liberty, as well as temples of private justice. The most essential rights connected with political liberty are there canvassed, discussed, and maintained; and if it should at any time so happen that these rights should be invaded, there is no remedy but a reliance on the courts to protect and vindicate them. There is danger, also, that legislative bodies will sometimes pass laws interfering with other private rights than those connected with political liberty. Individuals are too apt to apply to the legislative power to interfere with private cases or private property; and such applications sometimes meet with favor and support. There would be no security, if these interferences were not subject to some subsequent constitutional revision, where all parties could be heard, and justice be administered according to the standing laws. These considerations are among those which, in my opinion, render an independent judiciary equally essential to the preservation of private rights and public liberty. I lament the necessity of deciding this question at the present moment; and should hope, if such immediate decision were not demanded, that some modification of this report might prove acceptable to the committee, since, in my judgment, some provision beyond what exists in the present constitution is necessary. BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.* Ox the 2d of January, 1815, the bill to incorporate a bank being under consideration, Mr. Webster moved that it be recommitted to a select committee, with instructions to make the following alterations, to 1. To reduce the capital to twenty-five millions, with liberty to the government to subscribe on its own account five millions. 2. To strike out the thirteenth section. 3. To strike out so much of said bill as makes it obligatory on the bank to lend money to government. 4. To introduce a section providing, that if the bank do not commence its operations within the space of months, from the day of the passing of the act, the charter shall thereby be forfeited. 5. To insert a section allowing interest at the rate of per cent. on any bill or note of the bank, of which payment shall have been duly demanded, according to its tenor, and refused; and to inflict penalties on any directors who shall issue any bills or notes during any suspension of specie payment at the bank. 6. To provide that the said twenty-five millions of capital stock shall be composed of five millions of specie, and twenty millions of any of the stocks of the United States bearing an interest of six per cent., or of treasury-notes. 7. To strike out of the bill that part of it which restrains the bank from selling its stock during the war. In support of this motion the following speech was delivered. The motion did not prevail, but the bill itself was rejected the same day on the third reading. Some of the main principles of these instructions were incorporated into the charter of the late bank, when that charter was granted, the following year; especially those which were more * A Speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 2d of January, 1815. particularly designed to insure the payment of the notes of the bank in specie, at all times, on demand. HOWEVER the House may dispose of the motion before it, I do not regret that it has been made. One object intended by it, at least, is accomplished. It presents a choice, and it shows that the opposition which exists to the bill in its present state is not an undistinguishing hostility to whatever may be proposed as a national bank, but a hostility to an institution of such a useless and dangerous nature as it is believed the existing provisions of the bill would establish. If the bill should be recommitted, and amended according to the instructions which I have moved, its principles would be materially changed. The capital of the proposed bank will be reduced from fifty to thirty millions, and will be composed of specie and stocks in nearly the same proportions as the capital of the former Bank of the United States. The obligation to lend thirty millions of dollars to government, an obligation which cannot be fulfilled without committing an act of bankruptcy, will be struck out. The power to suspend the payment of its notes and bills will be abolished, and the prompt and faithful execution of its contracts secured, as far as, from the nature of things, it can be secured. The restriction on the sale of its stocks will be removed, and as it is a monopoly, provision will be made that, if it should not commence its operations in a reasonable time, the grant shall be forfeited. Thus amended, the bill would establish an institution not unlike the last Bank of the United States in any particular which is deemed material, excepting only the legalized amount of capital. To a bank of this nature I should at any time be willing to give my support, not as a measure of temporary policy or as an expedient for relief from the present poverty of the treasury, but as an institution of permanent interest and importance, useful to the government and country at all times, and most useful in times of commercial prosperity. I am sure, Sir, that the advantages which would at present result from any bank are greatly overrated. To look to a bank, as a source capable, not only of affording a circulating medium to the country, but also of supplying the ways and means of carrying on the war, especially at a time when the country is |
