came into his hands, and Osceola was one of has been on the side of humanity, and of confithese.

Here, sir, are three grounds of justification, either of them sufficient to justify the conduct of General Jesup towards Powell, as the gentlemen call him. The first of the three reasons applies personally and exclusively to that halfbreed; the other two apply to all the hostile Indians, and justify the seizure and detention of others, who have been sent to the West.

dence in them. But has he erred? Has his policy been erroneous? Has the country been a loser by his policy? To all these questions, let results give the answer. Let the twentytwo hundred Indians, abstracted from the hostile ranks by his measures, be put in contrast with the two hundred, or less, killed and taken by his predecessors. Let these results be compared; and let this comparison answer the question whether, in point of fact, there has been any error, even a mistake of judgment, in his mode of conducting the war.

How

The senator from South Carolina [Mr. PRESTON] Complains of the length of time which General Jesup has consumed without bringing the war to a close. Here, again, the chapter of comparisons must be resorted to in order to obtain the answer which justice requires. long, I pray you, was General Jesup in command? from December, 1836, to May, 1838; nominally he was near a year and a half in command; in reality not one year, for the summer months admit of no military operations in that peninsula. His predecessors commanded from December, 1835, to December, 1836; a term wanting but a few months of as long a period as the command of General Jesup lasted. Sir, there is nothing in the length of time which this general commanded, to furnish matter for disadvantageous comparisons to him; but the contrary. He reduced the hostiles about onehalf in a year and a half; they reduced them about the one-twentieth in a year. The whole number was about 5,000; General Jesup diminished their number, during his command, 2,200; the other generals had reduced them about 150. At the rate he proceeded, the work would be finished in about three years; at the rate they proceeded, in about twenty years.

So much for justification; now for the expediency of having detained this Indian Powell. I hold it was expedient to exercise the right of detaining him, and prove this expediency by reasons both a priori and a posteriori. His previous treachery and crimes, and his well known disposition for further treachery and crimes, made it right for the officers of the United States to avail themselves of the first justifiable occasion to put an end to his depredations by confining his person until the war was over. This is a reason a priori. The reason a posteriori is, that it has turned out right; it has operated well upon the mass of the Indians, between eighteen and nineteen hundred of which, negroes inclusive, have since surrendered to Gen. Jesup. This, sir, is a fact which contains an argument which overturns all that can be said on this floor against the detention of Osceola. The Indians themselves do not view that act as perfidious or dishonorable, or the violation of a flag, or even the act of an enemy. They do not condemn General Jesup on account of it, but no doubt respect him the more for refusing to be made the dupe of a treacherous artifice. A bit of white linen, stripped, perhaps from the body of a murdered child, or its murdered mother, was no longer to cover the insidious visits of spies and enemies. A firm and manly course was taken, and the effect was good upon the minds of the Indians. The number since sur-Yet he is to be censured here for the length of rendered is proof of its effect upon their minds; and this proof should put to blush the lamentations which are here set up for Powell, and the censure thrown upon General Jesup.

No, sir, no. General Jesup has been guilty of no perfidy, no fraud, no violation of flags. He has done nothing to stain his own character, or to dishonor the flag of the United States. If he has erred, it has been on the side of humanity, generosity, and forbearance to the Indians. If he has erred, as some suppose, in losing time to parley with the Indians, that error

time consumed without bringing the war to a close. He, and he alone, is selected for censure. Sir, I dislike these comparisons; it is a disagreeable task for me to make them; but I am driven to it, and mean no disparagement to others. The violence with which General Jesup is assailed here-the comparisons to which he has been subjected in order to degrade him— leave me no alternative but to abandon a meritorious officer to unmerited censure, or to defend him in the same manner in which he has been assailed.

The essential policy of General Jesup has fastnesses, its climate, and its wily foe, that had been to induce the Indians to come in-to sur-to be contended with; a new element of opporender and to emigrate under the treaty. sition was encountered by General Jesup, in This has been his main, but not his exclusive, the poisonous information which was conveyed policy; military operations have been combined to the Indians' minds, which encouraged them with it; many skirmishes and actions have to hold out, and of which he had not even been fought since he had command; and it is knowledge for a long time. This was the remarkable that this general, who has been so quantity of false information which was conmuch assailed on this floor, is the only com-veyed to the Indians, to stimulate and encourmander-in-chief in Florida who has been wounded in battle at the head of his command. His person marked with the scars of wounds received in Canada during the late war with Great Britain, has also been struck by a bullet, in the face, in the peninsula of Florida; yet these wounds-the services in the late war with Great Britain-the removal of upwards of 16,000 Creek Indians from Alabama and Georgia to the West, during the summer of 1836 and more than twenty-five years of honorable employment in the public service-all these combined, and an unsullied private character into the bargain, have not been able to protect the feelings of this officer from laceration on this floor. Have not been sufficient to protect his feelings! for, as to his character, that is untouched. The base accusation-the vague denunciation-the offensive epithets employed here, may lacerate feelings, but they do not reach character; and as to the military inquiry, which the senator from South Carolina speaks of, I undertake to say that no such inquiry will ever take place. Congress, or either branch of Congress, can order an inquiry if it pleases; but before it orders an inquiry, a probable cause has to be shown for it; and that probable cause never has been, and never will be, shown in General Jesup's case.

The senator from South Carolina speaks of the large force which was committed to General Jesup, and the little that was effected with that force. Is the senator aware of the extent of the country over which his operations extended? that it extended from 31 to 25 degrees of north latitude? that it began in the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia, and stretched to the Everglades in Florida? that it was near five hundred miles in length in a straight line, and the whole sprinkled over with swamps, one of which alone was equal in length to the distance between Washington City and Philadelphia? But it was not extent of country alone, with its VOL. II.-6

age their resistance. General Jesup took command just after the presidential election of 1836. The Indians were informed of this change of presidents, and were taught to believe that the white people had broke General Jackson-that was the phrase-had broke General Jackson for making war upon them. They were also informed that General Jesup was carrying on the war without the leave of Congress; that Congress would give no more money to raise soldiers to fight them; and that he dared not come home to Congress. Yes, he dared not come home to Congress! These poor Indians seem to have been informed of intended movements against the general in Congress, and to have relied upon them both to stop supplies and to punish the general. Moreover, they were told, that, if they surrendered to emigrate, they would receive the worst treatment on the way; that, if a child cried, it would be thrown overboard; if a chief gave offence, he would be put in irons. Who the immediate informants of all these fine stories were, cannot be exactly ascertained. They doubtless originated with that mass of fanatics, devoured by a morbid sensibility for negroes and Indians, which are now Don Quixoting over the land, and filling the public ear with so many sympathetic tales of their own fabrication.

General Jesup has been censured for writing a letter disparaging to his predecessor in command. If he did so, and I do not deny it, though I have not seen the letter, nobly has he made the amends. Publicly and officially has he made amends for a private and unofficial wrong. In an official report to the war department, published by that department, he said:

"As an act of justice to all my predecessors the difficulties attending military operations in in command, I consider it my duty to say that this country, can be properly appreciated only by those acquainted with them. I have advan

tages which neither of them possessed, in bet- individual enjoyment. Stripped of all these ter preparations and more abundant supplies; heads of expenditure, and the expenses of the and I found it impossible to operate with any present administration have nothing to fear

prospect of success, until I had established a

line of depots across the country. If I have at from a comparison with other periods. Stated any time said aught in disparagement of the in the gross, as is usually done, and many ignooperations of others in Florida, either verbally rant people are deceived and imposed upon, or in writing, officially or unofficially, know- and believe that there has been a great waste ing the country as I now know it, I consider myself bound as a man of honor solemnly to

retract it."

of public money; pursued into the detail, and these expenditures will be found to have been made for great national objects-objects which

Such are the amends which General Jesup no man would have undone, to get back the makes-frank and voluntary-full and kindly-money, even if it was possible to get back the worthy of a soldier towards brother soldiers; money by undoing the objects. No one, for and far more honorable to his predecessors in example, would be willing to bring back the command than the disparaging comparisons Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and which have been instituted here to do them Chickasaws into Alabama, Mississippi, Georhonor at his expense. gia, Tennessee and North Carolina, even if the tens of millions which it has cost to remove them could be got back by that means; and so of the other expenditures: yet these eternal croakers about expense are blaming the government for these expenditures.

The expenses of this war is another head of attack pressed into this debate, and directed more against the administration than against the commanding general. It is said to have cost twenty millions of dollars; but that is an error an error of near one-half. An actual Sir, I have gone over the answers, which I return of all expenses up to February last, proposed to make to the accusations of the senamounts to nine and a half millions; the rest ators from New Jersey and South Carolina. I of the twenty millions go to the suppression have shown them to be totally mistaken in all of hostilities in other places, and with other In- their assumptions and imputations. I have dians, principally in Georgia and Alabama, and shown that there was no fraud upon the Inwith the Cherokees and Creeks. Sir, this dians in the treaty at Fort Gibson-that the charge of expense seems to be a standing head identical chiefs who made that treaty have with the opposition at present. Every speech since been the hostile chiefs-that the assassigives us a dish of it; and the expenditures un- nation and massacre of an agent, two governder General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren are ment expresses, an artillery officer, five citizens, constantly put in contrast with those of pre- and one hundred and twelve men of Major vious administrations. Granted that these ex- Dade's command, caused the war-that our penditures are larger-that they are greatly in- troops are not subject to censure for inefficiencreased; yet what are they increased for? cy-that General Jesup has been wrongfully Are they increased for the personal expenses of denounced upon this floor-and that even the the officers of the government, or for great na- expense of the Florida war, resting as it does in tional objects? The increase is for great ob- figures and in documents, has been vastly overjects; such as the extinction of Indian titles in stated to produce effect upon the public mind. the States east of the Mississippi-the removal | All these things I have shown; and I conclude of whole nations of Indians to the west of the with saying that cost, and time, and loss of Mississippi-their subsistence for a year after men, are all out of the question; that, for outthey arrive there-actual wars with some tribes rages so wanton and so horrible as those which -the fear of it with others, and the consequent occasioned this war, the national honor requires continual calls for militia and volunteers to the most ample amends; and the national safety preserve peace-large expenditures for the per- requires a future guarantee in prosecuting this manent defences of the country, both by land war to a successful close, and completely clearand water, with a pension list for ever increasing the peninsula of Florida of all the Indians ing; and other heads of expenditure which are that are upon it.

for future national benefit, and not for present

CHAPTER XX.

RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS BY THE
NEW YORK BANKS.

another letter to Mr. John Quincy Adams, that is to say, to the public, through the distinction of that gentleman's name. It came the most elaborate and ingenious of its species; its burden, to prove the entire ability of the bank over which he presided to pay in full, and without reserve, but its intention not to do so, on account of its duty to others not able to follow its example, and which might be entirely ruined by a premature effort to do so. And he concluded with condensing his opinion into a sentence of characteristic and sententious brevity: "On the whole, the course which in my judgment the banks ought to pursue, is simply this: The banks should remain exactly as they are-prepared to resume, but not yet resuming." But he did not stop there, but in another publication went the length of a direct threat of destruction against the New York banks if they should, in conformity to their promise, venture to resume, saying: "Let the banks of the Empire State come up from their Elba, and enjoy their hundred days of resumption! a Waterloo awaits them, and a Saint Helena is prepared for them."

THE Suspension commenced on the 10th of May in New York, and was followed throughout the country. In August the New York banks proposed to all others to meet in convention, and agree upon a time to commence a general resumption. That movement was frustrated by the opposition of the Philadelphia banks, for the reason, as given, that it was better to await the action of the extra session of Congress, then convoked, and to meet in September. The extra session adjourned early in October, and the New York banks, faithful to the promised resumption of specie payments, immediately issued another invitation for the general convention of the banks in that city on the 27th of November ensuing, to carry into effect the object of the meeting which had been invited in the month of August. The 27th of November arrived; a large proportion of the delinquent banks had accepted the invitation to send delegates to the convention: but its meeting was again frustrated-and from the same quarter-the Bank of the United States, and the institutions under its influence. They then resolved to send a committee to Philadelphia to ascertain from the banks when they would be ready, and to invite them to name a day when they would be able to resume; and if no day was definitely fixed, to inform them that the New York banks would commence specie payments without waiting for their co-operation. The Philadelphia banks would not co-operate. They would not agree to any definite time to take even initiatory steps towards resumption. This was a disappointment to the public mind -that large part of it which still had faith in the Bank of the United States; and the conOnly delegates from fifteen States tradiction which it presented to all the previous voted-Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carprofessions of that institution, required explan- olina among the absent; which, as including the ations, and, if possible, reconciliation with past three principal commercial cities on the Atlandeclarations. The occasion called for the pen tic board south of New York, was a heavy deof Mr. Biddle, always ready, always confident, falcation from the weight of the convention. always presenting an easy remedy, and a sure Of the fifteen States, thirteen voted for resuming one, for all the diseases to which banks, cur- on the 1st day of January, 1839-a delay of rency, and finance were heir. It called for near nine months; two voted against that day

The banks of New York were now thrown upon the necessity of acting without the concurrence of those of Pennsylvania, and in fact under apprehension of opposition and counteraction from that quarter. They were publicly pledged to act without her, and besides were under a legal obligation to do so. The legislature of the State, at the time of the suspension, only legalized it for one year. The indulgence would be out on the 15th of May, and forfeiture of charter was the penalty to be incurred throughout the State for continuing it beyond that time. The city banks had the control of the movement, and they invited a convention of delegates from all the banks in the Union to meet in New York on the 15th of April. One hundred and forty-three delegates, from the principal banks in a majority of the States, attended.