that is new to say on these points. The ground I have ever taken, and to which I adhere to this day, is, that if Congress is bound to furnish a currency for the people, as well as for the government, then something beyond a sub-treasury, something more than a vault, or series of vaults, where the public money can be collected, and whence it can be distributed, is necessary; on the other hand, if Congress is not bound to do this, then it may resort to any scheme it may deem proper for the collection and disbursement of revenue; although, even for that purpose, it is quite idle and ridiculous, in my opinion, to talk about vaults, and safes, and bolts, and locks.

Now, Gentlemen, there are three propositions which I would gladly submit to every candid man in every part of the country; because it is my wish to establish the principles I espouse, in the minds of men, by convincing them that they are honest, just, and will tend to the benefit of community. These propositions are,

1st. That paper, in the present state and condition of society, will, and must, constitute the greater part of the currency,— the mass of the circulation.

All the humbug about a specie currency, a hard-money system, is altogether unworthy of a man of sense. We know that we must, from some source or other, have paper for circulation, and for the greater part of the circulation. Is there a man here, is there a man anywhere, who will say without a blush, that he expects an exclusive specie currency? Can any sensible man so say, without feeling his cheek burn with shame? There is none such. Well, then, is there any one not satisfied,—

2d. That a part, at least, of this paper currency, should be in every part of the country of equal value, and that value equivalent to specie?

Is it not highly desirable that we should have a circulating medium of universal receivability, if I may use such a word? The inhabitants of Maine, Georgia, the valley of the Mississippi,

is it not to be wished that they all may have some paper which every body will take? All candid men must admit that it is. It is an object of high importance that the people of Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, should have something which they can remit, without loss, to pay the manufacturers of Essex for their goods; it is as great an object to the Essex manufacturers that

they should. Well, if this be admitted, there is only one more proposition, and that is,

3d. That no State institution, nothing but the authority of the United States, can furnish such a universal circulating medium.

Can any State institution furnish such a currency? Have we seen any instance of it whatever? We all know the contrary. We have, in Massachusetts, bills of State banks which are good and current throughout Massachusetts. They have the same in Virginia. But if any of you were to go to-morrow to Richmond, or Petersburg, you would not find your Massachusetts money current there, although, indeed, you might find brokers who would give you a premium on the bills, for the purpose of Northern remittances; still, your Massachusetts bills would not be generally received.

The citizens of each State know the condition of their own institutions; and they trust them as far as they ought. But they do not know, and ought not to be expected to know, the condition and credit of all the institutions of all the States. On the other hand, they do know the general laws and the general institutions of the general government, and the credit to which those institutions are entitled. We must then revert to the government which has the control of commerce and the control of the currency, whose "spread eagle" is good everywhere. And it is but a reasonable and just demand, to require such a government to give us a currency which shall be welcome everywhere, and trusted everywhere.

Now, where is this power? I answer, In the authority of Congress to regulate commerce, and the great agent of commerce, money. Congress has the power of commercial regulation by the Constitution; it has also the power to coin; and according to Mr. Madison's matured judgment, the power to coin implies the power to say what shall take the place of the coinage, if that coinage be displaced by paper. I will not go over the whole range of the constitutional argument. Suffice it to say, that those who made the Constitution did not doubt this power. General Washington did not doubt it, for he established an institution for this very purpose; or at least, it was established under his immediate authority and sanction. Mr. Madison did not doubt it, and I mention his name because his

authority is much relied on, as not generally favoring liberal constructions of constitutional powers. If not convinced in his own private judgment, he said, as any reasonable man would say, that the Constitution had thus been long interpreted, that its meaning was fixed and must not be disturbed. That was right. We have had a bank for forty years; some say now it is unconstitutional. Will they say so forty years hence? Will they then think that what was thought right by our fathers and grandfathers, who formed the Constitution and established the government, was wholly wrong? I suspect not. We must take the meaning of the Constitution as it has been solemnly fixed,-fixed by practice, fixed by successive acts of Congress, fixed by solemn judicial decision,—or we never shall have any settled meaning at all. It is absurd to say, that no precedent, no practice, no judicial decision, no assent of successive legislators, nor all these together, can fix the meaning of an article in the fundamental law.

I am well aware, Gentlemen, that at the present moment, and in the commercial States, the evils of a disordered currency are partially remedied, and not so severely felt. But in some parts of the country they are as great as ever. In the South and West, there is no money which deserves the name. The people trade almost wholly by barter. What they do call money is entirely without a fixed or general value; and the great depreciation and fluctuation in the currency is the cause of much demoralization in the community, and a fruitful source of other evils. Of all bad systems this is the worst. And though we in this part of the country, just now, feel no particular harm from this source, yet the evil day will come.

There are certain laws of trade which will always operate, so long as man is man, and which cannot be violated with impunity; and just as surely as this is the case, just so sure shall we again feel the effects of a disordered currency. There is now, in the mercantile phrase, a better feeling in the community, at least in the Atlantic States. There is an appearance of returning prosperity and a revival of business; but there are a thousand banks in the country, ready to lend money to good customers, under the doctrine, to which I cannot wholly agree, that all safe business paper may be discounted without danger. A plenty of money will raise prices, prosperity will beget excess,

and excess must result in revulsion. And these alternations will be our lot and our history so long as we have no general regulator of the currency.

Now, I will not say, I never have said, that a Bank of the United States is absolutely necessary; but I have said that it has been tried for forty years with success, and is therefore entitled to respectful consideration. Some eight years ago, in the Senate of the United States, I said that a national bank had done much good to the country, yet it was not worth my while to propose its reëstablishment while there was no general call of the people for such a measure. I remain of that opinion. I have said, more recently, that a national bank whose capital should be derived from private subscriptions, and with the power of private discounts, is out of the question. I think so still, though it may be I am mistaken. My reason is, that State institutions for these purposes have become so much multiplied, and that many States derive large portions of their revenue from taxes upon the capital of such banks. Nevertheless, I am quite willing to agree that a Bank of the United States, upon the old model, is perfectly constitutional; and if, in the opinion of a future Congress and in the judgment of the country, such an institution should be deemed expedient, it shall have my hearty support. But my opinion is, that the country much more needs some institution under national authority, with power to restrain in some just mode the amount of paper issues, than it needs a bank which may itself make large discounts to individuals.

I have thus spoken upon commerce and the currency. These lead directly to the tariff, or the policy of encouraging domestic industry by laying discriminating duties on foreign importations.

I wish to state my opinions on this topic with some degree of precision, because I believe there is a sort of ultraism prevailing with regard to it, characteristic of the age. People run into extremes, not only in politics, but in all other matters. They are either on the Ganges, or at the extremity of the West. There are men who would carry a tariff to prohibition. Again, there are those who assert it to be perfectly unconstitutional to lay duties with the least regard to favoring or encouraging the

products of our own country. My opinion is, that the power of favoring or encouraging productions of our own, by just discriminations in imposing duties for revenue on imports, does belong to Congress, and ought to be exercised in all proper cases.

This, Gentlemen, is my opinion, and I should be perfectly willing to discuss the matter with any candid man in the Commonwealth.

There are two propositions to which I invite your attention ;— 1st. Congress has the power to lay duties of impost. No State has this power. This is a most important consideration.

2d. Before the adoption of the Constitution, and while the States could lay impost duties, several of them laid such duties, with discriminations avowedly intended to foster their own products. They now can do no such thing. It must accordingly be done by Congress, or not at all.

And

Now the power of Congress is to regulate commerce. in all English history, and all our own history, down to the Revolution, and to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, importation of some articles was encouraged, and of others discouraged or prohibited, by regulations of trade. The regulation of trade, therefore, was a term of well-known meaning, and did comprehend the duty or object of discriminating, with a view to favor home productions. We find this to have been so in England, from the time of her Tudors and Stuarts down; and in America, the opinion I have stated was held by Otis, Adams, and the other great and eminent men of the Revolution. But upon this point I need not dwell, for the whole doctrine has been placed upon immutable foundations by a son of your own county, a most distinguished member of the Senate of the United States (Hon. Rufus Choate), in his speech of March, 1842

The amount of the whole matter is this. History instructs us, that, before the Constitution was formed, the States laid duties of imposts; but each only for itself, and therefore the duties were very different and unequal; and the States which laid duties for the protection of their own manufactures were immediately exposed to competition from others that had no manufactures, who would open their ports freely to the goods taxed by their neighbors. We see at once how vain it would be for one State to look only to her own interests, while all the others