to the safe collec¬ 
 tion of the federal revenues. To make distress in 
 the country, and charge it upon the Treasury or¬ 
 der, was now the resort of all the disappointed 
 parties. The Kentucky speech, 1 and the Philadel¬ 
 phia letter, were the signal guns for a new panic; 
 and the old drama of 1833 was immediately put 
 in rehearsal for performance on the Washington 
 boards as soon as Congress met. In every re¬ 
 spect this second panic was a servile copy of the 
 former; the same plot, the same scenes, tire same 
 incidents, the same performers. No fertility of in¬ 
 vention characterized any part of it; no touch of 
 genius enlivened the dull capy with the noveltj^ 
 
21 
 
 even of a single new conception, or new phrase. 
 Hero we have it now, more hke a starved wolf at 
 the door, than a roaring lion; and lending its 
 feeble aid to the cause of this rescinding resolution. 
 That resolution is to open the doors of the Trea¬ 
 sury again to the inundation of paper money, 
 that the catastrophe averted 1 ust summer, may be 
 produced next spring; and the question now is, 
 shall ( o! gress give up the public lands to spoil, 
 and the public Treasury to unconvertible paper, 
 after President Jackson has saved the country 
 from both evils? I his is the point we are now 
 at; and if any one wishes proof of the design to 
 overthrow the constitutional currency and to im- 
 pose paper money upon the Government, let him 
 look at the universality of the abuse now lavished 
 upon gold and silver, and the applause bestowed 
 upon paper money by all that.great party now 
 palpably discriminated by the distinctive features 
 of the Hamiltonian school. Here is a specimen, ta- 
 taken from the Philadelphia letter, the force and 
 beauty of which vvi'l be fully comprehended by the 
 boatmen of the Mississippi river. 
 
 “ But this miserable foolery about an exclusive metallic 
 currency is quite as absurd as to discard the steamboats, and 
 go buck to poling up ike Mississippi .” 
 
 This is the manner in which this great party 
 speak of the currency of the constitution. “ Mise¬ 
 rable foolery,”—as much behind paper money as 
 a keel is. behind a steamboat. lint why lose time 
 to prove their hatred of gold, and their adoration 
 of paper> They would be ashamed to have it 
 thought otherwise. They l ike care that nobody 
 shad think otherwise by their ostentatious abuse, 
 in season and out of season, of the gold currency; 
 and by their ostentatious praise, without rhyme 
 or reason, of paper money. It is inco itestible, 
 then, that the imposition ol the paper system upon 
 the Federal Government, is the second great ob¬ 
 ject of this re solution; and that for the avowed rea¬ 
 sons mentioned by Gen. Hamilton in liis argument 
 of 1790, in favor of substituting paper for gold and 
 .silver. 
 
 Mr. B- envied not the vocation of any man, or 
 of any party, who employed themselves in the 
 habitual vituperation of any part of the constitution 
 of the country; and especially that part of it which 
 was considered b] its frame rs as among the must 
 important and valuable. Gobi and silver is the 
 currency of the constitution. Those who attack 
 that currency, attack the constitution, and that in 
 one of its most valuable parts, and the very part 
 which most universally concerns the people. Ev¬ 
 ery citizen is concerned in tire currency; and to 
 attack that money which the constitution guaran¬ 
 ties, is to attack at once, his rights and the sacred 
 instrument by which he holds it. Mr. B. had 
 shown the origin of this war of paper against gold; 
 he had shown it to tie at the origin of the great 
 political parties which, under whatsoever names, 
 have existed for near fifty years in this countrv; 
 and it was perfectly clear that, from the time of 
 General Hamilton to the present day, a prefeience 
 of paper to gold and silver has been (he distinctive 
 tenet of one party, and con dilutes the essential and 
 radical distinction between the two. 
 
 Mr. B. said, it was incontestible that every na¬ 
 tion must have a national currency. It must have 
 
 such a currency not o.sly in name, hut in fact; and. 
 nothing can answer fora national currency but that 
 which combines two properties;J^rs/, uniformity tf 
 value all over the country: secondly, convenient 
 portability. Silver possesses one tit these quali¬ 
 ties, but it lacks the other; gold possesses both;, 
 and the constitution of the United States guaran¬ 
 ties its use. Gold is then the constitutional na¬ 
 tional currency of the United States; and Mr. B. 
 held all attempts to substitute paper in its place to 
 be unconstitutional, and pernicious. Two national, 
 banks had been chartered to furnish a national pa¬ 
 per currency; they have both been put dow u, after 
 twenty years trial of each, by the power of the peo¬ 
 ple. When the first was put down, a fatal error er¬ 
 ror was committed by those who did it in not ivstor¬ 
 ing gold; and that error was doubled by lulling 
 back upon local State paper, and adoplin ; it for 
 the currency of the Federal Government. Pro¬ 
 fiting by that great error, those, who put down the 
 second national bank, made it a part of their pl*n» 
 and the part upon the success ot which every 
 thing was to depend, that gold, and not local 
 bank paper, should become toe national currency 
 of the Union. This was .the plan; and in pur¬ 
 suance of it, many steps have been taken towards 
 excluding local bank paper from the receipts and 
 expenditures of the Federal Government, and in¬ 
 troducing gold in its place. The largest and most 
 essential of these steps was the Treasury order of 
 July last; and now, the present movement for the 
 rescission of that order, and for the continuation 
 ol local paper in the receipts, and conseque ntly in 
 the expenditures, of tiie Federal Government, 
 brings up the question, whether gold, or local 
 paper, is to be made the national currency, it 
 brings up the question; for, what Urn Government 
 receives as cash, it must pay out as cash; and, 
 what the Government thus receives arid pays out, 
 become* the currency of the country also; for peo¬ 
 ple single-handed cannot make head against the 
 action of the Government. Tue effect of the pre¬ 
 sent movement, then, is, to overturn the plan of 
 those who put down the Batik cf the United 
 States and to =uhstbute for the national gold cur¬ 
 rency, which they promised the country, the ac¬ 
 tual paper currencies of all the . States and 1 erri- 
 tories of the Union. This is the effect of the 
 movement; and the question now is, wi 1 the Se¬ 
 nate put down gold? for gold can never live in 
 such company, and adopt all these currencies? 
 Passing by the constitutional objection, as too ob¬ 
 vious to need -enforcement, and too o'ten invoked 
 without effect, Mr. B. would endeavor to address 
 himself practicably to the sense of the Senate, by 
 showing them the mass of the evil which it was 
 proposed to assume Here it is, said he, (bolding 
 up a copy ofBicknell’s Counterfeit Detector.) Here 
 it iv; a little volume of 32 pages, the first six con¬ 
 taining twelve columns of the names ot banks, 
 alphabetical’}' arranged by States and Territories, 
 (Missouri and Arkansas the only names not in the 
 list,) and each column containing about eighty 
 names. The remaining twenty-six pages are fiHed! 
 with the description of the illegitimate progeny 
 of these banks; that is to say, witn a frightful and 
 sickening exhibition of forgeries. Here then is 
 near one thousand banks—piob.bly upwards of a 
 
thousand by this time—whose promissory notes 
 are to be put on an equd footing with gold and silver 
 at the land offices, custom-houses, and post offices 
 o l 'the United States; and which, being on an equal 
 footing, will soon hav«- the upper hand, and have all 
 the custom-houses, land offices, and post offices to 
 themselves; for gold and silver will never go 
 where they go, and will never abide where they 
 sojourn. 
 
 We are called upon (said Mr. B.) to adopt this 
 wilderness of banks as furnishers of currency to the 
 Federal Government; to accept their paper pro¬ 
 mises to pay gold and silver, in lieu of gold and 
 silver; and thus to make them the coiners, not of 
 money, but of paper for the Federal Government; 
 and to enable them to supersede the constitutional 
 coinage of the United States. He did not enter 
 into the question how far the States, each for itself, 
 might authorize paper currency; that is not the 
 question new, but whether the Federal Govern¬ 
 ment shall adopt as its own, all the paper cur- 
 rences of all the States and Territories? This is 
 what we are called upon to do; and by 
 whom? Certainly there may be some very 
 disinterested and very patriotic men so cal¬ 
 ling; but, more certainly, there are four deep¬ 
 ly interested classes so cal irg, and visibly seen 
 at the head of the movement. These classes 
 were, 1. The speculators, who want bank loans 
 and bank facilities to enable them to out-bid the 
 settlers, and to monopolize the choicest lands? 2 
 The local banks, who want the national domain 
 as a cipital to bank upon, and to give credit and 
 circulation to their notes in all the new States? 
 3 Politicians out of power, who foresee, in the 
 reception of this local paper, the ruin of the 
 finance?; and in that ruin, foresee, also, the down¬ 
 fall of those now in power, and the elevation of 
 themselves; 4 The Bank of the United States, 
 which foresees likewise, in the same ruin, its own 
 resuscitation; and which, pending that event, has 
 gone into abeyance under a State charter, to be 
 ready for the occasion. These were the classes 
 whose clamors against the Treasury order had 
 stunned the public ear; these were the classes 
 who denounced the President; these the daises who 
 demand the instant rescisiori of that order. .As 
 one of those who had contributed to put down the 
 Bank of the United Stages, and who had promised 
 a restoration of the gold currency, Mr. B. must be 
 permitted to make head against this movement, 
 which goes to re-establish that bank, and to sup¬ 
 press that golden currency. 
 
 Having Hated the number of the banks in the 
 United States, he would say a word as to theirre- 
 puted capitals and circulation. The chartered ca¬ 
 pital was computed at near one thousand millions 
 o! dollars; the paid up capital was stated at three 
 hundred and twenty-five millions; the chartered 
 right to issue paper money, exceeded one thou¬ 
 sand millions; and the s?ctud circulation was com¬ 
 puted at one hundred and thirty millions. Now 
 all the specie in the country is computed at seven-; 
 ty-five millions, and all in the banks at forty-five 
 millions; so that the reputed paid-up capital is 
 four times greater than all the specie in the country, 
 and seven, times greater than all the specie the j 
 tanks possess. Mr. B. did not pretend that the banks ' 
 
 should always have all their capital in their hands;, 
 but he did insist that it must be in the country! so 
 that, when needed, it could be had. The reputed 
 paid-up capital is not in the country, by a differ¬ 
 ence of four to one; so that the fact stands re- 
 vc.-iled that a great proportion of these banks are 
 banking on slock notes, and on each other’s notes? 
 and the stockholders not b ing liable, the founda¬ 
 tions of a gre >t number of these banks must be 
 unsolid and delusive? entirely unsafe f r the com¬ 
 munity to rely upon; and that it would be a cruel 
 thing for the Federal Government,'by increasing 
 their cn dit, to extend the sphere of their circula¬ 
 tion, and to enlarge the vormx of their mischief 
 when the day comes to which allj unsolid banks 
 are daily liable. 
 
 Mr. B. sad that we had borrowed the paper 
 system from England, and from the Adam Smith 
 school, whose work on political economy had ap¬ 
 peared about the close of the Arne: scan revolution, 
 and created that passion for banking which lias 
 since prevailed in Great Britain and our America. 
 Me would show that the English representatives 
 of that school are now convinced of their error, 
 and are endeavoring to extricate the country from 
 a>l banks of issue except that of th Bank of Eng¬ 
 land, for the solvency of which the Government of 
 Great Britain stands security to the whole amount 
 of its capital. Repeating that we had borrowed 
 the paper system from Great Britain, Mr. B. had 
 two remarks to make upon i ; first, that banking 
 with us was on a far more unsafe foot ing- than in 
 Great Britain; secondly, that bar-iks of issue were 
 found to be too unsafe to be longer tolerated there. 
 He proceeded to show the foundations on which 
 he made these assertions; and afterwards to 
 make a practical application of his remarks to the 
 question before the Senate. 
 
 First, that banking in the United States was on 
 a more unsafe footing than in Great Britain. There 
 was a fundamental difference (he said) between 
 classes of banks. In Great Britain there were 
 two classes; one of discount, deposite, and ex¬ 
 change; another, of circulation. This latter cliss 
 was the only one existing in the United States, 
 and it was from it that ALL the public ev Is of 
 banking flowed. Here, then, was a radical dif¬ 
 ference between the systems of banking in the two 
 countries; the British system having the two spe¬ 
 cies of banks, and the American system having but 
 one, and that the dangerous one Confining his 
 emarks, then, to the class common to the two 
 countries, (banks of issue,) he would show that this 
 class is on a far more unsafe footing in the United 
 States than in Great Britain. The Bank of 
 England (he said) was backed by the 
 
 the Government of Great Britain for its 
 debts and capital. The notes of the institution 
 were a legal tender to the Government; and in a 
 Government whose annual taxes are two hundred 
 and fifty millions of dollars, the legal receivabifty 
 of notes to this amount is a fund for the redemp¬ 
 tion of more notes than the Bank of England ever 
 had in circulation. Her highest issue, during the 
 suspension of specie payments and issue of one and 
 two-pound notes was twenty nine millions and a 
 half pounds sterling, say $146,000,000. . Her issues | 
 since the resumption of specie payments, and sup- 
 
pression of one and two-pound notes, has in a 
 period of six jears, anterior to 1832, ranged from 
 18 to 23,000,000 sterling*, being* about 100,- 
 000,000 of dollars. The taxes to the Go¬ 
 vernment, then would absorb them, though at a 
 loss to all holders who did not owe to the Govern 
 ment the amount of what they held. This was 
 some security for the notes of ihe bank; but 
 there was another, and a greater security, 
 . and this lay in the direct responsibility of 
 the Government for the whole amount of the 
 rapital of the bank. The capital of that 
 bank consisted of successive loans to the Govern¬ 
 ment, commencing in 1694, in a loan of £1,200,000 
 sterling, and continued by additional loans, at d f 
 ferent periods, until it amounts to £14,686,000, 
 and bearing an interest all the time at 3 per cent, 
 pel* annum. This is now the capital of the 
 bank, and the debt of the Government to the 
 bank, and t.he amount of the Government’s 
 direct securitysh p for the liabilities of the institu¬ 
 tion. No such Government security as this has 
 existed, or csn exist in our country; and even 
 with it, the Bank of England has twice suspended 
 specie payments, and once for twenty years; be¬ 
 sides inflicting the ordinary evils of banking upon 
 the Government and the country. Proceeding to 
 what are called the country banks in England, 
 Mr, B. showed that they were on a safer footing 
 than the local banks of the United States. In 
 the first place, the partners and stockholders 
 were each liable in his person and property for 
 the whole amount of the debts of the insti¬ 
 tution; and this liability continued in the case 
 of joint stock partnerships until three rears 
 after a partner had erased to belong to the insti¬ 
 tution, for every thing done whilehe was a mem 
 her of it. In the nex . place, the English banks 
 issue no note under £5, which is both a check up¬ 
 on their circulation and a diminution of the danger 
 of losses to the community. In England, every 
 note bore a government stamp, and paid a tax, 
 which was also some restraint on issues. The 
 mode of payment was another, as silver was only 
 a tender to the amount of forty shillings; so that 
 country bank notes could only be paid in gold, or 
 Bank of England notes, and these latter could 
 only be paid in gold; so that, directly or indirectly, 
 gold was the fund of redemption for the whole 
 English circulation , which was a far greater cheek 
 upon bank issues than silver. In the last place, 
 forgeries could be punished and restrained in 
 England, and can hardly be punished or re¬ 
 strained in the United States. The extent of 
 our country, and the independence* of the 
 States, and their judiciaries, interpose effectual 
 barriers against the punishment of forgeries in one 
 State upon the paper of other and distant States 
 These differences, continued Mr 15., show that 
 banking is on a less dangerous footing in Great 
 ' Britain than in the United States; and now what is 
 the result of experience there? It is fifty years 
 since the Adam Smith school established their per¬ 
 fect idea of a paper svstem, and brought into gene¬ 
 ral use those banks of issue on which they lavished 
 all the ho'iday phrases still in vogue in the United 
 States: “Well regulated specie paying banks— 
 ^ properly constructed specie paying banks—duly 
 restricted specie paying banks—safe and solid 
 
 specie paying banks.” It is fifty years since these 
 phrase s ruled the legislation of Great Britain; and 
 what is the lesson which 50 years experience has 
 taught? Mr. B would not answer this question from 
 the writings of the anti-paper school, nor even from 
 the b illion school of England; he would answer it 
 from the Adam Smith school itself; from the wri¬ 
 tings of Mr. M’Guiloch, Professor of Political 
 Economy in the University of London, and the 
 present head of the Adam Smith school, whose 
 work tie has recently edited with a volume of 
 notes to show what has happened since the time 
 ofDi*. Smith, and what improvements the paper 
 system required in England. Mr. B. read the 
 title of one of his chapters, and some passages 
 bom the chapter itself. This is the title, or in¬ 
 dex, to the contents of the chapter: 
 
 “ Quantity of Hank of England paper afloat at different pe¬ 
 riods—Effects produced on the country hanks by a contraction 
 of the issues of the Hank of England—Destruction of country 
 bank paper in 1793— Crisis of 1797—Destruction of country 
 bank poper in 1814,1815. IS16; also in lS25and 1826—Mea¬ 
 sures proposed in 1826 for improving the state of the currency 
 — Remarks on those measures—Proposal tor taking security 
 from country banks—Advantages that would result from car 
 lying this proposal into effect—Objections to it examined and 
 answered.” 
 
 Mr. B. then read some passages from the chap¬ 
 ter itself, regretting the necessity which limited 
 him to few and brief extracts: 
 
 1. Panic of 1793.—“The extended transactions of the coun¬ 
 try required I resh facilities for carrying them.,on; amp in conse¬ 
 quence,'a bank was erected in every market town, and in almost 
 every village. To lorce their paper into circulation was the 
 object of all. The catastrophe which followed was such as 
 might have been foreseen. The currency having become re¬ 
 dundant, ihe exchanges took an unfavorable turn in the early 
 part of 1792; and the Hank of England having been, in conse¬ 
 quence, obliged to narrow her issues, a most violent revulsion 
 took place in the end of that year and beginning of 1793. The 
 failure of one or two great houses excited a panic, which proved 
 fatal to myriads more. When this revulsion began, there were, 
 it is supposed, about 350 country banks in England and Wales, 
 of which about 100 were compelled to stop payment, and up¬ 
 wards of 50 more were totally destroyed, pioducing by their fall 
 an extent of misery and bankruptcy that had been, until then, 
 unknown in England.” 
 
 2. Panic of 1814 —Up to 1813 there were banks in almost 
 all parts of England, forcing their paper into circulation at an 
 enormous expense to themselves, 'fire price of corn had risen' 
 to an extraordinary height in 1813, and fell in the beginning of 
 1814. This fall produced a want of confidence, and an alarm 
 among the country bankers and their customers; and such a 
 destruction of country paper took place as has not been par- 
 ralleled, except only by the revulsion m 1825: Hy 1816 no' 
 fewer than 210 country banks had stopped payments, and 92 
 commissions of bankruptcy were issued by these establish¬ 
 ments. The failures that then occurred were the more dis¬ 
 tressing, as they chiefly affected the industrious and poorer 
 classes, and frequently swallowed up. in an instant, the fruits 
 of a long life of laborious exertion. Thousands upon thousands, 
 who had considered themselves affluent, found they were desti¬ 
 tute of all real property; and sunk, as if by enchantment, and 
 without any fault of their own, into the abyss of poverty. The 
 universality of the wretchedness* and misery had never been 
 equalled, perhaps, except by the breaking up of the Mississip¬ 
 pi scheme in France.” 
 
 3. Panic of 1825.—“Nations are slow and reluctant learn¬ 
 ers, and it seems as as if additional experience had been neces¬ 
 sary to convince the Parliament and people of England that 
 there was anything defective in a system which had r in two 
 previous instances, deluged the country with bankruptcy;,and 
 which enables every individual, however poor and unprincipled, 
 who chooses to open a money shop, to issue notes to serve as 
 currency in the ordinary transactions of society! A rise of 
 prices and a rage for specula'ion took place in 1824.’5. Many 
 of the country bankers seemed to have no'other object than to 
 get themselves indebted to the public; and such was the vigor 
 and successor their efforts to get their paper into circulation, 
 that the amount of it afloat in 1825 was estimated to be near fifty 
 per cent, greater than the amount of it afloat' in 3823 The 
 consequences of this extravagant apd: unprincipled conduct is 
 well known. The currency became redundant—exchange be¬ 
 gan to decline, and a heavy drain far bullion compelled the 
 Bank of England to lessen her issues. This was the signal for 
 
I 
 
 24 
 
 the repetition of the tragedy of 1793. hut on a much larger and 
 mare magnificient scale, and with more destructive conse¬ 
 quences. Sauve qui /pent! Save himself who can! was the 
 universal cry; and the destruct on of country paper was so sud¬ 
 den and excessive, that in less than six weeks above seventy 
 badking (establishments were swept off.” 
 
 This (sa’;<l Mr. B ) is McCulloch’s account of 
 the three paper system earthquakes which have 
 taken place since the time of Adam Smith, mau- 
 gr6 all his fine phrases about specie-paying banks, 
 and bank notes equivalent to gold, and converti¬ 
 ble into gold at the will of the holder. Throe 
 times in twenty-five years has the whole blown up! 
 to say no hing of the crisis of 1797, and the nu¬ 
 merous small panics and individual explosions 
 which have filled up the intervals between the 
 large ones. The result is a conviction that banks 
 of issue must be suppressed, directly or indirectly, 
 all over England. The mode proposed, is to re¬ 
 quire security fr-;m them, in addition to their indi¬ 
 vidual liability, and that not the personal security 
 of men, hut the real security of lands mortgaged, 
 or government stock pledged. Mere is an extract 
 from McCulloch on this point : 
 
 “Whatever bank notes may be in law, they are practically , 
 and i a fact, a legal tender. Toe great mass of the people are 
 totally without the power to refuse them. The currency of 
 many extensive districts consists almost entirely of countiy 
 notes; and such small farmers, tradesmen, or laborers, as 
 Bhould refuse t© take them, would be obliged to migrate else¬ 
 where. There cannot, therefore, as it appears to me, be the 
 shadow ofa doubt that this is a case in which Government is 
 imperiously called upon to interfere. We have sustained in- 
 coinpara )ly more mischief from the issue of spurious paper 
 than from that of base coin; and in order to obviate such mis- 
 chiefin future, and to give that security to the public which 
 is so essential, we have, as was observed before, no alternative, 
 but either to suppress country notes altogether, or to require 
 security from the issuers.” ' * “In the case of Bank of 
 
 England notes, a guarantee is taken by the Government for the 
 notes which the bank issues; and the whole capital of the bank- 
 must be lost before the holders of the notes can be sufferers. 
 Why is nat the same principle followed with respect to coun¬ 
 try banks? What objection can there be against requiring of 
 those who take upon themselves the office of furnishing the 
 country with a circulating medium, to deposit# with Govern¬ 
 ment an adequate security lor the performance of tl.eir engage¬ 
 ments? In the use of money every on? is a trader; those whose 
 habits an 1 pursuits are little suited to explore the median ism 
 of trade, are obliged to make use of money, ami are no rv'ay 
 qualified to ascertain the solidity of the different banks whose 
 >aper is in circulation; accordingly we find that men living on 
 imited incomes, women, laborers, and mechanics of all de¬ 
 scriptions, are often severe sufferers by the failure of country 
 banks, which have lately become frequent beyond all example. 
 Against this mischief the public should be protected by requir¬ 
 ing of every country bank (that is to say every bank except the 
 Bank of England, lor which the Government is security to the 
 whole amount of its capita!) to deposit# wit i Gov . rnvnent, or 
 with Commissioners appointed for that purpose, lunded pro¬ 
 perty, or other Government security, in some proportion to the 
 amount of their issues. No establishment for the issue of notes 
 could then exist, unless it had been set on toot by individuals 
 possessed of adequate capital. And adventurers, speculating 
 on the funds of others, and sharpers, anxious to get themselves 
 indebted to the public, would find that banking was no longer a 
 field on which they could advantageously enter.” 
 
 Mr. B. would economise time and words, and 
 procee d to the practical application of these ex¬ 
 tracts from the present head of the paper sys¬ 
 tem school in England It is a surrender and pro 
 posed suppression of all banks of issue except the 
 Bank of England, for which the British Goo rn- 
 vnent is the s carify and the responsible backer. 
 This is what the original of our paper system, 
 and afar safer system than ours, has come to in 
 England! Given up, and proscribed by the 
 school that founded it, and that school more 
 seriously engaged now in putting down their sys¬ 
 tem than they were fifty years ago in founding 
 
 it! And what is the state of things with us? 
 Not only an appalling extension of the p.t- 
 per system through the annual bank incor¬ 
 porations of nearly thirty Legislatures, State 
 and territorial, but this attempt now made n the 
 Senate of the United States to compel the adop¬ 
 tion ofall the State and Territorial paper systems, 
 existing or to exist, by the Federal Government; 
 and thus to make out of this multifarious mass, a 
 national paper cunency. Fhis is the effect: and, 
 without disturbing the States in the use of this 
 paper then.selves, Mr B. confined himself to the 
 question before the Senate, namely, the adoption 
 ofthe whole of it for the currency of the Federal 
 Government. To this he bad insuperable and inexo- 
 ab!e objections, founded, first, upon the constitution 
 of the United. Stales; and, next, upon the unspeaka¬ 
 ble mischiefs ofthe scheme. On the constitutional 
 p< int lie would be brief, limiting himself to the 
 words of tiie instrument, and to Mr. Madison’s 
 Commentary. 
 
 The constitution says: 
 
 Gongress shall have power: 
 
 “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
 coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.” 
 
 “ To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securi¬ 
 ties amt rurient coin of the United States.” 
 
 “No State shall coin money; emit bills of credit; make any 
 thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” 
 
 Mr. Madison, in No. 44 of the Federalist, soys: 
 
 “ The loss which America has sustained since the peace, from 
 the pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence 
 between man and man; on the necessary confidence in the public 
 councils; on the industry and morals of the people, and on the 
 character of republican government, constitutes an enormous 
 debt, against the States, chargeable with this unadvised meas¬ 
 ure, which must long remain unsatisfied; or rathei an accumu¬ 
 lation of guiit, which can be expiated no otherwise than by a 
 voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice of the power which 
 has been the instrument of it. In addition to these persuasive 
 considerations, it may be observed that the same reasons which 
 sliow the necessity of denying to the States the power of regula¬ 
 ting coin, prove, w-ith equal force, that they ought not to be at 
 liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin. * ’ * 
 The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in 
 payment of debts is withdrawn from tiie States, on the same 
 principle with that of issuing a paper currency.” 
 
 Resting the constitutional objection to this adop¬ 
 tion of tiie State paper currencies for the curren¬ 
 cy of the Federal Government where the constitu¬ 
 tion and Mr. Madison had put it, and merely refer¬ 
 ring to the great revenue acts of 1789 and 1800, 
 for the correct exposition of the constitution, in 
 limiting the receipts for the customs and the lands 
 to ‘‘ gold and silver coin only,*’ and “ to specie or 
 evidences of the public debt,” Mr. B. would state 
 the heads, and the heads only, of the objections to 
 the expediency of the measure. Premising that, 
 what the Government received, as cash, would 
 have to be paid out as cash, and that if local paper 
 was received at ad, it w ould soon be received to¬ 
 la ly at.d to the exclusion of specie, and that lo¬ 
 cal paper would thus become the actual currency 
 of the Government and the country, until relieved 
 from it by a general explosion, Mr. B. went oil 
 to enumerate the practical evils of such an uncon¬ 
 stitutional currency. 
 
 1. The destruction of the standard, or measure 
 of value. Paper money, neither is, ev?r was, or 
 ever can be, a standard of value. Its quantity va¬ 
 ries at the will of man, or rather at the will of 
 each ofthe thousand NepAines who preside over 
 
25 
 
 | 
 
 the ocean of panel'; and not only at their will, but 
 without their will, in the mere imprudence or folly 
 of those who direct pi per issues, and the thousand 
 causes which operate upon die expansion and 
 contract on of banks. The standard, or measure 
 of va’ue, is at this moment materially altered in 
 the United States. Tins is seen in the increased 
 price of every article which depends for its price 
 . upon the domestic market; and it. is proved by the 
 stationary or reduced price of every article which 
 depended for its price on foreign markets. Cot¬ 
 ton and tobacco werv in this latter class, and 
 had not risen, but rather fallen; all articles of 
 home use and consumption were in the former, 
 and all had risen, some one half, some dou¬ 
 ble. The precious meta’s, from their uniformity of 
 production, difficulty of suddenly and violently 
 changing the quantity and intrinsic value all over 
 the world, can alone make a standard or measure 
 of value. Our constitution has guarantied that 
 standard to us; and it is our sacred duty to pre¬ 
 serve it. Mr. B. finished his remarks on this point 
 with a quotation from Mr. McCulloch, preferring 
 his authority to others because l ie was of the paper 
 system school, though now limiting' bis system to 
 the Rank of England only: 
 
 “NodouVt has ever been insinuated with respect to the ex¬ 
 pediency of the regulations by which all weights and measures 
 of the snme denomination are rendered equal. But monev ip 
 not a commodity merely; it is also the STANDARD or MEA¬ 
 SURE'-, adopted by the society by which to estimate and com¬ 
 pare the value of every thinrr else that is bought and sold; and 
 if it he, as it most undoubtedly is, the duty of Government to 
 adopt every practicable meaYis for remedying all foot-rules of 
 the same length, and all bushels of the same capacity, it must 
 he still more incumbent upon it to omit nothing to render mo¬ 
 ney, or the MEASURE of VALUE, a measure which is beyond 
 all question the most important of any used in society, uniform 
 or steady in its value.'’ 
 
 2. Usury. This, he said, was a direct effect of 
 paper money. The more banks of issue, the 
 higher the rate of interest. Common bank inte¬ 
 rest in the United States is seven per cent, or more, 
 which is double the rate of interest in Holland, 
 where thero is no paper. But common interest is 
 nothing compared to the usury which ensues great 
 banking, and which becomes enormous when 
 banks, from necessity or mischief, slop discounts 
 and throw borrowers upon money dealers. Three 
 per cent discount per month is then the order of 
 things; and this may now be seen in Philadelphia, 
 where the United States Bmk, with its thirty-five 
 millions capital, on becoming a State institution, 
 was to fill the State with money and reduce inte¬ 
 rest to five per cer.t. But that bank does lend to 
 some borrowers at five per cent, or less. The cor¬ 
 respondence of the commissioners employed in 
 examining the state of the bank, preparatory to 
 
 * the settlement of the value of the United States ! 
 stock, shows a miss of loa-is to the amount of j 
 20,337,136 00 of dollars, on extended or in¬ 
 definite time, and at rates from 4|, 5, 5£, to 6 
 per cent, per annum. No doubt many of the 
 three per cent, per month borrowers get their sup 
 plies from a part of those loans. 
 
 3. Panics, convulsions, and stoppages. These 
 («aid Mr. B.) are inherent in the paper system. 
 They take place in England in defiance of all pow¬ 
 er in the Government and the banks themselves 
 
 ^ do keep them down. There, n» panics are perpe- 
 
 , trated to scourge the country, or to overset the 
 Government; save and except the two political 
 ones lately seen, Mr. O’Connor’s, and the^ one 
 during the interregnum of Lord Grey’s administra¬ 
 tion. But here, panics are the regular work of 
 banks and politicians, and are now looked for 
 wlienever an important election is depending', or 
 Congress is to be excited. 
 
 4. The expenses of the paper system. This was 
 probably greater at present than the expenses of. 
 the Federal Government, and the whole a tax 
 upon the productive classes. The number of 
 banks was about one thousand; each bank had its 
 officers, and they their salaries; each had its stock¬ 
 holders, and they their profits. Then came losses 
 for broken banks, counterfeits and depreciated 
 paper; and changes in the value of properly from 
 expansions and contractions of the currency. 
 These oxpenses and losses were the price paid by 
 the people for a paper currency; when they can 
 get constitutional currency from the mints, without 
 paying salaries, furnishing profit.*, or sustaining 
 losses, if paper was checked and confined to 
 large notes. 
 
 5. Stock gambling, forgeries, banishment of all 
 gold and silver, were all great evils inherent in 
 the paper system, and too obvious to need, or even 
 to endure, commentary. Mr. B. therefore, barely 
 named them, and left every one’s knowledge and 
 memory to do the rest. 
 
 Mr. B. approached the conclusion ©f his re¬ 
 marks on this great subject. It was indeed a 
 great subject, involving that momentous question, 
 the national currency- The Treasury order was 
 a measure of regulation upon the State banks, in¬ 
 tended to save the finances, and the currency, as 
 well as the public hinds. The Banksf the Uni¬ 
 ted States regulated (he State banks by the simple 
 process of excluding their paper from the federal 
 receipts and expenditures; and this was effected 
 by the 24th and 25th articles of the by-laws of 
 the corporation already 7 read. She excluded them 
 to make room for her own notes; and this was the 
 extent of her skill, and of her merit, in all this 
 boasted regulation of focal currencies of which we 
 hear so much. The Federal Go/ernment has only 
 to do the same, a7id the State bank issues are re¬ 
 pelled upon their sources, and become compara¬ 
 tively harmless. It is receivability for federal dues; 
 it is receivob lity at the land offices,custom-houses, 
 and post offices, which gives them wrings to fly 
 over the continent, and enables them to pass with¬ 
 out regard to the credit or solvency of the bank 
 from which they come. It is the Federal Govern¬ 
 ment endorsement which does the mischief; and. 
 this endorsement, for all the purposes of false 
 credit, and want of responsibility, is given to the 
 whole issue of every hank whose paper is made 
 receivable for public dues. The experiment Sias 
 been tried, and local paper has failed as a national 
 currency, and out of that failure arose the second 
 United States Ba«*.k. It will fail again! and again! 
 and forever! There is no safety for the federal 
 revenues, but in the total exclusion of local paper,, 
 and that from every branch of the revenue—cus¬ 
 toms, lands, and post office. There is no safety 
 for the national finances, but in the const*- 
 
26 
 
 tutional medium of gold and silver. After 
 forty years of wandering in the wilderness 
 of paper money, we have approached the 
 confines of the constitutional medium. Seven¬ 
 ty-five millions of specie in the country, with the 
 prospect of annual increase of ten or twelve mil¬ 
 lions for the next four years, three branch mints to 
 commence next spring, and the complete restora¬ 
 tion of the gold currency, announce the success of 
 President Jackson’s great measures for the reform 
 of the currency, and vindicate the Constitution 
 from the libel of having prescribed an impractica¬ 
 ble currency. The success is complete; and there 
 is no way to thwart it, but to put down the Trea¬ 
 sury border, and to reopen the public lands to the 
 inundation of paper money. Of this, it is not 
 to be dissembled, there is great danger. 
 Pour deeply interested classes are at work 
 to do it ; speculators, local banks, United 
 States Bank, and politicians out of power. They 
 may succeed, but he, Mr. B. w ould not despair. 
 The darkest hour of the night is just before the 
 break of day; and, through the gloom ahead, he 
 saw the bright vision of the constitutional curren¬ 
 cy, erect, radiant, and victorious. Through re¬ 
 gulation, or explosion, success must eventually 
 come. If reform measures go on, gold and silver 
 will be gradually and temperately restored; if re¬ 
 form measures are stopped, then the paper system 
 runs riot, and explodes from its own expansion. 
 Then the Bank of the United States will exult 
 in the catastrophe, and claim its own re-establish¬ 
 ment, as the only adequate regulator of the local 
 banks. Then it will be said the specie experi¬ 
 ment has failed. But no. The contrary will be 
 known; that the specie experiment has not failed, 
 but it was put down by the voice and power of 
 the interested classes, and must be put up again by 
 the voice and power of the disinterested commu¬ 
 nity. 
 
 APPENDIX TO MR. BENTON’S SPEECH. 
 
 I. That the banks themselves, by contractions 
 and expansions of the currency, lead to fluctuations 
 which affect the prices of produce and property, 
 and beget panics. 
 
 1. Extract from the testimony of Joseph C. 
 Dyer. Esq. Director of the Bank of Manchester, 
 taken before Lord Althorpe’s committee: 
 
 //je Bank of England, the cause of fluctuations and 
 pantcs. — The bank has been the cause of the panics. Their 
 manner of issuing and withdrawing the'Bank ol England pa- 
 per, produces those continued fluctuations, at shorf periods 
 wr.ich affect the prices in the market, and thereby affect trade.’) 
 J hose issues, sometimes in a single week, vary three or four 
 millions. The bank may be necessitated to do so, but such a 
 necessity is that of inflicting a great evil on the country. The 
 returns ol the weekly issues from the 28th of December, 181b 
 to February 4th, 1826, prove witness 3 s statement. 
 
 ' Fhe reason why it is necessary to make an alteration in the 
 hanging system of Lancashire, is, that the circulation by the 
 Bank of England subjects the trade to fluctuations, and exercises 
 a pernicious influence over the destinies of commerce. This 
 expansion and contraction of the circulation induce similar ef 
 lects to a ruinous extent. All the periods of panic may be attri¬ 
 buted to that power exercised in secret, and of which the public 
 can have no knowledge, until it has accomplished its results It 
 stimulates over-issues in thecountry, raises andlowers the value 
 ol money capriciously, and erects its own security on the inse¬ 
 curity ol country bankers. “Such a company, possessing such 
 influence so exercised, is a dangerous company; and plans can 
 
 be devised to procure a better circulation than the present, i» 
 whic Inhere is neither stability nor steadiness.” 
 
 2. Extract from the preface to the digest ol 
 evidence taken beford Lord Althorpe’s committee 
 in 1832: 
 
 “The records of past history have invariably designated a 
 time of peace as one of prosperity and happiness. But ever 
 since the last war, the different great interests of this country 
 have been in a continued state of fluctuation between the ex¬ 
 tremes of prosperity and adversity; though the latter has unfor¬ 
 tunately predominated. * * 4 * In the beginning of that 
 
 year, (1825,) every class of the community was doing well, il 
 not in a state of great prosperity. But a change took place in 
 the currency, by the Bank of England contracting their issues. 
 The general prosperity, without any other visible cause, imme¬ 
 diately received a check; and as the Bank continued to contract 
 their issues, matters became worse, until they ended in the 
 panic. By this a total derangement of the monetary system was 
 occasioned, and every class of the community was thrown into a 
 state of embarrassment; the injurious and depressing effects of 
 which continued for some years, and this without any other ap¬ 
 parent cause than the monetary derangement which had occur¬ 
 red.” * * * * “ An undue issue of four or five millions by 
 
 the Ban!:, (ofEngland,) would eventually make an extraordinary 
 derangement in the value of all the property in the kingdom, 
 and be productive of infinite mischief in a variety of ways.” 
 
 3. Further extract from the testimony of J. C. 
 Dyer, Esq. 
 
 “ I think the banks, so far from having saved the country 
 from the effects of those panics, have been the cause of those 
 panics; and that they have been the cause of a constant succes¬ 
 sion of little panics, continually annoying the commerce of the 
 country, by monthly and weekly fluctuations.” 
 
 4. Extract from the testimony of Benjamin J. 
 Smith, Esq. a director of the Bank of Manches¬ 
 ter, before Lord Aithorpe’s committee: 
 
 “The supply of the circulation by the Bank of England sub¬ 
 jects our trade to great and injurious fluctuations, owing to 
 what is called a scarcity of money, arising from causes of which, 
 the public, who are deeply interested in that question, can have 
 no knowledge. The objections to the existing system are, that 
 the Bank of England has a secret and despotic influence and 
 control over the destinies of our commerce, which we fee? to be 
 a most pernicious one.” 
 
 II. No local banks of issue in the great county 
 of Lancashire, including Liverpool and Manches¬ 
 ter. Inland bills of exchange used in large deal¬ 
 ings; gold in the common transactions. 
 
 1. Extract from the evidence of J. C. Dyer, 
 Esq. a director of the Bank of Manchester, before 
 Lord Althorpe’s committee: 
 
 “The bankers in Manchester who can, do not, issue notes 
 in consequence of the strong feeling that prevails in Lancashire 
 against local paper. There were two occasions when that 
 feeling was publicly expressed; first, in 1834, and next when 
 the Bank of Manchester was formed. Bankers who intended to 
 issue notes abandoned their intention, from a conviction 
 that they could not, under any such circumstances, derive any 
 profit from the issue.” 
 
 2. Extract from Mr. McCulloch’s Notes on Adam 
 Smith’s wo rk: 
 
 “ The principal distinction between notes and bills of ex¬ 
 change is, that every individual passing a bill of exchange has 
 to endorse ir, and by so doing makes himself responsible for its 
 contents. Nothing can be more inaccurate than to represent 
 bank notes andhills of exchange under the same point of view. 
 The note is payable on the instant, without deduction—<he bi!l 
 not until some future period, The note may he ■usped to ano¬ 
 ther, without incurring any risk or responsibility while every 
 endorser ol the hill makes himself liable for the value of it. 
 Bank notes form the currency of all classes, of 'those who are 
 not engaged in business, of women, children, laboreis, <fcc. who 
 are all, as we have seen, without the power to refuse them, and 
 without tin; means of forming any correct conclusion as to the 
 solvency of the issuers. Bills of exchange, en the other hand, 
 pass only, with very few exceptions, between persons engage 
 in-business, and who are fully aware of the risk they run io 
 taking them.” 
 
 3. Further extract from McCulloch’s notes: 
 
 “The effect produced by the employment of internal bills of 
 exchange, have not certainly excited that attention on the part 
 
27 
 
 of most of those who hare speculated on the subject of currency, 
 that might reasonably have been expected; but this seems to have 
 arisen chiefly from their having been but very imperfectly aware 
 of the vast magnitude of the transactions settled by their interven¬ 
 tion, and of the extent to which they are employed. In the great 
 manufacturing county of Lancashire, and in part of Yorkshire- 
 abill on London at three months is reckoned a money payment; 
 and by far the largest proportion of the currency consists either 
 of the bills of bankers drawn on their correspondents, or of those 
 of the merchants and dealers scattered up and dow n 'lie coun¬ 
 try. The following extracts from the evidence given before the 
 committee of the House of Lords on Scotch and Irish currency, 
 in the session of 1826, show the great extent to which internal 
 bills are now employed. Mr. Gladstone, an eminent merchant 
 of Liverpool, informed the committee that, ‘We sell our goods, 
 not for payments in cash, such as are usual in other places, but 
 generally at credits from ten days to three months date; these 
 bills we pay to our bankers, and receive from them bills 
 or cash. We have a considerable portion of large Lank 
 of England notes in circulation; these are generally used for 
 the payment of duties, and also for tiie purpose of remit¬ 
 tance; but the great mass of our circulation is in bills of ex¬ 
 change. Sovereigns and smaller bank notes are only required 
 lor such objects as charges of merchandise, with duties, 
 freights, and other items.’ Lewis Lloyd, Esq. ‘The wages 
 of workmen are paid in gold or Bank of England notes; the 
 manufacturer is chiefly paid in hills of exchange. When a bill 
 is drawn in favor of a manufacturer, he endorses it to the per¬ 
 son to whom lie pays it, ami the person to whom he pays it 
 pays it again to another; and it goes on often till it is covered 
 with endorsements. Mr. Henry Burgess, a manufacturer at 
 Leeds: “The great mass of the circulating medium of Lan- 
 cashiie, as in all the manufacturing districtsin the north, is 
 bills of exchange: a part of the circulation is in gold andsilver, 
 and Bank of England notes. 
 
 III. Suppression of all banks of issue in Eng¬ 
 land, except the Bank of England, directly by 
 law, or indirectly, by compelling them to give se¬ 
 curity for their issues. 
 
 1. Extract from Mr. Culloch’s notes on Adam 
 Smith: 
 
 “ It seems, therefore, to be indispensable, either that the 
 country banks should be compelled, as has been previously 
 proposed, to give full security for their issues, or that their pa¬ 
 per should be suppressed altogether, and the paper of the Bank 
 of England, substituted in its place. ***** Now, it is 
 obvious, and is indeed universally admitted, that the only mea¬ 
 sure that can be adopted for guarding completely against the 
 misconduct, as well as the bad faith of the country bankers, is 
 to compel them to give full security for the payment of their 
 notes. Tiiis, and this alone, can afford a sufficient guarantee 
 to the public that the country paper in circulation will be re¬ 
 turned when presented for payment, and that it is really equiva¬ 
 lent to gold. 
 
 “Every country banker.on applying for stamps, should be re¬ 
 quired, and obliged, previously to obtaining them, to lodge in 
 the hands of Government, securities in stocks or in landed es¬ 
 tates, fully equivalent to the amount of the stamps issued to 
 him.” 
 
 2. Extract from the testimony of Henry Bur¬ 
 gess, Esq. Secretary of the Committee of Country 
 Banks, representing seven-eighths of the bankers in 
 England, who have resolved to relinquish their cir¬ 
 culation, rather than give security for it: 
 
 “Theonly strong opinion to which the committee havecorne, 
 is, that of securities for their issues were demanded, th<*y would 
 relinquish their issues altogether. That resolution was embo¬ 
 died in a petition to Parliament. * * * * The chief reason 
 
 why country bankers would cease to issue notes, if called upon 
 for securities, is, that it would be giving a preference to one 
 class of creditors over another; besides, giving securities would 
 be locking up their money in the funds, which money would 
 thus he unavailable, and be also placed at risk. * * * Bo 
 
 they would prefer to give up their circulation.” 
 
 IV. Extract from the report of the commission¬ 
 ers appointed on the part of the United States to 
 examine into the debts and affairs of the Bank of 
 the United States, to ascertain the value of the 
 stock, showing above twenty millions of loans at 
 low interest for long terms, or indefinite terms, 
 and explaining the reason why borrowers in Phila¬ 
 delphia are thrown upon brokers at two and three 
 per cent, discount per month. 
 
 1. Statement of the debts of the Bank ©f the 
 United States, frc. on the 3d March, 1836: 
 
 
 NOTE 9 
 
 i DISCOnNTEO. 
 
 
 A. 
 
 On hank stock 
 
 at 6 pr. ct. 
 
 1,291,515 72 
 
 B. 
 
 On various stocks and other »e- 
 
 
 
 curities 
 
 do. 
 
 4,061,553 71 
 
 
 LOANS DRAWINC INTEREST. 
 
 
 C. 
 
 On bank stock 
 
 . at 5 pr. ct. 
 
 1,294,800 00 
 
 D. 
 
 On do. 
 
 6 do. 
 
 46G,;iOO 00 
 
 E. 
 
 On various stocks and 
 
 other 
 
 
 
 securities 
 
 4 do. 
 
 250.000 00 
 
 F. 
 
 do. 
 
 4& tlo. 
 
 652.818 63 
 
 G. 
 
 do. 
 
 5" do. 
 
 4,551.865 65 
 
 11. 
 
 do. 
 
 5 do. 
 
 1,324,100 00 
 
 I. 
 
 do. 
 
 5 do. 
 
 1,000,000 00 
 
 K. 
 
 do. 
 
 5 do. 
 
 355,500 00 
 
 L. 
 
 do. 
 
 5{- do. 
 
 474,600 00 
 
 M. 
 
 do. 
 
 6 do. 
 
 1,296,678 00 
 
 N. 
 
 do. 
 
 6 do. 
 
 3,317,605 09 
 
 
 
 Total as above, 
 
 20,337,138 80 
 
 The length of time for which some of these 
 loans are made, is thus stated in the report: 
 
 f> per cent. C, due 24th August, 1837. 
 
 6 per cent. D, “ when due immfititrial ” ’ 
 
 4 per cent. E, due 21st November, 1840. 
 
 4| per cent. F, due 1st April, 1838. 
 
 5 per cent. G, due 15th March, 1838. 
 
 5 per cent. II, due 8th October, 1838. 
 
 5 percent. I, due 1st December, 1855. 
 
 5 percent. K, “ time of payment indefinite." * 
 
 5£ per cent. L, due 12th January, 1838. 
 
 6 per cent. M, '■'■when due immaterial 
 
 6 per cent. N, “ when due immaterial.” * 
 
 2. Statement of loans from the Bank of the 
 United States to Thomas Biddle & Co. in the years 
 1830, *31, ’32, taken from the report of Mr. Clay¬ 
 ton’s committee of 1832, and now to be referred, 
 as illustrative of some of the above loans on stocks 
 or personal security: 
 
 5 S1 LL2 . t t ■ ■ - --- ~ el '~~ r~ <iagn'r ~^ 
 
 Year. 
 
 Month. 
 
 Paper. 
 
 Discounter. 
 
 Rate. 
 
 1830 
 
 Sept. 
 
 17 
 
 $144,950 
 
 *lTO 
 
 © 
 
 o 
 
 © 
 
 #\ 
 
 © 
 
 C4 
 
 5 percent 
 
 
 Oct. 
 
 15 
 
 1,131,672 
 
 1,123,100 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 Nov. 
 
 16 
 
 737,112 
 
 730,000 
 
 5 d© 
 
 
 Dec. 
 
 14 
 
 737,012 
 
 730,000 
 
 5 do 
 
 1831 
 
 Jan. 
 
 14 
 
 722,300. 
 
 720,000 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 Feb. 
 
 15 
 
 540,400 
 
 540,400 
 
 5 df> 
 
 
 March 
 
 15 
 
 400,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 April 
 
 15 
 
 480,000 
 
 480,000 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 May 
 
 37 
 
 443,098 
 
 443,138 
 
 4^ &5 
 
 
 June 
 
 14 
 
 571,178 
 
 557,968 
 
 do 
 
 
 July 
 
 15 
 
 501,162 
 
 504,912 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 Aug. 
 
 16 
 
 573,912 
 
 579,912 
 
 5 do 
 
 
 Sept. 
 
 16 
 
 573,912 
 
 683,995 
 
 5 & 6 
 
 
 Oct. 
 
 14 
 
 580,000 
 
 698,727 1 
 
 do 
 
 
 Nov. 
 
 15 
 
 580,000 
 
 752,647 
 
 do 
 
 
 Dec. 
 
 16 
 
 580,000 
 
 689,125 
 
 do 
 
 1832 
 
 Jan. 
 
 17 
 
 580,000 
 
 652,338 
 
 do 
 
 
 Feb. 
 
 17 
 
 407,766 
 
 488,328 
 
 5 do 
 
 3. Further extract from Mr. Clayton’s report of 
 1832, t» illustrate the conduct of the Bank of the 
 United S'ales in loaning much to the few, and lit¬ 
 tle to the many, and explanatory of ihe present 
 condition of the money market in Philadelphia, 
 where small borrowers for short terms pay 3 per 
 cent, per month discount for money, which may 
 have come from the Bank of the United States to a 
 
 *Thes© are the words of the Bank state¬ 
 ment. 
 
'ftrge borrower 
 or on immateriii 
 April, 18 >2, 
 
 (I 
 
 tl 
 
 id 
 
 it 
 
 on a. term of years, or indefinitely, 
 lily of time: 
 
 loans to 72 
 
 persons, 
 
 $2,404,273 
 
 do 
 
 19 
 
 do 
 
 1,274,882 
 
 do 
 
 3 
 
 do 
 
 341,729 
 
 do 
 
 4 
 
 do 
 
 995,456 
 
 do 
 
 1 
 
 person, 
 
 417,766 
 
 Whole amount of loans discounted at the same 
 time $5,964,085 
 
 O: which to 99 persons - 5,434,111 
 
 To all other persons, $529,974 
 
 CO'These are the loans of the Notional Bank at 
 Philadelphia, April, 1832. 
 
 Totals, 99 persons, $5,434,111 
 

 
 
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