ing; and in 1832, four years before its charter was to expire, both Houses of Congress passed a bill for its continuance; there being in its favor a large majority of the Senate, and a larger majority of the House of Representatives. The bill, however, was negatived by the President. In 1833, by an order of the President, the public moneys were removed from the custody of the bank, and were deposited with certain selected State banks. This removal was accompanied with the most confident declarations and assurances, put forth in every form, by the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, that these State banks would not only prove safe depositories of the public money, but that they would also furnish the country with as good a currency as it ever had enjoyed, and probably a better; and would also accomplish all that could be wished, in regard to domestic exchanges. The substitution of State banks for a national institution, for the discharge of these duties, was that operation, which has become known, and is likely to be long remembered, as the " Experiment."

For some years, all was said to go on extremely well, although it seemed plain enough to a great part of the community that the system was radically vicious; that its operations were all inconvenient, clumsy, and wholly inadequate to the proposed ends; and that, sooner or later, there must be an explosion. The administration, however, adhered to its experiment. The more it was complained of, the louder it was praised. Its commendation was one of the standing topics of all official communications; and in his last message, in December, 1836, the late President was more than usually emphatic upon the great success of his attempts to improve the currency, and the happy results of the experiment upon the important business of exchange. But a reverse was at hand. The ripening glories of the experiment were soon to meet a dreadful blighting. In the early part of May last, these banks all stopped payment. This event, of course, produced great distress in the country, and it produced also singular embarrassment to the administration.

The present administration was then only two months old; but it had already become formally pledged to maintain the policy of that which had gone before it. The President had avowed his purpose of treading in the footsteps of his predecessor. Here, then, was difficulty. Here was a political knot, to be either untied or cut. The experiment had failed, and failed, as it was thought, so utterly and hopelessly, that it could not be tried again.

What, then, was to be done? Committed against a Bank of the United States in the strongest manner, and the substitute, from which so much was expected, having disappointed all hopes, what was the administration to do? Two distinct classes of duties had been performed, in times past, by the Bank of the United States;

one more immediately to the Government, the other to the community. The first was the safe-keeping and the transfer, when required, of the public moneys; the other, the supplying of a sound and convenient paper currency, of equal credit all over the country, and every where equivalent to specie, and the giving of most important facilities to the operations of exchange. These objects were highly important, and their most perfect accomplishment by the experiment had been promised, from the first. The State banks, it was declared, could perform all these duties, and should perform them. But the "experiment" came to a dishonored end in the early part of May. The deposit banks, with the others, stopped payment. They could not render back the deposits; and so far from being able to furnish a general currency, or to assist exchanges, (purposes, indeed, which they never had fulfilled, with any success,) their paper became immediately depreciated, even in its local circulation. What course, then, was the administration now to adopt? Why, sir, it is plain, that it had but one alternative. It must either return to the former practice of the Government, take the currency into its own hands, and maintain it, as well as provide for the safe-keeping of the public money by some institution of its own; or else, adopting some new mode of merely keeping the public money, it must abandon all further care over currency and exchange. One of these courses became inevitable. The administration had no other choice. The State banks could be tried no more, with the opinion which the administration now entertained of them; and how else could any thing be done to maintain the currency? In no way, but by the establishment of a national institution.

There was no escape from this dilemma. One course was, to go back to that which the party had so much condemned; the other, to give up the whole duty, and leave the currency to its fate. Between these two, the administration found itself absolutely obliged to decide; and it has decided, and decided boldly. It was decided to surrender the duty, and abandon the constitution. That decision is before us, in the Message, and in the measures now under consideration. The choice has been made; and that choice, in my opinion, raises a question of the utmost importance to the people of this country, both for the present and all future time. That question is, WHETHER CONGRESS HAS, OR Ought to have,

ANY DUTY TO PERFORM IN RELATION TO THE CURRENCY OF THE

COUNTRY, BEYOND THE MERE REGULATION OF THE GOLD AND

SILVER COIN.

Mr. President, the honorable member from South Carolina remarked, the other day, with great frankness and good-humor, that in the political classifications of the times, he desired to be considered as nothing but an honest nullifier. That, he said, was his

character. I believe, sir, the country will readily concede that character to the honorable gentleman. For one, certainly, I am willing to say, that I believe him a very honest and a very sincere nullifier, using the term in the same sense in which he used it himself, and in which he meant to apply it to himself. And I am very much afraid, sir, that (whatever he may think of it himself) it has been under the influence of those sentiments, which belong to his character as a nullifier, that he has so readily and so zealously embraced the doctrines of the President's Message. In my opinion, the Message, the bill before us, and the honorable member's amendment, form, together, a system, a code of practical politics, the direct tendency of which is to nullify and expunge, or, perhaps, more correctly speaking, by a united and mixed process of nullification and expunging, to abolish, a highly-important and useful power of the Government. It strikes down the principle upon which the Government has been administered, in regard to the subject of the currency, through its whole history; and it seeks to obliterate, or to draw black lines around, that part of the Constitution on which this principle of administration has rested. The system proposed, in my opinion, is not only anti-commercial, but anti-constitutional also, and anti-union, in a high degree.

You will say, sir, that this is a strong way of stating an opinion. It is so. I mean to state the opinion in the strongest manner. I do not wish, indeed, at every turn, to say, of measures which 1 oppose, that they either violate or surrender the Constitution. But when, in all soberness and candor, I do so think, in all soberness and candor I must so speak; and whether the opinion which I have now expressed be true, let the sequel decide.

Now, sir, Congress has been called together in a moment of great difficulty. The characteristic of the crisis is commercial distress. We are not suffering from war, or pestilence, or famine; and it is alleged, by the President and Secretary, that there is no want of revenue. Our means, it is averred, are abundant. And yet the Government is in distress, and the country is in distress; and Congress is assembled, by a call of the President, to provide relief. The immediate and direct cause of all is, derangement of the currency and the exchanges; commercial credit is gone, and property no longer answers the common ends and purposes of property. Government cannot use its own means, and individuals are alike unable to command their own resources. The operations, both of Government and people, are obstructed; and they are obstructed, because the money of the country, the great instrument of commerce and exchange, has become disordered and useless. The Government has funds; that is to say, it has credits in the banks, but it cannot turn these credits into cash; and individual citizens are as bad off as Government. The Government is a great creditor

and a great debtor. It collects and it disburses large sums. In the loss, therefore, of a proper medium of payment and receipt, Government is a sufferer. But the people are sufferers from the same causes; and inasmuch as the whole amount of payments and receipts by the people, in their individual transactions, is many times greater than the amount of payments and receipts by Government, the aggregate of evil suffered by the people is also many times greater than that suffered by Government. Individuals have means as ample, in proportion to their wants, as Government; but they share with Government the common calamity arising from the overthrow of the currency. The honorable member from Mississippi [Mr. WALKER] has stated, or has quoted the statement from others, that while the payments and receipts of Government are twenty millions a year, the payments and receipts of individuals are two or three hundred millions. He has, I think, underrated the amount of individual payments and receipts. But even if he has not, the statement shows how little a part of the whole evil falls on Government. The great mass of suffering is on the people.

Now, sir, when we look at the Message, the bill, and the proposed amendment, their single, exclusive, and undivided object is found to be, relief to the Government. Not one single provision is adopted or recommended, with direct reference to the relief of the people. They all speak of revenue, of finance, of duties and customs, of taxes and collections; and the evils which the people suffer, by the derangement of the currency and the exchanges, and the breaking up of commercial credit, instead of being put forth as prominent and leading objects of regard, are dismissed with a slight intimation, here and there, that in providing for the superior and paramount interests of Government, some incidental or collateral benefits may, perhaps, accrue to the community. But is Government, I ask, to care for nothing but itself? Is self-preservation the great end of Government? Has it no trust powers? Does it owe no duties, but to itself? If it keeps itself in being, does it fulfil all the objects of its creation? I think not. I think Government exists, not for its own ends, but for the public utility. It is an agency, established to promote the common good, by common counsels; its chief duties are to the people; and it seems to me strange and preposterous, in a moment of great and general distress, that Government should confine all its deliberations to the single object of its own revenues, its own convenience, its own undisturbed administration.

I cannot say, sir, that I was surprised to see this general character impressed on the face of the Message. I confess it appeared to me, when the banks stopped, payment, that the administration had come to a pass in which it was unavoidable that it should take some such course. But that necessity was imposed, not by the nature of

the crisis, but by its own commitment to the line of politics which its predecessor had adopted, and which it had pledged itself to pursue.

It withdraws its care from the currency, because it has left itself no means of performing its own duties, connected with that subject. It has, voluntarily and on calculation, discarded and renounced the policy which has been approved for half a century, because it could not return to that policy without admitting its own inconsistency, and violating its party pledges. This is the truth of the whole

matter.

Now, sir, my present purpose chiefly is, to maintain two propositions

I. That it is the constitutional duty of this Government to see that a proper currency, suitable to the circumstances of the times, and to the wants of trade and business, as well as to the payment of debts due to Government, be maintained and preserved; a currency of general credit, and capable of aiding the operations of exchange, so far as those operations may be conducted by means of the circulating medium; and that there are duties, therefore, devolving on Congress, in relation to currency, beyond the mere regulation of the gold and silver coins.

II. That the Message, the bill, and the proposed amendment, all, in effect, deny any such duty, disclaim all such power, and confine the constitutional obligation of Government to the mere regulation of the coins, and the care of its own revenues.

I have well weighed, Mr. President, and fully considered, the first of these propositions; to wit, that which respects the duty of this Government, in regard to the currency. I mean to stand by it. It expresses, in my judgment, a principle fully sustained by the Constitution, and by the usage of the Government, and which is of the highest practical importance. With this proposition, or this principle, I am willing to stand connected, and to share in the judgment which the community shall ultimately pronounce upon it. If the country shall sustain it, and be ready, in due time, to carry it into effect, by such means and instruments as the general opinion shall think best to adopt, I shall coöperate, cheerfully, in any such undertaking; and shall look again, with confidence, to prosperity in this branch of our national concerns. On the other hand, if the country shall reject this proposition, and act on that rejection; if it shall decide that Congress has no power, nor is under any duty, in relation to the currency, beyond the mere regulation of the coins; then, upon that construction of the powers and duties of Congress, I am willing to acknowledge that I do not feel myself competent to render any substantial service to the public councils, on these great interests. I admit, at once, that if the currency is not to be preserved by the Government of the United States, I know not