tion, there never will be in this country a currency of uniform value. This brings me to this inquiry: Is the administration settled on the ground it has repeatedly avowed, and has for three years adhered to in practice, never to give us this uniform currency? That is the question. The administration will not go back to the policy sanctioned by forty years of prosperity. It will not trust the State banks. It will do nothing; and it will do nothing on principle; for Mr. Van Buren holds that the Constitution gives Congress no power to do any thing in the matter. I said at the time this assertion was uttered, and I still say, that I am hardly able to express the astonishment I feel at what would seem the presumptuousness of such a position; because, from the very cradle of the government, from the very commencement of its existence, those men who made the Constitution, who recommended it to the people, who procured its adoption, and who then undertook its administration, all approved that policy which is thus pronounced unconstitutional. It was followed for forty years by every Congress, and by every President, and its constitutionality was affirmed and sanctioned by the highest judicial tribunals. And yet here a gentleman stands up, at half a century's distance, and, disregarding all this legislative, executive, and judicial authority, says, "I am wiser than all of them, and I aver there is no such power in the Constitution."

The President says, "The people have decided this." But where did they so decide, and when? Why, he says that General Jackson declared the bank to be unconstitutional, and then the people reëlected him; but I have told you what General Jackson did declare. He said that a national bank might be established which would not be unconstitutional, although he held the particular bank then in existence to be against the Constitution. Now, if the people reëlected him after this declaration, why is it not just as fair to infer that they did so because he uttered this opinion, because he said that there might be a national bank, and the Constitution still be preserved inviolate? No, Gentlemen; the truth is, that General Jackson was reëlected, not because he vetoed the Bank of the United States, but notwithstanding he vetoed it. It was the general popularity of General Jackson, and that paramount ascendency by which he ruled the party that placed him in power, and made it bend

and bow to his own pleasure, that carried him again into office. To say that the constitutional power of creating a national bank and regulating the national currency was repudiated by the people, is a glaring instance of false reasoning and false philosophy. Nay, the President goes farther, and says he was himself against the bank, and the people elected him too for that reaI do not say what actuated the people in his election; but this I will say, that if any man ever came into office by virtue and under power of will and testament, it is that same gentleman. I insist that no evidence can be produced that the American people have ever repudiated the doctrines of Washington, and condemned and rejected the decisions of their own highest Judicial tribunals.

We must decide on these questions as men having a deep personal interest in them. Do you go to authority? Do you appeal to Madison? You may quote Mr. Madison's opinion from morning till noon, and from noon to night, on the longest day in summer, and you cannot get from the friends of the administration one particle of answer. I have again and again read, in my place in the Senate, Mr. Madison's doctrine, that it is the duty of government to establish a national currency. I have shown that Mr. Madison urges this with the utmost earnestness and solemnity. They say nothing against it, save that Mr. Van Buren, having expressed a different opinion, got in at the last election.

When the national bank was destroyed, or rather when its charter expired, and was not renewed, in consequence of the executive veto, what followed? I say that the government then put the entire business of this country, its commercial, its manufacturing, its shipping interest, its fisheries,-in a word, all that the people possessed, on the tenterhooks of experiment; it put to the stretch every interest of the nation; it held them up, and tried curious devices upon them, just as if the institutions of our country were things not to be cherished and fostered with the most solicitous anxiety and care, but matters for political philosophers to try experiments upon. I need not remind you that General Jackson said he could give the country a better currency; that he took the national treasure from where it had been deposited by Congress, to place it in the State banks; and that Congress, by subsequent legislation, legalized the transfer,

under the assurance that it would work well for the country. Yet I may be permitted to remind you that there were some of us who from the first declared that these State banks never could perform the duties of a national institution; that the functions of such an institution were beyond their scope, without the range of their powers; that they were, after all, but small arms, and not artillery, and could not reach an object so distant. The State bank system exploded; but the administration did not expect it to explode. At that day, they no more looked to the sub-treasury scheme than they looked for an eclipse, and they did not expect an eclipse half as much as they do just now. When the United States Bank was overthrown, they turned, as the next expedient, to the State institutions; and they had full confidence in them, for confidence is a quality in which experimenters are seldom found wanting; but the expedient failed, the banks exploded. And what then?

Why, in the speech delivered in this place, by one of the ablest advocates of the measures of the administration, Mr. Wright said, What could you expect? What could Mr. Van Buren do? He could not adopt a national bank, because he had declared himself opposed to it. He could not rely on the State banks, for they had crumbled to pieces. What, then, could he do, but recommend the sub-treasury? What does this show, but that the government, as I have said, had departed from the principles of the approved policy of forty years of national prosperity, and had put itself in such a situation that it could not aid the country in any way? Mr. Van Buren would not retract his opinion against the bank, although he could retract his opinion against the State bank deposit system fast enough; but he would not retract the position he had taken against the national bank. The State banks had failed him; and he was driven, as his only refuge, to the suggestion of withdrawing all care over the national currency from the national government, and confining the solicitude of government to itself alone. But how far did he carry this doctrine? Look at the draft of the sub-treasury bill. Does it contain a specie clause? No such thing! It is a mere regulator of the revenue on the principles of the resolution of 1816. But what happened next? This bill was like to fail in the Senate for want of votes. There was a certain division in that body, at the head of which stood

Mr. Calhoun, whose aid was indispensable to carry the measure, but who would not vote for it unless the hard-money clause should be inserted. It was inserted accordingly; and then the friends of the administration, for the first time, shouted in all quarters, "Hard money!" "Hard money!" "Hard money!"

By this cruel necessity, the government was driven to a measure which it had no more expected than you expect to see your houses on fire to-night. But such are the expedients, the miserable expedients, of a baffled and despairing administration, on which they have thrown themselves as a last resort, always hoping, and always deceived, and plunging deeper and deeper at every new effort.

I have said, and it may be proper enough, and involve no great self-complacency to say it, that there were some of us who never ceased to warn the government and the nation, that the deposit system must explode, as it has exploded. But what was our reward? What was the boon conferred upon us for thus apprising the administration of its danger? We were denounced as enemies to State banks, as opposed to State institutions, as anti-State-rights men, whom nothing would satisfy but the spectacle of a great national institution, riding over and treading down the institutions of the States.

But what happened? The whole State bank experiment, as I have said, utterly failed; and what did gentlemen of the administration do then? They instantly turned about, and, with the utmost bitterness of remark, reviled the banks which their experiment had crushed. They were vile, corrupt, faithless, treacherous institutions, leagued from the very beginning with the opposition, and not much better than British Whigs! And when we, who had opposed the placing of the national treasure in these banks, declared that they had failed only because they were applied to a purpose for which they never were calculated, and had perished in consequence of a rash and unwise experiment, we were instantly told, "You are bank aristocrats; you are leagued with a thousand corrupt banks, and are seeking, by the power of British gold, to destroy the purest administration that ever breathed the air of heaven!" Thus, when we said that State banks, though good for some purposes, were not good as a substitute for a national bank, we were denounced as the enemies of banks; but when we wished to shield

these same banks from misapplied censure, and protect them from being totally destroyed by acts of bankruptcy, then we were reviled as "bank aristocrats."

I ask you, Gentlemen, as merchants, what confidence can you place in such an administration? Do you see any thing that they are disposed to do to restore the times you once enjoyed? (Loud cries of "No!" "No!") I perceive that your opinion corresponds with my own, and that you cannot lend your support to men who turn their backs on the experience, the interests, and the institutions of their country, and who openly declare that they will not exercise the powers which have been conferred on them for the public good.

Now, Gentlemen, I will observe to you further, that it appears to me that this administration has treated the States, in reference to their own affairs, just as it has treated the State banks. It has first involved them in the evils of extravagance (if any extravagance exists), and has then abused them for the very thing to which its own course has strongly invited them. Commencing with the messages of Mr. Van Buren himself, and then looking at the reports of his Secretaries, and the resolutions and speeches of Mr. Benton and Mr. Grundy in the Senate, and at the outcry of the whole administration press, there appears to be a systematic attempt to depress the character and credit of the States. It is everywhere said, that "the States have been rash and extravagant"; "the States will yet have to repent of their railroads and canals, and projects of internal improvements." This is the burden of the President's message, of the reports of his Secretaries, and of the resolutions of his friends. Now, I seriously ask, Is not the tendency of such a course of measures virtually to affect the credit of the States that have outstanding bonds and obligations in the market?

Let us look into this matter a little. Let us see under what circumstances it was that the States were induced to contract these large debts which now embarrass them. And here let me call your attention to a few facts, dates, and figures. And first, Gentlemen, in your presence, I charge upon the administration of the general government those great expansions and those sudden contractions of paper money, which have so deranged our affairs. I propose to prove the charge; and with that view now proceed to lay before you facts, and dates, and