than the other, always drives its more respectable associate out of its company. No. 2. [SENATE. great evil which Mr. B. pointed out as belonging to a small-note currency; and of all the denominations of notes, he said, those of one and two pounds in England, corresponding with fives and tens in the United States, A fourth improvement which Mr. B. had proposed were those to which the demoralizing business of counwas to limit the notes issued by the banks to the mini- terfeiting was chiefly directed! They were the chosen mum size of twenty dollars, and to exclude all notes un- game of the forging depredator! and that, for the obvi der that minimum, issued by other banks, from circula- ous reasons that fives and tens were small enough to tion within the District. He confessed that he felt an pass currently among persons not much acquainted with extreme degree of mortification in making a motion in bank paper, and large enough to afford some profit to the Congress of the United States to limit the size of compensate for the expense and labor of producing the bank notes, when this Congress was sitting here, and counterfeit, and the risk of passing it! Below fives, the held its existence by virtue of a constitution which rec-profit is too small for the labor and risk. Too many ognised nothing for currency but gold and silver; but he feared he might be subject to a still greater mortification in witnessing the failure of his motion, and the triumph of the paper system over this small attempt to check one of its greatest abuses. The limit of twenty dollars was the lowest that could be taken to accomplish the great objects in view; and that limit was not assumed arbitrarily, but from a careful observation of the effect of different limits, in different countries, upon the nature and amount of the circulating medium. The great evils of a small paper currency are: 1. To banish gold and silver; 2. To encourage counterfeiting; 3. To destroy the standard of values; 4. To throw the burdens and the evils of the paper system upon the laboring and small dealing part of the community. The instinct of banks to sink their circulation to the lowest denomination of notes which can be forced upon the community is a trait in the system universally proved to exist wherever banks of circulation have been permitted to give a currency to a country; and the effect of that instinct has always been to banish gold and silver. When the Bank of England was chartered, in the year 1694, it could issue no note less than £100 sterling; that amount was gradually reduced, by the persevering efforts of the bank, to £50; then to £20; then to £15; then to £10; at last to £5; and, finally, to £2 and £1. These last denominations were not reached until the year 1797, or until one hundred and three years after the institution of the bank; and as the several reductions in the size of the notes, and the consequent increase of paper currency, took place, gold became more and more scarce; and with the issue of the one and two pound notes, it totally disappeared from the country. This effect was foretold by all political economists, and especially by Mr. Burke, then aged and retired from public life, who wrote from his retreat to Mr. Canning, to say to Mr. Pitt, the prime minister, these prophetic words: "If this bill for the one and two pound notes is permitted to pass, we shall never see another guinea in England." The bill did pass, and the prediction was fulfilled; for not another guinea, half guinea, or sovereign, was seen in England, for circulation, until the bill was repealed, two-and-twenty years afterwards! After remaining nearly a quarter of a century without a gold circulation, England abolished her one and two pound notes, limited her paper currency to £5 sterling, required all Bank of England notes to be paid in gold, and allowed four years for the act to take effect. Before the four years were out, the Bank of England reported to Parliament that it was ready to begin gold payments; and commenced accordingly, and has continued them ever since. The one and two pound notes in England correspond with the five and ten dollar notes in the United States, and the five-pound note is only four dollars above our twenty dollars; so that the analogy is perfect, and the effect must be similar upon our fives, tens, and twenties, that it was in England from the issue and suppression of the one and two pound notes, and the limitation to £5, with the compulsory obligation to pay it. The encouragement of counterfeiting was the next have to be forged and passed before an article of any value can be purchased; and the change to be got in silver, in passing one for a small article, is too little. Of twenty and upwards, though the profit is greater on passing them, yet the danger of detection is also greater. On account of its larger size, the note is not only more closely scrutinized before it is received, and the passer of it better remembered, but the circulation of them is more confined to business men and large dealers, and silver change will not be given for them in buying small articles. The fives and tens, then, in the United States, like the £1 and £2 in England, are the peculiar game of counterfeiters; and this is fully proved by the criminal statistics of the forgery department in both countries. According to returns made to the British Parliament for twenty-two years-from 1797 to 1819, the period in which the one and two pound notes were allowed to circulate-the whole number of prosecutions for counterfeiting, or passing counterfeit notes of the Bank of England, was 998; in that number there were 313 capital convictions, 530 inferior convictions, and 155 acquittals; and the sum of £249,900, near a million and a quarter of dollars, was expended by the bank in attending to prosecutions. Of this great number of prosecutions, the returns show that the mass of them were for offences connected with the one and two pound notes. The proportion may be distinctly seen in the number of counterfeit notes of different denominations detected at the Bank of England in a given period of time-from the 1st of January, 1812, to the 10th of April, 1818-being a period of six years and three months, out of the twenty-two years that the one and two pound notes continued to circulate. The detections were, of one-pound notes, the number of 107,238; of two-pound notes, 17,787; of fivepound notes, 5,826, of ten-pound notes, 419; of twentypound notes, 54. Of all above twenty pounds, 35. The proportion of ones and twos to the other sizes may be well seen in the tables for this brief period; but to have any idea of the mass of counterfeiting done upon these small notes, the whole period of twenty-two years must be considered, and the entire kingdom of Great Britain taken in; for the list only includes the number of counterfeits detected at the counter of the bank, a place to which the guilty never carry their forgeries, and to which a portion only of those circulating in and about London could be carried. The proportion of crime connected with the small notes is here shown to be enormously and frightfully great. The same results are found in the United Sta'es. Mr. B. had looked over the statistics of crime connected with the counterfeiting of bank notes in the United States, and found the ratio be tween the great and small notes to be about the same that it was in England. He had recourse to the most authentic data-Bicknell's Counterfeit Detector-and there found the editions of counterfeit notes of the local or State banks to be eight hundred and eighteen, of which seven hundred and fifty-six were of ten dollars and under; and sixty-two editions only were of twenty dollars and upwards. Of the Bank of the United States and its branches, he found eighty-two editions of fives; SENATE.] Treasury Circular. seventy-one editions of tens; twenty-six editions of twenties; and two editions of fifties; still showing that in the United States, as well as in England, on local banks as well as that of the United States, the course of counterfeiting was still the same; and that the whole stress of the crime fell upon the five and ten dollar notes in this coun try, and their corresponding classes, the one and two pound notes in England. Mr. B. also exhibited the pages of Bicknell's Counterfeit Detector, a pamphlet covered over, column after column, with its frightful lists, nearly all under twenty dollars; and he called upon the Senate, in the sacred name of the morals of the country, in the name of virtue and morality, to endeavor to check the fountain of this crime, by stopping the issue of the description of notes on which it exerted nearly its whole force. Mr. B. could not quit the evils of the crime of counterfeiting in the United States without remarking that the difficulty of legal detection and punishment was so great, owing to the distance at which the counterfeits were circulated from the banks purporting to issue them, and the still greater difficulty, in most cases impossible, to get witnesses to attend in person in States in which they do not reside, the counterfeiters all choosing to practise their crime and circulate their forgeries in States which do not contain the banks whose paper they are imitating. So difficult is it to obtain the attendance of witnesses in other States, that the crime of counterfeiting is almost practised with impunity. The notes under 20 dollars feed and supply this crime; let them be stopped, and ninety-nine hundredths of this crime will stop with them. [JAN. 27, 1837. circulation. 4. To save the laboring and small dealing part of the community from the effects of contractions and expansions from bank issues. 5. To save them from the impositions of counterfeiters, from losses when banks fail, and from bearing the whole burden of the wear and tear of small notes. 6. To save hard money enough in the country to make it safe to have such pa per currency as commerce and large dealings may require. These are the objects to be accomplished, and less than twenty dollars will have no adequate effect; far better would be the limit of one hundred dollars, as it is nearly in France, and where that limit insures a circulation of nine tenths of gold and silver, and one tenth paper; namely, upwards of five hundred millions of dollars of one, and fifty millions of the other. Wise would it be in any single State to adopt this limit, and to exclude all notes under that amount from circulation with. in its borders; that State would become the richest and the happiest in the Union. It would be, in its moneyed concerns, to the rest of the Union, what France is to the rest of Europe-the absorbent of their precious metals, the perennial fountain of golden supply to its citizens, and the land of rest from the panics and pressures, the ebbs and flows, the feasts and famines, the dearths and deluges, the expansions, contractions, and revulsions, and all the crimes and misfortunes of the paper system. But to proceed with the twenty-dollar limit. While England had notes as low as one and two pounds, which we may call five and ten dollars, the specie basis contracted and diminished until silver could only be got for small change, and gold fled entirely from the country, The mint was forever coining, but the guineas and sovereigns went straight to France; and it was testified by Mr. Alexander Baring, before a committee of the House of Commons, that the gold coinage of the British mint, during this period, was regularly recoined in France, often without seeing the light in England; being packed in boxes and shipped as it issued from the mint, delivered in Paris before it was a week old, and swal lowed up in the ocean of French currency, by passing through the French mint, and assuming the stamp and A third objection which Mr. B. urged against the notes under twenty dollars was, that nearly the whole evils of that part of the paper system fell upon the laboring and small dealing part of the community. Nearly all the counterfeits lodged in their hands, or were shaved out of their hands. When a bank failed, the mass of its circulation, being in small notes, sunk upon their hands. The gain to the banks from the wear and tear of small notes came out of them, the 1 ss from the same cause falling upon them. The 10 or 12 per cent, annual prof-arms of France. The suppression of the one and two it for furnishing a currency in place of gold and silver (for which no interest would be paid to the mint or the Government) chiefly falls upon them; for the paper currency is chiefly under twenty dollars. These evils they almost exclusively bear, while they have, over and above all these, their full proportion of all the evils resulting from the expansions and contractions which are incessantly going on, totally destroying the standard of value, periodically convulsing the country, and in every cycle of five or six years making a lottery of all property, in which all the prizes are drawn by the bank managers and their friends. pound notes in 1819, and the £5 limit, with the compul sory obligation on the Bank of England to pay all its notes in gold, restored the gold currency in that coun try, and so extended and enlarged the specie basis, as to make her currency half and half-half specie and half paper--the specie two thirds gold, and one third silver; and the paper all of £5, about $24, and upwards. This has made a paper currency safe in England, for it is dollar for dollar; it has given to the laboring and small dealing classes a hard-money currency, and it has taken from the counterfeiters their chief and favorite classes of notes for imitation. Mr. B. took the great ground that, In proposing the limitation of twenty dollars to these where a paper currency was tolerated at all, the safety District banks, Mr. B. of course coupled with it the and welfare of the community required the specie pro concomitant provision for the exclusion of all notes unportion to be one half; that it required a £5 limit, and der the same limit issued without the D strict. This was gold payments, to effect that object in England; that a a precaution as just and natural as it was easy. A pro-limit of twenty dollars would not effect it in the United hibitory law, with a liability in every passer to pay the States; and he was only restrained from proposing the amount of the notes, with costs and damages, in specie, French limit, from the impossibility of contending suc and especially in gold, with summary process before a cessfully with the bank power at present, now omnipojustice of the peace for the recovery, would effectually tent in the country, engrossing the time and governing expel the interdicted and pestiferous paper. the legislation in whatever related to their own interests. A twenty-dollar limit would not give a substratum of Mr. B. said that the proposed limit of twenty dollars for the minimum size of bank notes was was not an arbi-half specie, even if our banks were compelled to pay trary assumption or a fanciful designation; but was a limit ascertained by experience, and proven by results, to be the lowest that would suffice to accomplish the ends intended. These ends are: 1. To re-establish the gold currency. 2. To make gold and silver the common currency for all the small dealings of the country. 3. To extend and enlarge the specie basis of the paper all gold; but there is no compulsion on them to pay any part; and the efforts to bring them to half payments in gold would be long and bitterly resisted. Gold is the enemy of paper; it keeps it down when the holder of the paper has a right to demand gold; and thus a paper currency founded upon gold, as it is in England, will always be kept more within bounds than a paper cur. JAN. 28, 1837.] Voles for President and Vice President—Retirement of the Vice President. rency founded upon silver. Silver is too cumbrous to hold paper in check. A person would not wish to change even a twenty-dollar note into silver to carry in his pocket, but would gladly change it into gold; and so of fifty and bundred dollar notes. When Mr. BENTON had concluded his speech, Mr. GRUNDY moved to lay the bill on the table, for the purpose of taking up and acting on the resolution submitted by him for the appointment of a joint committee to count the VOTES FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESI DENT. This motion having been agreed to, and Mr. GRUNDY'S resolution being before the Senate, Mr. GRUNDY said he had no objections to the inquiry proposed by the amendment; and he thought that some such provision as that proposed by the Senator from Kentucky would be very proper. He had seen in the public papers a statement charging that some of the electors who voted in the late presidential election held offices under the General Government, and had made inquiries for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the matter. The information he had been able to collect related to two cases only; and as to these, the report had been founded altogether on a misapprehension. Mr. CLAY, after a few remarks, offered the following amendment: "And, also, to inquire into the expediency of ascertaining whether any votes were given at the recent election, contrary to the prohibition contained in the second section of the second article of the constitution. And if any such votes were given, what ought to be done with them; and whether any, and what, provision ought to be made for securing the faithful observance, in future, of that section of the constitution." Mr. HUBBARD expressed his entire concurrence in the objects of the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky. He wished a strict inquiry to be instituted, and measures to be adopted to guard against the occurrence of such a violation of the constitution as the [SENATE. Entering upon it with unaffected diffidence, well knowing how little my studies had been directed to its peculiar duties, I was yet strengthened by the determi nation, then expressed, so to discharge the authority with which I was invested, as "best to protect the rights, to respect the feelings, and to guard the reputations, of all who would be affected by its exercise." I was sure that, if successful in this, I should be pardoned for errors which I could hardly expect to avoid. In the interval that has since elapsed, it has been our lot in this assembly to pass through scenes of unusual excitement: the intense interest on absorbing topics, which has pervaded our whole community, could not be unfelt within these walls. The warmth of political parties, natural in such times, the unguarded ardor of sudden debate, and the collisions seldom to be separated from the invaluable privilege of free discussion, have not been unfrequently mingled with the more tranquil tenor of ordinary legislation. I cannot hope that, in emergencies like these, I have always been so fortunate as to satisfy every one around me; yet I permit myself to think that the extent to which my decisions have been approved by the Senate is some evidence that my efforts justly to administer their rules have not been vain; and I conscientiously cherish the conviction, that on no occasion have I departed from my early resolution, or been regardless of what was due to the rights or the feelings of the members of this body. Though I may henceforth be separated from the Senate, I can never cease to revert with peculiar interest to my long connexion with it. In every situation in my future life I shall remember with a just pride the evidences of approbation and confidence which I have here received; and as an American citizen, devotedly attached to the institutions of my country, I must always regard with becoming and sincere respect a branch of our Government invested with such extensive powers, and designed by our forefathers to accomplish such important results. Indulging an ardent wish that every success may await you in performing the exalted and honorable duties of your public trust, and offering my warmest prayers that each of you, along the future paths of life, I respectfully bid you farewell. Senator from Kentucky referred to. As it had been stated that two of the electors in his State (New Hamp-prosperity and happiness may be constant attendants on shire) held offices under the General Government, and were consequently ineligible, he was happy to state to the Senate that there was no foundation whatever for the report. The amendment of Mr. CLAY was then adopted, and the resolution, thus amended, was agreed to. Mr. HUBBARD moved that the committee be appointed by the Chair; which, by unanimous consent, was was agreed to; and Messrs. GRUNDY, CLAY, and WRIGHT, were selected. The Senate then adjourned. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28. RETIREMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT. The VICE PRESIDENT, after the reading of the journal, addressed the Senate as follows: Senators: The period is at hand which is to terminate the official relation that has existed between us, and I leave, probably never to return to it, a body with which I have been long connected; where some remain whom I found here fifteen years ago, and where, in the progress of public duties, personal associations have arisen never to be forgotten. From such scenes I cannot retire without emotion. Nor can I give to the Senate the usual opportunity of choosing another to preside for a time over their deliberations, without referring to the manner in which I have endeavored to discharge a most gratifying and honorable trust connected with the office to which my country called me. After the VICE PRESIDENT had retired, On motion of Mr. GRUNDY, the Senate proceeded to ballot for a President pro tem. The number of votes cast was 37; necessary to a choice 19. Mr. KING of Alabama had 26, Mr. SOUTH. ARD 7, Mr. CLAY 1, Mr. PRENTISS 1, Mr. EWING of Ohio, 1, Mr. BUCHANAN 1. Mr. KING, of Alabama, being thus duly elected President pro tem. of the Senate, was conducted to the Chair by Mr. BENTON, and addressed the Senate nearly as follows: Gentlemen of the Senate: To be again called to preside over the deliberations of this august assembly fills my heart with the liveliest emotions of gratitude. When at the last session it pleased the Senate to place me in this exalted situation, I solemnly pledged myself to discharge the duties it devolved on me, without favor and without partiality. I felt conscious that I had done so; but could any thing add to the grateful sense I entertain of the honor you have again conferred on me, it will be found in the unequivocal testimony you have this day borne, that I had faithfully redeemed that pledge. The Senate of the United States, gentlemen, is, from its very organization, the great conservative body in this republic. Here is the strong citadel of liberty. To this body the intelligent and the virtuous, throughout our wide-spread country, look with confi dence for an unwavering and unflinching resistance to the encroachments of power on the one hand, and the On motion of Mr. GRUNDY, it was It [JAN. 28, 1837. ignating the funds receivable for the public dues beUn-longed more appropriately to the Committee on Finance. Upon further consultation, however, with several Senators friendly to the administration, Mr. W. had at length reluctantly assented to the proposed reference, which was accordingly made by the vote of the Senate, including that of the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON.] No other report than that which was made, so far as Mr. W. was concerned, could have been anticipated; for to every Senator with whom Mr. W. had conversed, he had expressed his concurrence in the provisions, substantially, of the resolution of the Senator from Virginis, [Mr. RIVES;] and at the last session, when the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] introduced a resolution requiring payments of the public lands in gold and silver only, the Senate would well recollect that he (Mr. W.) had then expressed his opposition to that resolution, and so had a majority of the Senators now composing the Com. mittee on Public Lands. When, then, the Senator from Missouri voted for this reference, he could not justly have anticipated any other report than that which was made by the committee. Why, then, did the Senator from Missouri vote for this reference, and then denounce the committee for making the only report which he could have expected, in conformity with their previously avowed opinions? Mr. W. said it became his duty, as chairman of this committee, and as their organ, to report a bill containing substantially the provisions of the resolution of the Senator from Virginia. Again, the subject had been discussed in the Senate, but Mr. W. had not participated in the debate; and the bill, by a large majority, was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading; and now, when, by the usual rules of parliamentary debate, the contest might well be considered as terminated, the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] before the vote on the final passage, had made a very elaborate argument against the measure. To all this Mr. W. would make no objection; but when that Senator, having exhausted the argument, or having none to offer, had indulged in violent and intemperate denunciation of the Committee on Public Lands, and of the report Ordered, That the Secretary of the Senate inform the President of the United States and the House of Repre. sentatives that the Senate have elected the Hon. WILLIAM R. KIMG their President pro tem. TREASURY CIRCULAR. The bill designating and limiting the funds which shall be receivable in payment for the public revenues was taken up, being on its third reading. Mr. SEVIER moved to postpone the further consideration of the bill until Monday, for the purpose of going on with the land bill; which motion was lost: Ayes 13, noes not counted. Mr. WALKER then rose and said: Before replying to the indictment preferred by the honorable Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] against the Committee on Public Lands, it is proper to recur to the facts and circum-made by him as their organ, Mr. W. could not withhold stances under which this controversy originated. At an early period of the session, the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. EwING,] introduced a resolution to rescind the Treasury order. This resolution was very fully discussed, and especially by the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] but Mr. W. had taken no part in this discussion. In the progress of the debate upon the resolution of the Senator from Ohio, a substitute was offered, as an amendment, by the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. RIVES.] This substitute was advocated by that Senator, as in consonance with the President's recommendation, to render the legislation of Congress in the collection of the federal revenue auxiliary to the suppression of all notes of a smaller denomination than twenty dollars, and a consequent enlargement of the circulation of gold and silver. The Senator from Virginia had regarded the Treasury order as a temporary measure, to meet a pressing emergency, and as having in a great degree performed its office. the expression of his surprise and astonishment. Mr. W. said it was his good fortune to be upon terms of the kindest personal intercourse with every Senator, and these friendly relations should not be interrupted by any aggression upon his part. And now, Mr. W. said, he called upon the whole Senate to bear witness, as he was sure they all cheerfully would, that in this controversy he was not the aggressor, and that nothing had been done or said by him to provoke the wrath of the Senator from Missouri, unless, indeed, to differ from him in opin ion upon any subject constituted an offence in the mind of that Senator. If such were the views of that gentleman, if he was prepared to immolate every Senator who would not worship the same images of gold and silver which decorated the political chapel of the honorable gentleman, Mr. W. was fearful that the Senator from Missouri would do execution upon every member of the Senate but himself, and be left here alone in his glory. Mr. W. said he recurred to the remarks of the Senator from Missouri with feelings of regret, rather than of an Mr. W. had still refrained from embarking in the dis-ger or excitement; and that he could not but hope, that cussion upon this question. Several Senators, however, when the Senator from Missouri had calmly reflected had expressed their opinions, and great difficulties appear- upon this subject, he would himself see much to regret ed to be presented against any satisfactory adjustment of in the course he had pursued in relation to the Commit this question. Under these circumstances, several Sen- tee on Public Lands, and much to recall that he had ators, now within the sound of his voice, had proposed to uttered under feelings of temporary excitement. Sir, him (Mr. W.) to refer both resolutions to the Committee (said Mr. W.,) being deeply solicitous to preserve unon Public Lands. To this reference, Mr. W. said, he broken the ranks of the democratic party in this body, had at first objected, upon the grounds that the Commit-participating with the people in grateful recollection of tee on Public Lands was engaged in the laborious exam- the distinguished services rendered by the Senator from ination of another question, and that the subject of des Missouri to the democracy of the Union, he would pass by many of the remarks made by that Senator on this subject. [Mr. BENTON here rose from his chair, and demanded, with much warmth, that Mr. WALKER should not pass by one of them. Mr. W. asked, What one? Mr. B. replied, in an angry tone, Not one, sir. Then Mr. W. said he would examine them all, and in a spirit of perfect freedom; that he would endeavor to return blow for blow; and that, if the Senator from Missouri desired, as it appeared he did, an angry controversy with him, in all its consequences, in and out of this House, he could be gratified.] Sir, (said Mr. W.,) why has the Senator from Missou ri assailed the Committee on Public Lands, and himself, as its humble organ? He was not the author of this measure, so much denounced by the Senator from Missouri, nor bad he said one word upon the subject. The measure originated with the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. RIVES.] He was the author of the measure, and had been, and still was, its able, zealous, and successful advocate. Why, then, had the Senator from Missouri assailed him, (Mr. W.,) and permitted the author of the measure to escape unpunished? Sir, are the arrows which appear to be aimed by the Senator from Missouri at the humble organ of the Committee on Public lands, who reported this bill, intended to inflict a wound in another quarter? Is one Senator the apparent object of assault, when another is designed as the real victim? Sir, when the Senator from Missouri, without any provocation, like a thunderbolt from an unclouded sky, broke upon the Senate in a perfect tempest of wrath and fury, bursting upon his poor head like a tropical tornado, did he intend to sweep before the avenging storm another individual more obnoxious to his censure? Sir, (said Mr. W.,) the Senator from Missouri has thrice repeated the prayer, "God save the country from the Committee on Public Lands;" but Mr. W. fully be lieved that if the prayer of the couutry could be heard within these walls, it would be, God save us from the wild, visionary, ruinous, and impracticable schemes of the Senator of Missouri, for exclusive gold and silver currency; and such is not only the prayer of the country, but of the Senate, with scarcely a dissenting voice. Sir, if the Senator from Missouri could, by his mandate, in direct opposition to the views of the President, here. tofore expressed, sweep from existence all the banks of the States, and establish his exclusive constitutional currency of gold and silver, he would bring upon this country scenes of ruin and distress without a parallel-an immediate bankruptcy of nearly every debtor, and of almost every creditor to whom large amounts were due, a prodigious depreciation in the price of all property and all products, and an immediate cessation by States and individuals of nearly every work of private enterprise or public improvement. The country would be involved in one universal bankruptcy, and near the grave of the nation's prosperity would perhaps repose the scattered fragments of those great and glorious institutions which give happiness to millions here, and hopes to millions more of disenthralment from despotic power. Sir, in resistance to the power of the Bank of the United States, in opposition to the re-establishment of any similar institution, the Senator from Missouri would find Mr. W. with him; but he could not enlist as a recruit in this new crusade against the banks of his own and every other State in the Union. These institutions, whether for good or evil, are created by the States, cherished and sustained by them, in many cases owned in whole or in part by the States, and closely united with their prosperity; and what right have we to destroy them? What right had he, a humble servant of the people of Mississippi, to say to his own, or any other State, your State legislation is wrong-your State insti [SENATE. tutions, your State banks, must be annihilated, and we will legislate here to effect this object. Are we the masters or servants of the sovereign States, that we dare speak to them in language like this-that we dare attempt to prostrate here those institutions which are created and maintained by those very States which we represent on this floor? These may be the opinions entertained by some Senators of their duty to the States they represent, but they were not his (Mr. W's) views or his opinions. He was sincerely desirous to co-operate with his State in limiting any dangerous powers of the banks, in enlarging the circulation of gold and silver, and in suppressing the small-note currency, so as to avoid that explosion which was to be apprehended from excessive issues of bank paper. But a total annihilation of all the banks of his own State, now possessing a chartered cap. ital of near forty millions of dollars, would, Mr. W. knew, produce almost universal bankruptcy, and was not, he believed, anticipated by any one of his constit ents. ments. But the Senator from Missouri tells us that this measure of the committee is a repeal of the constitution, by authorizing the receipt of paper money in revenue pay. If so, then the constitution never has had an existence; for the period cannot be designated when pa per money was not so receivable by the Federal Government. This species of money was expressly made receivable for the public dues by an act of Congress, passed immediately after the adoption of the constitution, and which remained in force until eighteen hundred and eleven. It was so received, as a matter of prac tice, from eighteen hundred and eleven until eighteen hundred and sixteen, when, again, by an act of Congress then passed, and which has just expired, it was so authorized to be received during all that period. Now, although these acts have expired, there is that which is equivalent to a law still in force, expressly authorizing the notes of the specie-paying banks of the States to be received in revenue payments. It is the joint resolution of eighteen hundred and sixteen, adopted by both Houses of Congress, and approved by President Madison. That joint resolution is in these words: "That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, required and directed to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States, to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States; and that, from and after the 20th day of February next, no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States as aforesaid, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States. Commenting upon this resolution, the Senator from Missouri, in his speech of December last, declared: "This is the law, continued Mr. Benton, and nothing can be plainer than the right of selection which it gives to the Secretary of the Treasury." "The words of the law are clear; the practice under it has been uniform and uninterrupted from the date of its passage to the present day. For twenty years, and under three Presidents, all the Secretaries of the Treas ury have acted alike. Each has made selections, permitting the notes of some specie-paying banks to be received, and forbidding others." Here this joint resolution is admitted by the Senator |