and silver currency, the necessary and inevitable consequence would be, that all trade must fall into the hands of large capitalists. This is so plain, that no man of reflection can doubt it; I know not, therefore, in what words to express my astonishment, when I hear it said that the present measures of Government are intended for the good of the many instead of the few-for the benefit of the poor, and against the rich; and when I hear it proposed, at the same moment, to do away the whole system of credit, and place all trade and commerce, therefore, in the hands of those who have competent capital to carry them on, without the use of any credit at all. This, Sir, would be dividing society, by a precise, distinct, and well-defined line, into two classes; first, the small class, who have competent capital for trade, when credit is out of the question; and, secondly, the vastly-numerous class of those whose living must become, in such a state of things, a mere manual occupation, without the use of capital, or of any substitute for capital.

Now, Sir, it is the effect of a well-understood system of paper credit to break in upon this line, thus dividing the many from the few, and to enable more or less of the more numerous class to pass over it, and to participate in the profits of capital, by means of a safe and convenient substitute for capital; and thus to diffuse, vastly more widely, the general earnings, and therefore the general prosperity and happiness, of society. Every man of observation must have witnessed, in this country, that men of heavy capital have constantly complained of bank circulation, and a consequent credit system, as injurious to the rights of capital. They undoubtedly feel its effects. All that is gained by the use of credit is just so much subtracted from the amount of their own accumulations, and so much the more has gone to the benefit of those who bestow their own labor and industry on capital in small portions. To the great majority this has been of incalculable benefit in the United States; and, therefore, Sir, whoever attempts the entire overthrow of the system of bank credit, aims a deadly blow at the interest of that great and industrious class, who, having some capital, cannot, nevertheless, transact business without some credit; and can mean nothing else, if it have any intelligible meaning at all, than to turn all such persons over to the long list of mere manual laborers. What else can they do, with not enough of absolute capital, and with no credit? This, Sir, this is the true tendency and the unavoidable result of these measures, which have been undertaken with the patriotic object of assisting the poor against the rich!

Sir, I am well aware that bank credit may be abused. I know that there is another extreme, exactly the opposite of that of which I have now been speaking, and no less sedulously to be avoided.

I know that bank paper may become excessive; that depreciation will then follow; and that the evils, the losses, and the frauds, consequent on a disordered currency, fall on the rich and the poor together, but with especial weight of ruin on the poor. I know that the system of bank credit must always rest on a specie basis, and that it constantly needs to be strictly guarded and properly restrained; and it may be so guarded and restrained. We need not give up the good which belongs to it, through fear of the evils which may follow from its abuse. We have the power to take security against these evils. It is our business, as statesmen, to adopt that security; it is our business not to prostrate, or attempt to prostrate, the system; but to use those means of precaution, restraint, and correction, which experience has sanctioned, and which are ready at our hands.

It would be to our everlasting reproach, it would be placing us below the general level of the intelligence of civilized states, to admit that we cannot contrive means to enjoy the benefits of bank circulation, and of avoiding, at the same time, its dangers. Indeed, Sir, no contrivance is necessary. It is contrivance, and the love of contrivance, that spoils all. We are destroying ourselves by a remedy which no evil called for. We are ruining perfect health by nostrums and quackery. We have lived, hitherto, under a well-constructed, practical and beneficial system; a system not surpassed by any in the world; and it seems to me to be presuming largely, largely indeed, on the credulity and self-denial of the people, to rush, with such sudden and impetuous haste, into new schemes and new theories, to overturn and annihilate all that we have so long found useful.

Our system has, hitherto, been one in which paper has been circulating on the strength of a specie basis; that is to say, when every bank note was convertible into specie at the will of the holder. This has been our guard against excess. While banks are bound to redeem their bills, by paying gold and silver on demand, and are at all times able to do this, the currency is safe and convenient. Such a currency is not paper money, in the odious sense. It is not like the continental paper of revolutionary times; it is not like the worthless bills of banks which have suspended specie payments. On the contrary, it is the representative of gold and silver, and convertible into gold and silver on demand, and, therefore, answers the purposes of gold and silver; and so long as its credit is in this way sustained, it is the cheapest, the best, and the most convenient circulating medium. I have already endeavored to warn the country against irredeemable paper; against bank paper, when banks do not pay specie for their own notes; against that miserable, abominable and fraudulent policy, which attempts to give value to any paper, of any bank, one single

moment longer than such paper is redeemable on demand in gold and silver. And I wish most solemnly and earnestly to repeat that warning. I see danger of that state of things ahead. I see imminent danger that more or fewer of the State banks will stop specie payments. The late measure of the Secretary, and the infatuation with which it seems to be supported, tend directly and strongly to that result. Under pretence, then, of a design to return to a currency which shall be all specie, we are likely to have a currency in which there shall be no specie at all. We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper-mere paper, representing not gold, nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people. This, I fear, Sir, may be the consequence, already alarmingly near, of this attempt-unwise, if it be real, and grossly fraudulent, if it be only pretended—of establishing an exclusive hard-money currency!

But, Sir, if this shock could be avoided, and if we could reach the object of an exclusive metallic circulation, we should find in that very success serious and insurmountable inconveniences. We require neither irredeemable paper, nor yet exclusive hard money. We require a mixed system. We require specie, and we require, too, good bank paper, founded on specie, representing specie, and convertible into specie on demand. We require, in short, just such a currency as we have long enjoyed, and the advantages of which we seem now, with unaccountable rashness, about to throw away.

I avow myself, therefore, decidedly against the object of a return to an exclusive specie currency. I find great difficulty, I confess, in believing any man serious in avowing such an object. It seems to me rather a subject for ridicule, at this age of the world, than for sober argument. But if it be true that any are serious for the return of the gold and silver age, I am seriously against it.

Let us, Sir, anticipate, in imagination, the accomplishment of this grand experiment. Let us suppose that, at this moment, all bank paper was out of existence, and the country full of specie. Where, Sir, should we put it, and what should we do with it? Should we ship it, by cargoes, every day, from New York to New Orleans, and from New Orleans back to New York? Should we encumber the turnpikes, the rail-roads and the steam-boats with it, whenever purchases and sales were to be made in one place of articles to be transported to another? The carriage of the money would, in some cases, cost half as much as the carriage of the goods. Sir, the very first day, under such a state of things, we should set ourselves to the creation of banks. This would become immediately necessary and unavoidable. We may assure

ourselves, therefore, without danger of mistake, that the idea of an exclusive metallic currency is totally incompatible, in the existing state of the world, with an active and extensive commerce. It is inconsistent, too, with the greatest good of the greatest number; and therefore I oppose it.

But, Sir, how are we to get through the first experiment, so as to be able to try that which is to be final and ultimate--that is to say, how are we to get rid of the State banks? How is this to be accomplished? Of the Bank of the United States, indeed, we may free ourselves readily; but how are we to annihilate the State banks? We did not speak them into being; we cannot speak them out of being. They did not originate in any exercise of our power; nor do they owe their continuance to our indulgence. They are responsible to the States; to us they are irresponsible. We cannot act upon them; we can only act with them; and the expectation, as it would appear, is, that, by zealously cooperating with the Government in carrying into operation its new theory, they may disprove the necessity of their own existence, and fairly work themselves out of the world! Sir, I ask once more, Is a great and intelligent community to endure patiently all sorts of suffering for phantasies like these? How charmingly practicable, how delightfully probable, all this looks!

I find it impossible, Mr. President, to believe that the removal of the deposits arose in any such purpose as is now avowed. I believe all this to be an after-thought. The removal was resolved on, as a strong measure against the Bank; and now that it has been attended with consequences not at all apprehended from it, instead of being promptly retracted, as it should have been, it is to be justified on the ground of a grand experiment, above the reach of common sagacity, and dropped down, as it were, from the clouds, "to witch the world with noble policy." It is not credible, not possible, Sir,-that, six months ago, the Administration suddenly started off to astonish mankind with their new inventions in politics, and that it then began its magnificent project by removing the deposits as its first operation. No, Sir, no such thing. The removal of the deposits was a blow at the Bank, and nothing more; and if it had succeeded, we should have heard nothing of any project for the final putting down of all State banks. No, Sir, not one word. We should have heard, on the contrary, only of their usefulness, their excellence, and their exact adaptation to the uses and necessities of this Government. But the experiment of making successful use of State banks having failed, completely failed, in this the very first endeavor; the State banks having already proved themselves not able to fill the place and perform the duties of a national bank, although highly useful in their appropriate sphere; and the disastrous consequences of

the measures of Government coming thick and fast upon us—the professed object of the whole movement is at once changed, and the cry now is, Down with all the State banks! down with all the State banks! and let us return to our embraces of solid gold and solid silver!

Sir, I have no doubt that, if there are any persons in the coun try, who have seriously wished for such an event as the extinction of all banks, they have not, nevertheless, looked for the absence of all paper circulation. They have only looked for issues of paper from another quarter.

We have already had distinct intimations that paper might be issued on the foundation of the revenue. The Treasury of the United States is intended to become the bank of the United States, and the Secretary of the Treasury is meant to be the great national banker. Sir, to say nothing of the crudity of such a notion, I may be allowed to make one observation upon it. We have heretofore heard much of the danger of consolidation, and of the great and well-grounded fear of the union of all powers in this Government. Now, Sir, when we shall be brought to the state of things in which all the circulating paper of the country shall be issued directly by the Treasury Department, under the immediate control of the Executive, we shall have consolidation with a witness!

Mr. President, this experiment will not amuse the people of this country. They are quite too serious to be amused. Their suffering is too intense to be sported with.

Assuredly, Sir, they will not be patient as bleeding lambs under the deprivation of great present good, and the menace of unbearable future evils. They are not so unthinking-so stupid, I may almost say-as to forego the rich blessings now in their actual enjoyment, and trust the future to the contingencies and the chances which may betide an unnecessary and a wild experiment. They will not expose themselves at once to injury and to ridicule. They will not buy reproach and scorn at so dear a rate. They will not purchase the pleasure of being laughed at by all mankind at a price quite so enormous.

Mr. President, the objects avowed, in this most extraordinary measure, are altogether undesirable. The end, if it could be obtained, is an end fit to be strenuously avoided; and the process adopted to carry on the experiment, and to reach that end (which it can never attain, and which, in that respect, wholly fails), does not fail, meantime, to spread far and wide a deep and general distress, and to agitate the country beyond any thing which has heretofore happened to us in a time of peace.

Sir, the people, in my opinion, will not support this experiment. They feel it to be afflictive, and they see it to be ridiculous; and