The memorialists thought that such a controversy was out of place between the President and the Bank-that the origin of his action should be far above it-that neither the Bank nor any other corporation should entitle itself to any share of his personal hostility. They therefore protested against the continuance of that war between the Executive on the one hand and the Bank on the other, as it was destructive to them, injurious to the whole country, and was not a little discreditable to its character in the eyes of the world. They protested against the act of the Executive, in regard to the public treasure, as tending to bring about that state of things which the gentleman from Kentucky had so often presented to the Senate the union of the purse and the sword. They recognized the Chief Magistrate as the commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States; they recognized in Congress the power and duty to guard the national resources; and they thought that the withdrawing of the public revenue, from a place fixed by law, settled by the charter of the Bank, for reasons connected in no way with the safe-keeping of the moneys, but on account of opinion's sake, was an unauthorized act. After reasoning, and after inquiry upon the subject, the moneys were acknowledged to be safe. Congress having recently acted on the subject, and having seen no reason for the change, they were of opinion, that the reasons given for the removal of the public treasure, were altogether indefensible.

They thought that the effect of the measure was to augment the rapidity of certain tendencies which they believed had attended the Government for some years past; and that was the tendency to increase power and influence in the Executive hands. They were of opinion, that the subtraction of the public revenue from a custody where it was under the eye of Congress, to a custody where it was only under the eye of the Secretary of the Treasury, was one great proof of the existence of the tendency to increase Executive power. Were they not right? Where were the public treasures of the United States? No man in that Senate knew; no man in the other House knew. The last time that the Senate had heard of them, they were deposited in certain banks not created or fixed by the will of Congress. They might be changed, for aught the Senate knew, within the last half hour, to some other place which it knew not. What was (said Mr. W.) the condition of the treasure six months ago? Was it situated as it is now? Did not every member know where the money was then? -and had not Congress an account of it, and could see that it was all there? Had Congress any such right now? Had that House, or the other, the power to go to the Bank of the Metropolis, or to the Manhattan Bank, in order to see that the money deposited in those places was safe? The Executive had now

the preservation of the public treasure, and Congress had no control over it.

It was a fact not to be denied, that every dollar of the public money--ordinarily eight to ten millions-between the moment of its receipt at the custom-house and the land-offices-to the moment of its appropriation under the authority of law, was under the entire, exclusive government of the Secretary of the Treasury--Congress knew not where-Congress declared not how.

The memorialists thought that this withdrawing of the public money from the inspection of Congress, from the guardianship of Congress, and placing it where it was subject to the guardianship and control of the officers of the Executive Government, was an encroachment upon the just rights of both houses of Congress. They protested against that violation of the spirit of the Constitution. They professed themselves to be in favor of a national bank; but that was a matter which they would leave most cheerfully to the wisdom of Congress. They did not insist upon a national bank; that might be a measure of expediency or inexpediency; but they did insist that the law should be upheld, that the power of Congress should continue to be exercised in regard to the disposal of the public revenue, and that the public treasure should be under the authority of those who had a right to the control of it, according to law. They declared that, in the present state of the country, looking to the effect of those measures, and the extent of the evil, they saw no remedy but in Congress; they saw no remedy till Congress should take up the subject, and determine to act by its authority, and establish such measures of relief as its wisdom should dictate.

He entirely agreed with them-he agreed with them altogether, that relief must come from Congress, or through Congress. But he wished to say that relief, though it come through the instrumentality of Congress, must have a higher origin. It could not come from the Executive Department in the first place: the case was past the surgery of all such practitioners. No state doctors, beginning where they might, or ending where they might, had power over the present affliction of the community. Not one of them could pluck up this deep-rooted sorrow. It was a case in which the patient must minister to himself. The people must take the remedy into their own hands: they must act, indeed, on the case through Congress, but they must act by their own will, and their own power.

The spirit, and the only spirit, that could move over the face of these waters, with power to reduce chaos to order; the only spirit that could cause that elemental strife to subside, and the sun again to appear in the east,-was the intelligent, manly, free spirit of the American people-summoned by the state of the country,

and by the state of their own interests, to come and put a check to such usurpations of power, and to apply that remedy which they, and they alone, could apply.

On Friday, March 28th, on presenting a memorial from citizens of Albany, Mr. WEBSTER said

MR. PRESIDENT: I have the honor to present to the Senate a memorial from the city of Albany.

New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, have already laid before Congress the opinions entertained in those cities by men in all classes of society, and of all occupations and conditions in life, respecting the conduct of the Administration in removing the public deposits. To these Albany now joins her voice-a voice not less clear, not less strong, not less unanimous, than that of her sister cities.

It is well known to you, Sir, and to gentlemen on the floor of the Senate, that Albany, for its size, is an extremely commercial city. Connected with the sea by one of the noblest rivers on earth, it is placed, also, at the point at or near which many hundred miles of inland navigation, from the West and from the North, accumulate the products of a vast and fertile interior, and deliver them, for further transport, into receptacles proper to be borne on tide waters, or to be impelled by steam. In return for these riches of inland industry, thus abundantly poured forth to the sea, Albany receives, of course, large amounts of foreign merchandise, to be forwarded inward, and to be distributed for consumption in the western district of the State, along the shores of the lakes, and even to the banks of the Mississippi itself. It is necessarily, therefore, a place of vast exchanges of property; in other words, a place of great trade.

Albany, I believe, Sir, has a population of twenty-eight or thirty thousand people. It has given, I learn, on interesting occasions, nearly, but not quite, thirty-eight hundred votes. The paper, Sir, whose folds I am now unrolling, and which I have risen to present to the Chair, bears twenty-eight hundred names, all believed to be qualified electors. Great pains have been taken to be accurate in this particular; and if there be a single name to this paper not belonging to a qualified voter, it is not only here by mistake, but here after careful scrutiny has been had, for the purpose of avoiding such mistakes.

Every man, Sir, whose name is here, is believed to have a right to say, "I am an American citizen; I possess the elective franchise; I hold the right of suffrage; I possess and I exercise an

individual share in the sovereign power of the State; I am one of those principals, whose agent Government is; and I expect from Government a proper regard to my interests.”

It will thus be seen, Sir, that this paper expresses the sentiments of three fourths of as many citizens of Albany as have ever been collected, on any occasion, at the polls of the city. What these sentiments are, the Senate will be at no loss to understand, when the paper shall be read. Its signers possess the faculty of making themselves fully understood.

This memorial, Sir, is brought hither for the purpose of being laid before Congress, by a committee of eighteen persons. Some of these gentlemen are well known within the walls of the capitol, and none of them altogether unknown to members of this or the other House. They come, Sir, to vouch for the general respectability of the signers to the memorial. They come to answer for them, as persons capable of perceiving, not only the general fact, that recent measures of Government have deranged the business of society, but of seeing also precisely how those measures have operated on their own business, their own employments, and their own prosperity.

Unpromising, Sir, as the task is ungrateful, nay, almost hopeless as it is this committee has not declined the wish of their fellow-citizens, that they would bring this solemn appeal to the notice of the two Houses of Congress. They have come to vouch for the general respectability of the signers of the memorial; for the fact that they number among them individuals of every class, occupation, employment, profession, and trade, in society. And they come to make good, Sir, the declarations of the memorial as to the state of things actually existing at Albany.

Albany, Sir, has been flourishing and prosperous, and seemed rapidly rising to greater and greater heights of commercial importance. There are circumstances which would appear to have favored Albany, and to have enabled her to stand the shock better than her neighbors. In addition to her capital, it has been understood that she was benefited in her money operations, to a considerable extent, by the use or the custody of State funds.

But the Senate will not be surprised to learn, notwithstanding all her advantages, that she has not escaped the general disaster. Whatever else is to be said against the Secretary's measures, they cannot be charged with being partial in their operation. They have the merit of impartiality, inasmuch as they produce universal distress.

Sir, our condition is peculiar. One hardly knows how to describe it. In the midst of all the bounties of Providence, and in a time of profound peace, we are poor. Our Secretary of the Treasury, Sir, is not Midas. His touch does not turn every thing 43

VOL. II.

to gold. It seems rather to turn every thing into stone. It stops the functions, and the action, of organized social life, and congeals the whole body politic. It produces a kind of instantaneous petrifaction. We see still the form of our once active social system, but it is without life; we can trace the veins along its cold surface, but they are bloodless; we see the muscles, but they are motionless; the external form is yet fair and goodly, but there is a cessation of the principle of life within.

is,

Sir, if one could look at the state of the country, at this moment, who had never heard what that "EXPERIMENT which the Secretary is trying, he would naturally suppose him to be some necromancer, some Prospero, who had power over the principle of action, in the whole nation, and who was amusing himself, by the exercise of that power, in seeing what sort of a spectacle a great, busy, stirring community would exhibit, when his wand should bring all its members to a sudden pause, check them in a moment of great activity, and hold every one in the precise attitude in which he should be found, when the charm begins; as painters, though they cannot represent progressive action on the canvass, can yet represent action suddenly arrested; or as the interior of the mountains discloses animals caught in full life and vigor, and embedded forever in the subsiding elements of the general deluge.

Or perhaps, Sir, such a spectator might suppose that our Secretary had been imitating infantile curiosity, which thrusts its busy fingers into the opened watch, for the sake of seeing how pretty its little wheels will look when they all stand still.

But whatever a disinterested beholder might think of the manner in which the Secretary is amusing himself with "experiments" upon the nation, the people of Albany have had quite enough of experiment. They find it efficient for every thing but good. There are some things, they admit, which it has fully proved. It has proved the rashness, the delusion, and almost the insanity, of those who undertook it.

One of the most visible effects of this measure, to the people of Albany, is its check to the growth of the city. It has been fast increasing in houses and in the number of its inhabitants. But here are persons well acquainted with the facts and circumstances, who declare that the houses in building, this year, are not one twentieth the number of the last year. What is to be said in answer to that fact? The carpenter and the mason are standing still, with the rule and the trowel in their hands, to see when the Secretary shall have done with his experiment.

Albany is a great lumber market. The very large sum of two millions of dollars is usually paid annually for this article, in that city. But there is now no demand for it. The same causes op