came into his hands, and Osceola was one of has been on the side of humanity, and of confithese. Here, sir, are three grounds of justification, either of them sufficient to justify the conduct of General Jesup towards Powell, as the gentlemen call him. The first of the three reasons applies personally and exclusively to that halfbreed; the other two apply to all the hostile Indians, and justify the seizure and detention of others, who have been sent to the West. dence in them. But has he erred? Has his policy been erroneous? Has the country been a loser by his policy? To all these questions, let results give the answer. Let the twentytwo hundred Indians, abstracted from the hostile ranks by his measures, be put in contrast with the two hundred, or less, killed and taken by his predecessors. Let these results be compared; and let this comparison answer the question whether, in point of fact, there has been any error, even a mistake of judgment, in his mode of conducting the war. The senator from South Carolina [Mr. PRESTON] complains of the length of time which General Jesup has consumed without bringing the war to a close. Here, again, the chapter of comparisons must be resorted to in order to obtain the answer which justice requires. How long, I pray you, was General Jesup in command? from December, 1836, to May, 1838; nominally he was near a year and a half in command; in reality not one year, for the summer months admit of no military operations in that peninsula. His predecessors commanded from December, 1835, to December, 1836; a term wanting but a few months of as long a period as the command of General Jesup lasted. Sir, there is nothing in the length of time which this general commanded, to furnish matter for disadvantageous comparisons to him; but the contrary. He reduced the hostiles about onehalf in a year and a half; they reduced them about the one-twentieth in a year. The whole number was about 5,000; General Jesup diminished their number, during his command, 2,200; the other generals had reduced them about 150. At the rate he proceeded, the work would be finished in about three years; at the rate they proceeded, in about twenty years. So much for justification; now for the expediency of having detained this Indian Powell. I hold it was expedient to exercise the right of detaining him, and prove this expediency by reasons both a priori and a posteriori. His previous treachery and crimes, and his well known disposition for further treachery and crimes, made it right for the officers of the United States to avail themselves of the first justifiable occasion to put an end to his depredations by confining his person until the war was over. This is a reason a priori. The reason a posteriori is, that it has turned out right; it has operated well upon the mass of the Indians, between eighteen and nineteen hundred of which, negroes inclusive, have since surrendered to Gen. Jesup. This, sir, is a fact which contains an argument which overturns all that can be said on this floor against the detention of Osceola. The Indians themselves do not view that act as perfidious or dishonorable, or the violation of a flag, or even the act of an enemy. They do not condemn General Jesup on account of it, but no doubt respect him the more for refusing to be made the dupe of a treacherous artifice. A bit of white linen, stripped, perhaps from the body of a murdered child, or its murdered mother, was no longer to cover the insidious visits of spies and enemies. A firm and manly course was taken, and the effect was good upon the minds of the Indians. The number since sur-Yet he is to be censured here for the length of rendered is proof of its effect upon their minds; and this proof should put to blush the lamentations which are here set up for Powell, and the censure thrown upon General Jesup. time consumed without bringing the war to a close. He, and he alone, is selected for censure. Sir, I dislike these comparisons; it is a disagreeable task for me to make them; but I am driven to it, and mean no disparagement to others. The violence with which General Jesup No, sir, no. General Jesup has been guilty of no perfidy, no fraud, no violation of flags. He has done nothing to stain his own charac-is assailed here-the comparisons to which he ter, or to dishonor the flag of the United States. If he has erred, it has been on the side of humanity, generosity, and forbearance to the Indians. If he has erred, as some suppose, in losing time to parley with the Indians, that error has been subjected in order to degrade him— leave me no alternative but to abandon a meritorious officer to unmerited censure, or to defend him in the same manner in which he has been assailed. The essential policy of General Jesup has fastnesses, its climate, and its wily foe, that had been to induce the Indians to come in-to sur-to be contended with; a new element of opporender and to emigrate under the treaty. sition was encountered by General Jesup, in This has been his main, but not his exclusive, the poisonous information which was conveyed policy; military operations have been combined to the Indians' minds, which encouraged them with it; many skirmishes and actions have to hold out, and of which he had not even been fought since he had command; and it is knowledge for a long time. This was the remarkable that this general, who has been so quantity of false information which was conmuch assailed on this floor, is the only com- veyed to the Indians, to stimulate and encourmander-in-chief in Florida who has been wound-age their resistance. General Jesup took comed in battle at the head of his command. His person marked with the scars of wounds received in Canada during the late war with Great Britain, has also been struck by a bullet, in the face, in the peninsula of Florida; yet these wounds-the services in the late war with Great Britain-the removal of upwards of 16,000 Creek Indians from Alabama and Georgia to the West, during the summer of 1836-and more than twenty-five years of honorable employment in the public service-all these combined, and an unsullied private character into the bargain, have not been able to protect the feelings of this officer from laceration on this floor. Have not been sufficient to protect his feelings! for, as to his character, that is untouched. The base accusation-the vague denunciation-the offensive epithets employed here, may lacerate feelings, but they do not reach character; and as to the military inquiry, which the senator from South Carolina speaks of, I undertake to say that no such inquiry will ever take place. Congress, or either branch of Congress, can order an inquiry if it pleases; but before it orders an inquiry, a probable cause has to be shown for it; and that probable cause never has been, and never will be, shown in General Jesup's case. The senator from South Carolina speaks of the large force which was committed to General Jesup, and the little that was effected with that force. Is the senator aware of the extent of the country over which his operations extended? that it extended from 31 to 25 degrees of north latitude? that it began in the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia, and stretched to the Everglades in Florida? that it was near five hundred miles in length in a straight line, and the whole sprinkled over with swamps, one of which alone was equal in length to the distance between Washington City and Philadelphia? But it was not extent of country alone, with its VOL. II.-6 Yes, he dared not mand just after the presidential election of 1836. General Jesup has been censured for writing a letter disparaging to his predecessor in command. If he did so, and I do not deny it, though I have not seen the letter, nobly has he made the amends. Publicly and officially has he made amends for a private and unofficial wrong. In an official report to the war department, published by that department, he said: "As an act of justice to all my predecessors the difficulties attending military operations in in command, I consider it my duty to say that this country, can be properly appreciated only by those acquainted with them. I have advan tages which neither of them possessed, in bet- individual enjoyment. Stripped of all these ter preparations and more abundant supplies; heads of expenditure, and the expenses of the and I found it impossible to operate with any present administration have nothing to fear prospect of success, until I had established a line of depots across the country. If I have at any time said aught in disparagement of the operations of others in Florida, either verbally or in writing, officially or unofficially, knowing the country as I now know it, I consider myself bound as a man of honor solemnly to retract it." from a comparison with other periods. Stated in the gross, as is usually done, and many ignorant people are deceived and imposed upon. and believe that there has been a great waste of public money; pursued into the detail, and these expenditures will be found to have been made for great national objects-objects which Such are the amends which General Jesup no man would have undone, to get back the makes-frank and voluntary-full and kindly-money, even if it was possible to get back the worthy of a soldier towards brother soldiers; money by undoing the objects. No one, for and far more honorable to his predecessors in command than the disparaging comparisons which have been instituted here to do them honor at his expense. example, would be willing to bring back the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and Chickasaws into Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, even if the tens of millions which it has cost to remove them could be got back by that means; and so of the other expenditures: yet these eternal croakers about expense are blaming the government for these expenditures. The expenses of this war is another head of attack pressed into this debate, and directed more against the administration than against the commanding general. It is said to have cost twenty millions of dollars; but that is an error an error of near one-half. An actual Sir, I have gone over the answers, which I return of all expenses up to February last, proposed to make to the accusations of the senamounts to nine and a half millions; the rest ators from New Jersey and South Carolina. I of the twenty millions go to the suppression have shown them to be totally mistaken in all of hostilities in other places, and with other In- their assumptions and imputations. I have dians, principally in Georgia and Alabama, and shown that there was no fraud upon the Inwith the Cherokees and Creeks. Sir, this dians in the treaty at Fort Gibson-that the charge of expense seems to be a standing head identical chiefs who made that treaty have with the opposition at present. Every speech since been the hostile chiefs-that the assassigives us a dish of it; and the expenditures un-nation and massacre of an agent, two governder General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren are ment expresses, an artillery officer, five citizens, constantly put in contrast with those of previous administrations. Granted that these expenditures are larger-that they are greatly increased; yet what are they increased for? Are they increased for the personal expenses of the officers of the government, or for great national objects? The increase is for great objects; such as the extinction of Indian titles in the States east of the Mississippi-the removal of whole nations of Indians to the west of the Mississippi-their subsistence for a year after they arrive there-actual wars with some tribes -the fear of it with others, and the consequent continual calls for militia and volunteers to preserve peace-large expenditures for the permanent defences of the country, both by land and water, with a pension list for ever increasing the peninsula of Florida of all the Indians ing; and other heads of expenditure which are that are upon it. for future national benefit, and not for present and one hundred and twelve men of Major Dade's command, caused the war-that our troops are not subject to censure for inefficiency-that General Jesup has been wrongfully denounced upon this floor-and that even the expense of the Florida war, resting as it does in figures and in documents, has been vastly overstated to produce effect upon the public mind. All these things I have shown; and I conclude with saying that cost, and time, and loss of men, are all out of the question; that, for outrages so wanton and so horrible as those which occasioned this war, the national honor requires the most ample amends; and the national safety requires a future guarantee in prosecuting this war to a successful close, and completely clear CHAPTER XX. RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS BY THE NEW YORK BANKS. THE suspension commenced on the 10th of May in New York, and was followed throughout the country. In August the New York banks proposed to all others to meet in convention, and agree upon a time to commence a general resumption. That movement was frustrated by the opposition of the Philadelphia banks, for the reason, as given, that it was better to await the action of the extra session of Congress, then convoked, and to meet in September. The extra session adjourned early in October, and the New York banks, faithful to the promised resumption of specie payments, immediately issued another invitation for the general convention of the banks in that city on the 27th of November ensuing, to carry into effect the object of the meeting which had been invited in the month of August. The 27th of November arrived; a large proportion of the delinquent banks had accepted the invitation to send delegates to the convention: but its meeting was again frustrated-and from the same quarter-the Bank of the United States, and the institutions under its influence. They then resolved to send a committee to Philadelphia to ascertain from the banks when they would be ready, and to invite them to name a day when they would be able to resume; and if no day was definitely fixed, to inform them that the New York banks would commence specie payments without waiting for their co-operation. The Philadelphia banks would not co-operate. They would not agree to any definite time to take even initiatory steps towards resumption. This was a disappointment to the public mind -that large part of it which still had faith in the Bank of the United States; and the contradiction which it presented to all the previous professions of that institution, required explanations, and, if possible, reconciliation with past declarations. The occasion called for the pen of Mr. Biddle, always ready, always confident, always presenting an easy remedy, and a sure one, for all the diseases to which banks, currency, and finance were heir. It called for another letter to Mr. John Quincy Adams, that is to say, to the public, through the distinction of that gentleman's name. It came the most elaborate and ingenious of its species; its burden, to prove the entire ability of the bank over which he presided to pay in full, and without reserve, but its intention not to do so, on account of its duty to others not able to follow its example, and which might be entirely ruined by a premature effort to do so. And he concluded with condensing his opinion into a sentence of characteristic and sententious brevity: "On the whole, the course which in my judgment the banks ought to pursue, is simply this: The banks should remain exactly as they are-prepared to resume, but not yet resuming." But he did not stop there, but in another publication went the length of a direct threat of destruction against the New York banks if they should, in conformity to their promise, venture to resume, saying: "Let the banks of the Empire State come up from their Elba, and enjoy their hundred days of resumption! a Waterloo awaits them, and a Saint Helena is prepared for them." The banks of New York were now thrown upon the necessity of acting without the concurrence of those of Pennsylvania, and in fact under apprehension of opposition and counteraction from that quarter. They were publicly pledged to act without her, and besides were under a legal obligation to do so. The legislature of the State, at the time of the suspension, only legalized it for one year. The indulgence would be out on the 15th of May, and forfeiture of charter was the penalty to be incurred throughout the State for continuing it beyond that time. The city banks had the control of the movement, and they invited a convention of delegates from all the banks in the Union to meet in New York on the 15th of April. One hundred and forty-three delegates, from the principal banks in a majority of the States, attended. Only delegates from fifteen States voted-Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina among the absent; which, as including the three principal commercial cities on the Atlantic board south of New York, was a heavy defalcation from the weight of the convention. Of the fifteen States, thirteen voted for resuming on the 1st day of January, 1839-a delay of near nine months; two voted against that day The re were none except the bank suspensions, of which she had been the secret prime contriver, and was now the detected promoter. Briefly before the New York resumption, Mr. Webster, the great advocate of the Bank of the United States, and the truest exponent of her wishes, harangued the Senate in a set speech in her favor, of which some extracts will show the design and spirit: -New York and Mississippi; and (as it often happens in concurring votes) for reasons directly opposite to each other. The New York banks so voted because the day was too distant -those of Mississippi because it was too near. The New York delegates wished the 15th of May, to avoid the penalty of the State law: those of Mississippi wished the 1st of January, 1840, to allow them to get in two more cotton crops before the great pay-day came. "And now, sir, we see the upshot of the exsult of the voting showed the still great power periment. We see around us bankrupt corpoof the Bank of the United States. The dele-rations and broken promises; but we see no gates of the banks of ten States, including those promises more really and emphatically broken than all those promises of the administration with which she had most business, either re- which gave us assurance of a better currency. fused to attend the convention, or to vote after These promises, now broken, notoriously and having attended. The rest chiefly voted the openly broken, if they cannot be performed, late day, "to favor the views of Philadelphia ought, at least, to be acknowledged. The government ought not, in common fairness and and Baltimore rather than those of New common honesty, to deny its own responsibiliYork." So said the delegates, "frankly avow- ty, seek to escape from the demands of the peoing that their interests and sympathies were ple, and to hide itself, out of the way and bewith the former two rather than with the lat-yond the reach of the process of public opinion, by retreating into this sub-treasury system. ter." The banks of the State of New York Let it, at least, come forth; let it bear a port of were then left to act alone-and did so. Sim- honesty and candor; let it confess its promises, ultaneously with the issue of the convention if it cannot perform them; and, above all. now, recommendation to resume on the first day of even now, at this late hour, let it renounce schemes and projects, the inventions of preJanuary, 1839, they issued another, recommend-sumption, and the resorts of desperation, and ing all the banks of the State of New York to resume on the 10th day of May, 1838; that is to say, within twenty-five days of that time. Those of the city declared their determination to begin on that day, or earlier, expressing their belief that they had nothing to fear but from the opposition and "deliberate animosity of others"-meaning the Bank of the United States. The New York banks all resumed at the day named. Their example was immediately followed by others, even by the institutions in those States whose delegates had voted for the long day; so that within sixty days thereafter the resumption was almost general, leaving the Bank of the United States uncovered, naked, and prominent at the head of all the delinquent banks in the Union. But her power was still great. Her stock stood at one hundred and twelve dollars to the share, being a premium of twelve dollars on the hundred. In Congress, which was still in session, not a tittle was abated of her pretensions and her assurance -her demands for a recharter-for the repeal of the specie circular-and for the condemnation of the administration, as the author of the misfortunes of the country; of which evils there let it address itself, in all good faith, to the great work of restoring the currency by approved and constitutional means. "What say these millions of souls to the subtreasury? In the first place, what says the city of New York, that great commercial emporium, worthy the gentleman's [Mr. WRIGHT] commendation in 1834, and worthy of his commendation and my commendation, and all commendation, at all times? What sentiments, what opinions, what feelings, are proclaimed by the thousands of merchants, traders, manufacturers, and laborers? What is the united shout of all the voices of all her classes? What is it but that Embar |