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think it would be convenient, for all parties, that this Bank should have six years to run. The new bank would hardly get into full operation under a year or two, and time is absolutely necessary to enable this Bank gradually to collect its debts. A hastened collection must distress the people. With an existing debt of fifty-five millions, and pressed and solicited, on all sides, still further to extend its loans, in order to relieve the country, all must see that the affairs of the Bank cannot be closed without intolerable pressure on the community, unless time be given for that purpose. But, if six years be thought too long, I will consent to five, or to four. My own opinion is, that six years is not too long.

The second section provides, that the public moneys, becoming due after the 1st of July, shall be deposited in the Bank and its Branches as heretofore, subject, however, at any time after this act shall be accepted, to be removed by order of Congress. If Congress shall establish a new bank, they will of course remove the deposits into it. The effect of this provision will be to give to Congress, at all times, what rightfully belongs to them—a full control over the public purse. It separates that purse from the sword, and reestablishes the just authority of the Legislature.

Then comes the section by which the Bank is to pay $200,000 a year, for each of the six years, as compensation for the benefits of this continuance of its charter. This provision is adopted from the bill of 1832. For one, I should have been willing that a fixed per centage should have been paid, instead of this bonus, to be divided among the States, according to numbers; but others objected to this, and I have sought to avoid all new causes of difference.

The next section authorizes Congress to restrain the Bank from issuing notes of less denomination than twenty dollars, if it shall see fit so to do, any time after March, 1836. This, too, is borrowed from the bill of 1832, and its object was fully discussed on that occasion. That object is to get rid of the circulation of all notes under five dollars, and, by so doing, to extend the specie basis of our circulation. When the States shall direct their own banks to issue no notes less than five dollars, then it is proposed that Congress shall direct the bank of the United States to issue no notes below twenty dollars. The state of our currency will then be, as I explained the other day, that, up to five dollars, the currency will be silver and gold; above five dollars, it may be silver, and gold, and notes of State banks; and above twenty dollars, silver, and gold, and notes of State banks, and notes of the Bank of the United States. This greater use of silver and gold, for common purposes, and small payments, I have thought to be a desirable object, as I have often before said.

The next section looks to the winding up of the affairs of the

Bank; and it provides that, at any time within the last three years of its continuance, its directors may divide, among the stockholders, any portion of the capital which they may have withdrawn from active operation. The remaining sections are only such as are formal and necessary: one continues the acts of Congress connected with the Bank, such as those providing for forging its notes; and the other requires the acceptance of this bill by the Bank, in order to give it validity and effect.

Such, Mr. President, are the provisions of this bill. They are few and simple.

1. The Bank is to be continued for six years.

2. The deposits are to be restored after the 1st of July.

3. Congress is to be at perfect liberty to create any new bank, at any time after March, 1836.

4. The directors, in order to wind up their concerns, may, three years before the six years expire, begin to divide the capital among the stockholders.

Mr. President, this is the measure which I propose; and it is my settled belief that, if we cannot carry this, we can carry nothing.

I have thus, Sir, stated my opinions, and discharged my duty. I see the country laboring, and struggling, and panting under an enormous political evil. I propose a remedy which I am sure will produce relief, if it be adopted, and which seems to me most likely to obtain support. And now, Sir, I put it to every member of Congress, how he can resist this measure, unless by proposing another and a better. Who, among the agents and servants of the people assembled in these Houses, is prepared, in the present distressed state of the country, to say, that he will oppose every thing, and propose nothing? For one, Sir, I can only say, that I have been driven to this proposition by an irresistible impulse of obligation to the country. If I had been suddenly called to my great reckoning in another world, I should have felt that one duty was left unattempted, if I had had no measure to recommend, no expedient to propose, no hope to hold out, to this suffering community.

As to the success of this bill, Sir, or any other, I have only to repeat what I have so often said, that every thing rests with the people themselves. In the distracted state of the public councils, any measure of relief can only be obtained by the decisive demand of the public will.

By an exercise of Executive power, which I believe to be illegal, and which all must see to have been injurious,-by an unrelenting adherence to the measure which has thus been adopted, in spite of all consequences, and by the force of those motives which influence men to support the measure, though they entirely disapprove it the country is brought to a condition such as it never

Six months ago, a state of things existed highly prosperous and advantageous to the country, but liable to be injuriously affected by precisely such a cause as has now been put into operation upon it. Business was active, and carried to a great extent. Commercial credit was expanded, and the circulation of money was large. This circulation, being of paper, of course rested on credit; and this credit was founded on banking capital, and bank deposits. The public revenues, from the time of their collection to the time of their disbursement, were in the Bank and its Branches, and, like other deposits, contributed to the means of discount. Between the Bank of the United States and the State banks, there was a degree of watchfulness, perhaps of rivalry; but there was no enmity, no hostility. All moved in their own proper spheres, harmoniously and in order.

The Secretary disturbed this state of peace. He broke up all the harmony of the system. By suddenly withdrawing all the public moneys from the Bank of the United States, he forced that Bank to an immediate correspondent curtailment of its loans and discounts. It was obliged to strengthen itself; and the State Banks, taking the alarm, were obliged to strengthen themselves also by similar measures; so that the amount of credit actually existing, and on which men were doing business, was suddenly greatly diminished. Bank accommodations were withdrawn; men could no longer fulfil their engagements by the customary means; property fell in value; thousands failed; many thousands more maintained their individual credit by enormous sacrifices; and all, being alarmed for the future, as well as distressed for the present, forbore from new transactions and new engagements. Finding enough to do to stand still, they do not attempt to go forward. This deprives the industrious and laboring classes of their occupations, and brings want and misery to their doors. This, Sir, is a short recital of cause and effect. This is the history of the first six months of the "experiment."

Mr. President, the recent measures of the Secretary, and the opinions which are said to be avowed by those who approve and support them, threaten a wild and ruthless attack on the commercial credit of the country, on that most delicate and at the same time most important agent in producing general prosperity. Commercial credit is the creation of modern times, and belongs, in its highest perfection, only to the most enlightened and best-governed nations. In the primitive ages of commerce, article is exchanged for article, without the use of money or credit. This is simple barter. But, in its progress, a symbol of property, a common measure of value, is introduced, to facilitate the exchanges of property; and this may be iron, or any other article fixed by law or by consent, but has generally been gold and silver. This, cer

tainly, is a great advance beyond simple barter, but no greater than has been gained, in modern times, by proceeding from the mere use of money to the use of credit. Credit is the vital air of the system of modern commerce. It has done more, a thousand times, to enrich nations, than all the mines of all the world. It has excited labor, stimulated manufactures, pushed commerce over every sea, and brought every nation, every kingdom, and every small tribe, among the races of men, to be known to all the rest. It has raised armies, equipped navies, and, triumphing over the gross power of mere numbers, it has established national superiority on the foundation of intelligence, wealth, and well-directed industry. Credit is to money what money is to articles of merchandise. Ás hard money represents property, so credit represents hard money; and it is capable of supplying the place of money so completely, that there are writers of distinction, especially of the Scotch school, who insist that no hard money is necessary for the interests of commerce. I am not of that opinion. I do not think any Government can maintain an exclusive paper system, without running to excess, and thereby causing depreciation.

I hold the immediate convertibility of bank notes into specie to be an indispensable security to their retaining their value; but, consistently with this security, and, indeed, founded upon it, credit becomes the great agent of exchange. It is allowed that it increases consumption, by anticipating products; and that it supplies present wants out of future means. And as it circulates commodities without the actual use of gold and silver, it not only saves much by doing away with the constant transportation of the precious metals from place to place, but accomplishes exchanges with a degree of despatch and punctuality not otherwise to be attained. All bills of exchange, all notes running upon time, as well as the paper circulation of the banks, belong to the system of commercial credit. They are parts of one great whole. And, Sir, unless we are to reject the lights of experience, and to repudiate the benefits which other nations enjoy, and which we ourselves have hitherto enjoyed, we should protect this system with unceasing watchfulness, taking care, on the one hand, to give it full and fair play, and, on the other, to guard it against dangerous excess. We shall show ourselves unskilful and unfaithful statesmen, if we do not keep clear of extremes on both sides.

It is very true that commercial credit, and the system of banking, as a part of it, does furnish a substitute for capital. It is very true that this system enables men to do business, to some extent, on borrowed capital; and those who wish to destroy all such, act wisely to that end by decrying it.

This commercial credit, Sir, depends on wise laws, steadily administered. Indeed, the best-governed countries are always the

richest. With good political systems, natural disadvantages, competition, and the world, may all be defied. Without such systems, climate, soil, position, and every thing else, may favor the progress of wealth, and yet nations be poor. What but bad laws and bad government has retarded the progress of commerce, credit, and wealth, in the peninsula of Spain and Portugal, a part of Europe distinguished for its natural advantages, and especially suited, by its position, for an extensive commerce, with the sea on three sides of it, and as many good harbors as all the rest of Europe? The whole history of commerce shows that it flourishes or fades, just in proportion as property, credit, and the fruits of labor, are protected by free and just political systems. Credit cannot exist under arbitrary and rapacious governments, and commerce cannot exist without credit. Tripoli, and Tunis, and Algiers, are countries, above all others, in which hard money is indispensable; because, under such governments, nothing is valuable which cannot be secreted and hoarded. And as government rises, in the scale of intelligence and liberty, from these barbarous despotisms, to the highest rank of free states, its progress is marked, at every step, by a higher degree of security and of credit. And this undeniable truth should make well-informed men ashamed to cry out against banks and banking, as being aristocratical, oppressive to the poor, or partaking of the character of dangerous monopoly. Banks are a part of the great system of commercial credit, and have done much, under the influence of good government, to aid and elevate that credit. What is their history? Where do we first find them? Do they make their first appearance in despotic governments, and show themselves as inventions of power to oppress the people? The first bank was that of Venice; the second that of Genoa. From the example of these republics, they were next established in Holland, and the free city of Hamburgh. England followed these examples, but not until she had been delivered from the tyranny of the Stuarts, by the revolution of 1688. It was William the Deliverer, and not William the Conqueror, that established the Bank of England. Who supposes that a Bank of England could have existed in the times of Empson and Dudley? Who supposes that it could have lived under those ministers of Charles II. who shut up the exchequer; or that its vaults could have been secure against the arbitrary power of the brother and successor of that monarch?

The history of banks belongs to the history of commerce and the general history of liberty. It belongs to the history of those causes which, in a long course of years, raised the middle and lower orders of society to a state of intelligence and property, in spite of the iron sway of the feudal system. In what instance have they endangered liberty, or overcome the laws? Their very

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