General Hamilton's bank machinery got into play. This bill only proposes to re-establish, in substance, the system of the Revolution, of the Congress of the confederation, and of the first years of Washington's administration.

England, with all her banks, trusts none of change of names and forms, during the first them with the collection, keeping, and disburse-years of Washington's administration, and until ment of her public moneys. The Bank of England is paid a specific sum to manage the public debt; but the revenue is collected and disbursed through subordinate collectors and receivers general; and these receivers general | are not subject to the bankrupt laws, because the government will not suffer its revenue to be operated upon by any law except its own will. In France, subordinate collectors and receivers general collect, keep, and disburse the public moneys. If they deposit any thing in banks, it is at their own risk. It is the same thing in England. A bank deposit by an officer is at the risk of himself and his securities. Too much of the perils and vicissitudes of banking is known in these countries to permit the government ever to jeopard its revenues in their keeping. All this is shown, fully and at large, in a public document now on our tables. And who does not recognize in these collectors and receivers general of France and England, the ancient Roman officers of quæstors and proquæstors? These fiscal officers of France and England are derivations from the Roman institutions; and the same are found in all the modern kingdoms of Europe which were formerly, like France and Britain, provinces of the Roman empire. The measure before the Senate is to enable us to provide for our future safety, by complying with our own constitution, and conforming to the practice of all nations, great or small, ancient or modern.

Coming nearer home, and looking into our own early history, what were the "continental treasurers" of the confederation, and the "provincial treasurers and collectors," provided for as early as July, 1775, but an imitation of the French and English systems, and very near the plan which we propose now to re-establish! These continental treasurers, and there were two of them at first, though afterwards reduced to one, were the receivers general; the provincial treasurers and collectors were their subordinates. By these officers the public moneys were collected, kept, and disbursed; for there were no banks then! and all government drafts were drawn directly upon these officers. This simple plan worked well during the Revolution, and afterwards, until the new government was formed; and continued to work, with a mere

The bill reported by the chairman of the Committee on Finance [Mr. WRIGHT of New York] presents the details of the plan for accomplishing this great result. That bill has been printed and read. Its simplicity, economy, and efficiency strike the sense of all who hear it, and annihilate without argument, the most formidable arguments of expense and patronage, which had been conceived against it. The present officers, the present mints, and one or two more mints in the South, in the West, and in the North, complete the plan. There will be no necessity to carry masses of hard money from one quarter of the Union to another. Government drafts will make the transfer without moving a dollar. A government draft upon a national mint, will be the highest order of bills of exchange. Money wanted by the government in one place, will be exchanged, through merchants, for money in another place. Thus it has been for thousands of years, and will for ever be. We read in Cicero's letters that, when he was Governor of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, he directed his quæstor to deposit the tribute of the province in Antioch, and exchange it for money in Rome with merchants engaged in the Oriental trade, of which Antioch was one of the emporiums. This is the natural course of things, and is too obvious to require explanation, or to admit of comment.

We are taunted with these treasury notes; it seems to be matter of triumph that the government is reduced to the necessity of issuing them; but with what justice? And how soon can any government that wishes it, emerge from the wretchedness of depreciated paper, and stand erect on the solid foundations of gold and silver? How long will it take any respectable government, that so wills it, to accomplish this great change? Our own history, at the close of the Revolution, answers the question; and more recently, and more strikingly, the history of France answers it also. I speak of the French finances from 1800 to 1807; from the commencement of the consulate to the peace of

Tilsit. This wonderful period is replete with government, had carried the annual expenses to instruction on the subject of finance and curren- eight hundred millions of francs, about one huncy. The whole period is full of instruction; dred and sixty millions of dollars; the same but I can only seize two views-the beginning historian copying the words of the Minister of and the end—and, for the sake of precision, will Finance, thus speaks of the treasury, and the read what I propose to present. I read from currency: Bignon, author of the civil and diplomatic history of France during the consulate and the first years of the empire; written at the testamentary request of the Emperor himself.

beyond its wants; the public chests are full; "The resources of the State have increased all payments are made at the day named; the orders upon the public treasury have become the After stating that the expenditures of the re-most approved bills of exchange. The finances public were six hundred millions of francs- are in the most happy condition; France alone, about one hundred and ten millions of dollars among all the States of Europe, has no paper money." when Bonaparte became First Consul, the historian proceeds:

money; meaning no government paper money, for there were bank notes of five hundred francs, and one thousand francs. A government revenue of one hundred and sixty millions of dollars was paid in gold and silver; a hard money currency, of five hundred and fifty millions of dollars, saturated all parts of France with specie, and made gold and silver the every day curren

What a picture! how simply, how powerful“At his arrival at power, a sum of 160,000 ly drawn! and what a change in six years! franes in money [about $32,000] was all that Public chests full-payments made to the day— the public chests contained. In the impossibili- orders on the treasury the best bills of exchange ty of meeting the current service by the ordina-France alone, of all Europe, having no paper ry receipts, the Directorial Government had resorted to ruinous expedients, and had thrown into circulation bills of various values, and which sunk upon the spot fifty to eighty per cent. A part of the arrearages had been discharged in bills two-thirds on credit, payable to the bearer, but which, in fact, the treasury was not able to pay when due. The remaining third had been inscribed in the great book, under the name of consolidated third. For the payment of the forced requisitions to which they had been obliged to have recourse, there cy of every man, woman and child, in the emhad been issued bills receivable in payment of the revenues. Finally, the government, in order to satisfy the most imperious wants, gave orders upon the receivers general, delivered in advance to contractors, which they negotiated before they began to furnish the supplies for which they were the payment."

This, resumed Mr. B., was the condition of the French finances when Bonaparte became First Consul at the close of the year 1799. The currency was in the same condition-no specie a degraded currency of assignats, ruinously depreciated, and issued as low as ten sous. That great man immediately began to restore order to the finances, and solidity to the currency. Happily a peace of three years enabled him to complete the great work, before he was called to celebrate the immortal campaigns ending at Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland. At the end of three years before the rupture of the peace of Amiens-the finances and the currency were restored to order and to solidity; and, at the end of six years, when the vast establishments, and the internal ameliorations of the imperial

pire. These great results were the work of six years, and were accomplished by the simple process of gradually requiring hard money payments-gradually calling in the assignats-increasing the branch mints to fourteen, and limiting the Bank of France to an issue of large notes-five hundred francs and upwards. This simple process produced these results, and thus stands the French currency at this day; for the nation has had the wisdom to leave untouched the financial system of Bonaparte.

I have repeatedly given it as my opinionmany of my speeches declare it—that the French currency is the best in the world. It has hard money for the government; hard money for the common dealings of the people; and large notes for large transactions. This currency has enabled France to stand two invasions, the ravaging of 300,000 men, two changes of dynasty, and the payment of a milliard of contributions; and all without any commotion or revulsion in trade. It has saved her from the revulsions which have afflicted England and our America for so many years. It has saved her

from expansions, contractions, and ruinous fluc- currency, one not liable to disease, to this fedetuations of price. It has saved her, for near forty years, from a debate on currency. It has saved her even from the knowledge of our sweetscented phrases: "sound currency-unsound currency; plethoric, dropsical, inflated, bloated; the money market tight to-day-a little easier this morning;" and all such verbiage, which the haberdashers' boys repeat. It has saved France from even a discussion on currency; while in England, and with us, it is banks! banks! banks!-morning, noon, and night; breakfast, dinner, and supper; levant, and couchant; sitting, or standing; at home, or abroad; steamboat, or railroad car ; in Congress, or out of Congress, it is all the same thing: banksbanks-banks; currency-currency-currency; meaning, all the while, paper money and shin-plasters; until our very brains seem as if they would be converted into lampblack and rags.

ral government. They started the new government fair upon gold and silver. The first act of Congress attested this great fact; for it made the revenues payable in gold and silver coin only. Thus the States delivered a solid currency to this government, and they reserved the same currency for themselves; and they provided constitutional sanctions to guard both. The thing to be saved, and the power to save it, was given to this government by the States; and in the hands of this government it became deteriorated. The first great error was General Hamilton's construction of the act of 1789, by which he nullified that act, and overturned the statute and the constitution together. The next great error was the establishment of a national bank of circulation, with authority to pay all the public dues in its own paper. This confirmed the overthrow of the constitution, and of the statute of 1789; and it set the fatal exThe bill before the Senate dispenses with the ample to the States to make banks, and to refurther use of banks as depositories of the pub-ceive their paper for public dues, as the United lic moneys. In that it has my hearty concur- States had done. This was the origin of the Four times heretofore, and on four dif-evil-this the origin of the overthrow of the ferent occasions, I have made propositions to solid currency which the States had delivered to accomplish a part of the same purpose. First, the federal government. It was the Hamiltoin proposing an amendment to the deposit bill nian policy that did the mischief; and the state of 1836, by which the mint, and the branch of things in 1837, is the natural fruit of that mints, were to be included in the list of deposi-policy. It is time for us to quit it—to return tories; secondly, in proposing that the public to the constitution and the statute of 1789, and moneys here, at the seat of Government, should to confine the federal Treasury to the hard mobe kept and paid out by the Treasurer; thirdly, ney which was intended for it. by proposing that a preference, in receiving the deposits, should be given to such banks as should cease to be banks of circulation; fourthly, in opposing the establishment of a bank agency in Missouri, and proposing that the moneys there should be drawn direct from the hands of the receivers. Three of these propositions are now included in the bill before the Senate; and the whole object at which they partially aimed is fully embraced. I am for the measure-fully, cordially, earnestly for it.

rence.

Congress has a sacred duty to perform in reforming the finances, and the currency; for the ruin of both has resulted from federal legislation, and federal administration. The States at the formation of the constitution, delivered a solid currency-I will not say sound, for that word implies subject to unsoundness, to rottenness, and to death-but they delivered a solid

I repeat, this is a measure of reform, worthy to be called a reformation. It goes back to a fundamental abuse, nearly coeval with the foundation of the government. Two epochs have occurred for the reformation of this abuse; one was lost, the other is now in jeopardy. Mr. Madison's administration committed a great error at the expiration of the charter of the first Bank of the United States, in not reviving the currency of the constitution for the federal Treasury, and especially the gold currency. That error threw the Treasury back upon the local bank paper. This paper quickly failed, and out of that failure grew the second United States Bank. Those who put down the second United States Bank, warned by the calamity, determined to avoid the error of Mr. Madison's administration: they determined to increase the stock of specie, and to revive the gold cir

culation, which had been dead for thirty years. The accumulation of eighty millions in the brief space of five years, fifteen millions of it in gold, attest the sincerity of their design, and the facility of its execution. The country was going on at the rate of an average increase of twelve millions of specie per annum, when the general stoppages of the banks in May last, the exportation of specie, and the imposition of irredeemable paper upon the government and the people, seemed to announce the total failure of the plan. But it was a seeming only. The impetus given to the specie policy still prevails, and five millions are added to the stock during the present fiscal year. So far, then, as the counteraction of the government policy, and the suppression of the constitutional currency, might have been expected to result from that stoppage, the calculation seems to be in a fair way

the conduct of that bank and its friends. Let us imitate their zeal, their unanimity, and their perseverance. The amendment and the bill, now before the Senate, embodies our policy. Let us carry them, and the republic is safe.

The extra session had been called to relieve the distress of the federal treasury, and had done so by authorizing an issue of treasury notes. That object being accomplished, and the great measures for the divorce of Bank and State, and for the sole use of gold and silver in federal payments, having been recommended, and commenced, the session adjourned.

CHAPTER XVI.

to be disappointed. The spirit of the people, FIRST REGULAR SESSION UNDER MR. VAN BUand our hundred millions of exportable produce,

are giving the victory to the glorious policy of

REN'S ADMINISTRATION: HIS MESSAGE.

sion and the meeting of the regular one; and the general state of the public affairs, both at home and abroad, being essentially the same at both periods, left no new or extraordinary measures for the President to recommend. With foreign powers we were on good terms, the settlement of all our long-standing complaints under General Jackson's administration having left us free from the foreign controversies which gave

our late illustrious President. The other great A BRIEF interval of two months only interconsequences expected to result from that stop-vened between the adjournment of the called sespage, namely, the recharter of the Bank of the United States, the change of administration, the overthrow of the republican party, and the restoration of the federal dynasty, all seem to be in the same fair way to total miscarriage; but the objects are too dazzling to be abandoned by the party interested, and the destruction of the finances and the currency, is still the cherished road to success. The miscalled Bank of the United States, the soul of the federal dynas-trouble; and on that head the message had litty, and the anchor of its hopes-believed by many to have been at the bottom of the stoppages in May, and known by all to be at the head of non-resumption-now displays her policy on this floor; it is to compel the repetition of the error of Mr. Madison's administration! Knowing that from the repetition of this error must come the repetition of the catastrophes of 1814, 1819, and 1837; and out of these catastrophes to extract a new clamor for the revivification of herself. This is her line of conduct; and to this line, the conduct of all her friends conforms. With one heart, one mind, one voice, they labor to cut off gold and silver from the federal government, and to impose paper upon it! they labor to deprive it of the keeping of its own revenues, and to place them again where they have been so often lost! This is VOL. II.-5

tle but what was agreeable to communicate. Its topics were principally confined to home affairs, and that part of these affairs which were connected with the banks. That of the United States, as it still called itself, gave a new species of disregard of moral and legal obligation, and presented a new mode of depraving the currency and endangering property and contracts, by continuing to issue and to use the notes of the expired institution. Its currency was still that of the defunct bank. It used the dead notes of that institution, for which, of course, neither bank was liable. They were called resurrection notes; and their use, besides the injury to the currency and danger to property, was a high contempt and defiance of the authority which had created it; and called for the attention of the federal government. The

President, therefore, thus formally brought the has a right to reissue these notes now, procedure to the notice of Congress :

I can see no reason why it may not continue to do so after the expiration of the two years. As no one could have anticipated a course so extraordinary, the prohibitory clause of the charter above quoted was not accompanied by any penalty or other special provision for enforcing it; nor have we any general law for the prevention of similar acts in future.

"It was my hope that nothing would occur to make necessary, on this occasion, any allusion to the late national bank. There are circumstances, however, connected with the present state of its affairs that bear so directly on the character of the government and the welfare of the citizen, that I should not feel myself excused But it is not in this view of the subject alone in neglecting to notice them. The charter which that your interposition is required. The United terminated its banking privileges on the 4th States, in settling with the trustee for their of March, 1836, continued its corporate powers stock, have withdrawn their funds from their two years more, for the sole purpose of closing former direct ability to the creditors of the old its affairs, with authority to use the corporate bank, yet notes of the institution continue to be name, style, and capacity, for the purpose of sent forth in its name, and apparently upon the suits for a final settlement and liquidation of the authority of the United States. The transac affairs and acts of the corporation, and for the tions connected with the employment of the sale and disposition of their estate, real, per- bills of the old bank are of vast extent; and sonal and mixed, but for no other purpose or in should they result unfortunately, the interests any other manner whatsoever.' Just before of individuals may be deeply compromised. the banking privileges ceased, its effects were Without undertaking to decide how far, or in transferred by the bank to a new State institu- what form, if any, the trustee could be made tion then recently incorporated, in trust, for the liable for notes which contain no obligation on discharge of its debts and the settlement of its its part; or the old bank, for such as are put affairs. With this trustee, by authority of Con- in circulation after the expiration of its chargress, an adjustment was subsequently made of ter, and without its authority; or the governthe large interest which the government had in ment for indemnity, in case of loss, the question the stock of the institution. The manner in still presses itself upon your consideration, which a trust unexpectedly created upon the whether it is consistent with duty and good act granting the charter, and involving such faith on the part of the government, to witness great public interests, has been executed, would, this proceeding without a single effort to arrest under any circumstances, be a fit subject of init." quiry; but much more does it deserve your attention, when it embraces the redemption of obligations to which the authority and credit of the United States have given value. The two years allowed are now nearly at an end. It is well understood that the trustee has not redeemed and cancelled the outstanding notes of the bank, but has reissued, and is actually reissuing, since the 3d of March, 1836, the notes which have been received by it to a vast amount. According to its own official statement, so late as the 1st of October last, nineteen months after the banking privileges given by the charter had expired, it had under its control uncancelled notes of the late Bank of the United States to the amount of twenty-seven millions five hundred and sixty-one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six dollars, of which six millions one hundred and seventy-five thousand eight hundred and sixty-one dollars were in actual circulation, one million four hundred and sixty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-seven dollars at State bank agencies, and three millions two thousand three hundred and ninety dollars in transilu; thus showing that upwards of ten millions and a half of the notes of the old bank were then still kept outstanding. The impropriety of this procedure is obvious: it being the duty of the trustee to cancel and not to put forth the notes of an institution, whose concerns it had undertaken to wind up. If the trustee

On the subject of the public lands, and the most judicious mode of disposing of them-a question of so much interest to the new States the message took the view of those who looked to the domain less as a source of revenue than as a means of settling and improving the country. He recommended graduated prices according to the value of the different classes of lands in order to facilitate their sale; and a prospective permanent pre-emption act to give encouragement to settlers. On the first of these points he said:

Hitherto, after being offered at public sale, lands have been disposed of at one uniform price, whatever difference there might be in their intrinsic value. The leading considerations urged in favor of the measure referred to, are, that in almost all the land districts, and particularly in those in which the lands have been long surveyed and exposed to sale, there are still remaining numerous and large tracts of every gradation of value, from the government price downwards; that these lands will not be purchased at the government price, so long as better can be conveniently obtained for the same amount; that there are large tracts which even the improvements of the adjacent lands will