striven to accomplish-to widen the metallic basis of the currency by a greater infusion of coin into the smaller channels of circulation. This was in a gradual and judicious train of accomplishment. But this miserable foolery about an exclusively metallic currency, is quite as absurd as to discard the steamboats, and go back to poling up the Mississippi." The lead thus given out was sedulously followed during the winter, both in Congress and out of it, and at the end of the session had reached an immense demonstration in New York, in the preparations made to receive Mr. Webster, and to hear a speech from him, on his return from Washington. He arrived in New York on the 15th of March, and the papers of the city give this glowing account of his reception: of enthusiasm manifested upon that occasion, columns which supported would give way, that Mr. W. was twice interrupted with the appalling window was broken, or a stove-pipe shaken. cry "the galleries are falling," when only a The length of the address (two and a half hours), none too long, however, for the audience would with pleasure have tarried two hours longer, compels us to give at present only the heads of a speech which we would otherwise now report in detail." | Mr. W. began his remarks at a quarter before seven o'clock, P. M. and concluded them at a "In conformity with public announcement, quarter past nine. When he entered the saloon, yesterday, at about half past 3 o'clock, the Honor- he was received with the most deafening cheers. able DANIEL WEBSTER arrived in this city in the The hall rang with the loud plaudits of the steamboat Swan from Philadelphia. The intense crowd, and every hat was waving. So great desire on the part of the citizens to give a grate- was the crowd in the galleries, and such was the ful reception to this great advocate of the consti-apprehension that the apparently weak wooden tution, set the whole city in motion towards the point of debarkation, for nearly an hour before the arrival of the distinguished visitor. At the moment when the steamboat reached the pier, the assemblage had attained that degree of density and anxiety to witness the landing, that it was feared serious consequences would result. At half past 3 o'clock Mr. Webster, accompanied by Philip Hone and David B. Ogden, landed from the boat amidst the deafening cheers and plaudits of the multitude, thrice repeated, and took his seat in an open barouche provided for Certainly Mr. Webster was worthy of all the occasion. The procession, consisting of honors in the great city of New York; but havseveral hundred citizens upon horseback, a large train of carriages and citizens, formed upon State ing been accustomed to pass through that city street, and after receiving their distinguished several times in every year during the preceding guest, proceeded with great order up Broadway quarter of a century, and to make frequent soto the apartments arranged for his reception at journs there, and to speak thereafter, and in all the American Hotel. The scene presented the the characters of politician, social guest, and most gratifying spectacle. Hundreds of citizens who had been opposed to Mr. Webster in poli- member of the bar,—it is certain that neither his tics, now that he appeared as a private individ-person nor his speaking could be such a novelty ual, came forth to demonstrate their respect for his private worth and to express their approbation of his personal character; and thousands more who appreciated his principles and political integrity, crowded around to convince him of their personal attachment, and give evidence of their approval of his public acts. The wharves, the shipping, the housetops and windows, and the streets through which the procession passed, were thronged with citizens of every occupation and degree, and loud and continued cheers greeted the great statesman at every point. There was not a greater number at the reception of General Jackson in this city, with the exception of the military, nor a greater degree and rarity as to call out upon his arrival so large a meeting as is here described, invest it with so much form, fire it with so much enthusiasm, fill it with so much expectation, unless there had been some large object in view-some great effect to be produced-some consequence to result: and of all which this imposing demonstration was at once the sign and the initiative. No holiday occasion, no complimentary notice, no feeling of personal regard, could have called forth an assemblage so vast, and inspired it with such deep and anxious emotions. It required a public object, a general interest, a pervading alarm-discontent and distress for present sufconcern, and a serious apprehension of some un-ferings-alarm for the greater, which were to certain and fearful future, to call out and organize come. This is a sample: such a mass-not of the young, the ardent, the "Gentlemen, I would not willingly be a proheedless--but of the age, the character, the phet of ill. I most devoutly wish to see a better talent, the fortune, the gravity of the most state of things; and I believe the repeal of the populous and opulent city of the Union. It was treasury order would tend very much to bring as if the population of a great city, in terror of about that better state of things. And I am of some great impending unknown calamity, had opinion, gentlemen, that the order will be repealed. I think it must be repealed. I think come forth to get consolation and counsel from the east, west, north and south, will demand its a wise man-to ask him what was to happen? repeal. But, gentlemen, I feel it my duty to say, and what they were to do? And so in fact it that if I should be disappointed in this expectawas, as fully disclosed in the address with which tion, I see no immediate relief to the distresses of the community. I greatly fear, even, that the orator was saluted, and in the speech of two the worst is not yet. I look for severer dishours and a half which he made in response to tresses; for extreme difficulties in exchange; for it. The address was a deprecation of calamities; far greater inconveniences in remittance, and for the speech was responsive to the address-ad- a sudden fall in prices. Our condition is one not to be tampered with, and the repeal of the treasmitted every thing that could be feared-and ury order being something which government charged the whole upon the mal-administration can do, and which will do good, the public voice of the federal government. A picture of uni- is right in demanding that repeal. It is true, if versal distress was portrayed, and worse com-theless its repeal or abrogation is a thing to be repealed now, the relief will come late. Nevering; and the remedy for the whole the same insisted on, and pursued till it shall be accomwhich had been presented in Mr. Biddle's letter plished." -the recharter of the national bank. The speech was a manifesto against the Jackson administration, and a protest against its continuation in the person of his successor, and an invocation to a general combination against it. All the banks were sought to be united, and made to stand together upon a sense of common dangerthe administration their enemy, the national bank their protection. Every industrial pursuit was pictured as crippled and damaged by bad government. Material injury to private interests were still more vehemently charged than polit The speech concluded with an earnest exhortation to the citizens of New York to do something, without saying what, but which with my misgivings and presentiments, the whole tenor of the speech and the circumstances which attended it delivered in the moneyed metropolis of the Union, at a time when there was no political canvass depending, and the ominous omission to name what was required to be done appeared to me to be an invitation to the New York banks to close their doors! which ical injuries to the body politic. In the deplor-being done by them would be an example fol able picture which it presented of the condition of every industrial pursuit, and especially in the "war" upon the banks and the currency, it seemed to be a justificatory pleading in advance for a general shutting up of their doors, and the shutting up of the federal treasury at the same time. In this sense, and on this point, the speech contained this ominous sentence, more candid than discreet, taken in connection with what was to happen: "Remember, gentlemen, in the midst of this deafening din against all banks, that if it shall create such a panic, or such alarm, as shall shut up the banks, it will shut up the treasury of the United States also." The whole tenor of the speech was calculated to produce discontent, create distress, and excite lowed throughout the Union, and produce the consummation of a universal suspension. The following is that conclusion: "Whigs of New York! Patriotic citizens of this great metropolis!-Lovers of constitutional institutions of your country, Americans in heart liberty, bound by interest and affection to the and in principle! You are ready, I am sure, to fulfil all the duties imposed upon you by your situation, and demanded of you by your country. You have a central position; your city is the point from which intelligence emanates, and spreads in all directions over the whole land. Every hour carries reports of your sentiments and opinions to the verge of the Union. You cannot escape the responsibility which circumstances have thrown upon you. You must live and act on a broad and conspicuous theatre, either for good or for evil, to your country. You cannot shrink away from public duties; you cannot obscure yourselves, nor bury your talent. In the common welfare, in the common prosperity, in the common glory of Americans, you have a stake, of value not to be calculated. You have an interest in the preservation of the Union, of the constitution, and of the true principles of the government, which no man can estimate. You act for yourselves, and for the generations that are to come after you; and those who, ages hence, shall bear your names, and partake your blood, will feel in their political and social condition, the consequences of the manner in which you discharge your political duties." The appeal for action in this paragraph is vehement. It takes every form of violent desire which is known to the art of entreaty. Supplication, solicitation, remonstrance, importunity, prayer, menace! until rising to the dignity of a debt due from a moneyed metropolis to an expectant community, he demanded payment as matter of right! and enforced the demand as an obligation of necessity, as well as of duty, and from which such a community could not escape, if it would. The nature of the action which was so vehemently desired, could not be mistaken. I hold it a fair interpretation of this appeal that it was an exhortation to the business population of the commercial metropolis of the Union to take the initiative in suspending specie payments, and a justificatory manifesto for doing so ; and that the speech itself was the first step in the grand performance: and so it seemed to be understood. It was received with unbounded applause, lauded to the skies, cheered to the echo, carefully and elaborately prepared for publication,-published and republished in and pamphlet form; and universally circulated. This was in the first month of Mr. Van Buren's presidency, and it will be seen what the second one brought forth. newspaper The specie circular-that treasury order of President Jackson, which saved the public lands from being converted into broken bank paperwas the subject of repeated denunciatory reference-very erroneous, as the event has proved, in its estimate of the measure; but quite correct in its history, and amusing in its reference to some of the friends of the administration who undertook to act a part for and against the rescission of the order at the same time. "Mr. Webster then came to the treasury circular, and related the history of the late legislation upon it. 'A member of Congress,' said he, 'prepared this very treasury order in 1836, but the only vote he got for it was his own-he stood 'solitary' and 'alone' (a laugh); and yet eleven days after Congress had adjourned— only six months after the President in his annual message had congratulated the people upon the prosperous sales of the public lands,— this order came out in known and direct opposition to the wishes of nine-tenths of the members of Congress."" This is good history from a close witness of what he relates. The member referred to as having prepared the treasury order, and offered it in the shape of a bill in the Senate, and getting no vote for it but his own,-who stood solitary and alone on that occasion, as well as on some others-was no other than the writer of this View; and he has lived to see about as much unanimity in favor of that measure since as there was against it then. Nine-tenths of the members of Congress were then against it, but from very different motives-some because they were deeply engaged in land speculations, and borrowed paper from the banks for the purpose; some because they were in the interest of the banks, and wished to give their paper credit and circulation; others because they were sincere believers in the paper system; others because they were opposed to the President, and believed him to be in favor of the measure; others again from mere timidity of temperament, and constitutional inability to act strongly. these various descriptions embraced friends as well as foes to the administration. Mr. Webster And says the order was issued eleven days after that Congress adjourned which had so unanimously rejected it. That is true. We only waited for Congress to be gone to issue the order. Mr. Benton was in the room of the private secretary (Mr. Donelson), hard by the council chamber, while the cabinet sat in council upon this measure. They were mostly against it. General Jackson ordered it, and directed the private Secretary to bring him a draft of the order to be issued. He came to Mr. Benton to draw it -who did so: and being altered a little, it was given to the Secretary of the Treasury to be promulgated. Then Mr. Benton asked for his draft, that he might destroy it. The private secretary said no-that the time might come when it should be known who was at the bottom of that Treasury order: and that he would keep it. It was issued on the strong will and clear head of President Jackson, and saved many ten millions to the public treasury. Bales of bank notes were on the road to be converted into public lands which this order overtook, and sent back, to depreciate in the vaults of the banks instead of the coffers of the treasury. To repeal the order by law was the effort as soon as Congress met, and direct legislation to that effect was proposed by Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, but superseded by a circumlocutory bill from Mr. Walker and Mr. Rives, which the President treated as a nullity for want of intelligibility: and of which Mr. Webster gave this account: "If he himself had had power, he would have voted for Mr. Ewing's proposition to repeal the order, in terms which Mr. Butler and the late President could not have misunderstood; but power was so strong, and members of Congress had now become so delicate about giving offence to it, that it would not do, for the world, to repeal the obnoxious circular, plainly and forthwith; but the ingenuity of the friends of the administration must dodge around it, and over it-and now Mr. Butler had the unkindness to tell them that their views neither he, lawyer as he is, nor the President, could possibly understand (a laugh), and that, as it could not be understood, the President had pocketed it—and left it upon the archives of state, no doubt to be studied there. Mr. W. would call attention to the remarkable fact, that though the Senate acted upon this currency bill in season, yet it was put off, and put off-so that, by no action upon it before the ten days allowed the President by the constitution, the power over it was completely in his will, even though the whole nation and every member of Congress wished for its repeal. Mr. W., however, believed that such was the pressure of public opinion upon the new President, that it must soon be repealed." This amphibology of the bill, and delay in passing it, and this dodging around and over, was occasioned by what Mr. Webster calls the delicacy of some members who had the difficult part to play, of going with the enemies of the administration without going against the administration. A chapter in the first volume of this View gives the history of this work; and the last sentence in the passage quoted from Mr. Webster's speech gives the key to the views in which the speech originated, and to the proceedings by which it was accompanied and followed. "It is believed that such is the pressure of public opinion upon the new President that it must soon be repealed." In another part of his speech, Mr. Webster shows that the repealing bill was put by the whigs into the hands of certain friends of the administration, to be by them seasoned into a palatable dish; and that they gained no favor with the "bold man " who despised flinching, and loved decision, even in a foe. Thus: "At the commencement of the last session, as you know, gentlemen, a resolution was brought forward in the Senate for annulling and abrogating this order, by Mr. Ewing, a gen tleman of much intelligence, of sound principles, of vigorous and energetic character, whose loss from the service of the country, I regard as a public misfortune. The whig members all supported this resolution, and all the members, I believe, with the exception of some five or six, were very anxious, in some way, to get rid of the treasury order. But Mr. Ewing's resolution was too direct. It was deemed a pointed and ungracious attack on executive policy. Therefore, it must be softened, modified, qualified, made to sound less harsh to the ears of men in power, and to assume a plausible, polished, inoffensive character. It was accordingly put into the plastic hands of the friends of the executive, to be moulded and fashioned, so that it might have the effect of ridding the country of the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to question executive infallibility. All this did not answer. The late President is not a man to be satisfied with soft words; and he saw in the measure, even as it passed the two houses, a substantial repeal of the order. He is a man of boldness and decision; and he respects boldness and decision in others. If you are his friend, he expects no flinching; and if you are his adversary, he respects you none the less, for carrying your opposition to the full limits of honorable warfare." Mr. Webster must have been greatly dissatisfied with his democratic allies, when he could thus, in a public speech, before such an audience, and within one short month after they had been co-operating with him, hold them up as equally unmeritable in the eyes of both parties. History deems it essential to present this New York speech of Mr. Webster as part of a great movement, without a knowledge of which the view would be imperfect. It was the first formal public step which was to inaugurate the new distress, and organize the proceedings for shutting up the banks, and with them, the federal treasury, with a view to coerce the government into submission to the Bank of the United States and its confederate politicians. Mr. Van Buren was a man of great suavity and gentleness of deportment, and, to those who associated the idea of violence with firmness, might be supposed deficient in that quality. An experiment upon his nerves was resolved on—a pressure of public opinion, in the language of Mr Webster, under which his gentle temperament uate those principles which were bequeathed us was expected to yield. CHAPTER IV. PROGRESS OF THE DISTRESS, AND PRELIM- THE speech of Mr. Webster-his appeal for action-was soon followed by its appointed consequence-an immense meeting in the city of New York. The speech did not produce the meeting, any more than the meeting produced the speech. Both were in the programme, and performed as prescribed, in their respective places-the speech first, the meeting afterwards; and the latter justified by the former. It was an immense assemblage, composed of the elite of what was foremost in the city for property, talent, respectability; and took for its business the consideration of the times: the distress of the times, and the nature of the remedy. The imposing form of a meeting, solemn as well as numerous and respectable, was gone through: speeches made, resolutions adopted: order and emphasis given to the proceedings. A president, ten vice-presidents, two secretaries, seven orators (Mr. Webster not among them: he had performed his part, and made his exit), officiated in the ceremonies; and thousands of citizens constituted the accumulated mass. The spirit and proceedings of the meeting were concentrated in a series of resolves, each stronger than the other, and each more welcome than the former; and all progressive, from facts and principles declared, to duties and performances recommended. The first resolve declared the existence of the distress, and made the picture gloomy enough. It was in these words: by our fathers, and which we are bound to make every honorable effort to maintain." After the fact of the distress, thus established by a resolve, came the cause; and this was the condensation of Mr. Webster's speech, collecting into a point what had been oratorically diffused over a wide surface. What was itself a condensation cannot be further abridged, and must be given in its own words: "That the wide-spread disaster which has overtaken the commercial interests of the country, and which threatens to produce general bankruptcy, may be in a great measure ascribed to the interference of the general government with the commercial and business operations of the country; its intermeddling with the currency; its destruction of the national bank; its attempt to substitute a metallic for a credit currency; and, finally, to the issuing by the President of the United States of the treasury order, known as the "specie circular." The next resolve foreshadowed the consequences which follow from governmental perseverance in such calamitous measures-general bankruptcy to the dealing classes, starvation to the laboring classes, public convulsions, and danger to our political institutions; with an admonition to the new President of what might happen to himself, if he persevered in the “experiments" of a predecessor whose tyranny and oppression had made him the scourge of his country. But let the resolve speak for itself: "That while we would do nothing which might for a moment compromit our respect for the laws, we feel it incumbent upon us to remind the executive of the nation, that the govhas become the oppressor of the people, instead ernment of the country, as of late administered, of affording them protection-that his perseverance in the experiment of his predecessor (after the public voice, in every way in which that voice could be expressed, has clearly denounced it as ruinous to the best interests of the country) has already caused the ruin of thousands of merchants, thrown tens of thousands of mechanics and laborers out of employment, depreciated the value of our great staple millions of dollars, destroyed the internal exchanges, and prostrated the energies and blighted the prospects of the industrious and enterprising portion of our people; and must, if persevered in, not only produce starvation among the laboring classes, but inevitably lead to disturbances which may endanger the stability of our institutions themselves." "Whereas, the great commercial interests of our city have nearly reached a point of general ruin our merchants driven from a state of prosperity to that of unprecedented difficulty and bankruptcy-the business, activity and energy, which have heretofore made us the polar star of the new world, is daily sinking, and taking from us the fruits of years of industry-reducing the aged among us, who but yesterday were sufficiently in affluence, to a state of comparative want; and blighting the prospects, and blasting the hopes of the young throughout our once prosperous land: we deem it our duty to express to the country our situation and desires, while yet there is time to reThis word "experiment" had become a statrace error, and secure those rights and perpet-ple phrase in all the distress oratory and litera |