I hope nothing intimidating was intended by this expression. [Mr. Wright intimated it was not.] Then, sir, I forbear further remark. Sir, there is one other subject on which I wish to raise my voice. There is a topic, which I perceive is become the general war cry of party, on which I take the liberty to warn the country against delusion. Sir, the cry is to be raised, that this is a question between the poor and the rich. I know, sir, it has been proclaimed, that one thing was certain-that there was always a hatred from the poor to the rich; and that this hatred would support the late measures, and the putting down of the Bank. Sir, I will not be silent at the threatening of such a detestable fraud on public opinion. If but one man, or ten men, in the nation will hear my voice, I would still warn them against this attempted imposition. Mr. President, this is an eventful moment. On the great questions which occupy us, we all look for some decisive movement of public opinion. As I wish that movement to be free, intelligent, and unbiassed-the true manifestation of the public will-I desire to prepare the country for another assault, which I perceive is about to be made on popular prejudice-another attempt to obscure all distinct views of the public good-to overwhelm all patriotism, and all enlightened self-interest, by loud cries against false danger, and by exciting the passions of one class against another. I am not mistaken in the omen-I see the magazine whence the weapons of this warfare are to be drawn. I already hear the din of the hammering of arms, preparatory to the combat. They may be such arms, perhaps, as reason, and justice, and honest patriotism cannot resist. Every effort at resistance, it is possible, may be feeble and powerless; but, for one, I shall make an effort an effort to be begun now, and to be carried on and continued, with untiring zeal, till the end of the contest comes. Sir, I see in those vehicles which carry to the people sentiments from high places, plain declarations that the present controversy is but a strife between one part of the community and another. I hear it boasted as the unfailing security, the solid ground, never to be shaken, on which recent measures rest, that the poor naturally hate the rich. I know, that under the shade of the roofs of the Capitol, within the last twenty-four hours— among men sent here to devise means for the public safety and the public good-it has been vaunted forth, as matter of boast and triumph, that one cause existed, powerful enough to support every thing, and to defend every thing, and that was the natural hatred of the poor to the rich. Sir, I pronounce the author of such sentiments to be guilty of attempting a detestable fraud on the community; a double fraud; a fraud which is to cheat men out of their property, and out of the earnings of their labor, by first cheating them out of their understandings. "The natural hatred of the poor to the rich!" Sir, it shall not be till the last moment of my existence-it shall be only when I am drawn to the verge of oblivion-when I shall cease to have respect or affection for any thing on earth-that I will believe the people of the United States capable of being effectually deluded, cajoled, and driven about in herds, by such abominable frauds as this. If they shall sink to that point-if they so far cease to be men-thinking men, intelligent men-as to yield to such pretences and such clamor, they will be slaves already; slaves to their own passions-slaves to the fraud and knavery of pretended friends. They will deserve to be blotted out of all the records of freedom; they ought not to dishonor the cause of self-government, by attempting any longer to exercise it; they ought to keep their unworthy hands entirely off from the cause of republican liberty, if they are capable of being the victims of artifices so shallow-of tricks so stale, so threadbare, so often practised, so much worn out, on serfs and slaves. "The natural hatred of the poor against the rich!" "The danger of a moneyed aristocracy!" "A power as great and dangerous as that resisted by the Revolution!" "A call to a new Declaration of Independence! Sir, I admonish the people against the objects of outcries like these. I admonish every industrious laborer in the country to be on his guard against such delusion. I tell him the attempt is to play off his passions against his interests, and to prevail on him, in the name of liberty, to destroy all the fruits of liberty; in the name of patriotism, to injure and afflict his country; and, in the name of his own independence, to destroy that very independence, and make him a beggar and a slave. Has he a dollar? He is advised to do that which will destroy half its value. Has he hands to labor? Let him rather fold them and sit still, than be pushed on, by fraud and artifice, to support measures which will render his labor useless and hopeless. Sir, the very man, of all others, who has the deepest interest in a sound currency, and who suffers most by mischievous legislation in money matters, is the man who earns his daily bread by his daily toil. A depreciated currency-sudden change of prices-paper money, falling between morning and noon, and falling still lower between noon and night-these things constitute the very harvest-time of speculators, and of the whole race of those who are at once idle and crafty; and of that other race, too, the Catilines of all times, marked, so as to be known forever by one stroke of the historian's penmen greedy of other men's property, and prodigal of their own. Capitalists, too, may outlive such times. They may either prey on the earnings of labor, by their cent per cent., or they may hoard. But the laboring man-what can he hoard? Preying on nobody, he becomes the prey of all. His property is in his hands. His reliance, his fund, his productive freehold, his all, is his labor. Whether he work on his own small capital, or on another's, his living is still earned by his industry; and when the money of the country becomes depreciated and debased, whether it be adulterated coin or paper without credit, that industry is robbed of its reward. He then labors for a country whose laws cheat him out of his bread. I would say to every owner of every quarter section of land in the West-I would say to every man in the East, who follows his own plough, and to every mechanic, artisan, and laborer, in every city in the country-I would say to every man, every where, who wishes, by honest means, to gain an honest living, "Beware of wolves in "sheep's clothing. Whoever attempts, under whatever popular cry, to shake "the stability of the public currency, bring on distress in money matters, "and drive the country into paper money, stabs your interest and your hap"piness to the heart." The herd of hungry wolves, who live on other men's earnings, will rejoice in such a state of things. A system which absorbs into their pockets the fruits of other men's industry, is the very system for them. A Government that produces or countenances uncertainty, fluctuations, violent risings and fallings in prices, and, finally, paper money, is a Government exactly after their own heart. Hence, these men are always for change. They will never let well enough alone. A condition of public affairs, in which property is safe, industry certain of its reward, and every man secure in his own hard-earned gains, is no paradise for them. Give them just the reverse of this state of things: bring on change, and change after change; let it not be known to-day what will be the value of property to-morrow; let no man be able to say whether the money in his pockets at night will be money or worthless rags in the morning; and depress labor till double work shall earn but half a livinggive them this state of things, and you give them the consummation of their earthly bliss. Sir, the great interest of this great country, the producing cause of all its prosperity, is labor! labor! labor! We are a laboring community. A vast majority of us all live by industry and actual occupation, in some of their forms. The constitution was made to protect this industry, to give it both encouragement and security; but, above all, security. To that very end, with that precise object in view, power was given to Congress over the currency, and over the money system of the country. In forty years' experience, we have found nothing at all adequate to the beneficial execution of this trust but a well-conducted national bank. That has been tried, returned to, tried again, and always found successful. If it be not the proper thing for us, let it be soberly argued against; let something better be proposed; let the country examine the matter coolly, and decide for itself. But whoever shall attempt to carry a question of this kind by clamor, and violence, and prejudice; whoever would rouse the people by appeals, false and fraudulent appeals, to their love of independence, to resist the establishment of a useful institution because it is a bank, and deals in money; and who artfully urges these appeals wherever he thinks there is more of honest feeling than of enlightened judgment, means nothing but deception. And whoever has the wickedness to conceive, and the hardihood to avow, a purpose to break down what has been found, in forty years' experience, essential to the protection of all interests, by arraying one class against another, and by acting on such a principle as that the poor always hate the rich, shows himself the reckless enemy of all. An enemy to his whole country, to all classes, and to every man in it, he deserves to be marked especially as the poor man's curse! Mr. President, I feel that it becomes me to bring to the present crisis all of intellect, all of diligence, all of devotion to the public good, that I possess. I act, sir, in opposition to nobody. I desire rather to follow the administration, in a proper remedy for the present distress, than to lead. I have felt so from the beginning, and I have felt so until the declaration of yesterday made it certain that there is no further measure to be proposed. The expectation is, that the country will get on under the present state of things. Being myself entirely of a different opinion, and looking for no effectual relief until some other measure is adopted, I shall, nevertheless, be most happy to be disappointed. But if I shall not be mistaken, if the pressure shall continue, and if the indications of general public sentiment shall point in that direction, I shall feel it my duty, let the consequences be what they may, to propose a law for altering and continuing the charter of the Bank of the United States. |