the States and the federal government. The ple. Since May last the ex-deposit banks alone prohibitions are upon the States; it is they who are not to do these things, and, of course, are not to authorize others to do what they cannot do themselves. The banks are their delegates in this three-fold violation of the constitution; and, in proceeding against these delegates, we avoid collision with the States.

have forced twenty-five millions of depreciated paper through the federal government upon its debtors and the States, at a loss of at least two and a half millions to the receivers, and a gain of an equal amount to the payers. The thousand banks have the country and the government under their feet at this moment, owing to the community upwards of an hundred millions of dollars, of which they will pay nothing, not even ninepences, picayunes, and coppers. Meta

tors more kicks than coppers. It is for them to have mercy on us. But what is the conduct of government towards these banks? Even at this session, with all their past conduct unatoned for, we have passed a relief bill for their benefit-a bill to defer the collection of the large balance which they still owe the government. But there is mercy due in another quarter-upon the people, suffering from the use of irredeemable and depreciated paper-upon the government, reduced to bankruptcy-upon the character of the country, suffering in the eyes of Europeupon the character of republican government, brought into question by the successful usurpation of these institutions. This last point is the sorest. Gentlemen speak of the failure of experiments-the failure of the specie experiment, as it is called by those who believe that paper is the ancient and universal money of the world; and that the use of a little specie for the first time is not to be attempted. They dwell upon the supposed failure of "the experiment;" while all the monarchists of Europe are rejoicing in the failure of the experiment of republican government, at seeing this government, the last hope of the liberal world, struck and paralyzed by an oligarchy of banks-seized by the throat, throttled and held as a tiger would hold a babestripped of its revenues, bankrupted, and sub

Mr. President, every form of government has something in it to excite the pride, and to rouse the devotion, of its citizens. In monarchies, it is the authority of the king; in repub-phorically, if not literally, they give their credilics, it is the sanctity of the laws. The loyal subject makes it the point of honor to obey the king; the patriot republican makes it his glory to obey the laws. We are a republic. We have had illustrious citizens, conquering generals, and victorious armies; but no citizen, no general, no army, has undertaken to dethrone the laws and to reign in their stead. This parricidal work has been reserved for an oligarchy of banks! Three times, in thrice seven years, this oligarchy has dethroned the law, and reigned in its place. Since May last, it has held the sovereign sway, and has not yet vouchsafed to indicate the day of its voluntary abdication. The Roman military dictators usually fixed a term to their dictatorships. I speak of the usurpers, not of the constitutional dictators for ten days. These usurpers usually indicated a time at which usurpation should cease, and law and order again prevail. Not so with this new power which now lords it over our America. They fix no day; they limit no time; they indicate no period for their voluntary descent from power, and for their voluntary return to submission to the laws. They could agree in the twinkling of an eye-at the drop of a hat-at the crook of a finger-to usurp the sovereign power; they cannot agree, in four months, to relinquish it. They profess to be willing, but cannot agree upon the time. Let us perform that service for them.jected to the degradation of becoming their enLet us name a day. Let us fix it in a bankrupt law. Let us pass that law, and fix a day for it to take effect; and that day will be the day for the resumption of specie payments, or for the trial of the question of permanent supremacy between the oligarchy of banks, and the constitutional government of the people.

gine to force their depreciated paper upon helpless creditors. Here is the place for mercy— upon the people-upon the government-upon the character of the country-upon the character of republican government.

The apostle of republicanism, Mr. Jefferson, has left it as a political legacy to the people of We are called upon to have mercy upon the the United States, never to suffer their governbanks; the prayer should rather be to them, to ment to fall under the control of any unauthorhave mercy upon the government and the peo-ized, irresponsible, or self-created institutions or

cerned to the whole extent of their property and dealings; and all is all, whether it be much or little. The government with its many ten millions of revenue, suffers no more in proportion than the humble and meritorious laborer who works from sun to sun for the shillings which give food and raiment to his family. The federal government has deteriorated the currency, and carried mischief to the whole community, and lost its own revenues, and subjected itself to be trampled upon by corporations, by departing from the constitution, and converting this government from a hard-money to a paper money government. The object of the amendment and the bill is to reform these abuses, and it is a reform worthy to be called a reformationworthy to engage the labor of patriots-worthy to unite the exertions of different parties-worthy to fix the attention of the age-worthy to excite the hopes of the people, and to invoke upon its success the blessings of heaven.

I do not pretend to estimate the moneyed losses, direct and indirect, to the government alone, from the use of local bank notes in the last twenty-five years, including the war, and covering three general suspensions. Leaving the people out of view, as a field of losses beyond calculation, I confine myself to the federal government, and say, its losses have been enormous, prodigious, and incalculable. We have had three general stoppages of the local banks in the short space of twenty-two years. It is at the average rate of one in seven years; and who is to guaranty us from another, and from the consequent losses, if we continue to receive their bills in payment of public dues? Another stoppage must come, and that, reasoning from all analogies, in less than seven years after the resumption. Many must perish in the attempt to resume, and would do better to wind up at once, without attempting to go on, without adequate means, and against appalling obstacles. Another revulsion must come. Thus it was after the last resumption. The banks recommenced payments in 1817-in two years, the failures were more disastrous than ever. Thus it was in England after the long suspension of twenty-six years. Payments recommenced in 1823-in 1825 the most desolating crash of banks took place which had ever been known in the kingdom, although the Bank of England had imported, in less than four years, twenty millions sterling in gold,-about one hundred millions of dollars, to recommence upon. Its effects reached this country, crushed the cotton houses in New Orleans, depressed the money market, and injured all business.

Great are the evils,—political, pecuniary, and moral,—which have flowed from this departure from our constitution. Through the federal government alone-through it, not by it-two millions and a half of money have been lost in the last four months. Thirty-two millions of public money was the amount in the deposit banks when they stopped payment; of this sum twenty-five millions have been paid over to government creditors, or transferred to the States. But how paid, and how transferred? In what? In real money, or its equivalent? Not at all! But in the notes of suspended banks-in notes depreciated, on an average, ten per cent. Here then were two and a half millions lost. Who bore the loss? The public creditors and the States. Who gained it? for where there is a loss to one, there must be a gain to another. Who gained the two and a half millions, thus sunk upon the hands of the creditors and the States? The banks were the gainers; they gained it; the public creditors and the States lost it; and to the creditors it was a forced loss. It is in vain to say that they consented to take it. They had no alternative. It was that or nothing. The banks forced it upon the government; the government forced it upon the credi-sleeping in confidence, and the pilots crying out tor. Consent was out of the question. Power ruled, and that power was in the banks; and they gained the two and a half millions which the States and the public creditors lost.

The senators from New York and Virginia (Messrs. Tallmadge and Rives) push this point of confidence a little further; they address a question to me, and ask if I would lose confidence in all steamboats, and have them all discarded, if one or two blew up in the Mississippi? I answer the question in all frankness, and say, that I should not. But if, instead of one or two in the Mississippi, all the steamboats in the Union should blow up at once-in every creek, river and bay-while all the passengers were

all is well; if the whole should blow up from one end of the Union to the other just as fast as they could hear each other's explosions; then, indeed, I should lose confidence in them, and

while this firman is thus potent and irresistible for prostration, it is impotent and powerless for resurrection. It goes out in vain, bidding the prostrate banks to rise. A veto power intervenes. One voice is sufficient to keep all down; and thus we have seen one word from Philadelphia annihilate the New York proposition for resumption, and condemn the many solvent banks to the continuation of a condition as mortifying to their feelings as it is injurious to their future interests.

Again, from the mode of doing business among our banks-using each other's paper to bank upon, instead of holding each other to weekly settlements, and liquidation of balances in specie, and from the fatal practice of issuing notes at one place, payable at another-our banks have all become links of one chain, the strength of the whole being dependent on the strength of each. A few govern all. Whether it is to fail, or to resume, the few govern; and not only the few, but the weak. A few weak banks fail; a panic ensues, and the rest shut up; many strong ones are ready to resume; the weak are not ready, and the strong must wait. Thus the principles of safety, and the rules of government, are reversed. The weak govern the strong; the bad govern the good; and the insolvent govern the solvent. This is our system, if system it can be called, which has no feature of consistency, no principle of safety, and which is nothing but the floating appendage of a foreign and overpowering system.

General Jackson had accumulated in the country. That stoppage presented a peculiar feature of peril which has not been brought to the notice of the public; it was the stoppage of the sums standing in the names of disbursing officers, and wanted for daily payments in all the branches of the public service. These sums amounted to about five millions of dollars. They had been drawn from the Treasury, they were no longer standing to the credit of the United States; they had gone into the hands of innumerable officers and agents, in all parts of the Union, and were temporarily, and for mere safe-keeping from day to day, lodged with these deposit banks, to be incessantly paid out to those who were doing work and labor, performing contracts, or rendering service, civil or military, to the country. These five millions were stopped with the rest! In an instant, as if by enchantment, every disbursing officer, in every part of the Union, was stripped of the money which he was going to pay out! All officers of the government, high and low, the whole army and navy, all the laborers and contractors, post offices and all, were suddenly, instantaneously, left without pay; and consequently without subsistence. It was tantamount to a disbandment of the entire government. It was like a decree for the dissolution of the body politic. It was celebrated as a victory-as a conquest—as a triumph, over the government. The least that was expected was an immediate civil revolution -the overthrow of the democratic party, the The federal government and its creditors have change of administration, the reascension of the suffered great pecuniary losses from the use of federal party to power, and the re-establishment these banks and their paper; they must con- of the condemned Bank of the United States. tinue to sustain such losses if they continue to These consequences were counted upon; and use such depositories and to receive such paper. that they did not happen was solely owing to The pecuniary losses have been, now are, and the eighty millions of hard money which kept must be hereafter great; but, great as they have up a standard of value in the country, and prebeen, now are, and may be hereafter, all that vented the dishonored bank notes from sinking loss is nothing compared to the political dangers too low to be used by the community. But it is which flow from the same source. These dan- not merely stoppage of the banks that we have gers affect the life of the government. They go to fear: collisions with the States may ensue. to its existence. They involve anarchy, con- State legislatures may sanction the stoppage, fusion, violence, dissolution! They go to withhold the poor right of suing, and thus indeprive the government of support of the terpose their authority between the federal means of living; they strip it in an instant of government and its revenues. This has already every shilling of revenue, and leave it penniless, happened, not in hostility to the government, helpless, lifeless. The late stoppage might have but in protection of themselves; and the consebroken up the government, had it not been for quence was the same as if the intention had been the fidelity and affection of the people to their in-hostile. It was interposition between the stitutions and the eighty millions of specie which federal government and its depositories; it was