27TH CONG.....3D SESS.

nity for censure and condemnation when deserved. But, in proportion to the exaltation of the recreant, should be the measure of the censure and condemnation.

I am not one who believes that a description of the President and some of his ministers, in their present attitude before the country, should be attempted in bland phraseology or honeyed accents. Their portraits should be sketched by a master's hand, (which I regret I do not possess)—not in the soft and mellow tinting of a Titian, but in the bold and startling coloring of a Correggio.

Office has its rights and privileges. Among them, I reckon not as one an exemption from the animadversion which delinquency merits. Place, mere place, confers no honor on its possessor; but, e converso, man gives rank and dignity to the office.

As one of the most prominent workers of inischief to the Whigs, to their cause, and to the ascendency of their principles, pre-eminent in genius and acquirements, stands the Secretary of State. In the order of importance, he deserves to occupy the foreground of the picture, in bold and frightful relief. But, as in every dramatic representation, whether of tragedy, comedy, or farce, there must be characters great and small, so my dramatis persone must be, in some respects, presented in combination, as well the Magnus Apollo, as he who has justly earned a distinction conferred upon one of the old popes, of whom it was said

"Maximus in parvis, minimus in magnis."

The amusing and veracious author of "Ten Thousand a Year," in speaking of Tittlebat Titmouse, esq., M. P. for Yatton, and of the base uses to which he intended to devote his immense pros. pective wealth, remarks, "that the reptile propensities of his mean nature had thriven under the sudden sunshine of unexpected prosperity." Now, sir, I will not apply this language to the President of the United States; but I may be permitted to say that the sentiment is strikingly applicable to himto his accidental advent to power-to his resolutions soon thereafter taken to perpetuate that power-and to his subsequent operations; all having in view the same objects.

I have no doubt that John Tyler came to Washington, on the demise of General Harrison, with honest intentions to administer the Government on Whig principles. His inaugural address bears on its face evidence of such intentions. The declaration that he should take as his model the "fathers of the Republican school," soothed the alarms of many Whigs who distrust Virginia politicians-I mean those of the modern abstraction school. The inaugural, taken in connexion with his partiality for Mr. Clay, and his tears shed at the Harrisburg convention over his defeat, were hailed by them as harbingers of prosperity to the country, and of safety to the Whig party. The sentiments of Mr. Clay in regard to the currency and to a national bank were well known to Mr. Tyler and to the country. For years they had been emblazoned on the pillars of the Capitol in characters of living light, and had illumined every hill-top in the country. They did not believe it within the range of possibility that Mr. Tyler, knowing, as he did know, the opinions of Mr. Clay on all subjects of national concernment, and who, at that convention and elsewhere, had manifested such an ardent zeal for his nomination to the Presidency, could turn his back upon his principles and his friend. What! said they, is it possible that he can be guilty of the glaring inconsistency of advocating the claims of a man to the Chief Magistracy, whose whole life and conduct stand pledged to give to the nation a sound currency, through the instrumentality of a national bank, and not himself be the friend of such an institution? Surely, said they, Mr. Tyler cannot believe a bank unconstitutional, else he could not, with any appearance of honesty or consistency, aid in placing in the presidential chair a man whose first official act would be a strong recommendation of that very measure! Though it might have been known to them that, at certain periods of his life, Mr. Tyler had entertained opinions hostile to a bank, they believed-and they had a right to believe-that his presence as a Whig delegate at a national Whig convention, avowing his predilections in favor of a bank candidate, and himself accepting a nomination from that convention for the second office in the Republic, furnished conclusive evidence of a change of opinion. Better men than John Tyler have changed their opinions in regard to a bank; and why may he not

have seen, in the necessities of the times, and the afflictions of his countrymen, abundant reason to change his opinions also?

But the fond hopes inspired by the inaugural in the bosoms of the Whigs--of the pure and patriotic men who had taken Mr. Tyler from obscurity, and placed him on the pinnacle of power--were doomed to sad and bitter disappointment.

The good resolves with which he came here armed, were soon smothered in the impure embrace of a forbidden ambition. The fatal words second term were whispered into his too willing ear, and "all was lost." These have been the "open sesame" to all the woes and afflictions of the Whig party.

He found himself suddenly, unexpectedly, in the possession of power; and soon, very soon, tasked his ingenuity to devise plans for its perpetuation in himself and his successor. Surrounded by flatterers, he greedily inhaled their incense, freely offered, to gratify at once his vanity, and to administer to their own advancement. Pleased with the rattles with which his maiden ambition was tickled, new visions of glory flitted before his bewildered fancy, and new hopes swelled his tiny heart to the very verge of bursting. With a promptitude commensurate with the energy of his character and the magnitude of his towering genius, he issued to the admiring sycophants of his cortege the sic vola of his deliberations, and, in the stern language of a second Cato, thundered forth the terrific fiat-"Delenda est Carthago!"

The decree for the dismemberment of the Whig party was promulged from the palace, and his faithful vassals were charged with its execution. This decree became necessary to effect his object. The "one term" principle-a principle which I trust is now permanently incorporated into the Whig creed-presented an insuperable barrier to his re-election. That re-election could only be effected by a new, a third, a Tyler party, to be composed of a portion of the Whig party and the "odds and ends" of all parties.

Sir, had the President been left to himself, I doubt not that he would have proved true to his principles, to his country, and to his party. But, most unfortunately for him, for his country, and for the Whig party, he became the dupe, and perhaps the willing dupe, of more experienced plotters and contrivers.

Sir, I have them in my eye. In fancy I see the conspirators against the prosperity of the country and the welfare of the party to whose confidence and partiality they owe all their political conse. quence, stealing, under cover of the night, to the assigned place of rendezvous, ashamed that the blessed light of heaven should look out upon their baseness. Starting, like guilty things, at the echo of their own footsteps, with cautious tread they stealthily approach the Executive mansion. I see the prime mover of the plot-the Catiline of the group. His once majestic form, enshrining a spirit that might have out-paragoned the world, is now crouching, in very shame of its degraded position, in the ante-chamber of power. His once noble brow, on which the Almighty had impressed the signet of greatness, is now wrinkled by the force of contending emotions. That voice, which erst thrilled through the hearts of grave Senators and admiring millions, and which, when the battle waxed the hottest, was heard high over all, cheering on his brave companions to the onslaught, with the spirit-stirring appeal, "once more to the breach, dear friends, once more," is now subdued into hur ried and mysterious whispers. It is the voice of Cæsar on his sick bed, "Titinius, give me some drink," and not the voice of Cæsar at the head of his conquering legions.

In clairvoyance, I watch with no little anxiety the portentous movements of the gang, threatening consequences baneful to the well-being of that devoted party which had so recently elevated them to place, and hurled from power the men who had long wallowed in corruption, and fattened on spoils wrung from the hands of honest but paralyzed industry. Hist! Again I see them! They now emerge from the security of their skulking-place. Under the guidance of the lurid glare of a blue light, throwing its sickly rays on the blanched cheeks of its bearer, they move with noiseless pace, in gloomy procession, towards the imperial closet. At its door, in mockery of majesty, and in derision of greatness, stands the trembling subject of their adulation, the object of their wiles, and the instrument of their ambition; and most cordially are they Welcomed to his embrace,

H. of Reps.

At a coalition so unholy, and formed with purposes, the execution of which would prove so deadly to the parties concerned, and to the welfare of the nation, even the goddess of mischief and discord, who had watched their movements with no little concern, and who was then flapping her raven wing with unwonted delight, veiled her face in confusion and disgust.

What transpired in the closet, though chronicled by the tutelar deity of the place, (her of the black pinion,) has not yet been promulged. Its record, however, is carefully preserved by its faithful custodier. She took it with her to her abiding-place; and it may be found in the archives of hell, in the same pigeon-hole containing the correspondence of Sir Henry Clinton with a notable personage, whose memory has come down to us lcaded with infamy, and who, in co-fraternity with the heroes of my vision, will descend to posterity a stench in the nostrils of its latest generation.

Now, sir, although I may not speak from the record of the plottings of the closet, I may infer, from the acts and doings of one of the cabal, at least, the plan of operations by which the disruption of the Whig party was to be accomplished, and also the price to be paid to that distinguished gentleman for his continuance in office.

Sir, it is a matter of indubitable history, that in no one has a United States bank found a more uniform, able, and eloquent advocate than in the person of the Secretary of State. Up to April, 1841, there is no evidence that his opinions had undergone the slightest change on that subject.

It is equally well known, (certainly to many members of this House,) that, during the pendency of the bank bill before Congress, at its called session, the Secretary was busily engaged in the exertion of his all-powerful influence upon members, to give the "go-by" to the measure-promising to present, at the next regular session, a plan of currency and finance which should meet the views and wishes of the Whig party, and the expectations of the country.

How faithfully he has redeemed that pledge, and with what favor his plan, which was to have come to us pure and perfect as Tritonia from the brain of Jove, has been received by the House, let the voices of some eighteen gentlemen only in favor of the Secretary's "monstrum horrendum" of a Government bank (many of whom, I understand, would have voted in the negative had the question been on the bill itself) answer to the country.

Instead of standing by his principles with the firmness of a patriot, and with a self-sacrificing devotion to the great and paramount interests of the country, the Secretary became the humble apologist of John Tyler's delinquency-ay, and of his imbecility too. What had become of his vaunted boast that the pillars of the Capitol

"Should fly

From their firm base as soon as Ï?"

Sir, like the courage of Bob Acres, when the hour of trial came, all his firmness and all his patriotism "oozed out at the ends of his fingers." It seems that the fear of the loss of place, like a spectre, has haunted him in all his out-goings and in-comings. Sir, had he assumed towards the President the port and bearing of a man resolved to go for the country at all hazards, maugre all personal and private considerations, I believe in my heart that at this moment the Whig banner would be proudly flouting the breeze in every direction. But the closet scene had been enacted, and it was no longer any part of his purpose to act the honest, faithful, and fearless counsellor of the President. The dignified and lofty minister of state had dwindled down into the mere sycophant and parasite.

I have said that the record of the compact has not been promulged. But I will hazard the conjecture, that the high contracting parties, for good and sufficient considerations them thereunto moving, resolved that, so far as they had the power, John Tyler should be elected President of the United States; that the political world should be turned upside down; that quiet should be thrown into confusion, harmony into discord, and order into chaos. The Whig temple, with its stately pillars and splendid capitals, reared with so much toil and care, and standing forth a model of political beauty and of strength, was to be razed to the earth; and from its disjointed materials, aided by cross-ties dug from the ruins of the Locofoco Herculaneum deluged by the molten lava of the revolution of 1840, was to be constructed a new edifice, and dedicated to the use of John the Third, President in hi

27TH CONG....3D SESS.

own right in 1845, and then to pass to his successor, Daniel the First.

Sir, it is my firm and honest belief that considerations other than those connected with the importance and delicacy of our relations with England had overpowering weight with the President in retaining Mr. Webster in the cabinet. He saw that a storm was in preparation; and, although at the time the cloud in the political horizon was no bigger than a man's hand, he felt that it would rapidly increase, and that, ére long, the little speck would become a desolating tempest. He wished for strength, for support, for allies, to enable him to weather the storm. And who at the North could give him more efficient aid than the man who, to talents of the very highest order, united in an eminent degree the respect and confidence of the Whig party? His means of mischief were in a ratio compounded of those talents, of that respect and confi. dence. Leaning on the pillars of his mighty repu. tation, which had cost him years of unremitted toil to erect, the Secretary vainly fancied that his fall was beyond the reach of human power. Vain illusion! Among the honest and sturdy Whig sons of the North, so far as my acquaintance extends, he stands almost desolate and alone, still majestic in the ruins of his own creation. Like the strong man, he has madly seized hold of the granite columns of his own fair fame; but, unlike him, he has buried with himself neither friends nor foes beneath the ruins.

The more recent conduct of the Secretary well warrants me in drawing conclusions unfavorable to the purity of motive which prompted his continuance in the cabinet, and his labors to defeat a national bank. I will not here inquire whether the President, in retaining Mr. Webster about his person, calculated upon his influence in the Senate-a place where he was weak, and where, in regard to confirmation of nominations, strength was highly desirable. Taking into view the character of the parties, and the nature and object of the coalition, it is highly probable that the potent influence of the Secretary was to be brought to bear on the north wing of the Capitol. Has an attempt been made to exert that influence? If so, it has most signally failed. The Whig portion of the American Senate, in the sternness of conceded virtue, and in the grandeur of unsuspected patriotism, with no stain of distrust resting on the purity of its purpose, or the constancy of its attachment to the principles of the party which it so ably represents, presents a spectacle challenging the respect, the confidence, and the admiration of the world. There, Executive influence has been powerless; here, too, it has been nearly so. The sum total of Executive recruits from the Whigs in Congress amounts to some four or five, all told. If my colleague from the Otsego district has inscribed his name on the roster of "the corporal's guard," it may swell up to six. How far the appointments of Locofocos to office generally, or the appointments of family connexions of Locofoco members of Congress in particular, or the promises of appointments (if such promises have been made) to Locofoco members themselves, to be made in future, may have influenced the course of the ultra Democracy on this floor, I take it not upon myself to say. That these appointments and promises have in no small degree softened the ferocity of Locofoco attacks, speeches of gentlemen might be cited in proof.

An honorable gentleman from Indiana [Mr. KENNEDY] not long since condescended, in a strain alike complimentary to the intellect and good nature of the President, to speak of him as "a good old soul!" What a biting sarcasm! Words of foulness and contempt! A good old soul, forsooth! Ay, when wielding the veto club to cleave down the Whig party, a "good old soul!" But, in his recommendation of the repeal of the sub-treasury, the "good old soul" has passed the vanishing point. When appointing Locofocos to office, a dear, "good old soul;" but, in retaining Mr. Webster in his cabinet, he is the incarnation of the evil spirit himself. What a President, and what a eulogist! The encomiastic satire of the one is in all respects worthy of the political profligacy and ingrained stupidity of the other.

I have spoken of executive influence. This influence may be beneficent or malign. Thus far, the conduct of the honorable gentlemen of the guard may be attributed to the former. Up to this period, I have neither the right nor disposition to impugn their motives. There may be doubters and skepcs on this subject; from such let me invoke for the

gentlemen of the "guard" the charity of their silence. Wait for the developments of time--the great trier of things and of men. Wait till the 4th of March, 1845. If that day shall find them in this place, representing, with their well-known ability, the interests of their constituents; or, having been dismissed the public service here, it shall find them mingling among the masses; or, if that day shall find their shoulders unsoiled by the robes of office, --then may those who, from motives of prudence, now practise non-committalism, award to them their unqualified approbation-so far, at least, as motive is concerned.

I trust, sir, that by this good time the eyes of the Whigs of the country are fully open to a just ap preciation of the motives and the management of those who have betrayed them, and made the vain effort to sell them to the support of the President.

Up to the period of the Faneuil Hall speech, there were no doubt some (perhaps many) Whigs who cherished the hope that Mr. Webster would return to the fold from which ambition in a fatal moment had tempted him to wander. They thought of his Herculean intellect and of his indomitable spirit when fighting in the Senate the battles of constitutional liberty; and they were slow to believe that he had left the camp of the faithful, to form a lasting alliance with a crooked, perverse, and uncircumcised generation. But, sir, that speech extinguished the last hope of his few remaining friends.

Those who believed that his efforts to defeat a national bank were prompted by considerations of anxiety for the peace and harmony of the Whig party, of the position in which a veto would place the President towards that party, and the effect of that position on that peace and harmony-those who believed that his continuance in the cabinet resulted solely from a conviction that he could there best serve the country, by conducting to a success. ful termination our negotiations with England-were compelled then to admit that they had extended to him a charity which he did not merit. Then it was that the painful reality of his tergiversation was fully realized. Then it was, reviewing the "tout ensemble" of the Secretary's course, that they discovered that ambition and the love of place, more than love of country, had counselled him to remain in a cabinet from which his highminded, pure, and honored colleagues had retired in disgust. And the honorable Secretary was not content to remain in his degraded position in silence. To evince his subserviency to the President, as a volunteer he appears in the public prints, and unblushingly heralds to the world not only his want of sensibility to insult, and of manhood to resent and repel it, but his fixed determination to remain in power, notwithstanding all the contumely which the President had heaped upon him and his late associates.

In his letter to the editors of the National Intelligencer, under date of 13th September, 1841, he informs us "that he had seen no sufficient reason for the dissolution of the late cabinet by the voluntary act of its own members."

Sir, the Secretary's optics were not usually sharp. His eyes were dazzled by the glare of the premiership in present possession, and of the presidential coronet in the distance. He is a Yankee-belonging to that tribe famed for its coolness of calculation, especially in all matters of pecuniary and personal thrift. Sir, I will not intimate that the Yankees are not as sensitive to attacks upon their honor as others such an intimation would dishonor my own father, and all my kindred; but the Secretary seems to be an exception to the general rule of his caste. The alligator is not devoid of sensitiveness; but it is impervious to assault, and the hunter's attempts to reach it are vain. The rebounding balls of his enemy demonstrate the impenetrable nature of the coat of mail with which nature has protected him.

The influence of the Secretary over the President is said to be second to that of no other gentleman; but he remains here, "calm as a summer's morning," the quiet and pleased spectator of the persecution for opinion's sake which the fatuitou rage of the President inflicts upon his ci-devant brethren.

What cares he that Jonathan Roberts, and thou sands of others-good men; honest, faithful, and capable public servants-are rudely ejected from office, for no cause other than that of an attachment to Mr. Clay, to make room for the hypocritical neophytes to Tylerism, so long as he continues quietly to gnaw the bone of office?

H. of Reps.

Sir, the President exacts from his dependants a strict execution of the condition of the bond, though it may consist in the performance of services from which a well regulated and patriotic spirit would revolt. The Secretary was becoming enervated in the enjoyment of inglorious ease at Washington; an important election was about to take place in Massachusetts; he was therefore ordered by his taskmaster to gird on the armor, in which, like another Cœur de Lion, he had so often met and van. quished the stalwart knights of the ultra Democra cy-to couch his unconquered lance against his once confiding and generous allies.

The same John Tyler who, in his inaugural address, proclaimed that "he would remove no incumbent from office who has faithfully and honestly acquitted himself of the duties of his office, except he has been guilty of an active partisanship, or by secret means-the less manly, and therefore the more objectionable-has given his influence to the purposes of party, thereby bringing the patronage of the Government in conflict with the freedom of elections;"-this same political pope, who, on the 28th of September, issued from the Vatican a pompous bull, threatening decapitation to executive officers who "had violated the obligations which they impliedly assumed on taking office under (my) his administration, of abstaining from any active partisanship, or in any way connecting their offices with party politics, or using them for party purposes;"-the same John Tyler unblushingly commissioned his prime minister to desecrate the "cradle of liberty," insult the Whigs of the old Bay State, and aid in the achievement of a Locofoco triumph in that venerable and patriotic Commonwealth! Who can compare this ukase of the President to the office-holders, with the electioneering tour of his Secretary, and not feel a contempt alike for master and for man? I know not which most to abhor--the base hypocrisy of the President, or the mean servility of the minister.

And thus, in this green morning of our national existence, for the first time has been exhibited to the astonished view of the American people the revolting spectacle of a political crusade of a Secretary of State against the peace and integrity of the party which elevated him to office, attended with the pomp and parade of official pageantry, and with the delivery of a partisan speech by this same Secretary, as destitute of taste and of power as it was insulting to the "good men and true" who were doomed to witness the degradation of their once beloved orator.

Sir, the time is not distant when the Secretary would give all the wealth of all the Indies to have every trace of that speech blotted from the recollection of his countrymen. Would to God I could throw over it the thick mantle of oblivior, and re place its unhappy author on the proud pinnacle he occupied on the 4th of March, 1841! Vain wish! The recording angel has performed his office: an ocean of penitential tears cannot efface the record. There will it stand, through all time, a monument of the frailty and folly of human greatness.

What must have been the anguish of feeling of men like Abbott Lawrence, when the mendicant orator, after referring to many offices in the epstoms filled with Whigs, and to the mission to Eng land, so ab'y filled by an accomplished scholar and statesman-all of which opposition to the adminis tration of Mr. Tyler might place in jeopardy-pileously inquires, "Where do the Whigs intend to place me? Where am I to go?" Here, again, the fear of the loss sof office-the necessary result, in this reign of terror, of a faithful adherence to principle-is most plainly developed. Sir, had there been in that assemblage one true, honest, and frank friend of the inquiring Secretary, he would, in response, have cited him to the 5th verse of the 27th chapter of St. Matthew, and, in the spirit of pity and of mercy, would have rec cmmended to him the example of his great prototype, recorded in the verse referred to by the faithful evangelist.

A great man guilty of ingratitude to his friends, of the abandonment of his principles for the sake of office, and of treachery to his party, can find a resting-place only in the grave. There may his bones and his faults repose together, in the uncer. tain hope that the hand of friendship may place on the title-page of his biography the charitable max im, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." But, living, in vain may be invoke the charity of the world. Ha cannot escape the daily reproaches of friendship betrayed, of faith violated, and patriotism outraged,

27TH CONG....3D SESS.

In the language of Scripture, should he "take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea," even there will the voice of violated obligation reach him, and nightly disturb the repose of his bed-chamber.

The inquiry, "Where am I to go?" seems to have been made in the spirit of deprecatory anticipation. The 4th of March, 1845, will soon arrive. Then, in anguish and bitterness of soul, will he make the same inquiry. And the spirit of prophecy need not be invoked to indite the answer.

Then will rush upon him, with afflictive and soul-rending force, the frightful recollections of the past, and painful forebodings of the future. Though now glittering in the pride of place, the subject of heartless flattery and of hollow respect, then he will find "none so poor to do him reverence."

And now, the Secretary, having fulfilled his political embassy, no doubt enjoys with infinite goût the fruits of his treachery, in witnessing the chair of the Hancocks defiled by an ultra Democratthe abettor of revolutions, the hero of clambakes, and the instigator of a rebellion which threatened to wrap a neighboring State in flames, and deluge it with blood.

But I must part with the honorable Secretary. We could have better spared a better man. But he has gone; and peace to his political ashes! It belongs not to me to write his epitaph. An honest, patriotic, and betrayed party, and a deserted country, will, in their own proper time, inscribe on his headstone an appropriate "hic jacet."

A few words more, however, before final leavetaking. Sir, the impudence of the Faneuil Hall speech is in keeping with all the circumstances under which it was delivered. Men of high standing and exalted worth-Mason, Russell, Quincy, Otis, Saltonstall, Lawrence, and others had assembled to greet their old friend, and to hear from his lips the words of consolation and of hope. And what did they hear? Was their drooping courage aroused, to engage with fresh vigor in the battle then about to be fought in Massachusetts between the Whigs and their old restless and implacable enemies? Were they urged to the contest by that voice which so often had cheered them on to vic

tory? No, sir; nothing like this. They were compelled to listen to a speech made up of selfglorification of the orator; of his apprehensions of loss of office, if he continued firm to his Whig principles; and of insolent and unmerited rebuke of his hearers. In the person of Abbott Lawrence, then before him, was the chairman of the Massachusetts Whig convention, then lately convened, to nominate candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the State. He and his associates in the convention were denounced for their virtue and independence, in declaring to the world a final separation between the Whigs of the old Bay State and their recreant President. Their right to utter these sentiments was challenged and denied; and they were insultingly told that they were sent to the convention for no such purpose.

In imitation of all similar conventions, they had adopted resolutions expressive of their opinions of public men and public measures; and for this expression they received at the hands of the arrogant Secretary the castigation of his censure.

[Here Mr. CLARK's hour expired. He gave notice that he would write out the balance of his remarks. He intended, if time had permitted, to have said something like the following:]

And, sir, was not sufficient that the excellent gentlemen referred to were thus grossly insulted in public by an impudent, itinerant Secretary; but two of them-Abbott Lawrence, and my friend, the honorable gentleman who so ably represents the Essex district, [Mr. SALTONSTALL,] and who, by his genuine moral and political firmness, has endeared himself to every Whig in the Union--were selected by the Secretary as the peculiar subjects of ridicule and lampoon. They were caricatured in the columns of the court journal under the control of Tyler, Webster, & Co., in the following article, under the date of Oct. 13, 1842:

"Messrs. Webster and Cushing, it seems, have been guilty of the gross, the enormous offence of censuring the proceedings of a convention where Abbott Lawrence presided, and which Leverett Saltonstall addressed.

"The Secretary of State finding fault with the decisions of an owner of spinning jennies and a retailer of tapes and cottons! Ye gods! it doth amaze me. Is there no law in Boston for scandalum magnatum? No consideration of the decen

cies of station? Boston can be correct Boston no longer, if she allows an individual of mere intellectual notoriety and some slight political standing, to publicly admonish-nay, censure, 'berate and be. labor,' (those are the very words)—a man whose vast mind has been deeply engaged in the coloring of cloths, and whose arithmetical science is so profoundly available. And Caleb Cushing belabors Leverett Saltonstall! Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle; i. e. the man who can hunt down an antler of ten, belittles his reputation by knocking over a poor Leverett."

Whether the same number of the paper contained the assertion that the Faneuil Hall'speech and General Scott's letter had "put an end to Clay's prospects," or whether it contained the annunciation of the Whig defeat in Georgia in capitals-"The work goes bravely on!" "Great destruction of 'coons in Georgia!"--I do not at this moment remember.

And thus it is, that an expression of a difference of opinion with Mr. Webster subjects the most pure and intelligent merchants and statesmen of the country to the ribald scoffs and sneers of a man who is unworthy to unloose the latchet of their shoes.

Were there not in that convention those whose hearts throbbed with indignant emotion at this insolent assumption of ministerial prerogative? If there were not, then, indeed, has the blood of their revolutionary sires, of their Hancock, and of their Adams, ceased to flow in the veins of their descendants.

Sir, I will not impute to these excellent men the slightest insensibility to insult; and I hazard little in saying that, could the Secretary have looked into the recesses of their tortured bosoms, while listening to this outpouring of vanity, egotism, and venom, he would have discovered a conflict of emotions in which contempt and indignation were struggling for the mastery.

And here I must take leave of the honorable Secretary; and, in so doing, let me commend to his attention the fable of the kind-hearted husbandman and the frozen adder. Sir, I leave him to ponder on its moral, and draw from it what consolation he

may.

But the honorable Secretary, though pre-eminent, stands not alone in the deformity in which ingratitude and treachery have clothed him. In the person of the Secretary of War, he has found a willing, if not an efficient coadjutor. Though he may not successfully compete with him in intellectual strength, he may aspire, with no humble pretension, to a fair portion of the honors with which insensibility, cold-heartedness, sordid ambition, and Iscariotism adorn their possessors. To a head of no inconsiderable strength and clearness, he joins a heart cased in triple steel, and responsive alone to the calls of self-aggrandizement. Untiring in application, and prompt in manœuvre, he watches, with cat-like intensity, the revolutions of the political wheel, and, careless of the power that propels it, obtains a quiet lodgment in its topmost bucket.

Though an Issachar in politics, "crouching down between two burdens" to effect his objects, his great archetype undoubtedly is Dan, who, in the prophetic language of the dying patriarch, was to be "a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, biting the horse's heels, so that his rider should fall backward."

Although the honorable the Secretary of War has enacted many astounding political summersets, he has exhibited, in his recent demonstration of ground and lofty tumbling, a rapidity and boldness of movement, a suppleness of conformation, an aptitude for juxtaposition, and a flipflappishness of harlequinry, which may well excite the unbounded admiration and applause of the most accomplished performers in the ring.

In September, 1841, the Secretary, indignant at the outrages committed by the President upon the honor and principles of the Whig party in New York, and acting upon that occasion as its champion, issued an address to the party, appealing to their injured patriotism and wounded pride to meet in convention at Syracuse to express their feelings of abhorrence at the usurpations and treachery of the President. In pursuance of this appeal, the convention met. But where was the burning and indignant John C. Spencer, whose voice was to have aroused the dormant Whigs from their lethargy, infused new life and energy into their chilled veins, and rallied them to the polls at the election then fast approaching? Sir, he was among the missing.*

H. of Reps

To the summons himself had issued, there was endorsed a return of "non est inventus." While, in obedience to that call, his faithful brethren were in consultation in regard to the adoption of measures best calculated to advance the best interests of the party and the country, Mr. Spencer, like a cowering and skulking culprit, afraid that the honest sun should peer out upon his treason, was crouching in a dark corner of a dingy room at Brown's, in this city, taking lessons from his fugleman in the art and mystery of making bows, grimaces, and congees, which might be acceptable to the tenant of the palace.

Sir, the secretaryship of which he is the incumbent was offered to, and finally conferred upon him, for the sole purpose of defeating the Whigs in the election referred to. The wire-workers at Washington knew their man, and the price to be paid for his apostacy. They knew him to be the author of the address, and they calculated that his appointment would lull the Whigs to repose. It was intended as a wet blanket for the Syracuse convention, and as an opiate to drug that portion of the Whig party who yet fondly (i. e. foolishly) hoped that John Tyler was true to his principles and to his party, into a fatal security. It was an artful game, most foully, wickedly, and, I regret to add, successfully played. The Whig party in the State was once more prostrated at the feet of the Locofoco Dagon-not by the power of open, generous enemies, but by the coldness and apathy of its friends, produced, in a great degree, by the defection of Spencer.

Well do I remember, sir, on my return home, when speaking to some of my Whig constituents of the recusancy of Mr. Tyler, that I was rebuked, and the appointment of the Secretary was referred to in proof of the President's fidelity to his party. Mr. Spencer, by a long course of hypocritical profession, had become a prominent and leading member of the Whig party in the State; and many, unacquainted with the history and the passions of the man, were incredulous to the suggestion that he was to be the instrument of the President for the prostration of their party in the Empire State. But the delusion has vanished; the scales have fallen from the eyes of the doubters, and he is now presented in the bald and naked turpitude of his character. He has performed the dirty work of his employers, and is now here receiving his reward, the wages of political iniquity. But, sir, I am happy to say that he no longer possesses the power of mischief to the Whigs of New York. The lion's skin has been torn from his recreant shoulders; and he stands forth a hyena, fattening on the mutilated corpses of his recent friends. The impotence of his last recent effort in the service of his master in the State of New York, was equalled only by its mendacity and impudence. In my judgment, my colleague was right when he told us the other day that, so far from having aided, it actually injured his (the Locofoco) party. The Whigs had become familiar with his duplicity, and were not again to be the subjects of his impositions. A few more such efforts would have aroused the Whigs throughout the State to a general and triumphant rally.

To the close observing portion of the Whig party, no evidence of Mr. Spencer's defection was wanted, other than that furnished by his acceptance of a place in a cabinet from which had been ejected Crittenden, Bell, Granger, and Ewing--men whom the Whig party delighted to honor--men in whose persons the entire Whig party throughout the country had been insulted by a fickle, vacillating, and imbecile Executive; expelled, because they would not compromise their principles, and, like the Secretary of War, play the apostate. I say expelled; for though the members of the cabinet (with one notable and dishonorable exception) resigned, yet a further continuance in it had become incompatible with self-respect, and with their duty to their party and the country. No true Whig, having the slightest respect for himself or for Whig principles, would have occupied a place from which the patriotic and talented Bell had been driven for his steadfast devotion to those principles.

Sir, the labors of love of Mr. Spencer were as useless as they were gratuitous and insulting; and he has no just right to join his colleague in office and in guilt, who aided in the overthrow of the Whigs in Massachusetts, in shouting pæans to the triumphs of Locofocoism in the State of New York, achieved by his agency.

It is said, however, that he has contrived to im

27TH CONG.......3D SESS.

pose on the soft and plastic mind of his confiding Excellency the belief that New York writhes in the revolting embraces of the ultra Democracy, through the efforts of his faithful minister. I doubt it not. And I doubt not that, in the wassails of the palace, some insulated recess has often been vocal with the voices of the merry trio chanting hosannas to the conquerors of the Whig party and the despoilers of their country.

Sir, let them quaff on and sing on. The day of fearful retribution will soon come. Though now high in power, sparkling in its sunshine and revelling in its enjoyments, rest assured, sir, that their political "damnation slumbereth not." On the 4th day of March, 1845, by the common consent of all parties, they will be consigned to a political pandemonium, where, in the bosom of a restless and disappointed ambition, "the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

Sir, amid all the gloom which treachery has thrown around the Whig party, I do not permit myself to doubt that its recuperative energies will marshal it to the field in 1814; and then, as in 1810, victory will again perch upon its standard. Let not the Locofoco legions "lay the flattering unction to their souls" that they are to have a bloodless field. No, sir; they shall have war-war lenus capulo, in all its honorable forms, and with all its consuming fierceness--and waged, too, with a spirit which would do honor to the most chivalric campaign of 1840.

Under the banner of patriotism, inscribed with the name of the honest, frank, fearless, and patriotic "Harry of the West"--associated, as I confidently trust it will be, with the name of a Northern gentleman well known to the country for his fearlessness, integrity, and indomitable spirit, and under which all opposed to the Robespierrean Democracy, be they old Whigs or new Conservatives, may rally-the Whig party will again take the field, and wage the war with the spirit and enthusiasm which characterized the triumphs in New York in 1838 and 1839, and the general triumph throughout the country in 1840. Under such a banner, and with such a spirit, we shall reconquer the laurels of which treachery has robbed us, and again attempt (and, under the auspices of a faithful President, successfully attempt) to raise the country from the horrible pit of Locofocoism, and place it on the rock of solid and enduring prosperity.

SPEECH OF MR. TALLMADGE,

OF NEW YORK,

In Senate, February 6, 1843.—On the exchequer.

The bill "amendatory of the several acts establishing the Treasury Department" being, on motion of Mr. TALLMADGE, taken up, he proceeded to address the Senate to the following effect, in explanation of the provisions of the bill:

Mr. T. regretted (he said) that he had not been able to bring forward this measure at an earlier period. The delay had not occurred on his own account, or through his instance, but had been yielded to the request of other Senators. Some two weeks since, it had been assigned a day under a special order. Meantime, however, came on the important debate (cn the Oregon question) which has so much occupied the attention of the Senate. Until this-unexpectedly prolonged as it had been-was terminated, he had not chosen to distract the attention of the body by a double discussion. The Senate would pardon him this little preliminary vindication of himself against a possible imputation of remissness, or of disregard for his own voluntary pledges of bringing forward the measure anew at the earliest time in his power. The general purpose of the bill (Mr. T. went on to say) is to do something for the country, as to currency and exchanges. Substantially, the bill is the same as that brought in last winter by report of that select committee of which I had the honor to be chairman. To the report then submitted with the bill, the Senate will allow me to refer them for those more amplified details and arguments which are less necessary now that the Senate is in possession of the general plan. I propose, at present, only to re-state those larger points of then measure, upon the soundness of which, and their competency for the object in view, the entire question must

rest.

As, then, what is mainly proposed is to do something which may redeem the currency and exchanges of the country from their present wretched confusion, it is at least necessary, for the form

The Exchequer-Mr. Tallmadge.

ality of a regular argument or investigation, to ask what would, in every other sense, be superfluous-whether the country at large stands in any vehement, any unusual need of such interposition, such exertion of any power applicable to the purposes in view as the Government may possess?

If the common disasters of a whole land ever challenged justice or pity from its rulers; if a desolation more widely spread, if less total, than any which the ravages of war e er inflicted, is a thing demanding public relief; if a general havoc of nearly all private fortune, and an overthrow of all public credit, are matters that call for some effort of the prudence or power of the whole community,--I may surely, in the unexampled distress which convulses the entire body politic, find enough to warrant me in saying that the need of doing something is terrible, and its delay inexcusable, if there is within the legitimate and safe resorts of our Government anything that can be done.

The condition of the country I will not attemp to describe. I am not master enough of the inagery of suffering and gloom to paint a picture of such various and such cruel calamity. Afflicting as it is to look upen, it is doubly painful from the strange, the violent, the dismal contrast which it offers with the youth, the strength, the customary prosperity of our country, and the teeming re sources which vainly lie all around us. We are beggars in the midst of the most boundless natural wealth; we are starving in the midst of the unexhausted fertility of a soil capable of yielding us almost anything; and the profusest blessings of nature, and the highest boon of political freedom, seem, for the time, bestowed upon us equally in vain.

For all this there must be some adequate cause. Visibly to all eyes, it is the extreme and rapid reduction of the circulating medium-under the heavy individual and public engagements which an equally extreme previous inflation had given rise to which has produced, and threatens greatly to prolong, all that we are suffering. Such (though not the sole) is certainly the great and leading cause of what, as politicians or statesmen, we must speak; because it is clearly to this cause that we must address ourselves, as to the only thing worthy of a statesman's thoughts, or a test of his skill-the possibility of a remedy.

I, sir, and those with whom I have generally concurred in political views, have (I repeat) felt satisfied that, though there may have been many causes for this state of things, yet the great and immediate one lies at present in the deranged condition of the currency and exchanges of the country. As to the origin of that derangement, there may be a diversity of opinion; but there can be none as to the existence of the fact, and little as to the powerful influence which it exerts in all that we are now witnessing.

Without question, it is one of the saddest and one of the most dangerous characteristics of party and of politics in this country, that, unscrupulous of everything but to strengthen their own momentary force, they seize, and endeavor to make a part of themselves, everything alike--no matter how little of a party nature, and no matter how much the prejudice to the public interests which may ensue from thus transforming many questions purely national into matters of partisan warfare. There is no subject which, in point of magnitude, in point of universality, and in point of being proper to trade alone, was less fit to be flung into the mere cockpit of party strife, than this of the currency. Yet, unfortunately for the country, the instant that it could be rendered anything that it should never have been-anything that it could never, with safety to the country, become-it was, from a commercial, turned into a political question-the mere watchword and battle-cry of conflicts with which such a simply commercial question should never have been mixed. It was not to the agitation of political passions, ever extreme and exaggerated in what for the moment occupies them, that such a question could be committed for any safe decision. As long as such questions are made the rallying call of party, derangement of the currency and exchanges will continue; and the consequent derangement of the whole business affairs of the community. It is surely time, amidst the extremity of distress into which this false and unhappy management of the question, has plunged us, to drop those party distinctions and think once more of the public sufferings around us, and the duty-if there be a possibility-of lightening or even re

Senate.

lieving them, by a calm and a prudent legislation. In this great council, holding in its hands to such an extent the destinies of the entire nation, the first consideration should be, how best to fulfil what we owe to the country at large, now reduced to a condition too disastrous to be much longer endured. That condition, I hesitate not to say, in my judg ment imperatively demands that we unite on some such measure of relief as that proposed by this bill. The time unhappily is past, when, unembarrassed by the difficulties which delay has thickened over the matter, we could, comparatively at our ease, have deliberated of measures and methods now no longer in our choice. Formerly we might, with a freedom to select from all that experience offered of good, have held calm counsel as to what was best: now, reduced to far sadder afflictions, and with a far narrower choice of modes of relief, we are left to ask not "what is best?" but "what is it now possible to do?" The people are crying aloud on all sides for relief. For that relief they turn their eyes, from all quarters of the country, to this Gʊv. ernment. They ask you not for relief from their private, their individual misfortunes, which they know you cannot cure; but relief from a wretched condition of the circulation, which denies them all possibility of redeeming and retrieving their losses, and which you can cure. They ask you to give them, not an illegitimate and individual aid; but to afford to their private necessities the indirect assist. ance of what the public business as imperiously requires a better mechanism of interchange, a sounder vehicle of their business and of your own. Such is demanded, not more by individual conveience than by the public interests. If, in the management of its own finances, the Government can, at the same time, furnish an element of exchange that will go far to give the country what it so much needs, and what seems so little attainable in any other way-a sound currency-is it not bound to do so?

Are gentlemen, then, to fold their arms and pronounce that nothing can be done? Here is at least a measure which will do something. It may not accomplish all that could be wished: but it will effect much. It cannot fail to afford to commerce a good and a general instrument, which it does not now possess: it must, to its entire extent, infuse into the circulation an element of correction and soundness; and these indirect but important effects as to private business will be but incidental results from à system of which the more immediate benefits accrue to the Government itself, as to the distribu tion and management of its receipts and disburse

ments.

In what it thus proposes, there is surely nothing that is not strictly compatible with the constitutional powers of the Government-with such powers, I mean, as are inseparable from its duty of the col lection, safekeeping, and disbursement of the public revenues. If, in performing these functions, it can, at the same time, indirectly and incidentally afford to the business of the country facilities of exchange and currency which involve not a loss but a benefit in the public business itself, surely it is strongly its duty to do so. The provisions of this bill aim at nothing more.

It will, at all events, establish one great and fundamental principle-a principle which is the di viding line between the extremes of parties, and which lies at the bottom of all these systems, whether they present themselves in the shape of a national bank, an exchequer, or in any other formnamely, that it is the right and the duty of the General Government, in the collection and disbursement of its revenues, to aid in furnishing a uniform currency, and regulating the exchanges of the country. Much will have been achieved by the establishment of this great principle, and the found ation will be laid, on which a superstructure can be erected, with proportions regulated by the con stitutional powers of the Government and the wants of the country.

Since the foundation of this Government, different methods of effecting this object of connecting the management of the public revenues with the regulation of the currency and exchanges have been tried. Of these, the earliest and much the longest preserved was a national bank. To it suc ceeded what was called the State bank deposite system. The sub-treasury, of still briefer exist ence, was the last-born of these expedients; but died (not a very promising child) in its infancy.

The oldest, and infinitely the most successful of these successive contrivances, dates almost from the

27TH CONG......3D SESS.

foundation of the present Government. It owed its conception to the sagacity of the ablest man that ever stood at the head of our national financesAlexander Hamilton; who, in 1791, recommended a resort to such an institution as a remedy for the extreme derangement then existing in our monetary and financial affairs. Its success answered admirably to the powerful judgment of him who had proposed it. Scarcely had gone into existence, when the confusion which it was meant to remedy stood rebuked. Order at once rose up out of the chaos and embarrassment of the treasury, and soundness out of the derangement of the circulation. For twenty years, lending these advantages to our moneyed system, it stood, the very capital. of the column of this great man's just fame. In 1811, however, when its charter ran out, a set of republicans a good deal more righteous than George Washington and the other patriots who founded the Government and this bank almost together,. voted it anti-republican, and refused its re-charter. Still, in that day, what called itself republicanism was not so wise as to scorn the most positive experience, the clear demonstrations of actual fact; so that when, after five years' trial of the fiscal and constitutional advantages of being without a bank, they found themselves, in 1816, involved anew in all that financial confusion which had been so happily removed by the original creation of the bank, they, the republican opponents of that dangerous institution, re-established it.

I need scarcely say, sir, that, as before, it lifted the finances and currency of the country out of the mire, where they were stuck; and gave us, until a new political war was declared against it, a currency as perfect as any commercial country in the world ever possessed. In spite, however, of these conspicuous benefits, and the manifest rashness of abandoning, for a more than questional experiment, a system which had so adinirably performed its great and difficult functions, the country allowed itself once more to be hurried, by the all-powerful influence of a single great leader, into a fresh demolition of the bank, and a new essay of currencymongering.

In accordance with the views of the party with which, from my first entrance into public life, I had acted, I myself, in 1831, was opposed to the recharter of the bank. The Senate will pardon me if I repeat a little incident which occurred soon after I took my seat in this body, and which my own subsequent impressions have often served to recall to my recollection. After an incidental discussion on this subject, in which I had taken part, a distinguished Senator from Kentucky said to me: "Sir, there was a young man from the West in Congress in 1811; and he, upon the constitutional notions that are now governing you, voted against re-chartering the old United States Bank. Time rolled on, and troubles came. We attempted to get along without a national bank: but at last we found that without it we could not manage the public finances, nor maintain for the country a sound and uniform currency. That young man then became convinced by experience that the vote which he had given in 1811 was wrong; and in 1816 he gave his voice for the chartering of another United States bank. You have now taken the same ground that that young man originally did: but, like him, time and experience will, I have no doubt, eventually convince you that you have done wrong."

Sir, I stand here to confess that time and experience have convinced me accordingly, and to acknowledge that I was wrong, and Mr. Clay right; that the affairs of the Government and the country cannot be safely managed without the aid of some mechanism of that sort; that of such, that of a United States bank has proved itself far the most perfect that has ever been tried in this country; and that it is greatly to be lamented that, through mere party causes and their unfortunate influences, a state of public opinion has been brought about which renders it impossible now to recur to what is of itself greatly to be preferred to any other financial agent that we know of.

I re

I need scarcely, sir, do more than advert to the events of the extra session of 1841. For both the bank bills passed at that session I gave my vote. gretted, of course, the negative which the President felt it his duty to put upon them; and regretted it still the more, because I considered it as terminating all hope of obtaining for the country the best and most efficient of financial contrivances, and as reducing us to an expedient of secondary

The Exchequer - Mr. Tallmadge.

excellence. For, be the advantages of the older institution ever so unrivalled, what possibility can we any longer look to of again carrying that system into effect, for the extrication of the country from its present extreme embarrassments? We legislate not for what might have been, but for what is; for facts as they exist, not as we would have them. We have to consider, not what this or that party desired to accomplish and could not; but what it is now possible to effect of best and soundest. Let gentlemen who yet look to a national bank remember that some six or seven years must certainly elapse before that mode of relief can be made available to the country. Suppose our present hopes to be realized by the election of 1844: contested as the subject of a bank must continue to be, under almost any condition of parties, it must be nearly the end of the long session of the next year before a bill for this purpose can pass; another year to negotiate the stock; another to get the bank into operation; and at least another before the people can have been made to feel any of the marked benefits of the institution. Can the country, bleeding as it is at every pore, wait under its present agonies for relief so long deferred as that? No; some early, some present ease is needed; something timely to what we now suffer, and not appropriate merely to a future state of quiet and of comfort.

Having thus, sir, passed in review the chief points of the history of the most permanent and solid of the successive fiscal contrivances through which our financial system has been made to act, I come next to that confident resort of President Jackson-the State bank deposite system-for the sake of whose infinitely steadier, more manageable, and less pervertible mechanism, the flourishing finances of the country were dismantled and knocked down to their lowest stone, in order to be rebuilt upon another foundation and of different materials.

Of that experiment the memory is too recent for me to have need to say much. Suffice it to say, the system was recommended by President Jackson, and adopted by the party which sustained his administration. His prophecies of its entire success were too remarkable for me to omit some little citation of them.

In President Jackson's first annual message after the deposite-bank system had been put into operation, he spoke as follows:

"The experience of another year has confirmed the utter fal. lacy of the idea that the Bank of the United States was necessary as a fiscal agent for the Government. Without its aid, as such -indeed, in despite of all the embarrassment it was in its pow er to create the revenue has been paid with punctuality by our citizens; the business of exchange, both foreign and domes tc, has been conducted with convenience; and the circulating medium has been greatly improved. By the use of the State banks, which do not derive their charters from the General Government, and are not controlled by its authority, it is ascer tained that the moneys of the United States can be collected and disbursed without loss or inconvenience, and that all the wants of the community, in relation to exchange and currency, are supplied as well as they have been before. If, under cir cumstances the most unfavorable to the steadiness of the mo ney market, it has been found that the considerations on which the Bank of the United States rested its claims to the public favor were imaginary and groundless, it cannot be doubted that the experience of the future will be more decisive against

them.

It has been seen, that, without the agency of a great money. ed monopoly, the revenue can be collected, and conveniently and safely applied to all the purposes of the public expenditure. It is also ascertained, that, instead of being necessarily made to promote the evils of an unchecked paper system, the manage. ment of the revenue can be made auxiliary to the reform which the Legislatures of several of the States have already commenced in regard to the suppression of small bills; and which has only to be fostered by proper regulations on the part of Congress, to secure a practical return, to the extent required for the securi ty of the currency, to the constitutional medium. Severed from the Government as political engines, and not susceptible of dangerous extension and combination, the State banks will not be tempted, nor will they have the power which we have seen exercised, to divert the pu lic funds from the legitimate purposes of the Government. The collection and custody of the revenue being, on the contrary, a source of credit to them, will increase the security which the States provide for a faith ful execution of their trusts, by multiplying the scrutinies to which their operations and accounts will be subjected. Thus disposed, as well from interest as the obligations of their charters, it cannot be doubted that such conditions as Congress may see fit to adopt respecting the deposites in these institutions, with a view to the gradual disuse of the small bills, will be cheerfully complied with; and that we shall soon gain, in place of the Bank of the United States, a practical reform in the whole paper system of the country. If by this policy, we can ultimately witness the suppression of all bank bills below twenty dollars, it is apparent that gold and silver will take their place and become the principal circulating medium in the common business of the farmers and mechanics of the country. The attainment of such a result will form an era in the history of our country, which will be dwelt upon with delight by every true friend of its liberty and independence. It will lighten the great tax which our paper system has so long collected from the earnings of labor, and do more to revive and perpetuate those habits of economy and simplicity, which are so congenial

Senate.

to the character of republicans, than all the legislation which has yet been attempted."- Message of December, 1835.

Again, in his annual message of the next year, he holds the same confident language, as follows: "Experience continues to realize the expectations entertained as to the capacity of the State banks to perform the duties of fiscal agents for the Government. At the time of the removal of the deposites, it was alleged by the advocates of the Bank of the United States that the State banks, whatever might be the regulations of the Treasury Department, could not make the transfers required by the Government, or negotiate the domestic exchanges of the country. It is now well ascertained that the real domestic exchanges, performed through discounts, by the United States Bank and its twenty-five branches, were at least one-third less than those of the deposite banks for an equal period of time; and if a comparison be instituted between the amounts of service rendered by these institutions, on the broader basis which has been used by the advocates of the United States Bank, in estimating what they consider the domestic exchanges transacted by it, the result will be still more favorable to the deposite banks."

He proceeds to state the large amount of exchanges which the State banks have transacted, and the laudable public spirit they were displaying in bringing specie into the country; and then winds up with the following cominendation of the system and its high success:

"In the same manner have nearly all the predictions turned out in respect to the effect of the removal of the deposites-a step unquestionably necessary to prevent the evils which, it was foreseen, the bank itself would endeavor to create in a final struggle to procure a renewal of its charter. It may be thus, too, in some degree, with the further steps which may be taken to prevent the excessive issue of other bank paper; but it is to be hoped that nothing will now deter the Federal and State authorities from the firm and vigorous performance of their duties to themselves and to the people in this respect."

Meaning rather to recall events, by touching on them, than in any sort to recite them, I will only remind the Senate with what fury, upon the collapse of this system, they who had constructed it, and (for their own political ends) stimulated all its vices, fell not only upon the contrivance itself, and the particularly favored banks that made a part of it, but upon all other State banks. Till now, using these institutions as their auxiliaries in the war upon a national one, they had magnified them as the sole legitimate and constitutional form of banking and of finance, the only creations of a competent authority, the legal offspring and heirs of State sovereignty, and not less safe in a commercial or fiscal sense than proper in a corporate one. Up to this point, national banks alone were hydras, monsters, and all that; while State banks were everything that was fair, well-proportioned, and safe; nay, invested, as to the Federal power, by their origin from that of the States, with an emanation of something which the former merely derivative and secondary authority must not lay impious hands upon. Now, however, in the progress of this Jacobin and Jesuit finance, came a new doctrine-that, because they had debauched a part of the State banks, all banks were illegal, and not less a fraud and inimical to the community when created by State, than when by Federal authority. In short, the very system which they and General Jackson had but a few months before exalted as so safe, so practical, so constitutional, was at once denounced as the most grievous of curses, and the most wrongful of monopolies.

In this warfare upon the deposite banks I did not join. But they were, as everybody knows, speedily crushed; and there was an end of system the second.

Of the third-that of the sub-treasury-my history shall not be long; because its life was too short for any but the briefest commemoration. It had, as everybody knows, been opposed by the party in a mass on its first introduction in the other House by General Gordon, of Virginia. This, however, did not hinder its being taken up on the explosion of the former plan of finance. Still, it could not be carried until thrice recommended by President Van Buren, with the endorsement of General Jackson. Finally it passed; but only went into operation to show how hollow it was of all that it was pretended to be; how illusive as to all its promised solidity; how unreal, except in the dangerous power it possessed, and the irresponsibility, the corruption, and the peculation to which it gave scope. In a word, it lived but long enough to draw down a general mockery and odium.

Such, sir, has been this series of improvements in currency and finance, up to the last, yet unacted on the exchequer project of President Tyler or his Cabinet.

When, at the last session of Congress, this plan was placed before you, much discussion arose here on the question of its reference. In that discussion I took no part, choosing to reserve myself for an