Resolved, That while the Senate is, and ever will be, ready to receive from the President all such messages and communications as the constitution and laws and the usual course of business authorize him to transmit to it, yet it cannot recognise any right in him to make a formal protest against votes and proceedings of the Senate, declaring such votes and proceedings to be illegal and unconstitutional, and requesting the Senate to enter such protest on its Journals.

Resolved, That the aforesaid protest is a breach of the privileges of the Senate, and that it be not entered on the Journal.

[APRIL 23, 1834.

Mr. C. explained that his modification varied only from the original resolutions in two particulars. The modification places on record what must indeed have otherwise been obvious, the readiness of the Senate to record, at all times, such proceedings and messages as the President may think proper to transmit, in compliance with his constitutional duties. There was another difference, consisting in this. The proposition of the gentleman from Mississippi is, not to receive the message. The last resolution of the modification proposes not to record it on the Journal. In his opinion, the recording of a paper was its reception. According to the uniform practice, the messages are all recorded. The last resolution marks the distinction between the regular and usual messages of the President and the present, and refuses to the latter that place on the Journal to which all messages, agreeably to the constitution, are entitled.

Mr. POINDEXTER expressed his readiness to take either course which might be most agreeable to the Senate. After some few remarks, he moved to lay the resolutions and modifications on the table, in order to give time for reflection on the subject. He withdrew his

motion.

Some discussion ensued, in which Mr. CALHOUN,

Mr. POINDEXTER then presented a paper stating several questions of order, and demanding their decision by the Presiding and minorities. If a rule, thus deliberately enacted, can be Officer. As these points of order were not directly connected varied at pleasure, and in a moment of peculiar excitement, with the subject under consideration, the Chair declined to de-by the instantaneous expression of the will of the majoritycide them, being, as was believed, beyond the scope of its du- where, I would ask, is this security to be found? If a rule, in ties; but stated most distinctly, that, should a question of order its practical operation, is likely, in the opinion of the majority, be raised as to the reception of the motion of the Senator from to produce what that majority may consider a particular inconGeorgia, the only subject now before it, the Chair would feel venience, are they at liberty to set it at naught, and break over itself bound, and would not hesitate to decide it. Mr. PorNall the checks and restraints intended to shelter and protect DEXTER, on consultation with his friends, withdrew the paper, the minority. If the rules are defective, let them be amended. and then objected to the reception of the motion of the Senator If unnecessary, or injurious, let them be repealed. But until from Georgia, as inconsistent with the design of the resolutions changed, or abolished, let not the fear of possible inconvenioffered by him, and calculated to defeat the object in view by ence cause them to be disregarded, and set at naught. The the action of less than a majority of the Senate, and therefore Chair has no discretion; to enforce them as they are, is his imRot in order. Considerable discussion took place. After which,perative duty.

Mr. KING thus addressed the Senate:

It has been stated that this proposition to amend cannot be This subject is one of exciting interest. The individual who in order, because, should the yeas and nays be directed, it temporarily occupies the Chair, most anxious to decide the would cause the paper presented by the President to be placed question of order correctly, although not in strict accordance on the Journal, which is precisely what the resolutions propose with usage, desired, and has availed himself of, the views to prevent. To this, I can only say, that such is not the effect of honorable Senators, to enlighten his mind, and thus enable of the present motion, nor does it belong to the Chair to look bim so to determine the question as will save our rules from beyond the question presented, nor to decide points of order violation, preserve the rights of the Senate, and of each individ-upon the supposition that some subsequent act of the Senate ual Senator. may produce inconvenient results. The Journal, however, is

These, and these only, will be steadily kept in view by the always under the control of the Senate. But it is said the proincumbent of the Chair. Could he evade a decision, without posed amendment will effect by indirection what it is proposa loss of self-respect, by shrinking from the discharge of a dutyed to prevent. Be it so; yet it does not belong to the Chair to which accident has devolved upon him, most willingly would interpose and prevent its reception. The propriety of the he do so: or, did he entertain a reasonable doubt on the ques course must be judged of by the mover. It is expressly laid tion, he would unhesitatingly place it before the Senate for its down in the Lex Parliamentaria, that "the Chair is not permitadvice and determination. Entertaining, however, no such ted to draw questions of consistence within the vortex of order, doubt, the occupant of the Chair feels that he cannot, with pro-as he might thus usurp a negative on important modifications, priety, avoid the responsibility which he sincerely regrets has and suppress instead of subserving the legislative will." And been imposed upon him. It would be as ill-timed as improper again: "Amendments may be made so as totally to alter the for the Chair, on this occasion, to enter into any examination of nature of the proposition; and it is a way of getting rid of a the principles of the resolutions offered by the Senator from proposition, by making it bear a sense different from what was Mississippi; or of the doctrines or arguments contained in the intended by the movers, so that they vote against it themelves." paper proposed as an amendment by the Senator from Georgia. It has been contended that, if this amendment is in order, it Waiving, then, all these, the Chair will come directly to the would be in the power of a Senator to propose to amend any examination of the question of order, presented for its decision. pending proposition by the insertion of newspapers, books, or What is that question? As understood by the Chair, it is sim-any thing else. Certainly the only limit is the sound discretion ply this: whether, under our rules, and in strict conformity of the Senator, his self-respect, and his respect for this body; with parliamentary usage, a power exists to offer an amendment but it would not be in his power to encumber our Journal with to a resolution under consideration, which is inconsistent with, such irrelevant matter but by uniting with him at least oneor destructive of, the objects which that resolution proposes to fifth of the Senate. The Chair admits that a case precisely sim effect. It I have stated it incorrectly, Senators will please to lar to this has not occurred: still it comes within the princicorrect me. I presume I am correct. As a general power, Iples of the rules laid down for the government of the Senate; is had supposed there could not be found on this floor a Senator in accordance with the usages and practice which has beretowho would question it. Let us, then, endeavor to ascertain fore prevailed, and which the Chair cannot consent to be inwhat there is which will take this particular case out of the strumental in changing, on a question of order. The decision general rule. By the constitution, each House may adopt rules of the Chair is, that the amendment proposed by the Senator for its own government. Under this power, the Senate has from Georgia is in order, and must be received. It will be adopted certain rules for the regulation and control of its legis- for the Senate to sustain or reverse this decision of the Chair, lative action, but principally to protect the rights of individuals and to their just judgment he will most cheerfully submit.

APRIL 24, 1834.]

Union County (Pa.) Memorial.—Kent County (Del.) Memorial.

Mr. CLAYTON, Mr. PRESTON, and Mr. BIBB, took part.

Mr. BIBB sent the Chair the following amendment, which he proposed to move when the amendment proposed by Mr. CLAY should be called up:

After the words "President of the United States," in the second line of the amendment, strike out the residue of the amendment, and insert "be not received."

Mr. POINDEXTER expressed his intention to accept this modification.

On motion of Mr. KANE, the Senate then adjourned.

THURSDAY, APRIL 24.

[SENATE.

In

I hope, sir, that these memorialists may escape the severe denunciation, which a member from Georgia pronounced yesterday against the citizens of Baltimore. the interior of Pennsylvania, at least, it may be hoped, that men may assemble to memorialize Congress, or to consult on the common good, without offence. The gen tleman declared recent proceedings of the citizens of Baltimore to be noisy, riotous, clamorous, factious, almost treasonable. The inhabitants of the monumental city, he thought clear gone, at least in moral treason. They will judge, sir, for themselves, of the justice and propriety of giving them this character. As to Union county, sir, I am informed that, when the President was elected, there were hardly thirty votes against him. Here are now 490 signers to this paper, complaining, in strong terms, against Executive conduct. Is not this proof of real suffering and real alarm? Have these freemen come out, without any reason whatever, against the President of their choice? It cannot be believed. They speak because they suffer evil, and have a right to have that evil redressed. They ought to speak, and they ought to be heard; and depend upon it, sir, the people of the country will continue to speak, till they shall be heard, and heard to good purpose. The memorial was then read, referred to the Committee on Finance, and ordered to he printed.

UNION COUNTY (PA.) MEMORIAL. Mr. WEBSTER said, he rose to present a memorial from four hundred and ninety of the farmers, mechanics, and traders of the county of Union, in the State of Pennsylvania. This memorial, said Mr. W., coming from the centre of a great and commanding State, and signed, as I believe it is, by very respectable persons, is well entiued to consideration. It cannot be supposed that it has originated in any party feeling, as I understand the county has been heretofore almost unanimous in favor of the present Chief Magistrate. The memorialists declare that they are neither stockjobbers, speculators, nor traders on borrowed capital; that their industry is their capital; that their livelihood is obtained by the labor of their hands; Mr. CLAYTON said that he had been requested by a that whatever affects the markets of Philadelphia and Bal- committee of highly respectable gentlemen, appointed timore necessarily affects them; that the price of wheat at a public meeting in the county of Kent, in the State has fallen from a dollar to seventy-five cents; that sales of Delaware, to present to the Senate certain resolutions are dull and difficult to be made, even at that price; and adopted at that mecting, the purport of which Mr. C. that the effect of this state of things, on a community proceeded to state; and also a memorial signed by 736 chiefly agricultural, cannot but be, and is, seriously dis- citizens of that county, praying the restoration of the tressing. public deposites and the re-charter of the Bank of the United States. Mr. C. regretted that the late proceedings in the Senate had prevented him from offering them sooner.

KENT COUNTY (DEL.) MEMORIAL.

They say, sir, that, for these evils, they find little consolation in being told that an experiment is going on, and that the Government is trying to get along without a bank. They have no relish for this experiment; they protest This memorial, said Mr. C., is signed by my friends against it; they protest against making experiments upon the and neighbors, by men, in relation to whom, of all others, happiness and prosperity of a whole people. Against this I may be permitted to speak with the greatest confidence. experiment they pray protection and relief from Congress. They will, I trust, escape the imputation of bank inThey think, sir, that, since we have got along very fluence; not a man of them all, as I believe, owns a share well with a bank, it is hardly worth while to try a dan- of stock in the Bank of the United States, or is, or ever gerous experiment for the sake of seeing whether we can was, indebted sixpence to that institution. They live in get along without it. And they use rather a forcible a section of country, the interests of which are almost exillustration. They say they walk very well on their legs, clusively agricultural, remote from the contagion of Exand, this being the case, they should be rather surprised ecutive influence, and unmoved by the seductions of if the President were to propose that they should cut off official patronage. They are the descendants of the old their legs, in order to learn whether they might not be Blues of the Revolution, and of their kindred and friends; able to walk on their hands. This memorial, sir, is trans- and are truly intelligent and patriotic freemen. Imbued mitted to me by a respectable gentleman, the son of the with the spirit of the whigs of former days, they complain late Governor Snyder, and is signed by him, and others more, much more, sir, of executive usurpation, and the of the family. The descendants of Governor Snyder are exercise of arbitrary power, than of any distress which not likely to be found advocating a cause which they do they have felt or expect to feel. Although they acknowlnot believe to be the true cause of liberty and the coun- edge that the price of their produce has greatly fallen try. They will not be found suporting either aristocra. in value by the conduct of the President in removing the cy or arbitrary power. And when, sir, will the admin deposites, and that they are suffering by that act of inistration listen to the voices of its real friends? When fatuation and folly, yet their loudest note of remonstrance will those who possess the confidence of the President, is sounded, not on their losses, but on what they justly do their duty in laying before him the real state of the term "the arbitrary and unconstitutional exercise of country? When will they be convinced, that disordered power, subversive of the rights of Congress, and dangercurrency, destroyed confidence, and the danger of paper ous to the liberties of the people." money, are evils to which the industrious and intelligent Long before this, sir, they have heard the response of people of the country will not submit? Sir, let honest their Senators in Congress, expressing precisely the same ndustry have its earnings. Let hardy labor be made sure opinions, and almost in the same language, by their votes of its rewards. Let the Government and the laws pro- on that resolution which has recently been made the subtect the people, and the people will then cheerfully pro-ject of the President's denunciation. They will now see, tect the Government and the laws. Such, sir, I am sure with mingled feelings of surprise and indignation, that the is the sentiment of the citizens of Union county. They same executive course which they have deprecated, is begin to learn, that though bad seasons are bad, and bad crops bad, yet that bad laws and bad government are worse than both.

still maintained and persevered in, and that the President has at last boldly rested his pretension to power over the public treasure of the nation, on the very same ground

SENATE.]

Kent County (Del.) Memorial.-Rhode Island Memorials.

[APRIL 24, 1834.

In the House of Commons, on this very day last year, Lord Althorp, the British minister, thus expressed himself, on this subject of a Government bank:

upon which he claims the uncontrolled possession of the man in the country shall be valued—in a word, to contract sword. They will now learn that he has actually charged the sound and to expand the unsound currency, whenever the Senate with usurpation, because it has dared faith- a single man shall will it. It is a claim which no British fully to represent the very sentiments which they them- monarch, since the English revolution, has ever dared to selves have directed us to express. They will remon-maintain; and its exercise by the President has resulted strate in future only through the medium of the ballot-in the establishment of that very Government bank; yes, boxes. sir, in the consummation, by Executive action alone, of It is true, sir, that the offence for which my colleague that very plan, for the accomplishment of which, in the and myself, in common with other members of this body, first year of his administration, he invoked the aid of Conare impeached by the Presidential manifesto, is precisely gress. I now demand of any man on this floor, who thinks that of truly representing both the Legislature and the himself competent to the task, to point out one shade of people of Delaware. We have spoken the very language difference between the dangers of that engine of power, which the freemen who sent us here have taught us. which we all condemned a year ago, and those dangers to The Chief Magistrate complains that this is not to be en-public liberty which must inevitably attend this confederdured, and appeals to the people, of whom these are a ation of so many State banks, under the control of the part. He denies to us the poor privilege of even express- President. I invite any Senator here to debate the coming their opinions as to his conduct, because, he says, in parative power of the present affiliation of State banks a possible event, but which he knows will never happen, established by Executive action alone, and that of the very (that of his impeachment,) we may be his judges. Sir, Government bank which, less than twelve months since, when the people of this country shall become so ignorant every body seemed to agree was an institution so frightful as to be incapable of discriminating between a charge and pregnant with danger to civil freedom. against the President, of having been wilfully and corruptly guilty of violating the constitution, and a vote of the Senate simply declaring an executive act unconstitutional, and carefully abstaining from the slightest imputation of "It is, certainly, a question of great importance whether bad motives or wilful corruption, then we may be in dan- it is desirable to trust such a power in the hands of perger from his appeal. Until that period, it will probably sons not legally responsible, or in the hands of a Governshare the fate of other electioneering appeals to the igno- ment which is responsible; and another point is, whether rance rather than the intelligence of the country. the profits necessarily to be derived should belong to the The President, in his first message to Congress, an- Government, or be allowed to the company. The advannounced his preference for a Government bank. This tages, and the only advantages, I have been able to disannunciation has been repeated in his succeeding com- cover in a Government bank, instead of a private communications, yet so monstrous was it ever deemed, by pany, are the responsibility of the managers and the profit men of all parties, that no man would defend it. His to be derived from the undertaking. It seems to me that warmest partisans revolted at the enormous accumulation they are much more than counterbalanced by the prac of executive power in the hands of one man, which such tical evils of such a system. I think the effect of having a proposition contemplated. Yet, what do we see now? the Government the great bankers of the state, having An affiliation of some fifty State banks under one head, the command of the circulating medium in their hands, depending every moment for existence on his will, and might be most mischievous. In the first place, I refer to deprecating his vengeance! In many instances the pub. the temptations of the Government to abuse its power, lic deposites exceed the amount of the capital of the se- and to the impossibility, or to the extreme impolicy, in lected bank. Many of these corporations have discounted, that case, of permitting any assistance to be given to the by order of the President, on the faith of the deposites, to commercial interests of the country in periods of diffi the whole amount of those deposites, and should he, at any culty—a course hitherto frequently pursued by the Bank moment, in a sudden fit of passion, withdraw from any of England. If once Government were at liberty to assist one bank so circumstanced, the public money in its vaults, those whom they thought fit in times of difficulty and disthat bank is inevitably ruined. Under such circumstan- tress, it appears to me that it would be such an enormous ces, is it possible that it can escape a thinking intellect, power in the hands of the minister of the day as would be that it is in his power to control these banks, and the dis- almost destructive of the constitution." position of the millions, not of public revenue, but of bank- Such, sir, were the sentiments of a minister of Enging capital, they possess? Is it not entirely within his land-the servant of a crowned head-the organ of a monpower to direct any one of them to lend or not to lend arch. Yet, in this boasted land of freedom, we have been money to particular individuals? May he not actually actually reduced to a condition in which the Executive wreak his vengeance on any city or district of country magistrate is at liberty to assist those whom he thinks fit, which may fall under his displeasure, in consequence of and is in the habit of ordering transfer drafts to meet the its political or other conduct, by removing the public de wants of particular institutions which are the objects of posites from it at any moment, and compelling the banks his favoritism. I repeat it, sir, we have now fastened of deposite there, with a view to meet the call, to spread upon us what is, to all intents and purposes, a Government ruin and distress among the people, by the curtailment of bank. To this complexion we have come at last! their accommodations and the collection of their debts? I concur, therefore, with my friends and neighbors, who Nay, has it not been actually proposed to pursue this very have honored me with the presentation of this their me course towards at least one city of this Union? morial, that the recent acts of the President are not only

Sir, the claim of Executive power now, is to control most disastrous in their operation on the industry of the the whole monetary system of the nation; to regulate its people, but dangerous to the liberties of the country. I currency; to increase or depreciate, at pleasure, the value therefore move, sir, that these resolutions and this mernoof money; and to prostrate, at discretion, the whole struc-rial be read, printed, and referred to the Committee on ture on which the contracts of the country depend. It Finance; that they may receive the earnest attention and is a claim to confiscate the property of the landed inter-consideration of that committee. est; to break down every man trading on credit; to increase or diminish, by the operations of a fluctuating currency, the duties on foreign importations; to work a general transfer of property from one class of men to ano- Mr. ROBBINS presented memorials from the counties her; to fix the standard by which the property of every of Bristol and Providence, in the State of Rhode Island,

They were ordered accordingly.

RHODE ISLAND MEMORIALS.

APRIL 24, 1834.]

Rhode Island Memorials.

[SENATE.

upon the subject of the present embarrassments of those their common mart, in all directions thronged with the counties. business of transportation, to and fro, resembling, at On presenting these memorials, Mr. R. addressed the times, and in places, the throng of a crowded city. In the Senate as follows: I am again charged with the presenta-single county of Providence, at these several falls, they tion of memorials to Congress, coming from the people have over seventy different manufacturing establishments; of the State of Rhode Island. They are preferred by they have over three millions of fixed capital in these esmore than four thousand petitioners, nearly all of them tablishments; they have (I should have said they had) over freeholders-all business men-that class of men by which five thousand manual laborers employed in them. Already all other classes are sustained—that class to which society over seventy thousand spindles have suspended operation, owes all its prosperity. They come to complain of the and their operatives are thrown out of daily employ, and wide-spread ruin that has prostrated all business in all its of course out of daily bread. These laborers were repursuits; of the causes which have produced that ruin; [ceiving, for wages, at the rate of eight hundred thousand and with prayers for relief. dollars per annum.

These memorials are from the two counties of Bristol What a spectacle in a free country! To see these noand Providence, both located on the head waters of Nar-ble works of human hands, and noble means of human ragansett bay, and possessing great natural advantages for happiness, struck down at once, as has been the case, by commerce, foreign and domestic. The small but inter- the arbitrary hand of one man-and he, rending the conesting county of Bristol, (the more interesting from early stitution and the laws, and breaking through all their rehistorical associations: there was the memorable seat of a straints, to strike the fatal blow! The effects of that blow, mighty warrior among the native tribes, known to tra- its ruinous, its disastrous, its distressing effects, are deditionary fame as King Philip―his seat, now called Mount tailed in these memorials, which, therefore, it is unnecesHaup, still overlooking, as then, one of the most varied sary for me to describe. I will only say, that if there be and magnificent scenes that eye has ever beheld)-this a man who could inflict all these calamities, knowingly, county is commercial. Of its three towns, two are emi- or, if unknowingly, could contemplate, without remorse, nently commercial, embracing more than four-fifths of the the sufferings he had caused and was causing, and could county population. Their canvass has been spread on refuse relief, when relief depended on his nod-that, if every sea, in every quarter of the globe, and success has there be such a man, he could attended their persevering industry and hardy enterprise. But now, the career of their prosperity has been suddeuly checked, in common with that of the whole country, by the causes which have so often been alluded to, and which are well stated, and properly reprobated, in their memorial.

"Wade through slaughter to a throne, "And shut the gates of mercy on mankind." These memorials contain two prayers to Congressone, that they would adopt the necessary measures to restore and secure to the country a stable currency; the other, to take the necessary measures to vindicate the violated constitution.

I have said that these two counties are located on the head waters of Narragansett bay. That spacious bay ex- Concurring with the memorialists in opinion and sentitends inland thirty miles from the ocean-an archipelago, ment, as I heartily do, I beg the indulgence of the Senate interspersed with various islands, vying in beauty, and while I explain my views on both questions. I will ensurpassing in salubrity, the islands of the Grecian archi-deavor to do it in a very few words."

pelago; and though less known to fame, not less deser- These memorialists think a national bank indispensable ving to be known. At the head of this archipelago to a sound and stable national currency. In this opinion stands the city of Providence, on Providence river, al- concur with them.

ready surpassing the ancient Byzantium, on the Bospho- Such is now the state and nature of things around us, rus, and bidding fair, from the rapidity of its growth, (if and in which we are placed, that the currency of this it be not repressed by the iron hand of arbitrary power,) country must be a paper currency. This is imposed upon to rival, at no very distant day, the modern Constantinople. us by a necessity which controls, and cannot be controlProvidence, fortunately, has always had one resource, led; for it is imposed by circumstances which do, and will without which all other resources are vain, and which exist, and over which the Government can have no congoes far to account for the difference in the growth of trol. I allude to the power of the States to create banksdifferent places, though possessing equal natural advan- a power which they have exercised, and will exercise, ad tages-namely, a succession of minds, from race to race, libitum. The paper of each of these banks will have a full of the spirit of enterprise; enlightened on all the local currency, more or less extensive, and together, will subjects and as to all the fields of commerce; and pre-cover the whole country with a paper currency. Now, I pared to encounter the hazards for the chances of success suppose, no one pretends that Congress can deprive the in all. All our vast trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope States of this power, or control its exercise. was begun by a distinguished gentleman of that city, now no more. He led the way, and others followed, till it has grown up to what it now is. And their success has been equal to their enterprise.

Congress, it is true, have the constitutional power, or right, to establish a national currency, to consist of gold and silver; but they have not the physical power to attain this object. For what can Congress do? They can reAt the north, and on the west, the land rises on the quire all the dues to the Government to be paid in gold shores of that bay into a broken, hilly country-a granite and silver; and they can require all the disbursements of region, presenting a soil generally not inviting, nor prom-the Government to be made in gold and silver; and when ing for cultivation, but abounding in living streams, and they have done this, they have exhausted all their power these abounding in precipitous falls. upon the subject. Between the receipt and the disburse

Here, in these barren streams, amidst these barren ment, this gold and silver will make no part of the currocks, lay, as it had laid for ages, the secret power of rency; for then it will be locked up. When it is diswealth untold. But the mind and enterprise of this peo-bursed, what will the claimant or creditor do with it? He ple, when once taken under the fostering wing of the na-will immediately place it in some State bank, in which he tional policy, at once called forth this secret power; con- has confidence, on deposite, for safe keeping, and to check verted their barren streams into streams of silver, and out as he wants it; and these checks will be paid in bank their barren rocks into rocks of gold. You might have paper. Common prudence will dictate this course to the seen, rising as it were by enchantment, at each of these specie-holder. The effect will be, that the specie capital numerous falls, a populous village. You might have seen of the State banks will be augmented by this operation the numerous roads leading to them from Providence, of the Government, but the currency will still remain a VOL. X.-92

paper currency; and there will be no more gold and silver in circulation than enough for exchanges below the lowest denomination of bank bills that pass in exchange. Such, then, is our situation, amid circumstances which, as I said, we cannot control, and which must control us, whether we will or not; which make it a physical impossibility to establish a currency to consist of gold and silver; and which constrain us, whether we will or no, to submit to the necessity of a bank paper currency.

Then, can it be a question, whether a national bank be expedient' Is it expedient to have a national currency, though paper, yet equivalent to gold and silver? We have that, by means of a national bank, and cannot have it without. Is it expedient for the Government to have all the public moneys received and disbursed, wherever wanted to be disbursed, without risk and without expense? This the Government has, by means of a national bank, and cannot have without. Is it expedient for the people of this country to have a medium, in which they can make all their exchanges at the par value of that medium? This they can have by means of a national bank, and cannot have without. But above all, is it expedient for the people of this country to have a stable measure of value to all property, the same at all times, and in all places? This they can have by a national bank, and cannot have without. Now, that a national bank is recommended by all these three great national advantages-to be had by one, and not to be had without one-has been proved by all our experience, both of a national bank, and of being without one.

[APRIL 24, 1834.

How would a court of law get on without the "stare decisis" of the lawyers? They could not get on at all. Without it, in every case, the very foundations of jurisprudence would be to be settled, and then would only be settled for that case. In the very next, if they ever should get to the next, the very same battles would have to be fought over again, with the same uncertainties as to the issue. No case would be settled by any precedent; no principle would be settled by any adjudication; no statute would be settled by any judicial interpretation.

Why the maxim of "stare decisis," so expedient, so necessary, as well as so admirable in the administration of the law, should be repudiated in the administration of our constitution, I never could understand.

But waiving this topic, too, I would say to gentlemen who, admitting the expediency of a national bank, yet doubt its constitutionality, among whom are great names, and of these not the least on this floor-(I say doubt, because, even they, I presume, admit the question to be doubtful, if they admit themselves to be fallible, as they differ in this opinion from names also great; indeed, it is impossible that a question should be without its difficulties and doubts, which has divided the opinions of great minds after mature deliberation)-I would say to these gentlemen, "Here, in one scale, you have the good, and well-being, and prosperity, of the country, to be had by means of a national bank, and not to be had without one; and, in the other scale, you have a constitutional scruple as to the use of a bank; but connected with that scruple, if indulged, and it govern, the ruin of the country, so far as its being destitute of a sound and stable currency can work its ruin. Now, I ask you, which scale would you have to preponderate? I put it to you as patriots: Shall it be the ruin of the country, for the sake of the triumph of this constitutional scruple? And that scruple, too predicated upon a philological controversy, as to which meaning of the several different meanings of the same word in the constitution, is the true constitutional meaning, namely, the word "necessary.”

But a national bank is unconstitutional. This is not the time nor the occasion for a full discussion of that question. I will content myself, therefore, with only saying, that, as by the constitution, Congress are to collect and to appropriate all the public moneys, they must have an agent for keeping and disbursing those moneys; and that see in this necessity a full vindication of Congress in creating a bank for this agency. And if this agency be incidental to the bank, as some hold, (though I cannot see how it is more incidental than every other function of Necessity having in it degrees, as all admit, the disthe bank,) I cannot see how that makes any difference, if pute is, whether the constitution mean, or does not that mode of agency be imposed by the same law of ne- mean, the absolute degree, to the exclusion of 'every cessity, as it obviously is. At least I cannot conceive of inferior degree of necessity. Now, would you have any other mode of constituting that agency by that agent. the great interests of the country, involved as they are But I waive that whole question; for I do not consider in a sound national currency, sacrificed to this verbal it an open question, unless it be so, indeed, from the dispute?

fact that nothing is to be considered as settled under this Moreover, would you have sacrificed to it the constituconstitution. tion itself, as to one of its great leading and acknowlI admit, as I suppose all do, that the good of the coun-edged objects, for this would be a necessary consequence? try, or what the constitution denominates "the general For all undoubtedly acknowledge, that to establish a stawelfare," is to be pursued by constitutional means. But ble, national currency, was a great and leading object of who is to judge of and decide upon that constitutionality, the constitution, intended, if you please, to consist of and put the question at rest? Is it the Legislature? They the precious metals; still, a stable currency was the end have decided a bank to be constitutional. Is it the Judi- in view, and the precious metals but as means to that end. ciary, whose peculiar province it is to decide and settle Now, if it has become a physical impossibility, by a state all constitutional questions? They have decided a bank to of things since arisen, and not then foreseen, to establish a be constitutional. Is it the people? They, too, have de- national currency, to consist only of the precious metals, cided the question, by their acquiescence now, for nearly and it is possible to establish a national currency, equivaforty years out of forty-five, of our national existence, lent to that of the precious metals, by means of a national under the present constitution; and that acquiescence not bank, answering all the same purposes equally well, and tacit, but expressed by the voices of three-fourths of more conveniently; and, if you refuse to adopt those their Legislatures, and manifested by their own elections; means, do you not sacrifice the constitution itself as to not one of the representatives, to my knowledge, ever one of its most important objects, and your country with having lost his election for having voted for a national it, to a verbal controversy, whether this shade of meanbank. Or is there to be no final decision of the question, ing, in preference to that shade, is to be given to a given in any way, by any authority? word in the constitution'

Is every constitutional question to be held a matter of eternal debate? Is the constitution never to have any steady and certain execution? Is it to be one thing to-day, and another to-morrow? Are we, is our posterity, never to know what our constitution is, or is to be? Is there to be no plain sailing by the constitution? Is it to be at sea, forever agitated, and vexed with one eternal tempest?

I remember that Demosthenes, on one occasion, warned his countrymen against undertaking a war, in which they might have all Greece combined against them, for what he termed "a shadow in Delphos." Is it not equally imprudent in us to risk the experiment to the country of getting on without a national bank, and for as mere a shadow?