the bank to six per cent. simply, or if practicabie, to only five per cent. Banks now receive at the rate of near six and a half per cent., by demanding the interest in advance, and by charging for an additional day. The reduction may be effected by forbearing to exact any bonus, or when the profits are likely to exceed the prescribed limit of the dividends, by requiring that the rate of interest shall be so lowered as that they shall not pass that limit.

7. A restriction upon the premium demanded upon post notes and checks used for remittances, so that the maximum should not be more than say one and a half per cent. between any two of the remotest points of the Union. Although it may not be practicable to regulate foreign exchange, depending as it does upon commercial causes not within the control of any one government, I think that it is otherwise with regard to domestic exchange.

8. Every practicable provision against the exercise of improper influence, on the part of the executive, upon the bank, and, on the part of the bank, upon the elections of the country. The late Bank of the United States has been, I believe, most unjustly charged with interference in the popular elections. There is, among the public documents evidences of its having scrupulously abstained from such interference. It never did more than to exercise the natural right of self-defence by publishing such reports, speeches, and documents, as tended to place the institution and its administration in a fair point of view before the public. But the people entertain a just jealousy against the danger of any interference of a bank with the elections of the country, and every precaution ought to be taken strictly to guard against it.

This is a brief outline of such a new Bank of the United States as I think, if established, would greatly conduce to the prosperity of the country. Perhaps on full discussion and consideration, some of the conditions which I have suggested might not be deemed expedient, or might require modification, and important additional ones may be proposed by others.

I will only say a word or two on the constitutional power. I think that it ought no longer to be regarded as an open question. There ought to be some bounds to human controversy. Stability is a neces

sary want of society. Among those who deny the power, there are many who admit the benefits of a Bank of the United States. Four times, and under the sway of all the political parties, have Congress deliberately affirmed its existence. Every department of the government has again and again asserted it. Forty years of acquiescence by the people; uniformity every where in the value of the currency; facility and economy in domestic exchanges, and unexampled prosperity in the general business of the country, with a Bank of the United States; and, without it, wild disorder in the currency, ruinous irregularity in domestic exchange, and general prostration in the commerce and business of the nation, would seem to put the question at rest, if it is not to be perpetually agitated. The power has been sustained by Washington, the Father of his Country; by Madison, the Father of the Constitution; and by Marshall, the Father of the Judiciary. If precedents are not to be blindly followed, neither ought they to be wantonly despised. They are the evidence of truth; and the force of the evidence is in proportion to the integrity, wisdom, and patriotism, of those who establish them. I think that on no occasion could there be an array of greater or higher authority. For one, I hope to be pardoned for yielding to it, in preference to submitting my judgment to the opinion of those who now deny the power, how ever respectable it may be.

(No action was at this time taken on these suggestions!

ON ABOLITION PETITIONS.

THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 7, 1839

[From the relations of the Federal Government and of the People of the Free States to Slavery, spring the most perplexing and delicate questions which have arisen ander our complex Political System-questions exciting acrimony, irritation and alarm in the Southern States, and requiring of the North conventional action in regard to the Right of those held in bondage, adverse to the fundamental principles of Free Government, on which the Institutions of the Free States are based. The proper disposition of the Petitions poured in upon Congress asking action adverse to the existence of Slavery, is one of the related topics which has at times arrested the action of Congress and threatened the existence of the Union. Mr. CLAY, having received one of these Petitions, with a request that he present it to the body of which he was a Member spoke as follows:]

I HAVE received, Mr. President, a petition to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, which I wish to present to the Senate. It is signed by several hundred inhabitants of the District of Columbia, and chiefly of the city of Washington. Among them I recognize the name of the highly esteemed Mayor of the city, and other respectable names, some of which are personally and well known to me. They express their regret, that the subject of the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia, continues to be pressed upon the consideration of Congress by inconsiderate and misguided individuals in other parts of the United States. They state that they do not desire the abolition of slavery within the district, even if Congress possesses the very questionable power of abolishing it, without the consent of the people whose interests would be immediately and directly affected by the measure; that it is a question solely between the people of the District and their only constitutional legislature, purely municipal, and one in in which no exterior influence or interest can justly interfere that, if at any future period the people of this District should desire the abolition of slavery within it, they will doubtless make their wishes known, when it will be time enough to take the matter into consideration; that they do not, on this occasion, present themselves to Congress because they are slave

holders-many of them are not; some of them are conscientiously opposed to slavery-but they appear because they justly respect the rights of those who own that description of property, and because they entertain a deep conviction that the continued agitation of the question by those who have no right to interfere with it, has an injurious influence on the peace and tranquility of the community, and upon the well-being and happiness of those who are held in subjection; they finally protest as well against the unauthorized investigation of which they complain, as against any legislation on the part of Congress in compliance therewith. But, as I wish these respectable petitioners to be themselves heard, I request that their petition may be read.

It was read accordingly, and Mr. CLAY proceeded.]

I am informed by the Committee which requested me to offer this petition, and believe, that it expresses the almost unanimous sentiments of the people of the District of Columbia.

The performance of this service affords me a legitimate opportunity, of which, with the permission of the Senate, I mean now to avail myself, to say something, not only on the particular objects of the petition, but upon the great and interesting subject with which it is intimately associated.

It is well known to the Senate, that I have thought that the most judicious course with abolition petitions has not been of late pursued by Congress. I have believed that it would have been wisest to have received and referred them, without opposition, and to have reported against their object in a calm and dispassionate and argumentative appeal to the good sense of the whole community. It has been supposed, however by a majority of Congress, that it was most expedient either not to receive the petitions at all, or, if formally received, not to act definitively upon them. There is no substantial difference between these opposite opinions, since both look to an absolute rejection of the prayer of the petitioners. But there is a great difference in the form of proceeding; and, Mr. President, some experience in the conduct of human affairs has taught me to believe that a neglect to observe established forms is often attended with more mischievous consequences than the infliction of a positive injury.

We all know that, even in private life, a violation of the existing usages and ceremonies of society cannot take place without serious prejudice. I fear, sir, that the abolitionists have acquired a considerable apparent force by blending with the object which they have in view a collateral and totally different question arising out of an alledged violation of the right of petition. I know full well, and take great pleasure in testifying, that nothing was remoter from the intention of the majority of the Senate, from which I differed, than to violate the right of petition in any case in which, according to its judgment, that right could be constitutionally exercised, or where the object of the petition could be safely or properly granted. Still, it must be owned that the abolitionists have seized hold of the fact of the treatment which their petitions have received in Congress, and made injurious impressions upon the minds of a large portion of the community. This, I think, might have been avoided by the course which I should have been glad to have seen pursued.

And I desire now, Mr. President, to advert to some of those topics which I think might have been usefully embodied in a report by a Committee of the Senate, and which, I am persuaded would have checked the progress, if it had not altogether arrested the efforts of abolition. I am sensible, sir, that this work would have been ac complished with much greater ability and with much happier effect, under the auspices of a committee, that it can be by me. But, anxious as I always am to contribute whatever is in my power to the harmony, concord, and happiness of this great people, I feel myself irresistably impelled to do whatever is in my power, incompetent as I feel myself to be, to dissuade the public from continuing to agitate a subject fraught with the most dreadful consequences.

There are three classes of persons opposed, or apparently opposed, to the continued existence of slavery in the United States. The first are those who, from sentiments of philanthropy and humanity, are conscienciously opposed to the existence of slavery, but who are no less opposed, at the same time, to any disturbance of the peace and tranquillity of the Union, or the infringement of the powers of the States composing the confederacy. In this class may be comprehended that peaceful and exemplary society of "Friends," one of whose established maxims is, an abhorrence of war in all its forms, and the cultivation of peace and good-will among mankind. The next class