Clay would be glad if any senator would inform him, whether the administration is in favor of or against this measure, or stands neutral and uncommitted. This inquiry he should not make, if the recent relations between the senator who introduced this bill, and the head of that administration continued to exist; but rumors, of which the city, the circles, and the press are full, assert that these relations are entirely changed, and have, within a few days, been substituted by others of an intimate, friendly, and confidential nature. And shortly after the time when this new state of things is alleged to have taken place, the senator gave notice of his intention to move to introduce this bill. Whether this motion has or has not any connection with that adjustinent of former differences, the public would, he had no doubt, be glad to know. At all events, it is important to know in what relation of support, opposition, or neutrality the administration actually stands to this momentous measure; and he, (Mr. Clay,) supposed that the senator from South Carolina, or some other senator, could communicate the desired information. * * * * * * Mr. Clay said, he had understood the senator as felicitating himself on the opportunity which had been now afforded him, by Mr. Clay, of defining, once more, his political position; and Mr. Clay must say, that he had now defined it very clearly, and had apparently given it a new definition. The senator now declared that all the leading measures of the present administration had met his approbation, and should receive his support. It turned out, then, that the rumor to which Mr. Clay had alluded, was true, and that the senator from South Carolina might be hereafter regarded as a supporter of this administration, since he had declared that all its leading measures were approved by him, and should have his support. Also, to the allusion which the senator from South Carolina had made, in regard to Mr. Clay's support of the head of another administration, (Mr. Adams,) it occasioned Mr. Clay no pain whatever. It was an old story, which had long been sunk in oblivion, except when the senator and a few others thought proper to bring it up. But what were the facts of that case. Mr. Clay was then a member of the house of representatives, to whom three persons had been returned, from whom, it was the duty of the house to make a selection for the presidency. As to one of those three candidates, he was known to be in an unfortunate condition, in which no one sympathized with him more than did Mr. Clay. Certainly the senator from South Carolina did not. That gentleman was, therefore, out of the question as a candidate for the chief magistracy; and Mr. Clay had, consequently, the only alternative of the illustrious individual at the hermitage, or of the man who was now distinguished in the house of representatives, and who had held so many public places with honor to himself and benefit to the country; and, if there was any truth in history, the choice which Mr. Clay then made, was precisely the choice which the senator from South Carolina had urged upon his friends. The senator himself had declared his preference of Adams to Jackson. Mr. Clay made the same choice, and experience had approved it from that day to this, and would to eternity. History would ratify and approve it. Let the senator from South Carolina make any thing out of that part of Mr. Clay's public career if he could. Clay defied him. Mr. The senator had alluded to Mr. Clay as the advocate of compromise. Certainly he was. This government itself, to a great extent, was founded and rested on compromise; and, in the particular compromise to which allusion had been made, Mr. Clay thought no man ought to be more grateful for it than the senator from South Carolina. But for that compromise, Mr. Clay was not all confident that he would have now had the honor to meet that senator face to face in this national capitol. The senator had said, that his own position was that of state rights. But what was the character of this bill? It was a bill to strip seventeen of the states of their rightful inheritance; to sell it for a mess of pottage, to surrender it for a trifle - a mere nominal The bill was, in effect, an attempt to strip and rob seventeen states of this union of their property, and to assign it over to some eight or nine of the states. If this was what the senator called vindicating the rights of the states, Mr. Clay prayed God to deliver us from all such rights, and all such advocates. * * * sum. I am sorry to be obliged to prolong this discussion; but I made no allusion to compromise, till it was done by the senator himself. I made no reference to the event of 1825, till he had made it; and I did not, in the most distant manner, allude to nullification; and it is extraordinary that the senator himself should have introduced it, especially at a moment when he is uniting with the authors of the force bill, and of those measures which put down nullification. The senator says, I was flat on my back, and that he was my Sir, I would not own him as my slave. He my master! and I compelled by him! And, as if it were impossible to go far enough in one paragraph, he refers to certain letters of his own, to prove that I was flat on my back! and that I was not only on my back, but another senator and the president had robbed me! I was flat on my back, and unable to do any thing but what the senator from South Carolina permitted me to do! master. Sir, what was the case? I introduced the compromise in spite of the opposition of the gentleman who is said to have robbed me of the manufacturers. It met his uncompromising opposition. That measure had, on my part, nothing personal in it. But I saw the condition of the senator from South Carolina and his friends. They had reduced South Carolina by that unwise measure, (of nullification,) to a state of war; and I, therefore, wished to save the effusion of human blood, and especially the blood of our fellowcitizens. That was one motive with me; and another was a regard for that very interest which the senator says I helped to destroy. I saw that this great interest had so got in the power of the chief magistrate, that it was evident that, at the next session of congress, the whole protective system would be swept by the board. I therefore desired to give it, at least, a lease of years; and for that purpose, I, in concert with others, brought forward that measure, which was necessary to save that interest from total annihilation. But, to display still further the circumstances in which the senator is placed, he says, from that very day of the compromise, all obligations were cancelled that could, on account of it, rest on him, on South Carolina, and on the south. Sir, what right has he to speak in the name of the whole south? or even of South Carolina itself? For, if history is to be called upon, if we may judge of the future from the past, the time will come when the senator cannot propose to be the organ even of the chivalrous and enlightened people of South Carolina. Sir, I am not one of those who are looking out for what may ensue to themselves. My course is nearly run; it is so by nature, and so in the progress of political events. I have nothing to ask of the senator of the south, nor of South Carolina, nor yet of the country at large. But I will go, when I do go, or when I choose to go, into retirement, with the undying conviction, that, for a quarter of a century, I have endeavored to serve and to save the country, faithfully and honorably, without a view to my own interest, or my own aggrandizement; and of that delightful conviction and consciousness no human being, nor all mankind, can ever deprive me. * * * * * One word does not the senator feel that he himself brings his political character into debate? I simply made the inquiry, (and I put it to the senators to say if such was the fact,) to know whether this measure, which involves, in all, about a thousand millions of the public lands- whether this measure bad the sanction of the administration or not. I did it in no way for the purpose of offence; and, by the way, I referred to a rumor which is afloat, of new relations, public and political, with the head of the administration, and stated, that I would not have made the inquiry but for that fact. And is it not right, in regard to a great measure, to know whether or not it has the support of the administration? He would at once have put an end to the discussion if he had simply said he knew nothing of the views of the administration, but had introduced this measure independently. But instead of this, he gets in a passion because I referred to this rumor, and concludes by saying, that the greater part of the measures of the present administration are approved, and they will be supported by him. ON THE SUB-TREASURY BILL. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 20, 1840. [THE independent, or sub-treasury scheme, (or a plan for the collection of the revenue in specie,) being again pressed upon congress at this session by the president, (Van Buren,) Mr. Clay, notwithstanding his previous participation in the discussion of the subject when it was before congress, in the following lucid and elaborate speech sets forth the pernicious effects of the proposed measure to be produced upon the currency, commerce, and industry of the nation. The bill, however, passed the senate by a vote of twenty-four to eighteen, and after a long contest, also in the house of representatives, in July, 1840, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-four to one hundred and seven. It was repealed in August, 1841.] I HAVE been desirous, Mr. President, before the passage of this bill, not to make a speech, but to say a few words about it. I have come to the senate to-day unaffectedly indisposed, from a serious cold, and in no condition to address this body; but I regard this bill as so pregnant with injurious, and dangerous, and direful consequences, that I cannot reconcile it to a sense of duty to allow it finally to pass without one last, although unavailing effort against it. I am aware that the decree for its passage has gone forth; a decree of urgency, too; so urgent that a short postponement of the consideration of the measure, to admit of the filling of vacant seats in the senate by legislative bodies now in session-seats which have remained vacant, not by the fault of the people, but from the inability of those bodies to agree in the choice of senators — has been refused by the vote of the senate; refused, scornfully refused, although, whether the bill be transmitted two or three weeks sooner or later to the house of representatives, owing to its unorganized condition, and its known habits of business, will not expedite its passage a single hour! Refused by the concurrence of senators who, not representing on this subject the present sentiments and opinions of their respective states, seem unwilling to allow the arrival of those who would fully and fairly represent them! It is remarkable, sir, that, judging from the vote on the engrossment of the bill for a third reading, it is to be hurried through the s nate by less than a majority of the body. And if the two senators from Tennessee had clung to their seats with the same tenacity with which other senators adhere to theirs, who would have been instructed to vote against the bill, and are violating their instructions; and if the senate were full, the vacant seats being filled, as we have every reason to believe they will be filled; there would be a clear majority against the passage of the bill. Thus is this momentous measure, which both its friends and foes unite in thinking will exert a tremendous, if not revolutionary influence upon the business and concerns of the country a measure which has so long and so greatly distracted and divided our councils, and against which the people have so often and so signally pronounced their judginent-to be forced through the senate of the United States. The Mr. President, it is no less the duty of the statesman than of the physician to ascertain the exact state of the body to which he is to minister before he ventures to prescribe any healing remedy. It is with no pleasure, but with profound regret, that I survey the present condition of our country. I have rarely, I think never, known a period of such universal and intense interest. The general government is in debt, and its existing revenue is inadequate to meet its ordinary expenditure. The states are in debt, some of them largely in debt, insomuch that they have been compelled to resort to the ruinous expedient of contracting new loans to meet the interest on prior loans; and the people are surrounded with difficulties, greatly embarrassed, and involved in debt. Whilst this is, unfortunately, the general state of the country, the means of extinguishing this vast mass of debt are in constant diminution. Property is falling in value; all the great staples of the country are declining in price, and destined, I fear, to further decline. The certain tendency of this very measure is to reduce prices. banks are rapidly decreasing the amount of their circulation. About one half of them, extending from New Jersey to the extreme southwest, have suspended specie payments, presenting an image of a paralytic, one moiety of whose body is stricken with palsy. The banks are without a head; and instead of union, concert, and coöperation between them, we behold jealousy, distrust, and enmity. We have no currency whatever possessing uniform value throughout the whole country. That which we have, consisting almost entirely of the issues of banks, is in a state of the utmost disorder, insomuch that it varies, in comparison with the specie standard, from par to fifty per centum discount. Exchanges, too, are in the greatest possible confusion; not merely between distant parts of the union, but between cities and places in the same neighborhood; that between our great commercial marts of New York and Philadelphia, within five or six hours of each other, vacillating between seven and ten per centum. The products of our agricultural industry are unable to find their way |