the benefit of the whole amount of the govern- agreed upon by the opposition for whom all ment hard-money payments. Who is it then could vote. Suppose a different selection had. that objects to it? Broken banks, and their been made, and an eminent whig candidate political confederates, are the clamorers against taken, and he had been beaten two to one it. Banks which wish to make their paper a (as would probably have been the case): public currency: politicians who wish a na- what then would have been the argument? tional bank as a machine to rule the country. Why, that the sub-treasury, and every other These banks, and these politicians, are the sole measure of the democracy, had been approved, clamorers against the hard-money clause in the two to one. The result of the election admits sub-treasury system: they alone clamor for of no inference against this system; and could paper money. And how is it with the other not, without imputing a heedless versatility to clause-the one which gives the custody of the the people, which they do not possess. Their public money to the hands of our own officers, representatives, in obedience to their will, and bound to fidelity by character, by official posi- on full three years' deliberation, established the tion, by responsibility, by ample security ship-system-established it in July, 1840: is it posand makes it felony in them to touch it for their own use? Here is a clear case of contention between the banks and the government, or between the clamorers for a national bank

and the government. These banks want the custody of the public money. They struggle and strive for it as if it was their own. They fight for it and if they get it, they will use it as their own—as we all well know; and refuse to render back when they choose to suspend. Thus, the whole struggle for the repeal resolves itself into a contest between the government, and all the productive and business classes on one side, and the federal politicians, the rotten part of the local banks, and the advocates of a national bank on the other.

sible that, within four months afterwards—in the month of November following-the same people should condemn their own work?

But the system is to be abolished d; and we are to take our chance for something, or nothing, in place of it. The abolition is to take place incontinently-incessantly-upon the instant of the passage of the bill! such is the spirit which pursues it! such the revengeful feeling which burns against it! And the system is still to be going on for a while after its death-for some days in the nearest parts, and some weeks in the remotest parts of the Union. The receiver-general in St. Louis will not know of his official death until ten days after he shall have been killed here. In the mean time, supposing himself to be alive, he is acting under the law; and all he does is without law, and void. So of the rest. Not only must the system be abolished before a substitute is presented, but before the knowledge of the abolition can reach the officers who carry

out public moneys for days and weeks after their functions have ceased, and when all their acts have become illegal and void.

Sir, the independent treasury has been organized: I say, organized! for the law creating it is fifty-two years old-has been organized in obedience to the will of the people, regularly expressed through their representatives after the question had been carried to them, and a general election had intervened. The sub-it on; and who must continue to receive, and pay treasury system was proposed by President Van Buren in 1837, at the called session: it was adopted in 1840, after the question had been carried to the people, and the elections made to turn upon it. It was established, and clearly established, by the will of the people. Have the people condemned it? Have they expressed dissatisfaction? By no means. The presidential election was no test of this question; nor of any question. The election of General Harrison was effected by the combination of all parties to pull down one party, without any unity among the assailants on the question of measures. A candidate was VOL. II.-15

Such is the spirit which pursues the measure such the vengeance against a measure which has taken the money of the people from the moneyed corporations. It is the vengeance of the banking spirit against its enemy-against a system which deprives soulless corporations of their rich prey. Something must rise up in the place of the abolished system until Congress provides a substitute; and that something will be the nest of local banks which the Secretary of the Treasury may choose to select.

and they will have done it wittingly and knowingly, with their eyes open, and with a full perception of what they were doing. When they

vote in which the whole opposition concurred, except the senator from Virginia who sits nearest me (Mr. Archer)—when they voted down that proposition to exclude the Bank of the United States from the list of future deposit banks, they of course declared that she ought to remain upon the list, with the full right to avail herself of her privilege under the revived act of 1836. In voting down that proposition, they voted up the prostrate bank of Mr. Biddle, and accomplished the great object of the panic of 1833-34-that of censuring General Jackson, and of restoring the deposits. The act of that great man-one of the most patriotic and noble of his life-the act by which he saved forty millions of dollars to the American people-is reversed. The stockholders and creditors of the institution lose above forty millions, which the people otherwise would have lost. They lose the whole stock, thirty-five millions-for it will not be worth a straw to those who keep it: and the vote of the bank refusing to show their list of debtors-suppressing, hiding and concealing-the rotten list of debts(in which it is mortifying to see a Southern gentleman concurring)-is to enable the in

Among these local banks stands that of the Bank of the United States. The repeal of the sub-treasury has restored that institution to its capacity to become a depository of the pub-voted down my proposition of yesterday—a lic moneys and well, and largely has she prepared herself to receive them. The Merchants' Bank in New Orleans, her agent there; her branch in New York under the State law; and her branches and agencies in the South and in the West: all these subordinates, already prepared, enable her to take possession of the public moneys in all parts of the Union. That she expected to do so we learn from Mr. Biddle, who considered the attempted resumption in January last as unwise, because, in showing the broken condition of his bank, her claim to the deposits would become endangered. Mr. Biddle shows that the deposits were to have been restored; that, while in a state of suspension, his bank was as good as any. De noche todas los gatos son pardos. So says the Spanish proverb. In the dark, all the cats are grey-all of one color: the same of banks in a state of suspension. And in this darkness and assimilation of colors, the Bank of the United States has found her safety and security-her equality with the rest, and her fair claim to recover the keeping of the long-lost deposits. The attempt at resumption exposed her emptiness, and her rottenness-showed her to be the whited sepulchre, filled with dead men's bones. Liquida-itiated jobbers and gamblers to shove off their tion was her course-the only honest-the only justifiable course. Instead of that she accepts new terms (just completed) from the Pennsylvania legislatures-affects to continue to exist as a bank: and by treating Mr. Biddle as the Jonas of the ship, when the whole crew were Jonases, expects to save herself by throwing him overboard. That bank is now, on the repeal of the sub-treasury, on a level with the rest for the reception of the public moneys. She is legally in the category of a public depository, under the act of 1836, the moment she resumes: and when her notes are shaved in-a process now in rapid movement-she may assert and enforce her right. She may resume for a week, or a month, to get hold of the public moneys. By the repeal, the public deposits, so far as law is concerned, are restored to the Bank of the United States. When the Senate have this night voted the repeal, they have also voted the restoration of the deposits;

stock at some price on ignorant and innocent purchasers. The stockholders lose the thirtyfive millions capital: they lose the twenty per centum advance upon that capital, at which many of the later holders purchased it; and which is near seven millions more: they lose the six millions surplus profits which were reported on hand: but which, perhaps, was only a bank report: and the holders of the notes lose the twenty to thirty per centum, which is now the depreciation of the notes of the banksoon to be much more. These losses make some fifty millions of dollars. They now fall on the stockholders, and note-holders: where would they have fallen if the deposits had not been removed? They would have fallen upon the public treasury-upon the people of the United States: for the public is always the goose that is to be first plucked. The public money would have been taken to sustain the bank: taxes would have been laid to uphold

1

her: the high tariff would have been revived the Secretary of the Treasury; and the mere for her benefit. Whatever her condition re- transposition of names and places-the mere quired would have been done by Congress. substitution of Biddle for Woodbury-was to The bank, with all its crimes and debts-with be worth one hundred millions of dollars to all its corruptions and plunderings-would the property of the country! What flattery have been saddled upon the country-its char- could rise higher than that? Yet this man, ter renewed—and the people pillaged of the more once so lauded-once so followed, flattered, and than forty millions of dollars which have been courted-now lies condemned by all his former lost. Congress would have been enslaved: and friends. They cannot now denounce sufficienta new career of crime, corruption, and plunder ly the man who, for ten years past, they could commenced. The heroic patriotism of Presi- not praise enough: and, after this, what confident Jackson saved us from this shame and dence are we to have in their judgments? loss: but we have no Jackson to save us now; What confidence are we to place in their new and millionary plunderers-devouring harpies bank, and their new managers, after seeing such -foul birds, and voracious as foul-are again mistakes about the former ? to seize the prey which his brave and undaunted arm snatched from their insatiate throats.

Let it not be said that this bank went to ruin since it became a State institution. The The deposits are restored, so far as the vote State charter made no difference in its characof the Senate goes; and if not restored in fact, ter, or in its management: and Mr. Biddle deit will be because policy, and new schemes for-clared it to be stronger and safer without the bid it. And what new scheme can we have? United States for a partner than with it. The A nondescript, hermaphrodite, Janus-faced fis- mortal wounds were all given while it was a cality? or a third edition of General Hamil-national institution; and the late report of the ton's bank of 1791? or a bastard compound, stockholders shows not one species of offence, the unclean progeny of both? Which will it the cotton speculations alone excepted, which be? Hardly the first named. It comes forth was not shown by Mr. Clayton's report of with the feeble and rickety symptoms which | 1832; and being shown, was then defended by announce an unripe conception, and an untime-the whole power of those who are now cutting ly death. Will it be the second? It will be loose from the old bank, and clamoring for a that, or worse. And where will the late flat- new one. Not an act now brought to light, terers-the present revilers of Mr. Biddle-the save and except the cotton operation, not even authors equally of the bank that is ruined, and that for which Reuben M. Whitney was crushed of the one that is to be created: where will to death, and his name constituted the synothey find better men to manage the next than nyme of perjury and infamy for having told it ; they had to manage the last? I remember the not an act now brought to light which was not time when the vocabulary of praise was ex-shown to exist ten years ago, and which was hausted on Mr. Biddle-when in this chamber, not then defended by the whole federal party; and out of it, the censer, heaped with incense, so that the pretension that this institution did was constantly kept burning under his nose: well as a national bank, and ill as a State one, when to hint reproach of him was to make, if is as unfounded in fact, as it is preposterous and not a thousand chivalrous swords leap from absurd in idea. The bank was in the high road their scabbards, at least to make thousand to ruin-in the gulf of insolvency-in the slough tongues, and ten thousand pens, start up to de- of crime and corruption-when the patriot Jackfend him. I remember the time when a sena- son signed the veto, and ordered the removal tor on this floor, and now on it (Mr. Preston of the deposits; and nothing but these two of South Carolina), declared in his place that great acts saved the people from the loss of the the bare annunciation of Mr. Biddle's name as forty millions of dollars which have now fallen Secretary of the Treasury, would raise the upon the stockholders and the note holders, value of the people's property one hundred and from the shame of seeing their government millions of dollars. My friend here on my the slave and instrument of the bank. Jackright (pointing to Senator Woodbury) was son saved the people from this loss, and their

government from this degradation; and for this he is now pursued with the undying vengeance of those whose schemes of plunder and ambition were balked by him.

confederate banks and politicians, was a conspiracy and a revolt against the government. The present suspension is a continuation of the same revolt by the same parties. Many good banks are overpowered by them, and forced into suspension; but with the Bank of the United States, its affiliated banks, and its confederate politicians, it is a revolt and a conspiracy against the government.

Sir, it is now nightfall. We are at the end of a long day when the sun is more than fourteen hours above the horizon, and when a suffocating heat oppresses and overpowers the Senate. My friends have moved adjournments: they have been refused. I have been compelled to speak now, or never, and from this commencement we may see the conclusion. Discussion is to be stifled; measures are to be driven through; and a mutilated Congress, hastily assembled, imperfectly formed, and representing the census of 1830, not of 1840, is to manacle posterity with institutions which are as abhorent to the constitution as they are dangerous to the liber ties, the morals, and the property of the people. A national bank is to be established, not even a a simple and strong bank like that of General Hamilton, but some monstrous compound, born of hell and chaos, more odious, dangerous, and terrible than any simple bank could be. Posterity is to be manacled, and delivered up chains to this deformed monster ; and by whom? By a rump Congress, representing an expired census of the people, in the absence of mem

Wise and prudent was the conduct of those who refused to recharter the second Bank of the United States. They profited by the error of their friends who refused to recharter the first one. These latter made no preparations for the event-did nothing to increase the constitutional currency—and did not even act until the last moment. The renewed charter was only refused a few days before the expiration of the existing charter, and the federal government fell back upon the State banks, which immediately sunk under its weight. The men of 1832 acted very differently. They decided the question of the renewal long before the expiration of the existing charter. They revived the gold currency, which had been extinct for thirty years. They increased the silver currency by repealing the act of 1819 against the circulation of foreign silver. They branched the mints. In a word, they raised the specie currency from twenty millions to near one hundred millions of dollars; and thus supplied the country with a constitutional currency to take the place of the United States Bank notes. The supply was adequate, being nearly ten times the average circulation of the national bank. That average circulation was but eleven millions of dollars; the gold and silver was near one hundred millions. The success of our measures was complete. The country was hap-bers from States which, if they had their mempy and prosperous under it; but the architects of mischief-the political, gambling, and rotten part of the banks, headed by the Bank of the United States, and aided by a political partyset to work to make panic and distress, to make suspensions and revulsions, to destroy trade and business, to degrade and poison the currency; to harass the country until it would give them another national bank: and to charge all the mischief they created upon the democratic administration. This has been their conduct; and having succeeded in the last presidential election, they now come forward to seize the spoils of victory in creating another national bank, to devour the substance of the people, and to rule the government of their country. Sir, the suspension of 1837, on the part of the Bank of the United States and its

in

bers here, would still have but the one-third part of their proper weight in the councils of the Union. The census of 1840 gives many States, and Missouri among the rest, three times their present relative weight; and no permanent measure ought to be discussed until this new relative weight should appear in Congress. Why take the census every ten years, if an expiring representation at the end of the term may reach over, and bind the increased numbers by laws which claim immunity from repeal, and which are rushed through without debate? Am I to submit to such work? No, never! I will war against the bank you may establish, whether a simple or a compound monster; I will war against it by every means known to the constitution and the laws. I will vote for the repeal of its charter, as General

THE BANKRUPT ACT: WHAT IT WAS: AND HOW measure, then, which had no place in the Pre