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when they learn that trade creates its own agent, (circulation,) and that it is constantly employed in supplying itself with all it requires, without any legislative aid.

Our modern statesmen, of this legislative school, have pushed their inquiries so far that you can scarcely take up a report on finance, in any country, without finding its author bewildered amidst the speculations of this absurd system. You will find in almost all of them some grave discussion about exchanges and the quantity of currency necessary for the circulation of the country: questions, sir, with which Governments have no concern; but which belong exclusively to trade. Government regulates the value, trade the quantity, of currency; and would, if left to itself, perform the office better than all your laws. Why, sir, there is appended even to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury upon the question before us, a statistical table of the quantity of circulation (paper and metallic) in each country, according to its population. Why not, sir-for it would have been equally useful and proper-why not append tables of the countless millions of other circulations: of bills of exchange, notes of hand, orders, transfers, bank drafts, checks, letters of credit, and commercial credits in every form? Why not give us the aggregate of these great substitutes of modern invention for currency and bank-note circulations? Government had any concern at all in the matter, the inquiry is infinitely more important; for, instead of one hundred millions, these circulations, the creations of trade itself, amount in the aggregate to thousands of millions. The financiers of this ancient school, sir, might as well push their inquiries one step further, and require from our merchants statements of the amount of transfers in their legers! There is no inquiry too extravagant for a system founded in absurdity.

tuations not only of its foreign trade, but to the vicissi tudes of internal banking. The former regulating the quantity of the world's standard, the latter of your own, you have, in spite of all your contrivances, two standards, which are perpetually coming in conflict. When we succeed temporarily, as we sometimes do under this system, in banishing our metallic currency, we part with the only salutary regulator which trade has to correct excessive speculation. When we have a specie circularion, over-trading sends it abroad, speculation is soon checked, and it returns with the ebb of trade. The operation of a paper circulation is directly the reverse. Instead of diminishing, paper increases with over-trading; banks and trade mutually stimulate each other to excess; they continue on in a wild career, till an enormous expansion of credits of all kinds raises the value of the whole property of the nation far above the standard of the world; then it is that your paper standard suddenly fails in its legislative office, and property violently falls even below the standard of the world. The interior portions of a country may escape some of the violence of the shock; but where your legislation comes in contact with the world's law-where paper encounters specie there will the shock be felt in all its severity. The experiment making in this country and in England cannot succeed. No legislative contrivance of any one country can conquer the eternal legislation of the globe. And whatever nation may undertake to follow the example of England, and make the experiment, must expect to share her fate; for a bank-note standard, no matter what may be the size of the notes, ceases to act as a measure of value at the point where speculation is suddenly arrested by alarm or panic, and the ancient standard of nations becomes at once the only and triumphant regulator of the value of property. Amidst these convulsive shocks, the capitalist may escape, but the fortunes of trade will be shattered; ruin will spread through the land, and thousands, nay, millions, will be added to the ranks of pauperism. Such is the result of this great experiment to establish an independent standard for the value of property; and such will be the melancholy his-mercial purposes; and yet the United States cannot distory of trade in every country where it is the permanent policy of Government to sacrifice the welfare of millions, by granting annuities to privileged bankers, and by authorizing them to circulate and abuse what is essentially the credit of the State.

And what great public considerations are there for inflicting on our country a currency fraught with such calamities? None, sir, but the imaginary creations of those who would govern nations by legislative contrivance. Falsely alarmed at the rapid diminution of the precious metals, Governments have actually employed agents to travel from nation to nation to ascertain the quantity of specie in each country, and to compare the amount in circulation in different ages of the world. It must have relieved their apprehensions to learn that we have only from three to five thousand millions of current coin, and from seven to ten thousand millions of coin, bullion, and plate! Again, sir, the increased trade of the world requires, it is said, a larger quantity of circulation. And are we to be told, in this age of confidence and improvement, when modern ingenuity has multiplied and extended commercial credits in forms which never existed in earlier ages-when the great mass of the transactions of trade throughout the world, whether between nations or in communities, is carried on without the agency of bank notes or the precious metals-when trade is enabled by its own ingenuity almost to dispense with the aid of currency in all its great operations are we now to be told that the quantity of current coin in the world is not sufficient to supply the wants of commerce? I trust the alarmed advocates of a paper currency will dismiss their apprehensions, VOL. XI.-83

If

But we are told we must submit, sir, because it is impossible for trade to dispense with the use of bank notes. The commercial world moved on without them for some thousands of years, it is true, and even now but a small portion of mankind actually employ them for com

pense with them. But again, we hear of the ruin which would follow if you attempt to withdraw from circulation your Government bank notes! Trade, sir, withdraws, in every year between the seasons of issue and redemption, in every part of this Union, and without the slightest inconvenience to itself, commercial credits-in other words, its notes and other obligations-to an amount infinitely beyond the whole metallic and paper circulation of the country; and yet our banks cannot follow its example, and pay their debts; they cannot withdraw some seventy or eighty millions from an aggregate of commercial credits amounting to thousands of millions, without ruining the country. Sir, if our Legislatures will borrow wisdom from the laws of trade, and our merchants will not permit themselves to be duped, as they were last winter, your Government bank credits may be withdrawn at the same seasons that other commercial credits are cancelled, when the demand for money and credit ceases. And, sir, when the season of activity returns, these circulations, the offspring of trade and not of legislation, will reappear in another and a legitimate form, which will never interfere with the currency of the country. But why, after all, it is asked, should we dispense with a currency so economical, and which saves so much interest upon idle capital annually, which would otherwise be lost to the nation? Sir, of what consequence is it to the nation to secure in perpetuity to our privileged bankers these millions saved? Can any such miserable consideration ever indemnify the country for the countless millions wasted in every revulsion--for the ruin and misery spread over the land?

Mr. Speaker, with great deference to the distinguished but enthusiastic writers in favor of this modern imposture on mankind, I must at least be pardoned for hoping that the day will arrive when the thousands of speeches, essays, reviews, pamphlets, and volumes, which have appeared in favor of this bank-note standard, will be banished from the halls of legislation in every enlightened and free land, to those more appropriate theatres, the humane but melancholy receptacles of broken minds. I hope, sir, the time is not distant when those who are intrusted with the high office of legislation throughout this Union will learn that banking, in all its branches, is exclusively an affair of trade, and that currency is a concern of Government alone; that neither should ever be permitted to interfere with the province of the other, and that each should be rigidly confined to the jurisdiction assigned it by the

constitution.

It is, Mr. Speaker, to this paramount abuse of Government that the attention of the American people should now be directed; and while we vigilantly superintend the conduct of our public officers, whether State or federal, let us also examine our own unconstitutional usurpations, and thoroughly expose a legislative abuse, calculated in the end to destroy the morals and prosperity of all, and to revolutionize the character of our people and the nature of our Government.

Sir, if these abuses be persisted in; if corporations are to be multiplied throughout the land; if the credit of the State is to be abused for banking purposes, and the dignity of Government degraded by partnerships in trade; if a perpetual annuity of millions is to be thus indirectly collected for the benefit of banks established under the authority of Government--then may we anticipate, before many generations shall have passed away, the thorough corruption and revolution of every Government in the Union. Perpetuate these legislative abuses, and the time is not distant when your Representatives will volunteer their services to your thousands of powerful corporations, and when avarice will Whatever concontrol every Legislature in the land.

trols your laws governs your country. You will be ruled by avarice-that "domineering, paramount evil," to which "there is a natural allegiance and fealty due from all the vassal vices, which acknowledge its superiYour ority and readily militate under its banners." Hamiltonian plan of legislation will then exhibit its revolting results: your Government will be founded upon wealth, your people ruled by legislative corruption and despotism.

[FEB. 11, 1835.

but when I reported that bill, proposing a reciprocal maximum duty of thirty per cent. on the foreign value, it was instantly and indignantly rejected on its second reading. But, sir, what did we see in the short term of four years from that date? The very same gentlemen, who were so astonished and indignant in 1829, recording their votes for a measure which swept away the whole system from our laws, without the consolation of securing foreign reciprocity! They voted for a measure reducing the duties to a maximum of twenty per cent. on the home value. On this bank question, too, how many of us have repudiated our opinions-how many are there who, two years ago, were the vigorous advocates of some Bank of the United States; who could not imagine it possible to manage our finances without one, and who would now be the last to advocate the incorporation of any such institution? Have we not reason to hope that, in two years more, some of the warmest advocates of our State bank circulation will be satisfied that it is a legislative abuse, and unite with us in demanding its reform?

Nor, Mr. Speaker, are the advocates of reform to be intimidated by the denunciations of distinguished men, whether in the North or in the South. I regret, sir, that a gentleman for whom I have personally always entertained the highest respect, should have denounced the reformers of this country, who constitute, in fact, the great body of the American people, as agrarians. I regret to learn, from a professed advocate of commercial freedom, that the unbalanced democracy of the Middle and some of the Northern States will pass, by a rapid transition, from anarchy to despotism." That, sir, can never be the fate of the unbalanced democracy, in any portion of this Union, while they enjoy the right of suffrage and universal toleration. But are we to be told in this enlightened age, and that, too, by a distinguished man, that the principles contended for by the democ racy of this country are agrarian-leading to anarchy and despotism? The cause, sir, of commercial freedom, internal and external, is the cause of universal freedom, of civil liberty, of natural rights, of morals, of religion, of every thing that sustains a rational, just, and stable Government. It is on these grounds that commercial freedom has been advocated for a century by the most illustrious philanthropists and statesmen on

both sides of the Atlantic.

Were Franklin and Jefferson agrarians, sir? Was Adam Smith an agrarian?-that great founder of the system of commercial freedom, who was the first to imbody and explain, for practical use, the theories of earlier writers the illustrious advocate of that external freedom of trade which, as described by an ancient writer, enables us "to taste the spices of Arabia without feeling the scorching sun that brings them forth; to shine in silks which our hands have never wrought; to drink of vineyards which we never planted; to use the treasures of those mines in which we never digged; to plough the deep and reap the harvest of every country in the world."

Thus far, sir, the cause of reform has been triumphant. We have in six years accomplished much; but we have now to encounter a more formidable antagonist, sustained, in a measure, by deep-rooted prejudice, and by the abuses of State legislation. While this great work of reforming our currency and our legislative abuses is not to be accomplished in a day, it is not to be postponed from any false alarms, or from any unfounded apprehension of its impracticability. I have witnessed, sir, in my limited term of public service, many revolutions equally im- The author of the Wealth of Nations was one of those portant and less to be anticipated. Who would have great men of the last century who dared "to assume believed in 1829 that, in less than six years, reform the responsibility" and to encounter boldly the rapacious would have prostrated such powerful antagonists as the and vindictive spirit of avarice. In defiance of its hosBank of the United States, our manufacturing corpora- tility, he published to the world, in the very same year tions, and our federal system of internal improvements? which gave birth to our declaration of independence, a What man is there, sir, with the remotest chance of plan of government admirably adapted to the free instisuccess in the presidential contest, who would dare to tutions of our country-the only one that can make us avow himself the advocate of these exploded doctrines? what we then declared ourselves to be-a free, equal, Why, sir, in 1829, I had the honor of presenting to this and independent people. The author of that great work House a measure offering commercial reciprocity to all perfectly understood the character and power of his adnations-a measure far better than the one subsequent-versaries, and anticipated the storm he was about to ly adopted; for it would have reformed, not only our tariff, but the commercial restrictions of other nations;

draw upon himself. "To attempt," he says, "to reduce the army, would be as dangerous as it has now become

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source, and all derive from hence both their encouragement and their reward." Such were the doctrines of Pitt, till revolutionary France declared war against England. Amidst the convulsions of that war he abandoned his principles-undertook to manage and control the concerns of the Bank of England, and, with a rash judg ment, brought upon his country calamities which she will never cease to feel till Parliament terminates the war which Great Britain is waging against the currency and standard of the world.

to attempt to diminish in any respect the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the Government, and, upon many occasions, intimidate the Legislature. The member of Parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary; and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor, sometimes, from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists." Such was the language of this eminent writer of the last century. How admirably has he described the conduct, position, and fate, of our Chief Magistrate, during the assaults of the last winter, occasioned by the downfall of the bank! Our State Government banks are now in the position which was occupied by the manufacturers of Great Britain in 1776, and our own in 1828: they are struggling to perpetuate laws similar to those which, in the language of Adam Smith, "the clamor of British merchants and manufacturers, in 1776, had extorted from the Legislature for the support of their own absurd and oppressive monop-scend from a State to a province, from a province to a olies."

Next in the agrarian ranks stands an illustrious man. Though not perhaps equal to Pitt as a practical statesman, of a superior order of mind; the most profound, original, and eloquent of political philosophers-I mean, sir, that celebrated statesman, Edmund Burke. No writer has denounced the abuses of legislation with greater ability, or more just severity. He disposes of your tariff-mongers with the harsh but well-merited sarcasm, that "a teazing custom-house and a multiplicity of perplexing regulations ever have and ever will ap. pear the masterpiece of finance to men of narrow views." He disclaims this interference of Government with the concerns of men, as unworthy the dignity of statesmen. "The State ought," he says, "to confine itself to what regards the State"-"statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to wisdom, proceed only in this, the superior orb, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously; whatever remains will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they de

parish, and from a parish to a private house, they go on Was William Pitt an agrarian, sir? I believe he has accelerated in their fall.” When Government, he says, never been claimed as such on either side of the Atlau- "will not trust to the activity of avarice in pursuit of its tic; and yet he ranks among the ablest of the disciples own gains; when it secures public robbery by all the of Adam Smith. He commenced his ministry by waging careful jealousy and attention with which it ought to an unsparing war against a legislative fabric, the work protect property from such violence; the commonof centuries. He swept this ancient lumber from the wealth, then, is become totally perverted from its purstatute book, and, in defiance of all the prejudices of his poses: neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will countrymen, and the clamors of the monopolists, he it endure itself." Such were the doctrines of Edmund made his commercial treaty with France. In a celebra- Burke, the most eloquent and able advocate of natural ted speech of his in 1792, on public income and expen-rights, till, startled by the bloody spectres of the French diture, at the very time when Hamilton was fastening for Revolution, the powers of his great mind gave way; ever, as he supposed, this ancient mercantile system upon he abandoned the cause of mankind, and, trembling his country-at that very moment was Pitt disclaiming with fear, clung still closer to the throne, as to a rock it altogether, and eulogizing the illustrious author of the of safety. Wealth of Nations. He congratulated England on her Such, sir, were some of the illustrious men of the last unparalleled prosperity, on her vast accumulation of cap-century, who laid the foundation of a great modern reital, which was acting with a velocity continually acform in Government. The spirit of our age cannot be celerated," and which nothing could stop but "some mistaken-reform or revolution must ultimately be the public calamity, or some mistaken and mischievous fate of every enlightened country. There is a tide in policy." He disdained to ascribe any portion of the the affairs of nations as well as of men, a slow but steady national prosperity to legislative contrivance or interfecurrent setting against ancient, vast, and accumulated He attributed it to "the first and most obvious encroachments of wealth and power. War, calamity, cause, the natural industry and energy of the country". or disunion, may occasionally interrupt it for a time; but to improvement, invention, commercial credit and enterit is destined to flow on for ages, till reform shall have prise; to peace, internal tranquillity; and last, but not corrected the abuses and corruptions of enlightened least, to that "union of liberty with law, which, by Governments, secured to men their natural rights, and raising a barrier equally firm against the encroachments to nations internal and external tranquillity. In this of power and the violence of popular commotion, country we are contending against legislative abuses, affords to property its just security, produces the exerprivileges, and monopolies, of comparatively recent tion of genius and labor, the extent and solidity of credit, origin. In England reform has a more formidable anthe circulation and increase of capital, which forms and tagonist to encounter-the venerable fabric of ages, upholds the national character, and sets in motion all the founded upon a mighty ruin of violated rights. The springs which actuate the great mass of the community struggle will be severe, the contest long, the civil revo through all its various descriptions. The laborious in-lution may go on in peace, as I trust it will; but let stern dustry of those useful and extensive classes, (who would, he trusted, be in a peculiar degree the object of the consideration of the House,) the peasantry and yeomanry of the country; the skill and ingenuity of the artificer; the experiments and improvements of the wealthy proprietor of land; the bold speculations and successful adventures of the opulent merchant and enterprising manufacturer; these are all to be traced to the same

rence.

and unrelenting power beware of the consequences of too stubborn an adherence to its usurpations; let it not attempt violently to resist the modern spirit of freedom and reform, lest, in a great and tumultuous conflict, as in France, "ancient rights and prescriptive authority" should be swept away in a torrent of blood.

France, too, with her 3,600,000 national guard, and her 32,000,000 of population, cannot long submit to be

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governed by 160,000 privileged voters. Spain and Portugal are agitated, Germany is in a feverish condition, and unhappy Poland always ripe for revolution. It may be ages before the light of freedom will dawn upon the boor, the Cossac, the Calmuc, or the Tartar--it may never shine upon the benighted followers of oriental prophets--the anticipations of the philanthropist and the statesman may never be realized; but, sir, while the civilized world enjoys the liberty of the press, the right of suffrage, and universal toleration, the hope never will be relinquished, that the time will come when the enlightened nations of Europe and America will enjoy universal harmony, justice, and freedom. While reform moves on, guided by the intelligence of an age illustrious for discovery and improvement, spreading rapidly through the medium of the press from nation to nation, the hope never will be abandoned that, in some future age, the productions of the world will contribute freely to supply the wants of the world; that confederate nations will establish a code of public law founded on the principles of universal justice, and that the civilized world will enjoy, in peaceful and unrestricted intercourse, the countless and immeasurable blessings of free, equal, and just Governments.

When Mr. CAMBRELENG sat down,

Mr. CLAYTON, of Georgia, rose and said: Mr. Speaker, I have two objects in wishing to address the House upon the question under debate; the first is to justify myself against a calumny, and the other is to defend my vote against inconsistency. I am accused abroad, and, what is worse, at home too, of being bank-bought. This is the charge against every man who dares to exercise the least liberality of sentiment or independence of opinion; and, to use a familiar phrase, if he does not walk the chalks exactly as they are drawn, he is every thing but an honest man. He is accused of bribery, speculation, assassination, corruption, fraud, lying, deceit, and indeed every species of meanness.

[FEB. 11, 1835.

Extract from the President's letter to one of his Secretaries. "The deposites must be removed before Congress meets, or the bank will BRIBE enough of the MEMBERS to prevent it."

Extract from the Government press.

"Senators Clay and Webster are the feed lawyers of the bank, and hence their great exertions in its behalf." From the same.

"Senator Calhoun instigated the ASSASSINATION of the President." From the same.

"Senator Tipton has valuable lands on the Wabash, and hence he is trying to get an appropriation to improve the navigation of the latter, with a view to improve the value of the former."

Extract from a letter of a Washington correspondent. "Senator Webster gets a fee of $5,000 to aid in passing a bill to pay off the French claims."

From the same.

"Governor Tazewell, of Virginia, pure and immaculate as he is considered, has received $50,000 from the

United States Bank."

From the same.

against the bank, has received an accommodation from
Representative A. S. Clayton, who was so violent
of his mouth."
that institution, and it has glued his tongue to the roof

Was there ever such a set of cut-throats! cries one. What a Botany Bay set of scoundrels! says another. Nothing better, says a third, could be expected from the descendants of convicts! Oh! the impudent braggarts! Now, Mr. Speaker, what is the commentary upon all this? Suppose Mrs. Trollope, or Basil Hall, or the Duke of Saxe Weimar, or some of that tribe of lying journalists who are hired to steal reputation just because they have no reputation of their own, had gone home and Mr. Speaker, if the world believed every thing that is said these things of an American Congress; what do you said of public characters in America, they must consider imagine the good people of the United States would Congress as a den of petty rogues, and the nation as a have thought about it? Would it not have produced a province of polished pickpockets. Let me, for the deep sensation throughout the whole land? Would not amusement of the House, present them with a true pic- every American of high and honorable feelings have conture of their character, as portrayed by the public jour-sidered himself grossly scandalized in this malevolent atnals of the country, those faithful registers of all sorts of information, those truthful reflectors of public morals, and not less charitable memorials of private character. And to this end I would ask you to go with me, in your imagination, to Europe, to a large reading-room, for instance, in London. Suppose a large collection of people assembled in that place, and, as is not unfrequently the case, one more bold than the rest calls the attention of the crowd to some interesting extracts from a North American paper, just from the seat of Government of that great Republic, that land of liberty, of equal laws, of pure institutions, and whose glorious traits every 4th of July celebration "rings through the world with loud applause.' He reads:

وو

Extract from a fourth of July oration. "Here, in this land of liberty, the oppressed of all nations, fleeing from the tyranny of the old world, may find an asylum in the purity of our Government, the sanctity of its principles, the patriotism of its statesmen, and a certain protection in the equality of its laws."

A toast on that occasion.

"The American States-confederated upon principles of liberty, justice, and equality, present a sacred refuge to all who shall fly from the force, the follies, and the frauds, of priest-ridden Europe."

The assembly all cry out, "glorious people! Magnanimous nation! Happy Government!" But stop, says the reader, let us see what this is on the other side. He reads:

tack upon his country's character? Nations have characters as well as individuals, and it is the sum of individual character that forms a nation's. It is utterly impossible for a community of thieves to make an honest nation; therefore every man's character is identified with the character of his country. When, sir, did any trav eller ever, in the worst condition of his bile, say such things of us as our own commonly called well-regulated press? They speak of our manners, customs, and intelligence, in terms of derision, and this excites our indignation in a very high degree; but they say but little about our morals, and nothing against our honesty; and yet, Mr. Speaker, our own press would make the world believe, (and that very world, too, who are looking upon us with a jealous, not to say envious eye, on account of our free principles,) that the great fountainhead of our legislation, which forms the heart and motive power of these great liberal principles, is as corrupt as the most varied infamy can make it. Can any thing more delight foreign nations, differing as they do from us in their forms of government, and trembling under the dread of the influence of enlightened freedom upon their coercive institutions, than to hear that we are likely to sink under the moral distemperature of our system' If they believe our own testimony, they have a right to form that conclusion; and, false as we know it to be, yet we sit here, indifferent as to the consequences of such pestilential slander, tamely acquiescing in every malicious calumny that emanates from the press, or from