paper with an express view to circulation. When such a bank discounts notes, it pays the amount of discount in its own bills, and thereby adds so much to the actual amount of circulation, every such operation being, by so much, an increase of the circulating medium of the country. Hence it is true, that, in the absence of all government control and supervision, the wisdom and discretion regulating the amount of money afloat at any time in the community are but the aggregate of the wisdom and discretion of all the banks collectively considered; each individual bank acting from the promptings of its own interest, without concert with others, and not from any sense of public duty. In my judgment, such a regulator, or such a mode of regulating the currency, and of deciding what shall be the amount of money at any time existing in the community, is unsafe and untrustworthy, and is one to which we never can look to guard us against those excessive expansions and contractions which have produced such injurious consequences. Hence arises my view of the duty of government to take the care and control of the issues of these local institutions, and thereby to guard the community against the evils of an excessive circulation. I am of opinion, that the government may establish such a control and supervision as shall accomplish these purposes in two ways; and first, by restraining the issues of the local banks. You all know, and from experience, perfectly well, that a general institution for the circulation of a currency, which shall be as good in one part of the country as in another, if it shall possess a competent capital and shall be empowered to act as the fiscal agent of the government, is capable of controlling excessive issues, and keeping the bank paper in circulation in a community within reasonable limits. Such an institution acts also beneficially by supplying a currency which is of general credit, and uniform in value throughout the country.

This brings us to the point. What we need, and what we must have, is some currency which shall be equally acceptable in the Gulf of Mexico, in the valley of the Mississippi, on the Canada frontier, on the Atlantic Ocean, and in every town, village, and hamlet of our extended land. The question is, how to get this. Now, it seems to me that this question is to be answered by a plain reference to the condition of the country, to the form of its government, and to the objects for which the

general government was constituted. Why is it that no State bank paper, however secure, under institutions however respectable, in cities however wealthy, and with a capital however ample, has ever succeeded, but has uniformly failed, to give a national character to the currency? The cause of this is obvious. We live under a government which makes us, in many important respects, one people, and which does this, and was intended to do it, especially in whatever relates to the commerce of the country. Yet the nation, exists in twenty-six distinct and sovereign States, extending over a space as wide almost as the greatest empires of Europe. In this state of things, every man knows, and is bound to know, two governments; first, the government of his own State. If that State has established banks, he knows, and is bound to know, on what principles these banks have been established, whether they are safe as objects of credit, and whether the laws of their administration are wise. Generally speaking, these State institutions — I refer now more particularly to those in the central and the northern and eastern sections of the Union, because with these I am best acquainted - enjoy the confidence of the people of the several States where they exist. Their issues are in general well received, not only in the States where the banks are established, but frequently also in the neighboring States. Every citizen is also bound, in like manner, to know the laws of the general government, the security of the institutions it has founded, and their general character; and since this is a national subject, over which the general government acts as such, he regards its acts and provisions as of a national character. Every man looks to institutions founded by Congress as emanating from the national government, a government which he knows, and which, to a certain extent, he himself influences by the exercise of the elective franchise, and in which it is his duty, as a good citizen, to correct, so far as in his power, whatever may be amiss. He has confidence, therefore, in the national government, and in the institutions it sanctions, as in something of his own; but the case is very different when he is called to take the paper of banks chartered by a distant State, over which he has no control, with which he has little personal acquaintance, and of whose institutions he knows not whether they are well or ill founded, or well or ill administered.

In exemplification of this, if you take a note of one of the best banks in the city of New York, rich as this city is, and place upon it forty indorsements of the most substantial mercantile houses, and then carry that note to the frontier, and read it to the people there, such is the nature of man, and such is his habit of looking to the nation for that medium which is to circulate through the nation, that you cannot get that New York note, with all its indorsements, to circulate there as national money. Can I give a stronger proof of the truth of this assertion than is found in a fact which you all know? Your city banks pay specie; the banks of Philadelphia and the Bank of the United States do not pay specie, and their paper is consequently at a discount here of three, and I believe of five, per cent. But how is it on the frontier? I undertake to say that you may go to Arkansas, or Missouri, with a note of the speciepaying banks of New York, and with another of the non-speciepaying Bank of the United States, and the latter shall be preferred. And why? Because it is in the name of its national predecessor. There is an odor of nationality which hangs around it, and clings to it, and is long in being separated from it.

In the next place, my opinion is, that a currency emanating partly from a national authority as broad in its origin as the whole country, and partly from local banks organized as our banks now are, and issuing paper for local circulation, is a better currency for the whole people than ever before existed in the world. Each of these classes of institutions, and each of these kinds of currency, has its own proper use and value. I affirm that the banking institutions of New York and of New England are organized on better principles than the joint stock companies of Great Britain; and I hold that we are competent, with a tolerable intellect, and with an honest purpose, to establish a national institution which shall act with less fluctuation than is experienced in England under the Bank of England.

Now, Gentlemen, I do not at all mean to say that there is only one mode, or two modes, of accomplishing this great national object. I do not say that a national bank is the only means to effect it; but, in my judgment, it is indisputably true that the currency should, in some degree, or in some portion of it, be nationalized in its character. This is indispensable to the great ends of circulation and of business in these United States.

But I shall be asked (and it is a pertinent question), if there is to be a national institution, or if we are in any form to have national issues of bank paper, what security is there, or is there any security, that these national institutions shall not run to an excess in their issues of paper? Who is to guard the guardian? Who is to watch the sentinel? The last twenty years have been fruitful in experience on this subject, both in the United States and in England. In that time, the world has learnt much. I may say that we have learnt much; for our own experience has been our instructor; and I think that there are modes by which banking institutions may be so far restricted as to give us reasonable security against excessive issues.

From whatever source these institutions may emanate, the first security is to be found in entire publicity as to the amount of paper afloat. There is more in this than is sometimes supposed. It should be known to the whole community, from day to day, what is the actual amount of paper in circulation. When prices rise or fall, a merchant has a right to know whether the change of price springs from change in demand, or merely from change in the amount of money in circulation; and therefore the first duty of a banking institution is, to make it universally known, by a daily or a weekly publication, what amount of paper it has out. See what benefits would arise from such an arrangement, and that in a thousand ways. If the bank should thus make its issues public, those who control its affairs would be bound to respect public opinion, and the bank, while it controlled what is under it, would itself be controlled by something above it; and thus public opinion would be brought to regulate the regulator, and to watch the sentinel.

Then, again, if the government should act in this matter, what it does should rather be done in reference to the function of issue, in such an institution, than with a view to make it a money-getting concern; and that no temptation should lead the bank to excess, there ought to be a limit to the extent of its dividends; all receipts for discount beyond that point going, not into the private crib, but into the public treasury. Then there is another error, which has been common with the Bank of England. If you look at the monthly accounts which it has published of its affairs, it will at once appear that its directors seem to have judged of the condition of the institution by the amount

of its circulation compared with its assets, including securities as well as bullion. They look chiefly to the amount payable and the amount receivable. As a mere lender of money, this is all very well; but if the bank is to act in regulating the circulation, it is an incorrect mode of stating the account. Admitting the object to be to keep its paper redeemable, and to exercise a general regulation, the true point of examination would be to see what proportion exists between the outstanding paper and the inlying bullion. The bank may be very rich, but she may expect her resources from the payment of the securities she holds. This may be all very well, as a means to show that she is solvent; but it is not the inquiry that belongs to her, as the source and preserver of a sound circulating medium.

I know very well that there are objections to the fixing of a positive limit for circulation. But until such limit can safely be dispensed with, it may be best to make it positive. When an institution has acquired general confidence, and there is no danger of a sudden and extensive panic in relation to it, it is in the power of such an institution, in case local panics should occur, to relieve the community, by that adaptation of the amount of outstanding circulation which discreet men may be trusted to regulate. Still I am of opinion that there ought to be a fixed limit, from which the bank should never depart.

I have not said, nor do I mean to say, that one or the other mode of accomplishing this great and desirable object is indispensable; but I affirm that, in his communication to Congress vetoing the bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank, President Jackson did say that, if he were applied to, he could furnish a plan for a United States Bank which would be adequate to all the purposes of such an institution, and should yet be constitutional. Therefore the thing is practicable, provided we of this generation can accomplish that which Presi dent Jackson said he could accomplish.

Now, Gentlemen, I have only stated what I receive as general principles, which the experience of the world has established, on the subject of currency and a paper currency. But all we can say is, that it seems the existing administration will do nothing of all this which I have stated as necessary to be done. They have done nothing to nationalize the currency in any degree; and so long as the government holds to that determina