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The people of the United States have a right to good government. They have a right to an honest and faithful exercise of all the powers of the Constitution, as understood and practised in the best days of the republic for the general good. They have an inalienable right to all the blessings of that Liberty which their fathers achieved, and all the benefits of that Union which their fathers established.

And standing here, this day, with the memory of those fathers fresh on our hearts, and with the fields of their glory and the monuments of their fame full in our view, with Bunker Hill beneath us, and Concord, and Lexington, and Dorchester Heights, and Faneuil Hall all around us, we here, as a part of the people, pledge ourselves to each other, and to our country, to spare no lawful and honorable efforts to vindicate and maintain these rights, and to remove from the high places of the nation men who have thus contemned and violated them.

And we earnestly and solemnly invoke all good men and true patriots throughout the Union, foregoing all consideration of party, and forgetting all distinction of State or section, to rally once more, as our fathers did in 1775, against the common oppressors of our country, and to unite with us in restoring our glorious. Constitution to its true interpretation, its practical administration, and its just supremacy.

In such a cause, principles are every thing; individuals nothing. Yet we cannot forget that we have worthy, honest, capable candidates for the offices from which we hope to remove the present incumbents.

Those who desire a change, throughout the whole country, have agreed, with extraordinary unanimity, to support General William Henry Harrison for the office of President. We believe him to be an honest and faithful citizen, who has served his country successfully, in divers civil trusts; and we believe him a veteran soldier, whose honor and bravery cannot be questioned. We give him our unhesitating confidence; and in that confidence we shall support him, and the distinguished citizen of Virginia who has been nominated for the Vice-Presidency, with all our efforts and all our hearts, through the present contest; convinced that by their election the true spirit of the Constitution will be restored, the prosperity of the people revived, the stability of our free institutions reassured, and the blessings of union and liberty secured to ourselves and our posterity.

SPEECH IN WALL STREET.

5*

SPEECH IN WALL STREET.*

I AM duly sensible, fellow-citizens, both of the honor and of the responsibility of the present occasion. An honor it certainly is to be requested to address a body of merchants such as I behold before me, as intelligent, as enterprising, and as respectable as any in the world. A responsible undertaking it is to address such an assembly, and on a subject which many of you understand scientifically and in its elements at least as well as I do, and with which most of you have more or less of practical acquaintance. The currency of a country is a subject always important, and in some measure complex; but it has become the great leading question of our time. I have not shrunk from the expression of my opinions, since I have been in public life, nor shall I now, especially since on this question another great political question seems likely to turn; namely, the question whether one administration is about to go out of power, and another administration to come into power. Under these circumstances, it becomes me to premise what I have now to say by remarking, in the first place, that I propose to speak for nobody but myself. My general opinions on the subject of the currency have been well known; and as it has now become highly probable that those who have opposed all that has recently been done by the government on that subject will be called on to propose some remedies of their own for the existing state of things, it is the more incumbent on me to notify all who hear me, that what I now say I say for myself alone; for in regard to the sentiments of the distinguished individual whom it is your purpose to support for the Presidency, I have no more authority

* A Speech delivered at the Merchants' Meeting in Wall Street, New York, on the 28th of September, 1840.

to speak than any of yourselves, nor any means of knowing his opinions more than is possessed by you, and by all the country.

I will, in the first place, state a few general propositions, which I believe to be founded on true principles of good, practical political economy, as understood in their application to the condition of a country like ours.

And first, I hold the opinion that a mixed currency, composed partly of gold and silver and partly of good paper, redeemable and steadily redeemed in specie on demand, is the most useful and convenient for such a country as we inhabit, and is sure to continue to be used, to a greater or less extent, in these United States; the idea of an exclusive metallic currency being either the mere fancy of theorists, or, what is probably nearer the truth, being employed as a means of popular delusion.

I believe, in the next place, that the management of a mixed currency, such as I have mentioned, has its difficulties, and requires considerable skill and care; and this position is as true in respect to England, the greatest commercial country of Europe, as it is of the United States. I believe, further, that there is danger of expansion and of contraction, both sudden in their recurrence, in the use of such a currency; yet I believe that where a currency altogether metallic exists, as it does in Cuba, and in countries where metallic coin is most in use, as in France, there are fluctuations in prices, there are disasters and commercial failures, occurring perhaps nearly as often, and being perhaps as bad in their character, as in countries where a well-regulated paper currency exists.

In the next place, I hold that the regulation of the currency, whether metallic or paper,-that a just and safe supervision over that which virtually performs the office of money, and constitutes the medium of exchange, whatever it may be,-necessarily pertains to government; that it is one of the necessary and indispensable prerogatives of government.

Every bank, as banks are now constituted in this country, performs two distinct offices or functions. First, it discounts bills or notes. This is merely the lending of money, and may be performed by corporations, by individuals, or by banks without circulation, acting as banks of discount merely. In this country, our banks are all banks of circulation, issuing

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