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JUNE 17, 1836.]

Public Deposites.

[SENATE.

of Representatives of the Congress of the United States; and the Secretary of the Treasury shall deliver the same to such persons as the several States may authorize to receive it, on receiving certificates of deposite, signed by the competent authorities of such State, each for such amount and in such form as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe, which shall set forth and express the obligation of the State to pay the amount thereof to the United States, or their assigns; and which said certifi cates it shall be competent for the Secretary of the Treasury, in the name and behalf of the United States, to sell and assign whenever it shall be necessary for want of other money in the Treasury to meet appropriations made by Congress; all sales and assignments, however, to be ratable, and in just and equal proportions, among all the States, according to the amounts received by them, respectively; and all such certificates of deposite shall be subject to and shall bear an interest of five per cent. per annum, payable half yearly, from the time of such sale and assignment, and shall be redeemable at the pleasure of the States issuing the same."

can be collected, and conveniently and safely applied to all the purposes of the public expenditure. It is also ascertained that, instead of being necessarily made to promote the evils of an unchecked paper system, the management of the revenue can be made auxiliary to the reform which the Legislatures of several of the States have already commenced in regard to the suppression of small bills, and which has only to be fostered by proper regulations on the part of Congress to secure a practical return, to the extent required for the security of the currency, to the constitutional medium." "The collection and custody being a source of credit to them, will increase the security which the States provide for a faithful execution of their trusts, by multiplying the scrutinies to which their operations and accounts will be subjected. Thus disposed, as well from interest as the obligation of their charters, it cannot be doubted that such conditions as Congress may see fit to adopt respecting the deposites in these institutions, with a view to the gradual disuse of the small bills, will be cheerfully complied with; and that we shall soon gain, in place of the Bank of the United States, a practical reform of the whole paper system of the country. If, Stripping this enactment of statutory verbiage, and by this policy, we can ultimately witness the suppres- collecting the provisions of the section into a single view, sion of all bank bills below twenty dollars, it is apparent and they seem to be these: 1. The public moneys, above that gold and silver will take their place, and become a specified sum, are to be deposited with the States in a the principal circulating medium in the common busi-specified ratio; 2. The States are to give certificates of ness of the country. The attainment of such a result deposite, payable to the United States; but no time, or will form an era in the history of our country, which contingency, is fixed for the payment; 3. The Secretary will be dwelt upon with delight by every true friend of the Treasury is to sell and assign the certificates, of its liberty and independence. It will lighten the limited to a ratable proportion of each, when necesgreat tax which our paper system has so long collected sary to meet appropriations made by Congress; 4. The from the earnings of labor, and do more to revive certificates so assigned are to bear an interest of 5 per and perpetuate those habits of economy and simplicity cent., payable half yearly; 5. To bear no interest before which are so congenial to the character of republicans, assignment; 6. The principal to be payable at the picasthan all the legislation which has yet been attempted."

The rejection of the clause referred to, continued Mr. B., has lost the advantages so confidently looked to by the President in this wise and patriotic message. Nothing is done in this deposite bill to fulfil his enlightened and noble views; nothing to enlarge and extend the specie basis; nothing to promote the diffusion of gold; nothing to effect the suppression of notes under twenty dollars; nothing to check the paper system; nothing to regulate the currency; on the contrary, we have a virtual abandonment of all control over the moneyed system, and a virtual surrender of the constitution, and the constitutional duty of Congress over the currency, to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury and the private and interested arrangements of the deposite

banks.

I now come, Mr. President, (continued Mr. B.,) to the second subject in the bill-the distribution feature--and to which the objections are, not of detail, but of principle; but which objections are so strong in the mind of myself and some friends, that, far from shrinking from the contest, and sneaking away in our little minority of six, where we were left last evening, we come forward with unabated resolution to renew our opposition, and to signalize our dissent, and anxious to have it known that we contended to the last against the seductions of a measure, specious to the view, and tempting to the taste, but fraught with mischief and fearful consequences to the character of this Government, and to the stability and harmony of this confederacy. These objections lie to the 13th section of the bill, which are in these words:

"SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That the money which shall be in the Treasury of the United States, on the 1st day of January, eighteen hundred and thirtyseven, reserving the sum of five millions of dollars, shall be deposited with the several States, in proportion to their respective representation in the Senate and House VOL. XII.-114

ure of the State.

This, Mr. President, is the enactment; and what is such an enactment? Sir, I will tell you what it is. It is, in name, a deposite; in form, a loan; in essence and design, a distribution. Names cannot alter things; and it is as idle to call a gift a deposite, as it would be to call a stab of the dagger a kiss of the lips. It is a distribution of the revenues, under the name of a deposite, and under the form of a loan. It is known to be so, and is intended to be so; and all this verbiage about a deposite is nothing but the device and contrivance of those who have been for years endeavoring to distribute the reve nues, sometimes by the land bill, sometimes by direct propositions, and sometimes by proposed amendments to the constitution. Finding all these modes of accomplishing the object met and frustrated by the constitution, they fall upon this invention of a deposite, and exult in the success of an old scheme under a new name. That it is no deposite, but a free gift, and a regular distribution, is clear and demonstrable, not only from the avowed principles, declared intentions, and systematic purposes, of those who conduct the bill, but also from the means devised to effect their object. Names are nothing. The thing done gives character to the transaction; and the imposition of an erroneous name cannot change that character. This is no deposite. It has no feature, no attribute, no characteristic, no quality, of a deposite. A deposite is a trust, requiring the consent of two parties, leaving to one the rights of ownership, and imposing on the other the duties of trustee. The depositor retains the right of property, and reserves the privilege of resumption; the depositary is bound to restore. But here right of property is parted with; the privilege of resumption is surrendered; the obligation to render back is not imposed. On the contrary, our money is put where we cannot reach it. Our Treasury warrant cannot pursue it. The States are to keep the money, free of interest, until it is needed to meet appre

SENATE.]

Public Deposites.

[JUNE 17, 1836.

Senators and Representatives to which it is at the time entitled in Congress; and to the Territories, including the District of Columbia, two shares each.*

Having shown this pretended deposite to be a distribution in disguise, and to be a mere evasion of the con

to trace its ruinous consequences upon the Federal Government and the States. It is brought forward as a temporary measure, as a single operation, as a thing to be done but once; but what career, either for good or for evil, ever stopped with the first step? It is the first step which costs the difficulty; that taken, the second becomes easy, and repetition habitual. Let this distribution, in this disguise, take effect, and future distributions will be common and regular. Every presidential election will bring them, and larger, each time, as the consular elections in Rome, commencing with distributions of grain from the public granaries, went on to the exhibitions of games and shows, the remission of debts, largesses in money, lands, and provisions, until the rival candidates openly bid against each other, and the diadem of empire was put up at auction, and knocked down to the last and highest bidder. The purity of elections may not yet be affected in our young and vigorous country; but how long will it be before voters will look to the candidates for the magnitude of their distributions, instead of looking to them for the qualifications which the presi dential office requires?

priations; and then the Secretary of the Treasury is-to do what? call upon the State? No! but to sell and assign the certificate; and the State is to pay the assignee an interest half yearly, and the principal when it pleases. Now, these appropriations will never be made. The members of Congress are not yet born-the race of rep-stitution, Mr. B. proceeded to examine its effects, and resentatives is not yet known-who will vote appropri ations for national objects, to be paid out of their own State treasuries. Sooner will the tariff be revived, or the price of public land be raised. Sooner will the assignability of the certificate be repealed by law. The contingency will never arrive on which the Secretary is to assign; so the deposite will stand as a loan forever, without interest. At the end of some years the nominal transaction will be rescinded; the certificates will all be cancelled by one general, unanimous, harmonious, vote in Congress. The disguise of a deposite, like the mask after a play, will be thrown aside; and the delivery of the money will turn out to be, what it is now intended to be, a gift from the beginning, This will be the end of the first chapter. And now, how unbecoming in the Senate to practise this indirection, and to do by a false name what cannot be done by its true one. The constitution, by the acknowledgment of many who conduct this bill, will not admit of a distribution of the revenues. Not further back than the last session, and again at the commencement of the present session, a proposition was made to amend the constitution to permit this identical distribution to be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar, for the action of Congress. All at once it is discovered that a change of names will do as well as a change of the constitution. Strike out the word "distribute," and insert the word "deposite;" and, incontinently, the impediment is removed; the constitutional difficulty is surmounted; the division of the money can be made. This, at least, is quick work. It looks magical, though not the exploit of the magician. It commits nobody, though not the invention of the non-committal school. After all, it must be admitted to be a very compendious mode of amending the constitution, and such a one as the framers of that instrument never happened to think of. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Are we legislating, or amusing ourselves with phantasmagoria? Can we forget that we now have upon the calendar a proposition to amend the constitution, to effect this very distribution, and that the only difference between that resolution and this 13th section, is in substituting the word "deposite" for the word "distribute?" Here it is: RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the constitution of the United States, providing for a distribution of the surplus revenues among the several States and Territories, until the year eighteen hundred and forty-three.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Flouses concurring, That the following amendment to the constitution of the United States be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legisla tures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the constitution, that the money remaining in the Treasury at the end of each year till the first of January, eighteen hundred and forty-three, after deducting therefrom the sum of dollars, shall be annually distributed among the several States and Territories, including the District of Columbia; and that, for this pur pose, the sum to be annually distributed shall be divided into a number of shares, equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in Congress for the time being, with the addition of two for each Territory, and two for the District of Columbia; and there shall be allotted to each State a number of shares equal to the number of

The bad consequences of this distribution of money to the States are palpable and frightful. It is complicating the federal and State systems, and multiplying their Take it as points of contact and hazards of collision. ostensibly presented, that of a deposite, or loan, to be repaid at some future time; then it is establishing the relation of debtor and creditor between them; a relation critical between friends, embarrassing between a State and its citizens, and eminently dangerous between confederate States and their common head. It is a relation always deprecated in our federal system. The land credit system was abolished by Congress fifteen years ago, to get rid of the relation of debtor and creditor between the Federal Government and the citizens of the States; and seven or eight millions of debt, principal and interest, was then surrendered. The collection of a large debt from numerous individual debtors, was found to be almost impossible. How much worse if the State itself becomes the debtor! and more, if all the States become indebted together! Any attempt to collect the debt would be attended, first, with ill blood, then with cancellation. It must be the representatives of the States who are to enforce the collection of the debt. This they would not do. They would stand together against the creditor. No member of Congress could vote to tax his State to raise money for the general purposes of the confederacy. No one could vote an appropriation which was to become a charge on his own State treasury. Taxation would first be resorted to, and the tariff and the public lands would become the fountain of supply to the Federal Government. Taken as a real transaction--as a deposite with the States, or a loan to the States-as this measure professes to be, and it is fraught with consequences adverse to the harmony of the federal system, and fraught with new burdens upon the customs and upon the lands; taken as a fiction to avoid the constitution, as a John Doe and Richard Ree invention to convey a gift under the name of a deposite, and to effect a distribution under the disguise of a loan, and it is an artifice which makes derision of the constitution, lets down the Senate from its lofty station, and provides a facile way for doing any thing that any Congress may choose to do in all time to come. It is only to depose one word and

* Submitted by Mr. CALHOUN.-Note by Mr. B.

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instal another-it is merely to change a name--and the frowning constitution immediately smiles on the late forbidden attempt.

To the Federal Government the consequences of these distributions must be deplorable and destructive. It must be remitted to the helpless condition of the old confederacy, depending for its supplies upon the voluntary contributions of the States. Worse than depending upon the voluntary contributions, it will be left to the gratuitous leavings, to the elemosynary crumbs, which remain upon the table after the feast of the States is over. God grant they may not prove to be the feasts of the Lapitha and Centaurs! But the States will be served first; and what remains may go to the objects of common defence and national concern for which the confederacy was framed, and for which the power of raising money was confided to Congress. The distribution bills will be passed first, and the appropriation bills afterwards; and every appropriation will be cut down to the lowest point, and kept off to the last moment. To stave off as long as possible, to reduce as low as possible, to defeat whenever possible, will be the tactics of federal legislation; and when at last some object of national expenditure has miraculously run the gauntlet of all these assaults, and escaped the perils of these multiplied dangers, behold the enemy still ahead, and the recapture which awaits the devoted appropriation, in the shape of an unexpended balance, on the first day of January then next ensuing. Thus it is already: distribution has occupied us all the session. A proposition to amend the constitution, to enable us to make the division, was brought in in the first month of the session. The land bill followed, and engrossed months, to the exclusion of national defence. Then came the deposite scheme, which absorbs the remainder of the session. For nearly seven months we have been occupied with distribution, and the Senate has actually passed two bills to effect the same object, and to divide the same identical money. Two bills to divide money, while one bill cannot be got through for the great objects of national defence named in the constitution. We are now near the end of the seventh month of the session. The day named by the Senate for the termination of the session is long passed by; the day fixed by the two Houses is close at hand. The year is half gone, and the season for labor largely lost; yet what is the state of the general, national, and most essential appropriations? Not a shilling is yet voted for fortifications; not a shilling for the ordnance; nothing for filling the empty ranks of the skeleton army; nothing for the new Indian treaties; nothing for the continuation of the Cumberland road; nothing for rebuilding the burnt down Treasury; nothing for the custom-house in New Orleans; nothing for extinguishing the rights of private corporators in the Louisville canal, and making that great thoroughfare free to the commerce of the West; nothing for the western armory, and arsenals in the States which have none; nothing for the extension of the circuit court system to the new States of the West and Southwest; nothing for improving the mint machinery; nothing for keeping the mints regularly supplied with metals for coining; nothing for the new marine hospitals; nothing for the expenses of the visiters now gone to the Military Academy; nothing for the chain of posts and the military road along the western and northwestern frontier. All these, and a long list of other objects, remain without a cent to this lay; and those who have kept them off now coolly turn upon us, and say the money cannot be expended if appropriated, and that, on the first of January, it must fall into the surplus fund to be divided. Of the bills passed, many of the most essential character have been delayed for months, to the great injury of individuals and of the public service. Clerks and salaried officers have been borrow

[SENATE.

ing money at usury to support their families, while we, wholly absorbed with dividing surpluses, were withholding from them their stipulated wages. Laborers at Harper's Ferry armory have been without money to go to market for their families, and some have lived three weeks without meat, because we must attend to the distribution bills before we can attend to the pay bills. Disbursing officers have raised money on their own account, to supply the want of appropriations. Even the annual Indian annuity bill has but just got through;' the Indians even-the poor Indians, as they were wont to be called-even they have had to wait, in want and misery, for the annual stipends solemnly guarantied by treaties. All this has already taken place under the deplorable influence of the distribution spirit; but this is not all that has taken place. Something more ominous yet has occurred; something which announces a fundamental change in the policy of the Senate, and the approaching abandonment of the great objects for which the confederacy was framed. We all recollect, and the country also will recollect, the two months in the fore part of this session spent in crimination and recrimination for the loss of the fortification bill of the last year. We all recollect, and if we did not, the published speeches would remind us, how emulously we vied with each other in patriotic protestations, in repudiating blame for the loss of that bill, and in favor of national defence. We all remember, and if we did not, the journal will testify for us, how unanimously we adopted a resolution to devote the revenue and the stock from the Bank of the United States, and all that the object required, to the sacred task of preparing, in time of peace, for a state of war; and how we called upon the President to order reports to be made to us from the War and Navy Departments, to apprize us of all that was wanting. This was in February; the answers came in March, and showed us that more would be wanting than all the surpluses would ever supply. Incontinently, upon the view of these reports, the tone of the Senate changed: and these objects of national defence, which had so late received the homage of their applause, and the pledge of their support, became useless, ridiculous, extravagant, visionary projects! They were no longer worth attention, and to attack and decry them has now become the fashion. Not a cent is yet appropriated; and by this new-fangled conception of a distribution bill-this lease, entry, and ouster concernwhatever is appropriated is to be recaptured on the first day of January next. Here is the resolution which we adopted in February, which will show how the question of national defence stood then; the votes and speeches for a month past will show how it stands now:

"Resolved, That so much of the revenue of the United States and the dividends of stock receivable from the Bank of the United States, as may be necessary for the purpose, ought to be set apart and applied to the general defence and permanent security of the country. "Resolved, That the President be requested to cause the Senate to be informed

"1. The probable amount that would be necessary for fortifying the lake, maritime, and gulf frontiers of the United States, and such points of the land frontier as may require permanent fortifications.

2. The probable amount that would be necessary to construct an adequate number of armories and arsenals in the United States, and to supply the States with field artillery (especially brass field-pieces) for their militia, and with side-arms and pistols for their cavalry.

"3. The probable amount that would be necessary to supply the United States with the ordnance, arms, and munitions of war, which a proper regard to self-defence would require to be always on hand.

"4. The probable amount that would be necessary

SENATE.]

Public Deposites.

to place the naval defences of the United States (including the increase of the navy, navy yards, dock yards, and steam or floating batteries) upon the footing of strength and respectability which is due to the security and to the welfare of the Union."

The progress which the distribution spirit has made in advancing beyond its own pretensions, is a striking feature in the history of the case, and ominous of what may be expected from its future exactions. Originally the proposition was to divide the surplus. It was the surplus, and nothing but the surplus, which was to be taken; that bonafide and inevitable surplus which remained after all the defences were provided for, and all needed appropriations fully made. Now the defences are postponed and decried; the needful appropriations are rejected, stinted, and deferred, till they cannot be used; and, instead of the surplus, it is the integral revenue, it is the money in the Treasury, it is the money appropriated by law, which is to be seized upon and divided out. It is the unexpended balances which are now the object of all desire and the prize of meditated distribution. The word surplus is not in the bill! that word, which has figured in so many speeches, which has been the subject of so much speculation, which has been the cause of so much delusion in the public mind, and of so much excited hope; that word is not in the bill! It is carefully, studiously, systematically excluded, and a form of expression is adopted to cover all the money in the Treasury, a small sum excepted, although appro- | priated by law to the most sacred and necessary objects. A recapture of the appropriated money is intended; and thus the very identical money which we appropriate at this session is to be seized upon on the first day of January, torn away from the objects to which it was dedicated, and absorbed in the fund for general distribution. And why? because the cormorant appetite of distribution grows as it feeds, and becomes more ravenous as it gorges. It set out for the surplus; now it takes the unexpended balances, save five millions; next year it will take all. But it is sufficient to contemplate the thing as it is; it is sufficient to contemplate this bill as seizing upon the unexpended balances on the first day of January, regardless of the objects to which they are appropriated; and to witness its effect upon the laws, the policy, and the existence of the Federal Government.

In the first place, the appropriation laws are nullified, to the extent of one half at least; for we all know that the appropriations of a session, and especially the long session, and above all the present session, when appropriations are systematically staved off to prevent them from being used-we all know that, under these circumstances, about one half the money appropriated by law remains unexpended at the end of the year, and is intended to be used during the ensuing year. We all know that the fiscal year of the United States does not end in December, but in September; we know that the work and the service is to go on, and the money to be paid as it becomes due, without regard to the change of the calendar years. Two years is the limitation for an appropriation to run; and this principle, reasonable in itself, is consecrated by law for forty years. Sir, we have law upon this subject; law founded in reason, adapted to the usages of work and service, made by our ancestors, and now standing in full force upon our statute book. I allude to the law of March 3d, 1795, approved by President Washington; and by which the appropriations which were not exhausted upon their object within two calendar years, after the year in which they are made, should then be considered as a surplus, and be carried to a fund denominated the surplus fund; and thence become applicable to new and national objects. Here are the provisions of the act:

"That in regard to any sum which shall have remained

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[JUNE 17, 1836.

unexpended, upon any appropriation other than for the
public debt, &c., or for a purpose in respect to which a
longer duration is specially assigned by law, for more
than two years after the expiration of the calendar year
in which the act of appropriation shall have been passed,
such appropriation shall be deemed to have ceased and
been determined; and the sum so unexpended shall be
carried to an account on the books of the Treasury, to
be denominated the surplus fund. But no appropriation
shall be deemed to have so ceased and determined until
after the year 1795, unless it shall appear to the Secre-
tary of the Treasury that the object thereof hath
been fully satisfied, in which case it shall be lawful for
him to cause to be carried the unexpended residue
thereof to the said account of the surplus fund."
This is the law, made by wise men, founded in reason,
justice, and propriety. This is the law by virtue of
which the appropriations made at this session would con
tinue for two calendar years after the 1st day of January
next; yet this wise and ancient law is to be subverted,
overthrown, nullified. Instead of two years from the
first of January next, it is at midnight on the 31st of De-
cember next that the unexpended balances, without
regard to the objects to which they are applicable, are
to be seized, sequestered, confiscated, plundered from
the Federal Government, and given to the States. The
leaving of five millions is nothing; the unexpended bal-
ances will be double or treble that amount. The taking
any part is asserting the right, and making the prece
dent for taking the whole. Even these five millions,
they are left from policy, and because it is not discreet
to go the whole at once. Even on this remnant the
friends of distribution divide in opinion on this floor,
some saying two millions, [Mr. WEBSTER,] Some saying
five, [Mr. CALHOUN;] and this last sum is evidently left
from policy.

Such, then, is the progress of the distribution spirit; a cormorant appetite, growing as it feeds, ravening as it gorges; seizing the appropriated moneys, and leaving the Federal Government to starve upon crumbs, and to die of inanition. But this appetite is not the sole cause for this seizure. There is another reason for it, connected with the movements in this chamber, and founded in the deep-seated law of self-preservation. For six months the public mind has been stimulated with the story of sixty millions of surplus money in the Treasury; and two months ago, we, the grave Senate of the United States, carried the rash joke of that illusory asseveration so far as to pass a bill to commence the distribu tion of that vast sum. It was the land bill which was to do it, commencing its swelling dividends on the 1st day of July, dealing them out every ninety days, and completing the splendid distribution of prizes, in the sixtyfour million lottery, in eighteen months from the commencement of the drawing. It was two months ago that we passed this bill; and all attempts then made to convince the people that they were deluded, were vain and useless. Sixty-four millions they were promised, sixty-four millions they were to have, sixty-four millions they began to want; and slates and pencils were just as busy then in figuring out the dividends of the sixty-four millions, to begin on the 1st of July, as they now are in figuring out the dividends under the forty, fifty, and sixty millions, which are to begin on the 1st of January next. And now behold the end of the first chapter. The 1st of July is come, but the sixty-four millions are not in the Treasury! It is not there; and any attempt to commence the distribution of that sum, according to the terms of the land bill, would bankrupt the Treasury, stop the Government, and cause Congress to be called together, to levy taxes or make loans. So much for the land bill, which two months ago received all the praises which are now bestowed upon the deposite bill. So

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the drawing had to be postponed, the performance had to be adjourned, and the 1st of January was substituted for the 1st of July. This gives six months to go upon, and defers the catastrophe of the mountain in labor until the presidential election is over. Still the 1st of January must come; and the ridicule would be too great, if there was nothing, or next to nothing, to divide. And nothing, or next to nothing, there would be, if the appropriations were fairly made, and made in time, and if nothing but a surplus was left to divide. There would be no more in the deposite banks, in that event, than has usually been in the Bank of the United States-say ten, or twelve, or fourteen, or sixteen millions; and from which, in the hands of a single bank, none of those dangers to the country were then seen which are now discovered in like sums in three dozen unconnected and independent banks. Even after all the delays and reductions in the appropriations, the surplus will now be but a trifle-such a trifle as must expose to ridicule, or something worse, all those who have tantalized the public with the expectation of forty, fifty, or sixty millions to divide. To avoid this fate, and to make up something for distribution, then, the unexpended balances have been fallen upon; the law of 1795 is nullified; the fiscal year is changed; the policy of the Government subverted; reason, justice, propriety outraged; all contracts, labor, service, salaries cut off, interrupted, or reduced; appropriations recaptured, and the Government paralyzed. Sir, the people are deceived. They are made to believe that a surplus only, an unavoidable surplus, is to be divided, when the fact is that appropriated moneys are to be seized.

[SENATE.

The assignability of these certificates is one of these objections. They are to be assigned, when necessary, to meet appropriations made by Congress, and then to bear five per cent. interest, payable half yearly. As a reality, it is injurious, and may be offensive to the States. No one likes to have his note assigned, especially when the assignment raises an interest where there was none before, and which interest is higher than others would require. The States of this Union can borrow money for less than five per cent. They can borrow it for four, payable yearly, in England and Holland certainly, and probably in France. They can borrow the gold, bring it home, clear two per cent. upon the importation in the present state of the exchanges, and keep it as long、 as they please-twenty, thirty, forty years. Surely, if States wish to borrow money, England and Holland are the places to obtain it; and a direct movement is the way to get it. As a reality, then, this deposite loan is a burden and a hardship; but it is no reality; it is no real transaction; but a fiction, a contrivance, a subterfuge, an evasion to elude the constitution. The certificates are never to be assigned. The contingency on which the assignment is to be made will never arrive. No appropriation requiring it to be done will ever be made. That appropriation would have to be made by Congress; the members of Congress represent the States, not the Federal Government; and their first care will be to defend their own constituents. They will not vote money to become a charge upon their own State treasuries, to be raised by a tax on the lands, houses, slaves, horses, and cattle, of their own constituents. Either they will not make the appropriation at all, or they will first cancel the assignabiltiy of the certificate, and have recourse to an increased tariff, and to higher prices on the public lands.

Sir, I am opposed to the whole policy of this measure. I am opposed to it as going to sap the foundations of the Federal Government, and to undo the constitution, and that by evasion, in the very point for which I object to the time at which this distribution is to be the constitution was made. What is that point? A Treas- made. It is not the time at which such a thing should ury! a Treasury! a Treasury of its own, unconnected be done, if done at all. There is no necessity for acting with, and independent of, the States. It was for this now, if ever, and we are on the eve of a presidential that wise and patriotic men wrote, and spoke, and pray- election. It is an evil example, which may be approved ed, for the fourteen years that intervened from the de- to dreadful effect at future elections. In times less pure, claration of independence, in 1776, to the formation of less virtuous, less patriotic than the present, the presithe constitution in 1789. It was for this that so many dential chair, like consular robes, may be sought through appeals were made, so many efforts exerted, so many the instrumentality of largesses poured from the public fruitless attempts so long repeated, to obtain from the Treasury, in emulous profusion, by the rival hands of States the power of raising revenue from imports. It desperate competitors. Let it never be forgotten that was for this that the convention of 1787 met, and but the contests for office, which ended in auctioneering the for this they never would have met. The formation of diadem of empire in Rome, commenced with the appaa federal Treasury, unconnected with the States, and in-rently innocent custom of dividing out corn from the dependent of the States, was the cause of the meeting public granaries. of that convention; it was the great object of its labors; it was the point to which all its exertions tended, and it was the point at which failure would have been the failure of the whole object of the meeting, of the whole frame of the General Government, and of the whole design of the constitution. With infinite labor, pains, and difficulty, they succeeded in erecting the edifice of the federal Treasury; we, not builders, but destroyers, "architects of ruin," undo in a night what they accomplished in many years. We expunge the federal Treasury; we throw the Federal Government back upon the States for supplies; we unhinge and undo the constitution; and we effect our purpose by an artifice which derides, mocks, ridicules that sacred instrument, and opens the way to its perpetual evasion by every paltry performer that is able to dethrone one word, and exalt another in its place. With such objections to the thing itself, and to the manner of doing it, it would seem to be supererogatory to go into other objections; but there are other objections to the measure worthy of being mentioned in themselves, and still more as showing the true character of this measure, that of a distribution under the name of a deposite.

I object to the time for another reason. There is no necessity to act at all upon this subject, at this session of Congress. The distribution is not to take effect until after we are in session again, and when the true state of the Treasury shall be known. Its true state cannot be known now; but enough is known to make it questionable whether there will be any surplus, requiring a specific disposition, over and beyond the wants of the country. Many appropriations are yet behind; two Indian wars are yet to be finished; when the wars are over, the vanquished Indians are to be removed to the West; and when there, either the Federal Government or the States must raise a force to protect the people from them. Twenty-five thousand Creeks, seven thousand Seminoles, eighteen thousand Cherokees, and others, making a totality of seventy-two thousand, are to be removed; and the expenses of removal, and the year's subsistence afterwards, is close upon seventy dollars per head. It is a problem whether there will be any surplus worth disposing of. The surplus party themselves admit there will be a disappointment unless they go beyond the surplus, and seize the appropriated moneys. The Senator from New York [Mr. WRIGHT] has made

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