APRIL 4, 1834.] The Public Deposites. [H. OF R. At the utmost, one hundred and five dollars a share. Mr. Speaker, I believe these charges of dishonesty Compare the prices current of the two periods, and you and corruption equally ungenerous and unjust. They will find that every share of the bank stock owned by the are ungenerous, because they are made under the propeople of the United States, has lost twenty-five dollars tection of official station, against private citizens, in a of its value to them by this electioneering of the Presi- manner which deprives them of the means of defending dent of the United States, against the bank, and for him themselves and vindicating their characters. They are self. Twenty-five dollars a share, upon seventy thousand unjust, because made, not in the candid, open, and exshares, is one million seven hundred and fifty thousand plicit forms which ought to mark all official denunciations dollars; and this is the sum which the President of the against individuals, but in a manner consciously evasive United States has levied upon the people, by his election- and distrustful of itself, and because they are untrue. eering against the bank and for himself. I say they are made under the protection of official Thus, then, stand the comparative accounts. The station against private citizens; for, sir, let it be rememberbank has cost the people of the United States, in elec-ed that the president and stock directors of the Bank of the tioneering against the President, and for itself, twelve United States are not officers of the Government. They thousand dollars. The President has cost the people, in are neither appointed, nor removable by the President electioneering against the bank, and for himself, one mil- of the United States. The United States hold seven million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And in lions of dollars of the stock. The President and Senate this same contest of electioneering, while the bank has appoint five out of the twenty-five directors, and the expended forty-eight thousand dollars of the money of charter contains sundry provisions for making the bank the other stockholders, the President of the United States the agent of the Government for the performance of cerhas taxed them to the amount of seven millions of dollars. tain duties and services. But the president and stock Eight millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars directors are private citizens, entitled to the enjoyments is the sum levied by the President of the United States of all the rights of other private citizens. The manageupon the stockholders of the bank, for his electioneering; ment of the affairs of the bank is intrusted to them, toand the Secretary of the Treasury tells us that sixty thou-gether with the Government directors, under the general sand dollars expended in the same contest by the bank is law of corporations, of acting by majorities, and so long sufficiently startling. as they keep within the pale of action warranted by the laws of the land, a charge of dishonesty or corruption against them, uttered by the President of the United States, or the Secretary of the Treasury, is neither more nor less than slander, emitted under the protection of official station against private citizens. This is both ungenerous and unjust. It is an abuse of the shelter of of ficial station to circulate calumny with impunity. There is, indeed, this difference between the sixty thousand dollars money of the stockholders, expended in this contest by the bank, and the eight millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the same money levied in the same contest by the President. With the sixty thousand dollars, industry was employed, and for them an equivalent was received. Information was circulated among the people upon subjects deeply affecting Observe, too, that those charges, deeply as they affect their own interests, and the materials were supplied for the character of private individuals, are never made making up a correct public opioion. But the eight mil- directly against them by name. No! it is the bank, that is lions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars tax levied the monster; the moneyed aristocracy; the mammoth corupon the stockholders of the bank by the President of poration; that is the sink of corruption; the purse-proud the United States, in electioneering for himself, are so tyrant, corrupt itself, and practising corruption upon the much property destroyed. They are so much of the whole people! And to what an odious extent have these capital stock or the nation consumed as by fire; no inform-charges been carried! Have you yourself, Mr. Speaker, ation has been communicated by their destruction to the been exempted from the general imputed contamination? people; no industry has been employed; no equivalent Deeply as you may have been dipped in the Stygian wafor the loss received. Far otherwise. If there be a ters of Jacksonism, are you yet not vulnerable at the heel? widow, or an orphan, whose dower or whose inheritance Has it not been given as a reason for removing the deposconsisted of ten shares in the stock of the bank, a tax of ites only sixty days before the meeting of Congress, that, twenty-five dollars upon each and every one of those if the last Congress had been in session but one week shares has been levied upon that widow or orphan, as longer, the bank would have corrupted two-thirds of the contributions to his re-election. So much of their proper- members of both Houses, and purchased a recharter, ty has been taken away from them, not for the benefit of beyond the reach of a veto? And were not we, ourothers, but to be destroyed. The capital stock of the selves, was not this present Congress, held access ble to Bank of the United States, on the first of January, 1832, the same corruption, in advance? Was not this formally was worth, in the market, at least forty-five millions of assigned as the reason for withdrawing the deposites. dollars, and every stockholder in that institution might without waiting for our meeting? And is not this inhave paid his debts or purchased land with his stock, at famous imputation authenticated beyond all daring of an advance of thirty per cent. To pay debts or to pur- denial? Infamous, I say, to us, to the people who chose chase lands at this day, the same stock may be applied us as their Representatives, and to the president and at an advance of two, three, or, at most, four per cent. stock directors of the bank, if true; infamous, if not true, The difference is the tax levied by the President of the in him who uttered it. United States for his re-election, and his warfare against Now, sir, to set you, and all the members of both the bank. Not spent in printing and circulating pamphlets, and propitiating printers, but nullified, destroyed; sunk in depreciation without benefit to any human being. Thus, then, the reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury, for removing the public deposites from the Bank of the United States and its branches, are insufficient. They are insufficient even for ordering and directing otherwise than that the deposites should be made there, which was the whole extent of his lawful authority. They are worse than insufficient for removing from them funds which had been already deposited there; for which he had no lawful authority, and which was usurpation. Houses of the last and of the present Congress aside, and, 3503 H. OF R.] GALES & SEATON'S REGISTER The Public Deposites. [APRIL 4, 1834. cabinet rescript of the 18th of September last. Now, I Bank of the United States, I can have no possible objec"Ex pede repeat, strip Andrew Jackson and Roger B. Taney of the tion to his being gratified. He will suffer no injustice by little brief authority which invests them with the privi- having that measure applied to his foot as the standard, lege of slandering their fellow-citizens with impunity, and then inferring from that the whole man. and neither of them would dare to charge any one of Herculem," all the rest will be perfectly congenial with those men whom I have named, either before their faces, it; and such I have no doubt will be the judgment of or any where in the presence of credible, impartial wit-posterity. But, sir, if his re-election can, with any prenesses, with dishonesty or corruption, either in general tence of reason, be considered as an evidence of the senNeither of them tence of condemnation by the people, against the bank, terms or by any one specification. would dare go to the city of Philadelphia, and there, then I say that the re-election of the members of the in any possible manner, avow a charge against any one of House, who voted for and against that bill to re-charter. those men, which could make up an issue for a test of the bank, is evidence far more conclusive and unequivoIt may, indeed, cal of the sentiments of the people with regard to the character by a verdict of their peers. be a question whether even a President of the United bank and the recharter, than the presidential election was States, or a Secretary of the Treasury, does possess the or could be. Now, sir, every member of this House who right of pouring forth slanders upon private individuals, voted for or against that bill to recharter the bank, has wholly without responsibility to the laws protective of passed through that ordeal of re-election since he gave character. It cannot be doubted, that, under color of that vote; and it so happens that the proportion of rethe discharge of official duty, it is in the power of those elected members of those who voted for and against the high dignitaries to blast the reputation of individuals by recharter, is precisely the same. One member of the groundless imputations, for which the injured party would House who voted for the recharter, Philip Doddridge, of in vain seek reparation or indemnity from the laws of his Virginia, we soon after followed, in melancholy procescountry. But, even this odious privilege has its limits.sion, to the grave; and sure I am, that there is not a VirNeither a Secretary of the Treasury, nor a President of ginian heart who hears me, but will respond to me when No one will say that his vote was no feeble testimonial of the purity the United States, is wholly above the law. deny that both of those officers are, as individuals, liable of purpose with which every vote was given on that occato action or indictment for slanders, like others; and there sion, which now stands recorded in association with his. seems to be a full consciousness of this, in the undevia-Had he lived and consented to serve, there can be no ting uniformity with which they point their official doubt that he would still have been one of us. defamation at the bank, instead of directing their charges, would then have been 51 re-elected members of 107 as fair and honorable adversaries ought to do, at the pres-members, who voted for the recharter; there are 41 of ident and stock directors of the bank, the real objects of 85 who voted against it; and as 41 is to 85, so is 51 to 107. Sir, the doctrine of chances, and all the other elements their accusations. There that all the members on both sides of the question, those who voted for and those who voted against the recharter, faithfully represented the sentiments of their respective constituents; and this result, so uniform of the elections to this House throughout the whole Union, is of itself an honorable vindication of the integrity of its members, from the baseness imputed to them by the Chief Executive Magistrate. When the President of the United States said that if which are mingled up in the process of electioneering the last Congress had continued in session one week throughout this whole Union, lias not produced a varialonger, the bank would, by corrupt means, have procured tion from the proportion, to the amount of a single man; a recharter by majorities of two-thirds, in both Houses of and what is the inference that I draw from this curious Congress, to what portion of the members of both Houses and extraordinary arithmetical demonstration? Why, sir, did this honorable testimonial of his confidence specially apply? At the preceding session of the same Congress, a bill to recharter the bank had passed the Senate by a vote of 28 to 20. It had passed in the House by a vote of 107 to 85, and this was immediately after an investigation of the affairs of the bank, by a committee of the House, who went to Philadelphia for that express purpose, and every member of that committee is also a member This vindication, it must also be observed, is more neof this House. Of the 107 members of the House who voted for that recharter, 50 are members of this House; cessary to that portion of the members of the House who of the 85 members who voted against it, 41 are members voted against the recharter, and were the devoted friends of the present House; and there is in this proportion, on of the President and of his administration, than to the rest. both sides, a coincidence so remarkable, that I cannot It was from the 85 members who voted against the rehelp inviting to it the attention of the House. It has been charter that the recruits of corruption must have been assumed by the President of the United States, and re- levied, to constitute with the 107 who had already voted peated by the Secretary of the Treasury, and by the re- for the recharter, that majority of two-thirds which could port of the Committee of Ways and Means, that the re-have effected the recharter in defiance of the veto. election of the President, after his veto upon this very the 85 names which stand thus recorded, 21 must have bill to recharter the bank, is of itself equivalent to a ver-changed their votes from the negative to the affirmative Mr. Speaker, before the recharter could have been accomplished by a dict of the people against the bank. shall not inquire what sort of an estimate this position majority of two-thirds; and this is what the President of supposes the people to have formed of all the other the United States considered not only as practicable, but It seems to me as certain to have been effected, by corrupt means, if the measures of a four years' administration. an admission, that in all the rest of his measures, the last session of Congress had continued one week longer. people saw and felt nothing, which could have secured Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there was one member of to him his re-election, but that this crushing of the mon- the last Congress who voted against the rechartering of ster, was not only meritorious in itself, but sufficient to the bank, who could have been induced to change his outweight a mass of demerit, in the whole system of the vote by corrupt means, had the president and directors That it administration besides, which would have forfeited the of the bank been base enought to attempt the use of them. claim to that approbation of the people of which the result I believe this imputation to have been as unjust as it was Sir, if the President of the dishonorable to both the parties implicated in it. of the election was the test. United States is willing that his reputation as a statesman was cruelly ungenerous towards the friends of the adminis at the head of this Union, should go down upon the rec-tration in this House is my deliberate opinion; and, as I ords of this age, to the admiration of after times, on the am well assured, that there was not one of them justly single and solitary foundation of his having destroyed the obnoxious to the suspicion, so there is no one of them who of APRIL 4, 1834.] The Public Deposites. [H. or R. "Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas." It is to be regretted that the Secretary of the Treasury did not feel himself at liberty to assign this reason. In my humble opinion, it ought to have stood in front of all the rest. There is an air of conscious shamefacedness in the suppression of that which was so glaringly notorious; and something of an appearance of trifling, if not of mockery, in presenting a long array of reasons, omitting that which was at the foundation of them all. can be considered exempted from it. And now, when we reflect that this defamatory and disgraceful suspicion, harbored or professed against his own friends, supporters, and adherents, was the real and efficient cause, (to call it a reason would be to shame the term,) but that it was the real motive for the removal of the deposites during the recess of Congress, and only two months before its meeting, what can we do but hide our heads with shame? Sir, one of the duties of the President of the United States a duty as sacred as that to which he is bound by his offi- In the annual message of the President of the United cial oath--is that of maintaining unsullied the honor of his States to Congress, at the commencement of their last country. But how could the President of the United session, a complete system of administration for the future States assert, in the presence of any foreigner, a claim to government of this Union was set forth at full length, the honorable principle or moral virtue, as attributes belong-single principle of which was declared to be to reduce the ing to his countrymen, when he is himself the first to cast Government of the Union to a simple machine; and its the indelible stigma upon them. "Vale, venalis civitas, ultimate object to sacrifice all other interests to those of mox peritura, si emptorem invenias," was the prophetic the best part of the population. The simple machine curse of Jugurtha upon Rome, in the days of her deep was the means-the exclusive benefit of the best part of corruption. If the imputations of the President of the the population was the end of this system of Government. United States upon his own partisans and supporters As illustrations of the great design, the message went were true, our country would already have found a pur- much into detail upon four principal objects of national chaser. concernment, and the policy resulting from the whole system was, the determination to give away all the public lands to the best part of the population; to withdraw all protection from domestic industry; to renounce forever all undertaking of internal improvements; and to annihilate the Bank of the United States. Mr. Speaker, the reason thus assigned by the President of the United States to his Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Duane, for removing the public moneys from the Bank of the United States, before the meeting of Congress, is not among those which his Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Taney, has assigned to Congress after their The destruction of the bank is but one of the four meeting. That it was the true and efficient cause of that elements of this stupendous system. This, we have been removal is evident, not only from the positive testimony told repeatedly by quasi official authority, had been reof Mr. Duane, in his third letter to the people of the solved before ever the President left Tennessee to come United States, but from the utter futility of the reasons and assume the reins of Government here. The deassigned by Mr. Taney. There is an evidence in facts struction of the bank was necessary, both to the simplifithemselves, and in the characters of men, which authentication of the machine, and to the accomplishment of the cates testimony, beyond the reach of denial. Mr. Duane end. The bank presented an obstacle to the absolute and states that after Mr. Reuben M. Whitney, on the very day unlimited control and disposal of the whole revenue of when he, Mr. Duane, entered upon his duties as Secretary of the country. So long as the public funds were deposited the Treasury, had communicated to him the determination in the Bank of the United States and its branches, they of the President to cause the public deposites to be remov- could not be used for the purpose of political partisans, or ed before the meeting of Congress, the President him- for gambling in the public stocks. So long as the bank self, the second day after, confirmed the information, and could sustain the credit of the commercial community, it said, "that the matter under consideration was of vast con- would be impossible to break all the traders upon borsequence to the country; that, unless the bank was broken rowed capital, certainly not the best part of the populadown, it would break us down; that, if the last Congress had tion, probably, in the estimation of our Lycurgus, the remained a week longer in session, two-thirds would have worst. been secured for the bank by corrupt means, and that the like result might be apprehended the next Congress; that such a State bank agency must be put in operation before the meeting of Congress as would show that the United States Bank was not necessary; and thus some members would have no excuse for voting for it." "My suggestions (adds Mr. Duane) as to an inquiry by Congress, as in December, 1832, or a recourse to the judiciary, the President repelled, saying it would be idle to rely upon either; referring, as to the judiciary, to the decisions already made as indications of what would be the effect of an appeal to them in future." The measure The reason, then, paramount to all others, for the removal, by the Secretary of the Treasury, of the public deposites from the Bank of the United States, was the will of the President of the United States. It was a part of his system for simplifying the machine of Government. It was a part of his system for breaking all traders upon borrowed capital. It was a part of his system of ultimately reverting to a hard money currency, and prostrating every other interest in the community before the holders of lands and the holders of slaves. was admirably adapted to all these purposes. What possible contrivance could have been so well suited to These, then, were the effective reasons of the Presi-simplify the machine? It placed the whole revenue of dent for requiring the removal of the deposites before the the Union at all times at his disposal, for any purpose meeting of Congress. The corruptibility of the Congress to which he might be disposed to apply it. In vain had itself, and the foregone decisions of the Supreme Court the constitution of the United States solemnly enjoined of the United States-the legislative and judicial authori- that not a dollar of public money should ever issue from ties were alike despised and degraded. The executive the Treasury unless in consequence of public appropriawill was substituted in the place of both. These reasons tions made by law. In vain had the laws cautiously had already been urged, without success, upon one stationed the Register, the Comptroller, the Treasurer, Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane; he had been as checks upon the Secretary of the Treasury, so that promoted out of office, and they were now pressed upon the most trifling sum in the treasury should never be the judgment and pliability of another. He, too, was accessible to any one, or even any two men. With a found refractory, and displaced. A third, more accom-removal of the deposites and a transfer draft, millions modating, was found in the person of Mr. Taney. To upon millions may be transferred by the stroke of the him the reasons of the President were all-sufficient, and pen of a supple and submissive Secretary of the Trea he adopted them without reserve. They were all sum-sury, from place to place, at home or abroad, wherever med up in oneany purpose, personal or political, may thereby be pro VOL. X.--220 3507 GALES & SEATON'S REGISTER H. OF R.] The Public Deposites. [APRIL 4, 1834. moted. All the perplexing complications of constitutional it with an opposition and resistance to them from which I principle, all the jealous bolts and bars upon the gates of the treasury, all the vigilant sentinels stationed before them to guard them from intrusion, all vanish before this magic wand of the Secretary. At the "Open Sesame" of a transfer draft, "On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The brazen doors, and on their hinges grates surely nothing can be more simple! To this same final object of simplifying the machine, two other maxims have been proclaimed as auxiliary fundamental principles of the present administration. First, that the contest for place and power in this country is a state of war, and all the emoluments of office are the spoils of victory. The other, that it is the invariable practice of the President to reward his friends and punish his enemies. never would have receded. I hailed his proclamation as an exposition of constitutional principles, in general sound and creditable, though I could neither conceal to myself, nor disguise to others, its utter and irreconcilable inconsistency with the annual message sent to Congress but six days before. Of that annual message it became my duty to expose, by a full analysis, the radical, fundamental, and most pernicious errors, of which we are now barely beginning to taste the bitter fruits. A Pres- In his rancorous and unrelenting hostility to the respectable and worthy president and directors of the Bank of the United States I have never shared. It has appeared to me a passionate ebullition of anger and revenge, sophisticated into a self-conceit of unbending patriotism. I voted for the bill to recharter the bank, and deeply lamented, as I still deeply lament, the veto which rejected it. To that measure I look as the primary cause of all the miseries we are now enduring, and of the deeper and deepThe selection of any bank as a place of deposite, is at ening woes that await our futurity. It is that veto which once a loan without interest, and a grant of public money. has been snatching from the mouths of labor its daily It is a grant of all the profit which the bank makes by the bread, and calling down upon itself the curses of the use of the money. The Secretary of the Treasury might widow and the heart-rending cries of the orphan. And himself be a stockholder in every bank which he has se- what have we seen as its consequences already? What a ident of the United States afraid of assassination! lected as a public depository, as well as in one. What a President of the United States barring his gates and boltsimplification of the machine of Government! glorious opportunity to reward friends and punish ene-ing his doors against deputations of his suffering fellowmies! What a distribution of the spoils of victory! Es- citizens, and turning a deaf ear to their complaints! The tablish the precedent, and the next step will be to make removal of the public deposites is but a natural sequel to it a condition of selection that the Secretary of the the veto of the recharter. It was not enough to put the It is very victim to death, unless its dying hour could be made to For all this, in the deep affliction Treasury shall be a stockholder in the bank. certain that none have been or will be selected any where, agonize with torture. but such as are devoted friends to General Jackson. The of my soul, I say the President of the United States is officers of all such banks, their presidents, cashiers, di- personally responsible to this people. For every word rectors, stockholders, debtors, and creditors, are all linked that I have here said, or may say of him, I hold myself together, by the depositary tie, as friends and supporters responsible to him, to my constituents, and my country. of General Jackson; and if any one of them should flinch But I can have no controversy with any one or more of for a moment from his fealty, a transfer draft shall forth- his admirers in this House, and shall make no reply to with punish him as an enemy, just as a transfer draft their sallies of temper exercised upon me in retaliation What an admirable simplifi- for my animadversions, in the discharge of my duty, upon rewarded him as a friend. What an unrival- him. It would not become me to speak here in the fear cation of the machine of Government! led device for the benefit of the best part of the popu- of him. They must not expect me to be silent for the fear of them. I believe them more honest than he belation! lieves them himself. If they are contented with that That im Mr. Speaker, in the review of the reasons which have been assigned, as well as of that which has been sup-character which he gave of them to his confidential counpressed, for this unlawful and unjust removal of the sellor and Secretary, whom he dismissed for refusing to public deposites from the Bank of the United States and be the servile instrument of his will, I shall not disturb its branches to institutions unknown to your laws, and their self-satisfaction. In repelling with indignation, as a unchecked by your control, it has been my purpose to member of this and of the last Congress, his imputation If of the rankest corruption upon the whole body of them confine myself rigorously to the question before you. any thing that I have said on this, or a former day, bear- both, I have not departed one hair's breadth from the ing specially upon the conduct or character of the pres- subject of deliberation now before the House. ent Chief Magistrate, as implicated in these transactions, puted rank corruption he assigned to his confidential should have been offensive to his friends and supporters counsellor and Secretary as his reason for insisting upon here, I shall regret the circumstance, and pray the House the removal of the public deposites before the meeting of to be assured that I have said nothing but under the dic-the present Congress. It was, like all the reasons astates of a commanding duty. With regard to any per- signed by the Secretary, unlawful and unjust. sonal relations which may have existed heretofore, or may now exist, between him and me, I shall say nothing. They form a part of the history of the country, and to the judgment of posterity I cheerfully leave them. When, as a representative of the people, I entered upon this floor, it was with a firm determination to support his administration in every measure which my conscience could approve, and to rebuke him and his administration for every measure, if any such should occur, which I honestly believed derogatory to the honor or pernicious to the interests of my country. During the time that I have been engaged in this service, I have supported his administration at more than one of its times of trial. I supported it in the tariff of 1832; I supported it in the revenue collection bill of the last session; supported it on both occasions against men whom I respect and esteem; supported In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I am well aware that I cannot expect to find myself in the majority in this House upon any question relating to this subject; but I would fain indulge the hope that the majority will take this question directly, without retreating from it, without flinching before it. Are the reasons assigned by the Secretary of the Treasury for changing the depository of the public funds from places prescribed by law to places With perfect respect for the selected at his will-are they, or are they not, sufficient to justify the measure? majority of this House, to whom I now address myself, I say, is it not your duty to your constituents (and I mean thereby the whole people of the Union) to answer that question, ay or no? The corporation of the Bank of the United States, and of that body the United States themselves, as stockholders, form a part, have formally com APRIL 4, 1834.] The Public Deposites. [H. OF R. plained of this act of the Secretary as of a wrong done to of imperishable renown; establishing for itself a reputa them, and they have petitioned you for redress. Per- tion in after times of faithful co-operation with the other mit me to say, it will be no sufficient answer to this com- departments of the Government in promoting the welplaint and petition for redress, to tell them that the bank fare, and protecting the interests of the people, their shall not be rechartered. It will not be sufficient to say constituents, and, at the same time, of inflexible tenacity the bank is unconstitutional. It will not be sufficient to and unyielding adherence to the principles of the consticall it a monster, a tyrant, a corrupt moneyed aristocracy; tution, and the theory of human liberty, handed down to to aver that it has used its power to control the press, to them from their fathers to be transmitted to their chil influence elections, or to produce the present pressure. dren. I have asked myself what that small but steadfast Still less will it be sufficient, after repeating from year to band of statesmen and of heroes, whose forms salute us as year to every pillar of this House, till the very echoes are we daily pass through yonder rotundo to and from this ashamed to return the sound, that the bank has committed hall, in the very act of signing the Declaration of Indeall these crimes, to appoint a strolling committee to per-pendence; I have asked myself what would be their ambulate this whole Union, from Portland to New Or- charge to us, their children and descendants, could they leans, and from Philadelphia to St. Louis, to inquire and speak from the canvass as we pass them by; would they report to this House whether the bank has committed tell us that the summit of human glory is to be scaled by them or not! The question to be answered is, has your demolishing a bank? That the benisons of mankind are to Secretary of the Treasury wronged the bank, or has he be bought by the closure of a broker's shop? That half a not? Has he taken their property and converted it to dozen worthy and respectable traders of Philadelphia are the use of others?-including himself. If you shrink from tyrannizing over the nation in the guise of bank directors; answering this question, it will be an argument of strong and that, unless we take from them the power of loaning prevailment, to those who shall occupy these seats here- money, and calling at the appointed time for its repayafter, that you dared not meet it. The complaint of ment, they will trample our laws, our constitutions, and wrong and the petition for redress will survive you. our liberties, under their feet? Sir, could the patriots of "The evil that men do lives after them." The Bank of 1776 come down from the side of the wall, enter in solthe United States will die; but its ghost will haunt this emn procession within these doors, take seats in front of hall, though justice should be denied by Congress after your chair, and witness our deliberations, with what Congress--perhaps from age to age--and your evasion of amazement would they learn the propositions submitted the question will be a standing recommendation of the to us, and listen to the resolutions prepared for our adop claim, till importunity shall extort from your successors tion? Startled, as they well might be, at the shrieks and the reparation sought in vain from you. groans of agonizing freedom which they would hear reNor is this the only duty incumbent upon you--upon verberating within and around this Capitol, would they you--upon the majority of this House. The fate of the not inquire, what Attila, what Alaric, what Gengis Khan, people and of their posterity is in your hands. The had poured his hordes of Goths, of Vandals, or of Tarexperiment undertaken by the Chief Executive Magis-tars, over our fertile fields, our peaceful plantations, and trate is, in its nature, an assumption by him of legislative our late flourishing farms? What scourge of God had despower; but it cannot be consummated without your as-olated our cities? What convulsion of nature had palsied sent and co-operation. Most of you have been elected the arm of industry? had furled the sails of commerce to as members of this House under pledges to support his mildew at your wharves? had silenced the mill-clap, the administration. How many of you were aware that, in shuttle, and the loom? had banished the merchant from redemption of this pledge, you would be called to sur-the exchange? had severed the ploughman from his render to him your own peculiar and appropriate func-plough? the mechanic from his implements of toil? and tions of legislation?--to pervert the forms, and invert the the daily laborer from his daily bread? Would they not insubstance, of that division of powers without which we quire, what is, of all this, the cause? And how would they have been taught from our childhood that freedom is blush, or weep, to hear one-half of this House respond to but the shadow of a shade. Your constitution has com- their inquiry, the bank! and the other half, the removal mitted its legislative powers to Congress, and the executive power to the President of the United States. But, now, the President has constituted himself the legislator, and calls upon you to execute his ordinances and decrees; and you, in this House, are about to respond to his call, because you are pledged to support his administration. Representatives of the people of the North American Uni- The pressure, from the removal of the deposites, is on, is it for this that you were elected the trustees of their passing away. The prosperity of a great nation cannot interests? the guardians of their rights? Is there no way long suffer from so trifling an incident as that. But the but by laying them at the feet of Andrew Jackson that wrong is done, and its consequences will remain festeryou can support his administration? Nearly two centu- ing and inflaming the body of the community until that ries since, in the same unblessed year which restored the wrong shall be repaired. Your President has usurped Stuarts to the throne of England, the representative of legislative power; he has laid his hands upon your treasthe people of Denmark formally surrendered into the ure, and he is now converting it to his own purposes. hands of their King the whole power of the nation; and, He has seized it, and now wields it as a weapon of power since that time, the Government of Denmark has been a to himself, and an instrument of plunder to his partisans. marvellously simple machine. Is that, in the annals of Yet his experiment has but just commenced; its object is His chonations, the example which, of all others, you would be not merely to destroy, but to break the bank. ambitious of imitating? Mr. Speaker, in the gloomy hours sen State banks are to be his depositories and engines, to of anticipation, which the actual condition of our country restore a metallic currency. With what intuitive sagacihas, for the last four months, forced upon me, I have ty are the means adapted to the end! Sir, his State sometimes cheered for a moment my thick-coming fan- banks would land the nation, they are already hurling it, cies, by imagining what, in the present crisis of our his- into universal bankruptcy. His hand must be stayed, or tory, the representatives of the people of this Union the nation is undone.. Mr. Speaker, thanks to the guarmight be, and what they ought to be. I have pictured dian angel of our Union, there is, even now, there is a to myself a House of Representatives, in the short period power that stays his hand. His seizure of the public of a two years' existence, erecting to itself a monument treasure will receive no sanction of law. His usurpation of the deposites! Sir, the pressure of the removal of the deposites is nearly past; it has ruined its thousands, and afflicted its millions; but the simoom has blown over, and they who prostrated themselves on their faces before the blast survive unhurt, and may rise, and yet find their way out of the desert. |