constables, jailors, hangmen, and grave-diggers are to be elected annually, biennially, or for a longer term of years. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are to be chosen at the polls; the country must be harassed from day to day, and from year to year, with the intrigue, strife, electioneering, and disgusting struggle of this horde of officeseekers: hungering like Egyptian locusts, even for the stunted leaf that vegetates upon the treasury walls. These, sir, are minor evils which fade away from the vision, when we look at the insecurity, confusion and injustice which must result from such a system. Property, life, reputation and liberty are all at the mercy of an excited multitude. The dominating party pervades the halls of legislation, the courts, and the fireside; before the excited mind can cool, some cruel act of injustice has been done which time may reveal, but can never remedy. Experience is perfect and full upon this subject. The ancient republics, England, all Europe, are full of the deplorable injustice done by the popular will, unchecked by wholesome laws and constitutional restraint. There is one instance within the memory of many now in this house, more horrible than all in times past. Look at France, that people who fought under the same flag with Washington, who caught the spirit of liberty on the American shore, bore it across the Atlantic, and planted her image upon the throne of her antiquated kings. What did France, republican, democratic France? She made her judgesimmediately dependent on the popular will—she "afraid to trust the people?" No, sir, the blood of her best citizens which flooded her streets-the cries of murdered women and childrenthe pale and mute language of despair stamped upon the innocent faces of the young and beautiful-the mutual distrust, accusation and death-bear witness that she did not "fear to trust the people."

The Hon. Gentleman (from Hardin) answers this argument by rejoicing that he is in Kentucky, not in France-among freemen, not slaves-not a Frenchman, but a Kentuckian. I, too, rejoice that I am a freeman, a Kentuckian: and as I am a freeman and a Kentuckian, the heir of a controlled and constitutional liberty, and not a slave, or a Frenchman, I therefore abhor the policy of France, and call upon my countrymen to reject and put their seal of eternal disapprobation upon doctrines which lead to despotism, slavery, and death.

I have said, that I did fear to trust the people to choose their judges, and I am warned that I stand upon dangerous ground. The heroes of our revolution, the sages of our federal constitution-Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and a host of the advocates of equality, of universal suffrage, and republican liberty-believed that the judges should not be elected by the people, and that the Senate should not be broken down, and all the strength of the government subject to popular impulse. The experience of more than half a century, the liberties we now enjoy, and the privilege by which I now stand here to defend their doctrines and enforce what they and I believe to be republican principles, prove that they were worthy of the trust which the destiny of nations deposited in their hands.

I am warned, sir, against the advocacy of measures upon this floor, which gentlemen conceive are too unpopular elsewhere; and I am told that Webster and Calhoun are now prostrate on account of speculative opinions, against which this people have decided.

I do not conceive that I am called upon to say how far the Hon. Gentleman, holding the position which he does, is justifiable in alluding to such names in such a manner: nor do I conceive myself necessitated to defend such names. But I do say, sir, that if, by the advocacy of truth, and what I believe to be the best interests of a free people, I am cut off from the popular approbation, and commit political suicide, I thank the gentleman for the honorable interment to which he has assigned me. For I had rather be remembered with Webster and Calhoun, than to be associated with the most successful demagogue, feeding upon the breath of applause caught from a deluded and self-destroying people.

The gentleman last up, (from Morgan) has undertaken to construe to this house what he believes to be the tenor of my argument, and asserts that I "distrust the capability of the people for self-government." No, sir, I answer that assertion now, and I hope for ever. It is such persons as we have heard upon this floor, who appeal to the worst passions, who excite the "poor" against the "rich," the "mountains" against the "valleys," who are for ever flattering the people for their own aggrandizement, and watching the tide of human misfortunes, distress, and confusion, for the purpose of running into power. These, sir, are demagogues I do distrust. I believe that the people are the

proper depositaries of all power-but I believe also that there should be constitutional restraints for its wholesome exercise.

I do not fall short of gentlemen in my confidence in republican governments. I go farther-that I shall be the last to give up my confidence in the capacity of the people for self-government. But I do most solemnly avow to this house, that if ever this people cease to be free, and are compelled to throw themselves into the hands of a self-constituted chief or military despot-no man will have contributed more to produce so lamentable a result than he who continues to stimulate the passions of the multitude, till they shall have thrown off all constitutional restraints, and amalgamated all the elements of government into one uncontrollable will.

I may be thought, sir, to have taken too excited a view of this subject; it may be so. I feel that this question should be met in the outset; ground once lost can never be recovered. Your vote here to-day may decide the question, whether our constitution shall be sustained or lost. And I beg gentlemen that if they shall have a shadow of doubt concerning the propriety of calling a convention, to vote against the bill: return to your constituents, convince them, if possible, of the impropriety of the measure, and, should you at last fail to convince, leave it to more willing hands to strike a blow at the constitution of your country, which neither your consciences nor judgments can approve. For myself I shall go against it, and should such a course shut me off from the confidence of my constituents, and should I never again be allowed to taste the sweets of popular applause, I shall carry into retirement and obscurity, the proud and imperishable consciousness of having used my every effort for the preservation of human-“ republican”—liberty.

4

SPEECH

On the bill conferring Banking Privileges upon the Charleston, Cincinnati, and Louisville Railroad Company, before the Committee of the whole, in the House of Representatives of Kentucky, 1837-38.

Mr. C. spoke in opposition to the bill, as follows:

MR. CHAIRMAN,-The American people have been from the beginning jealous of incorporated institutions. Kentucky, of all the states in this union, has had most fatal experience of the evil influence of bank corporations. While I now speak, there is one voice coming up from all classes and all parties of our sagacious countrymen, attributing the prostration of our trade and business, the wide-spread bankruptcy of our citizens, and the derangement of the currency, to an over-issue of bank paper -to a redundancy of bank capital. Our banks, in common with others, have suspended specie payments. The anxieties of our whole people; the threatened suits, executions, and demands for specie; the wide-spread panic and fearful apprehension of other and unforeseen evils-all, call for whatever of firmness and judgment and patriotism the council of our state may possess, to sustain our own banks, and to restore a currency convertible into specie at the will of the holder. At this crisis, we are gravely asked to lend our aid in bringing into existence a bank with twelve million dollars of capital, capable of throwing into circulation twenty-four million dollars of paper, which it can refuse to redeem without forfeiting, or even impairing its corporate powers.

The bill asks, that four million dollars of bank paper be admitted into our own state-our bank injured state!

I for one, I am not prepared to grant it. Before I disappoint the just expectations of the people, hazard the healthful existence of our state institutions, bestow upon an alien and irresponsible directory the control of our finances, I ask myself what remuneration my state is to receive in turn? Shall I be told, grant the bank charter, and the railroad will be made from Charleston to Lexington, Kentucky? I deny the proposition. The bill provides, that when the company shall have subscribed

three million dollars, the bank shall go into existence; that when the road shall have been built to the southern border of Kentucky, the bank capital may be increased to nine million dollars, and have corporate powers for thirty-one years. Thus we may have a bank issuing eighteen million dollars of notes, dealing in exchange and discount to an unlimited extent; holding real estate to the amount of twenty-seven million dollars, dividing annually (if it makes no more even than our banks, eight per cent. per annum), seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars nearly a million of dollars; capable of raising and depressing at will the prices of our property; under the control of a directory at Charleston, South Carolina, whose interest it is to lower the price of live stock, having the entire power of removing the directors in this state, and of withdrawing the capital at will, without being compelled to expend one dollar, or make one foot of road, in Kentucky.

Our state has begun a system of internal improvements, the progress and completion of which depend upon the sale of state scrip or bonds; the sale of those bonds depends upon the punctuality with which the interest is paid; to meet the payment of that interest the state has formed a sinking fund, the means of which consist mostly in the dividends of the stock she holds in our banks. That part of the stock which the state holds in the banks was paid in bonds, bearing interest of five per cent. per annum but the banks are bound to pay the state, dividends as the other stockholders, being about eight per cent. per annum; thus leaving the commonwealth a clear gain of three per cent. per annum, making during the last fiscal year about sixty thousand dollars. Now, admit this railroad bank into competition with our banks, reduce their dividends to five per cent. per annum, and you lose the three per cent. excess; you lose the sixty thousand dollars, destroy the sinking fund, injure our credit abroad, violate the faith of the state, hazard the whole system of internal improvement, merely to enrich a foreign corporation!

Shall I be told, that our stock drivers require some medium which will relieve them from the excessive rate of exchange now demanded by the banks of Kentucky and South Carolina? Let us see if the evils I have enumerated are counterbalanced by any saving in exchange. The notes issued at the Charleston bank are not redeemable at the branch in Kentucky, and the