not being in custody under any law, and being in hands over which we have no control, is threatened with danger. Now, Sir, is it not manifest that these evils flow directly from measures of Government which some of us have zealously resisted? May not each be traced to its distinct source? There would have been no surplus in the Treasury, but for the veto of the land bill, so called, of 1833. This is certain. And as to the security of the public money, it would have been, at this moment, entirely safe, but for the veto of the act continuing the Bank charter. Both these measures had received the sanction of Congress, by clear and large majorities. They were both negatived: the reign of experiments, schemes, and projects commenced, and here we are. Every thing that is now amiss in our financial concerns is the direct consequence of extraordinary exertions of Executive authority. This assertion does not rest on general reasoning. Facts prove it. One veto has deprived the Government of a safe custody for the public moneys, and another veto has caused their present augmentation.

What, Sir, are the evils which are distracting our financial operations? They are obviously two. The public money was not safe; it was protected by no law. The treasury was overflowing. There was more money than we needed. The currency was unsound. Credit had been diminished, and confidence destroyed. And what did these two evils, the insecurity of the public money and its abundance, result from? They referred directly back to the two celebrated experiments; the veto of the bank bill, followed by the removal of the deposits, and the rejection of the land bill. No man doubted that the public money would have remained safe 'in the Bank of the United States, if the Executive veto of 1832 had not disturbed it.

It was that veto, also, which, by discontinuing the National Bank, removed the great and salutary check to the immoderate issue of paper money, and encouraged the creation of so many State banks. This was another of the products of that veto. This is as plain as that. The rejection of the land bill of 1833, by depriving the country of a proper, necessary, and equal distribution of the surplus fund, had produced this redundancy in the Treasury. If the wisdom of Congress had been trusted, the country would not have been plunged into its present difficulties. They devised the only means by which the peace and prosperity of the People could have been secured. They passed the bank charter: it was negatived. They passed the land bill, and it met the same fate. This extraordinary exercise of power, in these two instances, has produced an exactly corresponding mischief in each case, upon the subjects to which it was applied. Its application to the bill providing for the re-charter of the Bank of the United States has been followed by the present insecurity of the public treasure, and a superabundance

of money not wanted has been the consequence of its application to the land bill.

The country is the victim of schemes, projects, and reckless experiments. We are wiser, or we think ourselves so, than those who have gone before us. Experience cannot teach us.

We cannot

let well enough alone. The experience of forty years was insufficient to settle the question whether a national bank was useful or not; and forty years' practice of the Government could not decide whether it was constitutional or not. And it is worthy of all consideration, that undue power has been claimed by the Executive. One thing is certain, and that is, there has been a constant and corresponding endeavor to diminish the constitutional power of Congress. The bank charter was negatived, because Congress had no power under the Constitution to grant it; and yet, though Congress had no authority to create a national bank, the Executive at once exercised the power to select and appoint as many banks as he pleased, and to place the public moneys in their hands on just such terms and conditions as he pleased.

There is not a more palpable evidence of the constant bias of this Government to a wrong tendency, than this continued attempt to make legislative power yield to that of the Executive. The restriction of the just authority of Congress is followed in every case by the increase of the power of the Executive. What was it that caused the destruction of the United States Bank, and put the whole moneyed power of the country into the hands of one man? Constitutional doubts of the power of Congress! What has produced this superabundance of money in the treasury? Constitutional doubts of the power of Congress! In the whole history of this Administration, doctrines had obtained, whose direct tendency was to detract from the settled and long-practised power of Congress, and to give, in full measure, hand over hand, every thing into the control of the Executive. Did gentlemen wish him to exemplify the truth of this? Let them look at the bank bill, the land bill, and the various bills which have been negatived respecting internal improvements.

Gentlemen now speak of returning to a specie basis. Did any man suppose it practicable? The resolution, now under consideration, contemplated that, after the current year, all payments for the public lands were to be made in specie. Now, if he (Mr. W.) had brought forward a proposition like this, he would at once have been accused of being opposed to the settlement of the new States. It would have been urged that speculators and capitalists could easily carry gold and silver to the West, by sea or land, while the cultivator, who wished to purchase a small farm, would be compelled to give the former his own price for the land, because he could visit large cities, or other places where it was to be found, and procure

the specie. These arguments would have met him, he was sure, had he introduced a measure like this. If specie payments were to be made for public dues, he should suppose it best to begin with the customs, which were payable in large cities, where gold and silver could be more easily procured than on the frontiers. But whether from speculators, or settlers, what was the use of these specie payments? The money was dragged over the mountains to be dragged back again: that was all. The purchaser of public lands would buy gold by bills on the Eastern cities: it would go across the country in panniers or wagons: the Land Office would send it back again by the return carriage, and thus create the useless expense of transportation.

He had from the very first looked upon all these schemes as totally idle and illusory; not in accordance with the practice of other nations, or suited to our own policy, or our own active condition. But the effect of this resolution- what would it be?

Let

them try it. Let them go on. Let them add to the catalogue of projects. Let them cause every man in the West, who has a five dollar bank note in his pocket, to set off, post haste, to the bank, lest somebody else should get there before, and get out all the money, and then buy land. How long would the Western banks stand this? Yet, if gentlemen please, let them go on. I shall dissent; I shall protest; I shall speak my opinions; but I shall still say, Go on, gentlemen, and let us see the upshot of your experimental policy.

The currency of the country was, to a great degree, in the power of all the banking companies in the great cities. He was as much opposed to the increase of these institutions; but the evil had begun, and could not be resisted. What one State does, another will do also. Danger and misfortunes appear to be threatening the currency of the country; and although the Constitution gives the control over it to Congress, yet Congress is allowed to do nothing. Congress, and not the States, had the coining power; yet the States issue paper as a substitute for coin, and Congress is not supposed to be able to regulate, control, or redeem it. We have the sole power over the currency; but we possess no means of exercising that power. Congress can create no bank, regulated by law, but the Executive can appoint twenty or fifty banks, without any law whatever. A very peculiar state of things exists in this country at this moment-a country in the highest state of prosperity; more bountifully blest by Providence in all things than any other nation on earth, and yet in the midst of great pecuniary distress, its finances deranged, and an increasing want of confidence felt in its circulation. But the experiment was to cure all this. A few select and favorite banks were to give us a secure currency, one better and more practically beneficial than that of the United States Bank. And

here is the result, or, rather, to use the expression of Monsieur Talleyrand, here is "the beginning of the end."

We were told that these banks would do as well, if not a great deal better, for all the purposes of exchange, than the United States Bank; that they could negotiate as cheaply and with as much safety; and yet the rate is now one and a half, if not two per cent. between Cincinnati and New York. Indeed, exchanges are all deranged, and in confusion. Sometimes they are at high rates, both ways, between two points. Looking, then, to the state of the currency, the insecurity of the public money, and the rates of exchange, let me ask any honest and intelligent man, of whatever party, what has been the result of these experiments? Does any gentleman still doubt? Let him look to the disclosures made by the circular of one of the deposit banks of Ohio, which was read by an honorable Senator here a day or two since. That bank would not receive the notes of the specie-paying banks of that State from the Land Office, as I understand the circular, or, at any rate, it tells the Land Office that it will not. Here are thirty or forty specie-paying banks in Ohio, all of good credit, and out of the whole number three were to be selected, entitled to no more confidence than the others, whose notes were to be taken for public lands. If gentlemen from the West and South-west are satisfied with this arrangement, I certainly commend greatly their quiescent tempera

ment.

As he said in the commencement of his remarks, he knew of nothing he could do in regard to the resolution, except to sit still and see how far gentlemen would go, and what this state of things would end in. Here was this vast surplus revenue under no control whatever, and, from appearances, though the session was nearly over, likely to remain so. Two measures of the highest importance had been proposed one to diminish this fund; another to secure its safety. He wished to understand, and the country to know, whether any thing was to be done with either of these propositions. For his own part, he believed that a national bank was the only security for the national treasure; but, as there was no such institution, a more extended use should be made of this treasure, and in its distribution no preference should be given, as was the fact in the instance of the banks of Ohio, to which he had just alluded. In some way or other this fund must be distributed. It is absolutely necessary. The provisions of the land bill seemed to him eminently calculated to effect this object; but if that measure should not be adopted, he would give his vote to any proper and equitable measure which might be brought forward, let it come from what quarter it might. In all probability, there would be a diminution in the amount of land sales for some time to come. The purchases of the last year, he supposed, had exceeded the demands of emigra

tion. They were made by speculators for the purpose of holding up lands for increased prices. The spirit of speculation, indeed, seemed to be very much directed to the acquisition of the public lands. He could not say what would be the further progress, or where the end, of these things; but he thought one thing quite clear, and that was, that the existing surplus ought to be distributed.

He repeated, that he intended no detailed opposition to the measure now before the Senate; and had he been in his seat, he should not have opposed the amendment to the pension bill. Let the experiments, one and all, have their course. He should do nothing except to vote against all these visionary projects, until the country should become convinced that a sound currency, and with it a general security for property, and the earnings of honest labor, were things of too much importance to be sacrificed to mere projects,whether political or financial.

After remarks by Mr. NILES of Connecticut, and Mr. BENTON of Missouri,

Mr. WEBSTER said the gentleman from Missouri had referred to the resolution of 1816; and he would beg leave to make a brief explanation in reference to the part he bore in it. The events of the war had greatly deranged the currency of the country, and a great pecuniary pressure was felt from one end of the continent to the other. The war took place in 1812, and not two months of it had passed before there was a cessation of specie payments by at least two thirds of all the banks of the country. So strong was the pressure, that although the enemy blockaded the Chesapeake, so that not a barrel of pork or flour could be sent to market, yet the prices of these articles rose fifty per cent. This state of things continued; the collectors of the customs every where received the notes of their own local banks for duties payable at their own places, but would not receive the bills of the banks of the other cities. And what was the consequence? Why, at the close of the session of Congress, a member, if he had been fortunate enough to preserve any of his pay, had to give twenty-five per cent. to get the money received here exchanged for money that he could carry home. Another effect of this state of the currency was this — the Constitution provided that, in the regulation of commerce or revenue, no preference should be given to the ports of one State over those of another. Yet Baltimore, for instance, which had the exchange against her, had an advantage, by the payment of her duties in the bills of her banks, and had the advantage of at least twenty-five per cent. over some Northern cities. The resolution then introduced by him was to provide that the revenue should be equally paid in all parts of the United States; and what was the effect of it? The bank bill had just passed, and the resolution was, that all debts due