delegated powers of government, to reconstruct the social and political edifice, and, as it were, to begin afresh with all the lights and all the improvements of experience. Of this the whole world had ample notice. The legislative act to provide for calling a convention bore date the 14th of April, 1835, and was immediately promulgated. The seal of popular decision was definitely affixed to the movement by the elective franchise on the second Tuesday of October, 1835. From that period, they who accepted, upon any terms, a grant of any portion of the powers of the people, social or political, and especially a grant of such enormous and prolonged powers as are transferred in the charter-powers, the loss of which enfeebles the people, and the use of which makes the corporation their competitor in sovereignty-accepted them in fraud of the contemplated convention, or subject to the reclamation of that body. The principle is one of acknowledged and universal justice. It is of daily application in determining controversies between individuals, and only acquires greater weight as it enters a higher sphere. The design to effect vast and vital changes by the convention was avowed and notorious; perhaps none floated more conspicuously upon the surge of public sentiment and sanction than a restriction, if not a total denial, of the legislative competency to create monopolies; and yet, between the first great step to attain this object and its achievement, a phalanx rush into the capitol, in advance of the convention, snatch up a mass of privileges far surpassing all the pre-existing ones combined, and hope, by this stolen march, to defeat a primary and known purpose of the people! It may not, must not be. No law, human or divine, no maxim of expediency or right, forbids us to reclaim the plunder. A convention is the provided machinery of peaceful revolution. It is the civilized substitute for intestine war; the American mode of carrying out the will of the majority; the unalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their government, in such manner as they may think proper. When ours shall assemble, it will possess, within the territory of Pennsylvania, every attribute of absolute sovereignty, except such as may have been yielded and are embodied in the constitution of the United States. What may it not do? It may reorganize our entire system of social existence, terminating and proscribing what is deemed injurious, and establishing what is preferred. It might restore the institution of slavery among us; it might make our penal code as bloody as that of Draco; it might withdraw the charters of the cities; it might supersede a standing judiciary by a scheme of occasional arbitration and umpirage; it might prohibit particular professions or trades; it might permanently suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and take from us (as our late general assembly made an entering wedge to do) the trial by jury. * It will attest the convictions of a staid community, that the charter is a fraud upon their rights, was sought for and yielded against their known will, and cannot, without a degrading surrender of unalienable and indefeasible power, be permitted to endure. * * * Extracts from Andrew Jackson's Message of December 5th, 1936. THE receipts into the treasury, during the present year, will amount to about 47,691,898 dollars. The expenditure for all objects during the year is estimated not to exceed 32,000,000 dollars, which will leave a balance in the treasury for public purposes, on the first day of January next, of about 41,733,959 dollars. This sum, with the exception of five millions, will be transferred to the several States, in accordance with the provisions of the act regulating the deposits of the public money. The consequences apprehended when the deposit-act of the last sessions received a reluctant approval have been measurably realized. Though an act merely for the deposit of the surplus moneys of the United States in the State treasuries for safe-keeping, until they may be wanted for the service of the general government, it has been extensively spoken of as an act to give the money to the several States, and they have been advised to use it as a gift, without regard to the means of refunding it when called for. Such a suggestion has doubtless been made without a due consideration of the obligation of the deposit-act, and without a proper attention to the various principles and interests which are affected by it. It is manifest that the law itself cannot sanction such a suggestion, and that, as it now stands, the States have no more authority to use these deposits, without intending to return them, than any deposit-bank, or any individual temporarily charged with the safe-keeping or application of the public money, would now have for converting the same to their private use, without the consent and against the will of the government. But, independently of the violations of public faith and moral obligation which are involved in this suggestion, when examined in reference to the terms of the present deposit-act, it is believed that the consideration which should govern the future legislation of Congress on this subject will be equally conclusive against the adoption of any measure recognising the principles on which the suggestion has been made. * * * * The shortest reflection must satisfy every one that to require the people to pay taxes to the government merely that they may be paid back again is sporting with the substantial interests of the country, and no system which produces such a result can be expected to receive the public countenance. * * * * * And the practical effect of such an attempt must ever be to burden the people with taxes, not for purposes beneficial to them, but to swell the profits of deposit-banks, and support a band of useless public officers. * * * * To make the general government the instrument of carrying this odious principle into effect would be at once to destroy the means of its usefulness, and change the character designed for it by the framers of the constitution. But the more extended and injurious consequences likely to result from a policy which would collect a surplus revenue for the purpose of distributing it may be forcibly illustrated by an examination of the effects. already produced by the present deposit-act. * * * * The government had, without necessity, received from the people a large surplus, which, instead of being employed as heretofore, and returned to them by means of the public expenditure, was deposited with sundry banks. The banks proceeded to make loans upon this surplus, and thus converted it into banking capital; and in this manner it has tended to multiply bank charters, and has had a great agency in producing a spirit of wild speculation. The possession and use of the property out of which this surplus was created, belonged to the people: but the government has transferred its possession to incorporated banks, whose interest and efforts it is to make large profits out of its use. This process need only to be stated to show its injustice and bad policy. * * * * * * * * Congress is only authorized to levy taxes, "to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." There is no such provision as would authorize Congress to collect together the property of the country under the name of revenue, for the purpose of dividing it equally or unequally among the States or people. Indeed, it is not probable that such an idea ever occurred to the States when they adopted the constitution. * If the necessity of levying the taxes be taken from those who make the appropriations, and thrown upon a more distant and less responsible set of public agents, who have power to approach the people by an indirect and stealthy taxation, there is reason to fear that prodigality will soon supersede those characteristics which have thus far made us look with so much pride and confidence to the State governments as the mainstay of our union and liberties. The State legislatures, instead of studying to restrict their State expenditures to the smallest possible sum, will claim credit for their profusion, and harass the general government for increased supplies. Practically, there would soon be but one taxing power, and that vested in a body of men far removed from the people, in which the farming and mechanic interests would scarcely be represented. The States would gradually lose their purity as well as their independence: they would not dare to murmur at the proceedings of the general government, lest they should lose their supplies all would be merged in practical consolidation, cemented by wide-spread corruption, which would only be eradicated by one of those bloody revolutions which occasionally overthrows the despotic systems of the old world. The President thinks there ought to be no surplus, and then "there would be some guarantee that the spirit of wild speculation, which seeks to convert the surplus revenue into banking capital, would be effectually checked; and that the scenes of demoralization, which are now so prevalent through the land, would disappear." Speaking of the Bank of the United States, he says: "The conduct and present condition of that bank, and the great amount of capital vested in it by the United States, require your careful attention. Its charter expired on the third day of March last, and it has now no power but that given in the twenty-first section" to use the corporate name, style, and capacity, for the purpose of suits, for the final settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts of the corporation, and for the sale and disposition of their estates, real, personal, and mixed, but not for any other purpose or any other manner whatever, nor for a period exceeding two years after the expiration of the said term of incorporation. "Before the expiration of the charter, the stockholders of the bank obtained an act of incorporation from the legislature of Pennsylvania, excluding only the United States. Instead of proceeding to wind up their concerns, and pay over to the United States the amount due on account of the stock held by them, the president and directors of the old bank appear to have transferred the books, papers, notes, obligations, and most or all of its property, to this new corporation, which entered upon business as a continuation of the old concern. Amongst other acts of questionable validity, the notes of the expired corporation are known to have been used as its own, and again put in circulation. That the old bank had no right to issue or re-issue its notes after the expiration of its charter cannot be denied; and that it could not confer any such right on its substitute, any more than exercise it itself, is equally plain. In law and in honesty, the notes of the bank in circulation at the expiration of its charter should have been called in by public advertisement, paid up as presented, and, together with those on hand, cancelled and destroyed. The re-issue is sanctioned by no law, and warranted by no necessity. If the United States be responsible in their stock for the payment of these notes, their re-issue by the new corporation for their own profit is a fraud on the government. If the United States are not responsible, then there is no legal responsibility in any quarter, and it is a fraud on the country." * * * * * It remains to be seen whether the persons, who, as managers of the old banks, undertook to control the government, retained the public dividends, shut their doors upon a committee of the House of Representatives, and filled the country with panic to accomplish their own sinister objects, may now, as managers of a new bank, continue with impunity to flood the country with a spurious currency, use the seven millions of government stock for their own profit, and refuse to the United States all information as to the present condition of their own property, and the prospect of recovering it into their own possession. Mr. Polk's Speech in the House of Representatives in 1834.-(Extract.) MR. POLK would undertake to say that the Bank had not only thus used its funds for corrupt purposes, but they had knowingly endeavoured to conceal the uses to which they had applied them, even so far as to make a mis-statement of facts to Congress on this very point. Extract of a Letter from the Merchants of New York to Martin Van Buren, President of the United States, dated Washington, May 3rd, 1837, and recorded in the public Documents : "UNDER a deep impression of the propriety of confining our declarations within moderate limits, we affirm that the value of our real estate (that is within the city of New York) has, within these last six months, depreciated more than forty millions; that, within these last two months, there have been more than two hundred and fifty failures of houses engaged in extensive business; that, within the same period, a decline of twenty millions of dollars has occurred in our local stocks, including those railroad and canal incorporations, which, though chartered in other States, depend upon New York for the sale; that the immense amount of merchandise in our warehouses has, within the same period, fallen in value at least thirty per cent; and that within a few weeks not less than twenty thousand individuals, depending upon their daily labour for their daily bread, have been discharged by their employers, because the means of retaining them were exhausted." Extract from an Address of Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, lale Member of Congress, to the People of the Third Congressional District of Pennsylvania: -- BANK TAXATION AMERICAN MANUFACTURE. THE deductions exacted on bank-notes in different places, added to the discount taken from private notes cashed by banks, are heavy and double taxation, always preying on production, and undervaluing aud undermining industry, and taxation paid into no treasuries but those of banks and brokers. American manufactures, industry and production, begin the world with indirect taxation, which it is not extravagant to reckon as thirty-three per cent. on all capital; and by a system, artificial and delusive, the supposed protection of domestic manufactures is entirely and more than annulled. For of what use is our impost on foreign goods of twenty-five per cent., while we add thirty-three per cent. to their relative value, by making our money so much worse than foreign money! Our dollar and a half are not worth so much as the English dollar, or as three-quarters of a dollar in France. The English and French make us pay them in coin or its equivalent exchange. What avails our tariff, then? Nothing at all to our manufactures. The whole difference goes to our money-making power, the banks, who divide the profits that belong to the manufacturers. They repeal our tariff so far as it should protect manufactures, and take all the hard earnings of American industry, to be shared between banks and foreigners. In England, the quantity of bank paper is about equal to that of coin circulating. In France, the hard money is ten times greater than the bank paper. In the United States, the bank paper is ten times greater than the gold and silver. Whatever injustice banks do to manufactures, they aggravate to the tens of thousands of poor labourers, of both sexes, who earn a precarious livelihood, in the country, in villages and in cities, by the humblest, hardest and least rewarded daily toil. If to the manufacturers paper money is unjust, to these poor people it is more than unjust-it is cruel; and in a country where the real sovereignty is in their hands, it is a marvellous proof of the prevailing respect for property and law that they do not use their sovereignty as they might, and as in all other countries they would. * I appeal to the whole people of a State whose productions exceed by far those of New York and Virginia united, whose industry, properly developed, is worth ten times all the foreign commerce of New York; to such a commonwealth I appeal to lead the way in emancipating these United States from the oppressive servitude of paper money, which has already chained us by a debt of one hundred and sixty millions of dollars to European fundholders, and our own speculators, and which, if these chains are not broken, will re-colonize this country; which taxes us indirectly more than the people of England are taxed by excises and other (however oppressive) direct taxes; which was the first and most crying |