is, merely because he had the power, without dus notice, he demanded immediate payment to the government of the whole sum due it from the bank, that he might, if possible, bring about the failure of an institution, which, to that day, had not only always met its liabilities punctually, but frequently aided the government in its necessities. It was not only a rash but a most disastrous step. It was a step felt to the extremities of the country; for the general bank, on so sudden a demand, had no resource but to collect, with equal suddenness, all its demands on the smaller banks, which, in turn, were compelled to be equally abrupt and stringent with their own customers. In this way, the shock given by the president traveled down, from bank to bank, and from the smaller banks to the people, who at once felt the pressure through every ramification of society. Its severity fell mostly, as in every similar crisis, upon the poorer classes. When this comprehensive and sudden demand, which created all these multiplied minor demands, had reached at last the thresholds of the common trader, mechanic and manufacturer, most of them found it difficult, many of them impossible, to meet the unexpected call on so short a notice. General compliance was a thing not to be expected; while one failure, as in every business concatenation, when more money is demanded than had been provided for, multiplied itself continuously, till the whole country reached the brink of universal repudiation.

So reckless, impolitic and portentous had this step appeared to many of the personal and political friends of General Jackson, and to a portion of his cabinet, that, after the order had been given by the president for the removal of the deposits, two removals from the office of secretary of the treasury had to be effected, before the order could find a man sufficiently servile to give it execution: "The charter of the bank of the United States," says Mr. Webster, "provided that the public moneys should be deposited in the bank, subject to

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removal by the secretary of the treasury, on grounds to be submitted to congress. In the session of 1832, congress had passed a resolution, by a very large majority, that the public deposits were safe in the custody of the bank of the United States. General Jackson, having applied his veto to the bill for renewing the charter of the bank, was determined, notwithstanding this expression of confidence, that the public deposits should be transferred to an association of selected state banks. The secretary of the treasury (Mr. M'Lane), having declined to order the transfer, was appointed secretary of state, in the expectation that his successor (Mr. Duane) would exe cute the president's will in that respect. On the 10th of September, 1833, an elaborate paper was read by General Jackson to the cabinet, announcing his reasons for the removal of the deposits, and appointing the 1st of October, as the day when it should take place. On the 21st of September, Mr. Duane made known to the president his intention not to order the removal. He was dismissed from office and Mr. Taney, the present chief justice, appointed in his place, by whom the requisite order for the removal of the public moneys to the state banks, was immediately given."

The battle of the bank was now fairly opened; and the president soon had sufficient occasion to learn whether Mr. Webster was a man to be bought up by the smiles of patronizing power. From the first, Mr. Webster set his face against this piece of political injustice, and was the acknowledged champion of the established policy and practice of the government. At the beginning of the struggle, he bore deciùed testimony in relation to the extent of the disaster which the new policy had even then produced: "I agree with those," he said," who think that there is a severe pressure in the money market, and very serious embarrassment felt in all branches of the national industry. I think this is not local, but general; general, at least, over every part of the country where the cause has yet M*

VOL. I.

begun to operate, and sure to become, not only general, but universal, as the operation of the cause shall spread. If evidence be wanted, in addition to all that is told us by those who know, the high rate of interest, now at twelve per cent., or higher, where it was hardly six last September, the depres sion of all stocks, some ten, some twenty, some thirty per cent., and the low prices of commodities, are proofs abundantly sufficient to show the existence of the pressure. But, sir, labor, that most extensive of all interests, American manual labor, feels, or will feel, the shock more sensibly, far more sensibly, than capital, or property of any kind. Public works have stopped, or must stop; great private undertakings, employing many hands, have ceased, and others must cease. A great lowering of the rates of wages, as well as a depreciation of property, is the inevitable consequence of causes now in full operation." Next, he went on to show, that, in this war waged by the executive against the fiscal agent of the government, there was no recourse but to congress, which was bound to interfere, and maintain the currency and credit of the country.

As a foundation for his first speech on the removal of the deposits, Mr. Webster had read a series of resolutions passed by a meeting of Boston merchants and mechanics. On the 30th day of January, Mr. Wright, of New York, also read to the senate several resolutions passed by the legislature of New York, approving the removal of the deposits, and disapproving of any bank of the United States. In the course of the speech supporting these resolutions, Mr. Wright distinctly announced that he was opposed to the rechartering of the bank, and to the creation of any other; that the bank had grossly violated its charter; that, however, he had deeper and graver reasons for his opposition; that the distress of the community, in financial matters, was the fault of the bank, and not of the removal of the deposits; that he would sustain the president, by every means in his power, in his effort to substitute the agency of

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the state banks for the bank of the United States, as the fiscal agent of the government.

In reply to these resolutions, and to the remarks of Mr. Wright, Mr. Webster delivered his second speech, near the opening of which he presents a fine picture of the senate in its debates on the subject, and gives an account of public opinion upon it at that time: "But the gentleman has discovered, or he thinks he has discovered, motives for the complaints which arise on all sides. It is all but an attempt to bring the administration into disfavor. This alone is the reason why the removal of the deposits is so strongly censured! Sir, the gentleman is mistaken. He does not, at least I think he does not, rightly understand the signs of the times. The cause of the complaint is much deeper and stronger than any mere desire to produce political effect. The gentleman must be aware, that, notwithstanding the great vote by which the New York resolutions were carried, and the support given by other proceedings to the removal of the deposits, there are many as ardent friends of the president as are to be found anywhere, who exceedingly regret and deplore the measure. Sir, on this floor there has been going on for many weeks as interesting a debate as has been witnessed for twenty years; and yet I have not heard, among all who have supported the administration, a single senator say that he approved the removal of the depos its, or was glad it had taken place, until the gentleman from New York spoke. I saw the gentleman from Georgia approach that point; but he shunned direct contact. He complained much of the bank; he insisted, too, on the power of removal; but I did not hear him say he thought it a wise act. The gentleman from Virginia, not now in his seat, also de fended the power, and has arraigned the bank; but has he said that he approved the measure of removal? I have not met with twenty individuals, in or out of congress, who have ex pressed an approval of it, among the many hundreds whose

opinions I have heard-not twenty, who have maintained that it was a wise proceeding; but I have heard individuals of am ple fortune, although they wholly disapproved the measure, declare, nevertheless, that, since it was adopted, they would sacrifice all they possessed rather than not support it. Such is the warmth of party zeal!" The object of this speech was to show the necessity of a national bank for the safe keeping of the public moneys; the necessity of restoring the deposits to the national bank; and the disasters which would follow a persistence in the course of opposition now set down as the established policy of the administration.

Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, replied to Mr. Webster, denying, in the most emphatic manner, the constitutionality of the bank of the United States, but maintaining the right of the secretary of the treasury to use the state banks as the fiscal agent of the government; and Mr. Webster, at the opening of the session of the next day, spoke briefly in answer to both of the New York senators. He argued that the power to use a bank, granted by Mr. Tallmadge, implied the power to cre ate one; that, if one act was constitutional, the other must be also; and that the constitutional power of congress was no longer a debatable question, as it had been debated and determined too frequently to need any farther argument: "I do not intend now, Mr. President," he says, "to go into a regular and formal argument to prove the constitutional power of congress to establish a national bank. That question has been argued a hundred times, and always settled the same way. The whole history of the country, for almost forty years, proves that such a power has been believed to exist. All previous congresses, or nearly all, have admitted or sanctioned it; the judicial tribunals, federal and state, have sanctioned it. The supreme court of the United States has declared the constitutionality of the present bank, after the most solemn argument, without a dissenting voice on the bench. Every successiv