him by the constitution; and as the representative of the people, he exercises such powers as he sees fit, on his assumed powers. This observation was entirely gratuitous, and not authorized by any thing he (Mr. N.) had said. In speaking of the President as the representative of the people, he did not use the term in reference to his powers, but solely in reference to his responsi bility, to his relation to the people, as a popular officer. Whether he was regarded rightfully and properly as the representative of the people or not, would neither enlarge nor diminish his powers; for, if it was correct, as he (Mr. N.) believed it to be, to regard the President as the representative of the people, he was their representative, under the constitution, clothed with the au thority which that conferred upon him; it was for that purpose that the people elected him, and in that sense he was their representative.

Mr. WEBSTER remarked that it was the best course when a gentleman replied to another, to use his very words as far as his recollection permitted him. He had noticed, on other occasions, that the Senator from Connecticut gave his own language as that of the gentleman he was replying to, put his own construction upon it, and then replied to this man of straw. He hoped that the gentleman would, when he quoted him in future, use his exact language, and not put into his mouth words that he did not use. The gentleman, in speaking of the President, used the term representative of the People, precisely in the meaning of the term as applied to a member of the House of Representatives. Now, it was impossible to believe in any idea of power pertaining to the President in this character. But he would remind the Senator that the President himself, in more than one communication, had claimed this character and power. It would be found in the protest that he is the only single representative of the people. Sir, (said Mr. W.,) this is the very essence of consolidation, and in the worst of hands. Do we not all know (said he) that the people have not one representative? Do we not know that the States are divided into congressional districts, each of which elects a representative, and that the States themselves are represented by two members on that floor? Do we not all know that it was carefully avoided by the framers of the constitution to give him any such power at all? He admitted that the President, in reference to his popularity merely, was called, with great propriety, the representative of the people; but, in other respects, he was no more so than was the President of the old Congress. There was another false doctrine that was worth noticing, and that was, that every thing which had been done by the President had been ap proved of by the people, because they re-elected him.

Mr. EWING, of Ohio, said: I cannot forbear to say something in reply, not merely to remarks made here this day, but to others of some days past, which have been permitted thus far to go unanswered. The Senator from Pennsylvania, near me, while speaking on another subject, said that a foreigner, who should have heard us in 1834, and should hear us now, would think us the strangest people on earth; that then we were predicting bankruptcy to the treasury; now we were com. plaining that this same treasury is full to overflowing;" and similar ideas have been thrown out to-day, in this debate, charging the former majority, now the minority in this body, with this inconsistency. Now, sir, a word on that subject.

For one, I am conscious that I did not, in 1834, or at any other time, utter a prediction that our finances would be deficient, or our treasury, if we have any, empty. I am much mistaken if I ever uttered such an opinion. That great derangement in our finances would be the result of the violent and unwarranted measures of the Executive, and that heavy losses to the treasury

[SENATE.

would ensue, was what I did apprehend, and no one will now contend that that apprehension was groundless. Such, too, I believe, was the general opinion on this side of the Senate at that time; and some gentleman may have gone further, and spoken of a deficient treasury; but I recollect no such thing, and I am well aware that such was not the general opinion of the party with whom I acted. The yearly receipts into the treasury from all sources, for two or three years prior to the time of the discussion, had been more than thirty millions-the wants of the Government did not, in our estimation, exceed half that sum; we therefore did not (at least I did not,) after reflecting on the subject fully, suppose that any tampering with the finances and the business of the country, whatever private distres it might occasion, would leave the treasury without a sum large enough, and too large, for all the legitimate purposes to which it would be applied. The gentlemen who made this charge happen not to have been members of this body at that time; and I agree with the Senator from Pennsylvania, that a foreigner who should have got his opinion of us by reading the Globe, would think us the strangest and most inconsistent people on earth.

What we did predict was this: that, in consequence of the violent and illegal attack of the Executive upon the Bank of the United States, that Bank would be compelled to call in its debts, and contract its issues. That these defensive measures must be taken, and that they must be persevered in so long as the Executive continued to wage his war against the bank. We predicted that this attack and defence would cause great pecuniary pressure, and much individual distress. We predicted, also, that the extension of banking capital, or rather "the chartering of a host of new banks, with little or no increase of actual capital," would be resorted to as a remedy for the evil; that this would give rise to an expansion of the paper currency; that this currency would become unsound, and unequal in value at different points; that the price of exchange would become high, and commercial transactions difficult; and those of us who looked to the worst predicted a final crash among the banks, and a return of the scenes which we witnessed from 1818 to 1822.

These were, in fact, our predictions. Let any man who has eyes to see, and candor to acknowledge what forces itself upon his vision, say how much of this has been realized, and how much is in progress towards fulfilment. The pressure in 1834 every body felt, every body understood; the only question contested was, whether that pressure owed its origin to the blow of the assailant, or the struggles of the victim; but the cause is immaterial; it was foretold by us when the blow was struck, and it is conceded that the consequence followed. The "host of local banks," with but little actual increase of the capital of the country, has followed in its due order. Since June, 1834, the nominal banking capital in the United States has increased more than $100,000,000; the actual capital I know not how much, probably not ten millions; and the price of exchange has risen, even beyond the fears of those who feared the worst; and as to our currency, it is admitted on all sides to be in a state of extreme derangement. The Senator from Missouri the other day very justly observed that our receipts for public lands were not of money, but of rags, almost valueless; and we all know why it is so. The deposite banks loan their bills to speculators, who pay it into the land offices, from which it is paid again into the deposite banks, and thus perform the round of purchaser without the actual accumulation of one dollar of available funds. It is but trash, and any man will feel it, and know it, if he look upon the statement of those banks, as laid on our tables a few weeks since. With more than thirty-two millions

of the public money in their possession, with private deposites to the amount of ten or twelve millions more, with a circulation of twenty-five millions, they have about twelve or fifteen millions of actual cash means ready at any time to meet it; not more than one dollar to every six of their debts.

The last catastrophe, the final crush of these banks, it is still in the power of Congress to avert. If the public funds be drawn gradually, but constantly, from its unsafe depositories, and divided among the States, though a part of the money may be for many years, perhaps for ever, unavailable, yet we may save the country from the calamity which now threatens her. On this subject, the gentlemen who brought the mischief upon us, and who are still urging it to its consummation, advise us to be silent, to speak in whispers, lest a disclosure of the true situation of things should bring about the crisis. They caution us not to arouse the sleepwalker, whom they have led to and left upon the brink of the cliff, lest, when his eyes are opened, his head reel, and he topple into the abyss below.

[APRIL 23, 1836.

the land bill would not have been greater than those now existing? He was not, however, prepared at this time to say to the Senator from South Carolina whether the adoption of the measure before them would or would not injuriously affect the new States. He did not believe it would have the effect to prevent speculation, though it might affect many of the cultivators who purchased in small quantities. This, however, was an im portant measure; and they ought to be in possession of the fullest information before they acted on it. His de sire was that it might be inquired into by one of the committees of that body; and if, after investigation, it should be found that the measure would be productive of the benefits that had been predicted, why, it would be proper to adopt it. If, on the contrary, it should be found that it would produce embarrassment to the bonafide purchasers, it would be rejected.

Mr. K. then submitted the following amendment:

Strike out all after "Resolved," and insert, "that the Committee on Finance be instructed to inquire into the expediency of prohibiting the receipt, in payment for A word as to this resolution. I see its full bearing public lands, of any thing but gold and silver, after the and effect, or I think I see it, but I am not prepared to day of "thus changing the character of the vote for or against it, for I do not yet know precisely resolution from that of an order to bring in a bill to one the situation in which the western banks and the west- of mere inquiry as to the expediency of doing so. ern currency are placed. I presented to the Senate, Mr. SHEPLEY said it was with extreme reluctance several days ago, a circular of the Clinton Bank in Co- that he said a word at that time. He had imposed silence lumbus, one of the three deposite banks in Ohio, claimupon himself upon personal considerations; but he could ing to themselves, in fact exercising, a portion of the not permit the remarks of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. legislative power of Congress, requiring the other banks EWING] to pass without notice, lest his silence might be of the State, on pain of the discredit of their notes, to pay supposed to admit their accuracy. I do think (said Mr. a price for permitting them to be received in payment S.) that he is greatly in error if he supposes that the for public lands; and on my motion you sent a resolution prediction was not made that the Treasury would be to the Secretary of the Treasury, inquiring of him unable to meet the just demands upon it. I cannot miswhether he had vested this power in any of the deposite take the import of the expressions which I heard two banks. To this we have as yet received no answer; and, years since upon this floor. They were too deeply inuntil that answer come, I am not prepared to vote on teresting; they were too forcibly impressed upon my this resolution. If that answer tell us that the people of mind to allow me to do so. I do not profess to use the the West are subject and are to continue subject to this language, but only to convey the idea, then so frequentmiserable petty tyranny, and that all their financially and emphatically exhibited, that we were to have an operations are to be placed under such control, I will resort to almost any measure, however dangerous, to rescue them from such degrading and vexatious imposi tion. I hope the resolution will lie over until the Secre tary's answer is received.

Mr. CALHOUN observed that he should be very much governed in the vote he should give on this occasion by the opinions of gentlemen coming from the new States, where the public lands were. He saw a great many advantages that would result from the measure, and particularly in the check it would give to that spirit of speculation by which bank rags were given in exchange for the valuable public domain. If the gentlemen coming from the West were of opinion that the measure would not affect the settlement and prosperity of the new States, he would cheerfully give it his support.

Mr. KING, of Alabama, said he did not intend to enter into the discussion of this question, and would only remark that gentlemen seemed to have travelled out of their way to discuss questions long since gone by, either to show that distress and ruin had not taken place, or that it had resulted from certain causes which were apparent to them. Now, these questions were not to be settled there, but were to be settled by the people of the United States. Whether the vetoes of the President had, as alleged by the gentleman from Massachusetts, caused the derangement of the currency, was a question which the people could decide as well, and probably better than gentlemen on that floor. With regard to the superabundance of the Treasury, they all knew that it would not have occurred had the land bill passed; but the question was, whether the evils resulting from

empty Treasury. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WEBSTER] imputes the evils of the currency, and the fluctuations and speculations in business, to the refusal to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States. Sir, (said Mr. S.,) I allege that these evils have been occasioned by the action of that very bank, or at least have been greatly aggravated by it. We need only recur to the history of the last five or fourteen years to be satisfied of it.

In 1831 the loans of the bank to the people were, if he recollected rightly, about forty-two millions. The next year they were raised to seventy millions. In 1834 they had become reduced again to nearly forty millions; and in 1835 they were again very high; and this year reduced again. This was but the brief history of its operations for five years. It had been producing fluc tuations in the money market, uncertainty in prices, and an insecurity in property, during the whole of that short period. The direct tendency of such a course was subversive of honest industry, of regular business, and breaking up all calculation for future action. No dependence could be placed upon any state of things, present or past; for a new change is hastened on to break up all of regularity that might otherwise have been looked for. It was to these excesses of expansion and depression of its loans, four times in five years, to the amount of many millions at each time, that he charg ed the evils which they had experienced. These were the fruits, the blessed fruits, of a national bank. This, the practical benefit of that mighty institution which was to regulate the currency and business operations of the country, and to pour out blessings upon the people. Sir, (said Mr. S.,) I do not believe there has existed &

SENATE.]

Specie Payments.

committee solely from western members. The amount of the sales of public land last year was fifteen millions; the whole specie in the country forty-five millions. This specie, as we all know, was, or ought to be, the great basis on which banks discounted and made issue of paper. To subtract such a sum from their vaults, deposite it in land offices, or keep it in transitu between the several points where it might be required for Government uses, must necessarily produce an immense contraction in discounts, of a sum not less than thirty millions. Such a change, at this moment, would be absolutely fatal to public credit, and must prove ruinous to the community.

Mr. P. observed that it had been said it was improper to make the subject of our currency the subject of conversation and debate here, as the discussion only tended to bring on the evil which all wished to avoid. He did not, however, think so. It was here that, if there was any prospect of the mischief correcting itself, it would be better to look quietly at its workings, and await the return of sober and correct action by the State banks. But the history of the past, and a slight knowledge of the strong principle of self-interest, which was ever active, and often blind, forbade any such hope. Nothing could avert the evil but a wide-spread conviction of the dangers which awaited us. The public mind ought to be instructed of the present state of things, and their tendency. The mass of the community were sound in their principles on this as on all other questions; and it was our duty to warn them against the delusive schemes and wild projects by which the cunning and the speculating part of society were striving to convert the fruits of the labors of the industrious portion of it into their unclean pockets. Mr. P. said he almost despaired of a correction of the evil, yet he still hoped for its alleviation. If the State banks would only look at their permanent interest, instead of immediate advantage; and would act on the principle that they must finally be the victims of an excessive issue of their notes, and consequent total derangement of the money circulation of the country, things might return to a much better state than they are now in; though nothing like security could, be admitted, be found, unless in a system which enabled the federal Government to regulate a machine which had a constant tendency towards derangement.

Reference (said Mr. P.) had been made in debate to the situation of our currency previous to the expiration of the charter of the late United States Bank. The contrast was most humiliating; but gentlemen on the other side need not expect that it would not be frequent. ly presented to their contemplation. With our impressions, we should be faithless to our trust if we did not, on all proper occasions, place it before the eye of the American people. The cause of our present evils, and the proper remedy for them, are best found in the contemplation of the past. There could not be a doubt that if the United States Bank had been rechartered, we should be in a far different and better situation than we are now placed in. It was with great surprise (Mr. P. said) that he had heard the Senator from Maine charge on the bank that it had been the means of deranging our currency during the whole time it was in existence: nay, more, that it was to it we now owed its unsettled condition. He wished the Senator had given us his data for these assertions: he should have preferred facts to declamation on a question of this kind. Mr. P. said that the knowledge he possessed of the conduct of that institution had led him to a totally different conclusion. The Senator had said that, for the first four years after its establishment, it had totally failed to regulate the circulating medium of the country. Nothing was was more true. It was created at a time when that medium

[APRIL 23, 1836.

was entirely unsound; and it could not be restored in a day or week. It is the work of years to restore a healthy action to a depraved currency: all hasty and great changes only increase the evil. Under any management, therefore, the institution could not have accomplished such a great object at once. He, (Mr. P.,) however, believed that the affairs of the bank were not wisely conducted on its first organization. The fatal spirit of speculation which had seized the whole community at the close of the late war, had full possession of the minds of that portion of it which were first selected to administer the bank, and the pernicious effects of their wildness were early seen in a derangement of its concerns, and a depreciation of the value of its stock. It soon, however, righted itself, and justified public ex. pectation. Institutions of this kind, from their immense capital, are always able to command the highest talents and purest virtue for the administration of their concerns. The bank called them to its service; and from the period Mr. Cheves was placed at its head to the close of its affairs under the direction of Mr. Biddle, il fully and faithfully accomplished the purposes of its creation. Without referring to detailed statements to sustain the assertion, Mr. P. said he would first bring under the notice of the Senate the state of our currency at two periods--the one immediately after the bank be gan to exercise its wholesome authority over State emis sions, the other at the period when it was assailed by the Executive in 1820 and 1830. At the first mentioned epoch, according to the account laid on our tables this year by the Secretary of the Treasury, the circulation of the United States was $44,863,344; at the last mentioned, $61,323,898, showing merely an increase of between sixteen and seventeen millions in ten years; an increase which every one must admit was but justly proportioned by the increase of our wealth and population during this space of time. I doubt (said Mr. P.) if the history of the world can show any thing which more strikingly illustrates sound management than this; and the recollections we all have of the steady and progressive improvement of the country during the period just stated, its absence from all sudden changes, prove triumphantly how well the system worked.

Since the year 1830, however, our circulation has doubled. The Senator from Maine says this increase is due to it, and to it alone; at one time increasing its discounts, and at another time reducing them; and now the distress is owing to its contractions. If, said Mr. P., the bank is now calling in and husbanding its resources, as the Senator states, while, at the same time, the circulating medium is increasing, it is not easy to see how his conclusion follows the premises he professes to base it on. I believe, however, (said Mr. P.,) that all the changes made by the bank during the four years' war waged against it were only such as were forced on it by the wild and furious attacks constantly made on the institution, and the uncertainty which they naturally produced in all financial operations.

One word, Mr. P. said, before he concluded, in relation to the hard-money currency which the Senator from Missouri was laboring to introduce. He (Mr. P.) did not believe it was possible to introduce it; and if we could be brought back to it, he doubted its utility. It could not be disguised that the system, though the safest, was not that best adapted to the wants of a commercial people. The two most eminently commercial of all nations, England and the United States, had used, as a means for becoming so, a paper circulation. Gold and silver currency necessarily wanted the capacity of extension, which was almost indispensable, to meet the fluc tuations to which commerce was inevitably subject; and they could not be expanded to supply the wants of a country which, every twenty-five years, was doubling its