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is to result from what has been done? None, no, none; confidence requited? No sooner was he firmly seated on but evil-only continual disaster. What else can we ex- the throne of power, than, as if to show his scorn for pect? Perfidy in the Government will result, as it ought, popular credulity, he boldly marched into the Senate, and in poverty to the people. We have not even the common took its members away to make his cabinet council. This motive of the felon: we could not be said to have acted House was literally emptied to fill places made vacant by in this instance from the love of gain. In the mere wan-removal; not one, or two, or three, but whole squadrons ton or malignant consciousness of power, we have stained of members were marched off to be made the subjects the national honor, violated national faith; we have taught of reward, from foreign ministers of the highest grade, the people to disobey the injunctions of law, by permit-down to petty clerkships in the executive departments. ting an unchecked example of its violation by that very Gratitude for friends and revenge for foes; the maxims of power whose ordained duty it is to maintain and enforce Sylla were openly avowed as the doctrines upon which it. Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not flatter each executive patronage was to be dispensed. I shall not other with the expectation that this will be a solitary soon forget an instance of reward and punishment, which instance of Executive encroachment. No, history teaches created, at the time, not merely astonishment, but strong us other lessons. That power that can subvert ancient indignation in Ohio. General Harrison was a native son usages, break with impunity national compacts, efface at of Virginia. In his nineteenth year (I believe, being then will written laws, uproot the firm foundations of the con- a lieutenant in the army) he was selected by General stitution; that power, if not suddenly arrested, will sur- Wayne as one of his aids, in the memorable campaign of vive all that it destroys, and maintain itself in absolute 1794, which terminated the war with the Indian tribes of dominion, by those very arts and instruments through the Northwest. At a very early age he was chosen a delwhich it acquired its first momentum. egate to Congress from the Northwestern Territory, and, subsequently, made Governor of the Territory of Indiana. "'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, After the disastrous campaign of Hull, in 1812, he was First freedom, and then-glory; when that fails, selected by the Government to command those noble KenWealth, vice, corruption-barbarism at last."* tucky and Ohio volunteers who thronged in thousands to When we review the history of the last few months, the tented field, to redeem the sinking fortunes of the and see the strange mixture of confusion and systematic war. My gallant friend from Kentucky [Colonel JOHNSON] effort, all tending to bring upon the people lasting injury, won those unfading laurels to which time only adds fresh and are told that all this must be borne, because "the verdure, fighting under the immediate eye and command people themselves have willed it should be so," I cannot of Harrison, at the ever-memorable battle of the Thames. but remind the Executive Government, and gentlemen At the close of the war General Harrison resigned his here, of instances in which they have disregarded that commission; and, in the spirit of the example of Cincinwill, when it was fully and fairly understood. natus, retired to his farm in Ohio. From thence he was

Prior to the presidential election in 1828, the present soon called by the Legislature of that State to a seat in Chief Magistrate, then a Senator in Congress from Ten- the Senate. Such a citizen was thought by the adminis nessee, in his letter of resignation to the Tennessee Legis-tration then in power a fit representative of this Governlature, held the following excellent doctrines. Speaking ment at the capital of the Colombian republic. He had of a contemplated alteration of the constitution, he says, not been friendly to the election of General Jackson. In "I would impose a provision rendering any member of one month, I believe, after the inauguration of the latter, Congress ineligible to office under the General Govern- and before General Harrison was known to have reached ment during the term for which he was elected, and for Bogota, his place of destination, he was recalled, and a two years thereafter. But if this change in the constitu- member (then) of this House, a warm, active, industrious, tion shall not be made, and important appointments con- powerful friend of the new President, appointed in his tinue to devolve on the Representatives in Congress, it place. Thus the active, useful friend was rewarded; the requires no depth of thought to be convinced that corrup- opponent punished.

tion will become the order of the day, and that, under the After all this forgetfulness of pledges given and public garb of conscientious sacrifice to establish precedents for will expressed, when the President, and his friends for the public good, evils of serious importance to the free- him, allege that he has taken the custody of the public dom and prosperity of the republic may arise." Do any money from a long-tried and faithful agent, because it is of us forget the flame of enthusiasm which these senti- the people's will, I must be pardoned while I doubt. Sir, ments kindled in the ardent and confiding hearts of the if I had that faith which could remove mountains, I should freemen of this country? In the election of General Jack-still hesitate to believe the sincerity of this declaration. son they looked forward to the establishment of all these Mr. Speaker, no opinion, no principle is in this counexcellent principles, as cardinal maxims in his administra-try so universally well received by the people as that tion. The most extravagant anticipations of great benefits which teaches public servants the duty of redeeming, were confidently indulged. Could such a man, with such when in office, pledges given when candidates for office. pure principles, be placed in the executive chair, a sun It is right, it is proper that it should be so. It is the combright with millennial glory would, it was said, dawn pact between the servant and his employer, and should upon the republic, never to go down, All grievances would be redressed; all tears would be wiped from all eyes; his administration, compared with all others, would be

"An era of sweet peace, 'midst bloody annals; A green spot in the desert of past centuries." Were these fond and fanciful hopes realized? The election of 1828 ended in the success of the man who, by propagating those doctrines, had made himself the idol of the people's hearts. How, sir, was this generous

be fulfilled by the former, at all times, with scrupulous fidelity. The great importance of this operative principle, in a representative Government, will excuse me to the House for calling their attention to another flagrant instance of its violation, by one who now professes to make it the ground and cause of his late extraordinary movement upon the bank and treasury of the United States.

When the present Executive first took his seat in the presidential chair, he announced to the people, in his inaugural address, his determination to reform a great variety of existing evils in the administration of public affairs. Amongst other things, high on the list of these reformations, was inscribed "the duty of reforming those abuses which had brought the patronage of the Federal Govern.

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[APRIL 12, 1834.

ment to bear on the freedom of elections."* The inter- We know that the President has, for some two or three pretation of this was simple and well understood. It im-years, felt and expressed a deep and settled hostility to We know that he and his plied that officers, holding their places under the General the United States Bank. Government, had used their influence and employed their friends believed that certain individuals connected with time in the business of electioneering. It avowed a de- the bank were not friendly to his election, and did not termination to dismiss from service all such, and to make yield unqualified approbation to some of his public acts. it a rule in all future appointments that none should re- A resolution, we are told by Mr. Duane, was formed to ceive or hold office. This was applauded, and every crush this supposed opponent; Congress, at its last seswhere received as the first bright gleam of that millen- sion, had been appealed to for this purpose; but, instead nial glory that had been so confidently foretold by the of adopting a course like that taken since by the Presi friends of the President during the canvass prior to the dent, that body, composed of a large majority of his po election in 1828. litical friends, by a vote of more than two to one, resolved Passing by other examples of the operation of this re- that the public moneys were safe in the Bank of the form, I refer, with unaffected pain, to one which lately United States, and ought to remain there. What was to occurred in my own State. On the 8th of January last, be done? The bank must be crushed, and Congress had a convention, under the general denomination of the refused to become its executioner. Two or three months friends of the present administration," assembled at Co- prior to the meeting of this Congress, the Secretary of lumbus, in the State of Ohio. Its object was to appoint the Treasury is required to remove the public moneys delegates to represent the "party" in a proposed na- to the State banks. He declined, and offered, as his rea tional convention, which was to be convened in May, sons, the vote of the last Congress and the near approach 1835, to nominate a successor to General Jackson. This of the meeting of this; that the subject properly belonged convention of the "friends of the present administration" to Congress, and to them it ought to be submitted. What was composed of one hundred and seventy-seven persons. was the reply of the President? I will give it upon the Of these, seventy-one were office-holders under the Fed-authority and in the words of Mr. Duane's letter: "If the eral and State Governments. A gentleman holding the last Congress had remained a week longer in session, office of district judge for the district of Ohio, under ap- two-thirds would have been secured to the bank by cr pointment of the President, not yet confirmed by the rupt means; and that the like result might be apprehendSenate, in his character of "a central committee man," ed at the next Congress. That such a State bank agency called a meeting (by advertisement in a public newspaper) must be put into operation, before the meeting of Con of the "friends of the administration" in a particular gress, as would show that the United States Bank was not county, for the purpose of naming delegates to this con- necessary; and thus some members would have no excuse vention at Columbus. All these things are matters of for voting for it." I cannot here, sir, stoop to the con public notoriety. The convention, amongst other things,sideration of these suggestions of corrupt influence upo constituted a "central committee," with electioneering the representatives of the people. Let that people de jurisdiction co-extensive with the territorial limits of the termine whether the servants of their own free choice are State. Of this committee, composed (according to my capable of acting from the diabolical motives attributed recollection) of seven persons, five are officers holding to them. I have mistaken the character of my country. appointments under the Executive: one district attorney; men, or they will treat such imputations upon the emana. two receivers of public moneys; one surveyor of the tions of their own enlightened and free suffrage as the Virginia military lands; and one postmaster. insane ravings of unchristened ambition, or the equally The proceedings of this convention have been pub-idle suggestions of unbridled revenge. If this history of lished in the official journal in this city, and cannot have the transactions of the last summer be true, what is the escaped the notice of the President. Can a case be ima- conclusion? The corruptibility of Congress is imagined gined more proper for the application of that reforming as a reason for transferring their powers and duties to the power which the President, at his installation into office, had promised the people to exert with such unsparing fidelity? Where slept the executive thunders whilst these iniquities were transpiring? Has one of those federal officers been removed, or even censured for "bringing the patronage and influence of the Government to bear upon elections?" No. All is tranquil and placid. The There exists in the minds of the American people a arm of executive vengeance is not lifted against the of watchful jealousy of foreign influence in our politica) affender. The brow of power is not even clouded by a fairs. Two years ago this jealousy was roused to a degree frown of disapprobation. After such forgetfulness, not of fanaticism that became in its height absolutely ridicu only of pledges given, but also of the expressed will of lous. It was found that nearly eight millions of stock in the people derived from elections, in which this subject the United States Bank were owned by foreigners. I of official influence upon popular elections was agitated shall not soon forget the parade made in this ball, and all over the Union, I cannot hear with patience the "peo- elsewhere, of the list of names of those foreign stock. ple's will" put forward as a reason for violating law; tak-holders. Many of them, it was found, were females. ing away chartered rights; deranging the currency; de- Nothing could exceed the patriotic rage and horror de stroying trade; and sinking in the great "Serbonian bog" picted in the fierce gestures, distorted countenances, and of executive power" all the constitutional functions of fervid declamations of those who had all at once discov Congress and the judicial courts. ered that the liberties of America were sold to the women

hands of the Executive. Thus, purity of motive in the President would apologize for a revolution of the Govern ment. Sir, this is not the first instance in which the fears and patriotic prejudices of the people have been assailed for the purpose of effecting this favorite measure-the destruction of the bank.

Finding (after a fruitless search) no reason for the act of England! Had they been only simple, plain gentle of which we complain, founded in law or expediency, or women, it seemed the danger would not have been so any dictate of public necessity; but, on the contrary, find-appalling; but there were countesses, marchionesses, and, ing, as the experiment has evinced, every consideration it was suspected, even a dutchess! This was not to be of duty and patriotism opposed to it, how shall we ac- borne. A countess, it was clear, could at once put an end count for it? We are driven to the necessity of resorting to State rights; and a dutchess-a dutchess could swall to reasons and motives for the act which are not clearly the whole confederacy at a meal! All the foes of the bank, set forth in any official document.

*See Inaugural Address of President Jackson, appendix.

with the President himself, trembled at the peril which pended over us. In the zeal and fervid enthusiasm which the occasion inspired, these female stockholders were do

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After all that has or can be said concerning a remedy for the evil that is now preying upon the country, I have been unable to see or think of any thing which promises success, but an immediate halt in our march to destruction, and, as speedily as possible, a return to the point from which we set out. When you find yourselves in a course of ruin, does not wisdom require you to retrace your steps?

picted as a grizzly host of amazons, leagued and armed Means have not thought proper to present this question for the destruction of the last hope of liberty; ready, and to the House. Instead of a decision of the House upon just now about to bear down upon and crush us at a blow; this point, which it is clearly our duty to make under the not as their renowned ancestress, Boadicea of old, made law, the committee have presented a variety of abstracwar upon the legions of Claudius, with brand, and bill, tions, tending to no practical ends. Should the vote of and bow, and spear, and battle-axe, but with weapons the House disapprove the reasons of the Secretary, his more sharp and deadly-with pounds, shillings, and pence! course cannot be mistaken. He must restore to the A host was marshalled to beat back this feminine invasion. United States Bank what he has taken from it, or he must From every quarter, but chiefly from New York, recruits "put his house in order." thronged in thousands, and took the field, resolved to drive out this foreign female invading foe, or, as became men, to die in the glorious attempt. The President, as usual, took the command. The American eagle erected his head, and spread his wings abroad, not with that glorious motto, " E pluribus unum," which had floated with him in triumph over many a red field of slaughter, but with another which suited better the character and objects of the war. Just under his wing, and concealed from all Sir, notwithstanding the confidence of the majority but the keen eye of rapacity, might be seen these memo- here in its strength, I yet hope to see it take counsel of rable words Spoils of victory.' Thus bannered and prudence. The eyes of the people have been opened to equipped, with vetoes for weapons, and "British booty the true cause of their sufferings. Two months ago it and British beauty" for their war-cry, they took the field. was asserted, by the supporters of the executive measWho could doubt the result? As was expected, the she-ures, that the war upon the bank, begun two years ago, aristocracy of England capitulated with the mailed chiv- and consummated last October, had brought no ill conse alry of America without risking a battle, and marched quences to the people. The loud and incessant cry from home without loss of baggage. Have any of us forgotten all quarters that has been pouring in upon us since the the shout of triumph that pealed over the continent? "A session began, can now no longer be misunderstood. In nation was redeemed from the iron yoke of foreign op- this dilemma, the distress of the country being admitted, pression." Twelve millions of freemen, just ready to be we are told it is all chargeable to the oppressive conduct sold for eight millions of dollars, just about to be knocked of the bank.

Public and private deposites withdrawn between 1st October, 1833, and the 1st of April, 1834, $7,788,403 Reductions of loans within the same period, 5,057,527 $2,730,876

Difference,

off at $1 50 a head, are now forever free! But, alas, who I must beg the attention of gentlemen who assume this can fathom the depths of the future? Who could have position to a report of the bank, which came to us yesterforeseen the sad reverses that were to befall this victori-day; it contains a statement of facts, denied by no one, ous host? In the agitations of this war upon foreign capi- which must put at rest forever all further accusation tal, commerce furled up her sail; the hand of industry was against that abused institution. It shows that, instead of paralyzed; labor wanted employment; and public credit curtailing its accommodations below the amount withshivered on the brink of bankruptcy. Now the scene drawn from its resources, it has, within the last six changes! Where now is that American eagle so lately months, increased those accommodations by nearly three flying in triumph over the ranks of war? His wing folded millions of dollars, in proportion to its means. To be up, his eye glazed and sunk with hunger; you send him accurate, the account stands thus: abroad to peck and beg about the den of the British lion, for a morsel that may fall from the jaws of the royal beast, to keep him alive. Pennsylvania begs of the foreign banker (Rothschild) a few millions to pay her honest debts; and New York, foremost in the war against foreign capital and foreign influence, offers a mortgage of her State to those very old women of England for six millions of foreign gold, to make safe her "safety fund." Sir, I hope, nay, I doubt not, they will succeed. These fierce countesses and fat dutchesses will relent, and yield them the desired boon. The chivalry, so lately displayed by those who solicit it, must prevail; for valor is ever potent to subdue the obduracy of the female heart. To this ridiculous issue have come the outcry and war waged against foreign capital. It would be a tempting theme for pleasantry, were it not associated with misfortune, disaster, and ruin to a confiding and deceived community. Strange as it may seem, those events in human affairs which often excite laughter and ridicule are intimately associated with those that smite the spirits of men with grief and dismay.

"Res omnes sunt humanæ, flebile ludibrium."

By this plain tale, the oft-refuted story of the tyranny of the bank is at once "put down." The bank, during the whole of that scene of confusion and bankruptcy which was begun by the Executive in the recess of Congress, has been straining all her energies to mitigate the force of the blow aimed at her, but which fell with fatal effect upon the country.

Yet

By the same report, gentlemen may learn why it is that, at this moment, so many of their favorite State banks are alive. During the six months past, the State banks have been indebted to the United States Bank in the average amount of three millions and a half of dollars. They might have been called upon at any moment for this sum. In mercy to them, it has not been done. it has been asserted here, and the presses devoted to the administration have been loud and constant in their assertions, that the United States Bank was curtailing its loans to merchants, bringing in this way bankruptcy upon its debtors; that it was laboring to crush the State banks by the same means; all in order to extort from Congress a renewal of its charter.

It is in no spirit of contest, but with a sincere desire to bring the judgment of the House to that which I conceive to be the only point necessary to decide, that I design to offer as a substitute for the resolution on the table the following: "Resolved, That the reasons of the Secretary of The country is beginning to look to the origin of the the Treasury, for the removal of the public deposites from evils that afflict it. It sees that those who have been the Bank of the United States, are insufficient, and that exerting power (if the conduct of the Executive deserves is inexpedient to enact any law authorizing the so mild a designation) are the real authors of the univerSecretary of the Treasury to deposite the public moneys sally prevalent distress of which they complain. The in the State banks." The Committee of Ways and country now knows that the bank, instead of causing-or

it

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increasing this distress, has been endeavoring to mitigate the land it tills; and, by culture and improvement, inits severity. creasing its production. The Bank of the United States All that has happened from the ruinous policy of the has furnished the West with a capital which it wanted, Executive was foretold, and the advisers of this fatal for which it languished, and which it must again want, if measure were warned against it. They were warned by that bank be compelled soon to close its business, and the opinion of practical honest men every where, who withdraw its capital.

dared to speak truth, even to the unwilling ear of Two years ago we were told, in the President's veto power. The President, however, and his Secretary, message, that the West must become bankrupt, by pay heeded not their advice, but gave their ears and under- ing six per cent. interest on the debt it owed the United standings to the keeping of visionary empirics who knew States States Bank. How was that debt created? By a not, nor it seems cared, what ills their pernicious counsels loan from the bank of its money, at six per cent. per an might bring upon the country. While merchants, boards num. This money was employed in trade; in buying and of trade, and chambers of commerce, all foresaw and fore transporting to market the products of the country. I told the consequences to our trade and currency, likely speak from actual knowledge when I say that I have to flow from the act of the Secretary of the Treasury, known large amounts of money borrowed from inlong before it had been consummated, some financial dividuals at ten per cent. interest, and employed in pur quack was at work with his arithmetical quantities and chasing, for speculation, the agricultural productions of algebraic equations, showing the President, by "demon- the Miami valley. I know that money thus loaned has stration," that "the removal of five millions from bank A been profitably expended in this trade; that borrowers to bank B could result in nothing but simply a change of have often realized handsome profits on capital thus locality." loaned and thus employed. The difference between six and ten per cent. which is paid for the use of money thus employed, is lost, not by the purchaser, but by the farmer who sells the property thus purchased.

This problem was the beginning and end of the cabinet lucubration on this subject. It is humiliating to compare the unpardonable ignorance of those in power of the practical business concerns of the country with the clear Again: The effect of the withdrawal of the United foresight on the same subjects possessed by men in very States Bank from the West will be to open the office, humble stations, to be found all over this Union. It re- and reinstate the business of the broker. The money in minds me forcibly of an observation, upon a kindred sub- circulation there will (as even now, within the last month, ject, by one of the profoundest political philosophers of it does) rate at a discount of from two to ten per cent. in the last age. He observed, that he had often known the Eastern cities. merchants with the sentiments and abilities of great states- This will be the currency received by the farmer and men, and had seen persons in the rank of statesmen with mechanic for the products of their farms and work. the conceptions and characters of pedlers; that he had shops. found nothing in any habits of life or education which tended wholly to disqualify men for the functions of Government, but that by which the power of exercising these functions is often acquired. "I mean," says he, "a mean spirit, and habits of low cabal and intrigue, which I have never seen, in one instance, united with a capacity for sound and manly policy." Let the people, who feel the unhappy results of a single error of the Executive, determine where the statesmen and where the pedlers of this nation are to be found.

The merchant, who sells his goods to them, must pay for those goods in the Atlantic cities, in a currency at par there. He, of course, makes his customers, the farmers and mechanics, pay him, in the increased price of bis goods, the two or ten per cent. which he will have to give on the money he receives, in order to procure such funds as will pay his debt to the merchants in Philadel phia or New York. The withdrawal, then, of the capital of the bank, which has been constantly employed in facilitating domestic exchanges, will, by diminishing com petition, increase the profits of the broker. Those profits, made by large capitalists, when they swell to an unreasonable extent, are a clear loss to the laboring and producing classes.

I have heard gentlemen from various quarters of the Union describe the blighting effects of the policy lately adopted upon their respective vicinities. I am fully persuaded that no portion of the country can feel this blight more intensely than the young States of the West. The West will be a peculiar sufferer under this policy The simplest principles of political economy will satisfy in another, and by no means the least deleterious of its gentlemen that I am not mistaken in this opinion. I consequences. All the revenues of the Federal Governwish, sir, that every man, entitled to a vote, west of the ment are derived from impost duties on foreign goods, Alleghanies, had a copy of the speech of the gentleman and from the sales of public lands. The consumer of from Georgia, [Mr. WILDE.] That clear and powerful the goods on which the impost is laid pays the duty, analysis of the laws of currency, with those large and No portion of the population of the Union, in proportion comprehensive views of our present condition, which do to its numbers, consumes more of those articles subject equal honor to the head and heart of my honorable to duty than the people of the West. They, therefore, friend, cannot fail to be read and studied with advantage, contribute, from the earnings of their labor, the full pro and by the philosopher not less than the peasant.

portion of the common revenue derived from imposts. Trade cannot be carried on without capital; capital is The three millions annually paid for lands is received the gradual accumulation of labor and enterprise. Old wholly from the Western and Southwestern States. A countries, where labor is unfettered, will, therefore, proportion of this revenue, suited to the business of the abound in surplus capital; while, in new countries, it country, has been left heretofore in the United States cannot exist to any extent, since time has not been there Bank in the West, to be employed as so much capital by given for its accumulation. Throughout the great val- our own citizens. This office your State banks, as the ley, stretching from the sources of the Ohio to Missouri, experiment has proved, can never perform for them. now filled with a hardy and laborious population, you Their revenue will be poured into the laps of the Atlan have a soil teeming with production. What avail the tic cities. How are they to be expended by the Govern labor of the husbandman, and the fertility of the earth, ment? Internal improvement, it was once hoped, might if capital is wanting to buy and transport to market the be the means of expending some portion of it in the annual products of both? The labor of all that popula- West; but that system, by the interposition of the Press tion, up to this time, has been expended in paying for dent's veto power, is destroyed. Your whole revenue

Edmund Burke.

(of which, as I have shown, the West pays its full pro portion) will be expended in harbors, arsenals, fortifica

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tions, and dock yards on the seaboard, and circulate there ingenious speculations as to what will be: they have made for the benefit of the Atlantic States alone. In such a a terrible experiment, exactly like that you now propose system there is no equity, no equality of burden and to make, and they know what they have suffered and benefit. lost; they are unwilling to surrender the wisdom learned by experience, to the theories of any one.

While we deplore the irreparable mischiefs that follow to the interest of those we represent, from the unexpected change lately wrought in our financial system, let me, in conclusion, beseech gentlemen to look to that power, hitherto unknown in our political history, by which the President alone has effected that change.

If, as I have shown, the States of the West are to suffer more than any other great geographical divisions of the confederacy, Ohio, (my own State,) of all the West, will suffer most from the reduction of prices and stagnation of trade. She is one of those who, according to the President's opinion, ought to break;" she has traded on borrowed capital." She has borrowed, and now owes, five millions of dollars. With this money she has, with How has that power revealed to us its tremendous enan enterprise unsurpassed in the ancient or modern histo- ergies within the last six months? The President has obry of any community, executed a great work of internal tained uncontrolled possession of the public treasure in improvement, which should have been done long since at the recess of Congress; and, by this bold manœuvre, he the expense of the whole Union. Her four hundred miles has, with the aid of his veto power, placed it beyond the of canal has poured the waters of the great lakes of the power of Congress to reclaim their lost rights, unless a North into the Gulf of Mexico. Ohio must look for a majority of two-thirds of both branches shall unite in opfund to pay the interest on this debt, thus contracted, to position to him. When we see the rights of the Legisla the tolls collected on her canals. The amount of those ture thus invaded, it is natural to inquire, what great good tolls must depend on the trade of the country. If prices has been achieved? What fearful evil impending over fall, and trade languish, (as we know they have, and us has been averted by it? Has the American dictator, will yet still more, unless we stop short in our present like the Roman, "taken care that no detriment should experiment,) the laboring people of Ohio will find their come to the republic?" No; the exact reverse is the taxes increased. The interest on their canal debt must truth. be paid, and what the tolls do not pay must be raised in He has taken your whole treasure from the custody taxes on the people. Thus, while your cruel policy where, it is admitted, it was perfectly secure, and placed diminishes the price of every article produced by the it in the keeping of State banks, where we are not sure farmer and mechanic, and thus diminishes their ability to it is safe for the passing hour. In doing all this, he boasts pay, it increases the tax, and swells the demands upon that he crushed the United States Bank; that he has, in them. You starve the slave, and yet increase his labor; the hyperbolical language of his friends, "strangled a you increase the burden of the people, and at the same monster!" In the true style of the mock-heroic, the fabtime reduce the strength required to bear it. What can ulous exploits of Hercules are put forward as parallel the people of the West see (if this new system is to prevail) achievements. Meantime, in destroying one bank, he has in the prospect before them? Nothing but ruin to their given life and perpetual existence to one hundred other trade, paralysis to their industry, and, worst of all, that banks. host of vice and crime which will spring up every where, when labor has no incentive, industry no adequate re

ward.

He crushes one serpent, and at the same moment he places in the vitals of the state innumerable knots and endless involutions of hungry tape-worms, to gorge their ravening and insatiable maws upon the very sources of life.

It was the idle vaunt of a renowned general in the declining period of the Roman republic, that he could call up armed legions with the stamp of his foot." Sir, we have lived to see the acts of one man produce phenomena more appalling than the reality of the proud Roman's boast.

Have the people of that portion of your country deserved this at your hands? Instead of extending a parental regard to them, you have abandoned them to premature orphanage and cold neglect. Is there any thing in their history that merits this? Less than fifty years ago, urged on by enterprise or necessity, the first settlers plunged into the Western wilderness. For many years, every cabin was a fort-every cornfield a camp. Every night the husband and father, with arms in his hands, guarded We have seen the "Executive" ministerial officer of the slumbers of his wife and children. At every sound the most limited Government on earth expand the mere that broke upon the stillness of the surrounding woods, emblem of authority into the amplitude of kingly prerogthe wakeful mother clasped her infant closer to her breast, ative, and, of his own will, communicate to it the strength and breathed a silent prayer for protection, to "Him and vigor of imperial sway. Thus armed, he grasps, with whom mercy sits at the right hand, and judgment with his own hand, the wealth and energies of a nation's at the left." If they assembled to worship God, it was commerce; and in a day they wither into imbecile bankin the woods, upon the hill side, or in the deep valley. ruptcy in his clutch. With this same power he enters There still they were girt round with peril and war. the humble dwelling of the laboring poor man, or the neat The song of praise was often interrupted by the yell of mansion of the industrious mechanic; he sees there wellthe Indian warrior, rushing from his ambush to bathe the rewarded industry shedding smiles, and plenty, and innoScalping-knife and tomahawk in the white man's blood. cent contentment, upon a cheerful, happy family. At That savage foe has fled before their advancing enter- the wave of his hand, this vision of happiness disappears, prise, until the receding echoes of his war-whoop are and in its place come want and poverty, and squalid misnow borne upon the blast that sweeps across the great ery and wo. Look back over the whole history of your prairies of the farthest West; a little while, and they will Government: do you find in it any executive power apbe drowned forever in the roar of the Pacific. proaching to this? No: to find authority for this searchThe people of the Western States are just beginning to ing and overshadowing tyranny, you must go to the groanrealize the fruits of years of privation and toil. They ing monarchies of Europe: English history, and not your have not expected the cup to be dashed from their lips. own, will furnish you with such examples of "executive They understand, for they have already felt, the conse-power." Consult the reigns of the crafty Plantagenets, quences of the late movement of the Executive on the the obstinate and tyrannical Tudors; read the bloody ancurrency and trade of the country. nals of the misguided Stuarts; there, and there only, will you find examples to compare with the last six months of our history.

They have had, in their recent history, some knowledge of that sort of currency which depends on, and comes from, State banks. They will not be satisfied with your

I entreat gentlemen to look out upon the country.