DICKINSON'S SPEECHES. SPEECH ON THE REPEAL OF THE USURY LAWS. DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF NEW YORK, February 10, 1837. [THIS Speech is the earliest of Mr. Dickinson's public addresses, of which a report has been preserved. It was made under the following circumstances. Gov. Marcy had, in his message to the Legislature, recommended the repeal of the Usury Laws; and the measure was brought forward in the Senate by the late Col. Young, of Saratoga, and supported with all his great and peculiar ability. At his instance the Senate ordered the printing of Jeremy Bentham's work against the policy and sense of anti-usury laws. Mr. Dickinson led the opposition to the proposed repeal. The discussion of the question in the Legislature was very animated, but the agitation ended for the time, and for many years afterwards, as a public question in the State, by the adoption, at the same session, of a law providing additional safeguards and severer penalties against usury.] MR. CHAIRMAN-Having been placed upon the select committee to which was referred that part of his excellency's message which relates to a repeal of the usury laws, it would seem to be proper that the views which influence me in my conclusion should be submitted. It will be recollected that when this bill was reported by the Honorable Chairman of the select committee, I reserved to myself the right to act as subsequent reflection might dictate. I had previously looked at the laws as they existed; had witnessed, as I supposed, their salutary influences upon community, but had not examined in detail the causes by general reasonings, independent of their practical utility. which led to their enactment, or whether they could be sustained Inasmuch as the Honorable Chairman of the committee, who has advocated the repeal of these laws, did not submit his views by way of a report, I had indulged the hope, that in discussing this bill, he would have favored us with all the reasons which he seems to suppose exist in favor of the proposed repeal ;— that in addition to the splendid theory he has given us, he would have descended from this giddy height, and for a moment showed us the practical operation of this great and extraordinary change, upon the sober realities of human life;-that his giant intellect would have produced some reason which would tend to dispel the moral darkness, which he supposes pervades our land. But the Honorable Senator informs us he has no further affirmative reasons to urge that he has said all he deems necessary to a correct understanding of the subject, and that we shall hear his voice no more, except by way of reply; and the friends of the existing laws are called upon to show cause, if any they have, why they should not be forthwith repealed. Since this question was first agitated, I have brought to it my best consideration. I have endeavored to find out the reason for these laws as well as to test their practical operation. I have read the works of the celebrated Jeremy Bentham, together with those of various other writers who assert their inutility. I have listened with profound and deep attention to the learned and eloquent reasoning of the Honorable Senator from the Fourth; and the result has been, that I am more than confirmed in the opinions which I had previously entertained. I have become satisfied that usury laws are not only proper, necessary and highly beneficial in their practical operation; but that they can be sustained and justified upon abstract principles alone. Nothing but a great and abiding confidence in the justice of the conclusions I have adopted, could have induced me to trespass upon the time of this body; I do so with extreme diffidence and against fearful odds. The prompt and unequivocal recommendation of his excellency, for whose opinions I entertain the most unqualified respect; the unconquerable desire abroad to originate something new in monetary affairs; and the flood of light and learning shed abroad by the Honorable Senator from the Fourth, all seem to admonish me of the presumptuous task I have undertaken. But the laws sought to be repealed have had existence from the earliest history of man -in all ages and in all governments; they have become a part of our institutions; they have received the sanction of age; they have stood the tests of experience; they were incorporated into our system, and have been retained by wise and patriotic statesmen, and no system based upon mere theoretic speculation, however gaudy and inviting, should induce us to a change without looking to the reasons which move us, and the consequences likely to follow. The bill introduced by the Honorable Senator from the Fourth, repeals the laws as to individuals, but retains their prohibitions as to corporations-thus admitting that the laws are just in principle, and necessary to be retained, to prevent enormous exactions by the banks; and yet the bill tempts them to do indirectly what it seeks to restrain them from doing. By far the greatest portion of moneyed capital within this State is contained in banks; it is their exclusive business to lend money; the profit of a country bank depends mainly on the amount of its loans upon circulation; and of the city bank upon the amount of its loans made upon deposits; all are interested to extend their loans to their utmost means; they are daily brought into competition; and yet a proposal to permit them to deal in money at the "market price," would meet with but little favor; and why? Because a moment's reflection must convince the most inexperienced that such a measure would be fraught with consequences the most ruinous and fearful, and that their "competition," like that of moneyed individuals would be combination. The sense of the community has been aroused upon the subject of moneyed monopolies. The people virtually ask for such modification of existing laws as shall reduce the profits of the banks to seven per cent.; and they will receive with an unwelcome spirit indeed, a law which turns loose upon them the united moneyed power of the country. They have asked for a fish, and this bill offers them a serpent-one too of deadly kind that will sting them to the heart, however beautiful its lustre or insinuating its approaches. The banks have been held forth here as soulless monsters of iniquity. In the fertile imagination of some, they stalk with horrid and terrific aspect through this hall; now they stand forth in battle array and "shake their gory locks at us," and anon they flit among us like the disembodied forms of pestilence and famine, and we breathe their contagion, and wot not of their approaches; they are made to be the evil genius of noon day, and to fill the visions of the night with fear and conster nation; and yet it is proposed both to extend and perpetuate their power. The intimate connection of the banks with the moneyed men of this day, forbids the idea of "competition." They are bound together in a common cause with chains of gold. Man is fond of power, and all experience has proved that a constant check is needed to prevent its abuse. Money has at all times, in all ages, and under every condition, been power of itself; and has shown that its career must be watched with that jealous and sleepless vigilance which is the peculiar characteristic of a free people, to prevent it from accumulating force to an extent which will enable it to aim at "undivided empire." No plan could be devised which would more effectually place the lash within the hands of moneyed monopolists, to scourge and chastise a people, than a repeal of the usury laws.Repeal these laws as to banks, as well as individuals, and a scene of extortion, ruin and distress which would put the darkest portions of the history of the old world to the blush, would follow. Repeal them as to individuals, but suffer them to remain as to corporations, and you place a temptation before the moneyed men, most of whom are associated with banks, too strong for human nature to endure, which avarice and cupidity cannot and will not resist; a temptation more mighty than that which caused the angels to sin. Pass this bill in either form, and you invite every moneyed man and every bank to curtail their usual accommodations, until they create a demand which will raise the "rate of usance here with us in Venice" to such rate, as will induce them to grant the "supply; "—to such rate as will bring a train of evils more dreadful than “ war, pestilence, and famine." In casting about for evidences of public sentiment to justify the proposed change, in addition to the choice spirits of the old world, who have been called from the "vasty deep," the Honorable Senator from the Fourth has mentioned that an honorable ex-senator, now within this chamber, has recently been made a hopeful convert to his creed; but whether his conversion was as sudden and miraculous as that of Saul of Tarsus, and like his, was produced by the great light which has been shining round about us here at noonday, he has not condescended to declare. The information is well, and when I reflect upon the little number, "few and far between," who will join in the funeral procession of this bill, I most fully appreciate the avidity with which he seizes upon a single name. 66 The Senator from the Fourth has informed us that few writers have ever ventured a defence of the usury laws; that no one of any merit has attempted to vindicate them for the last half century; while he points triumphantly to Jeremy Bentham's essay as affording a most perfect and memorable illustration of their absurdity and utter worthlessness. He, moreover, congratulates himself that of the works of those who have attempted to justify these restraints upon "natural rights," not a single one remains. They have, says he, fallen still-born from the press, or gone down to the dark gulf of oblivion. But let us inquire for a moment how it was with Jeremy Bentham, whom the Senator presents as a great and shining light in the political firmament, held aloft as a beacon to warn us of the rocks and shoals where the ark of our political safety may be wrecked. To whom does he owe his perpetuity? What friendly hand has snatched him from the extended jaws of all devouring time and served him up to the political epicures of our country? But a few days since, and we I wot not what had become of him," his light was under a bushel, and "lighted but itself." My colleague, Mr. Mack, informs us, that his great anxiety to cast his eyes over his instructing and convincing pages, caused him to make search throughout this State and country for Jeremy Bentham, but in vain; that he has had, for two long years, an order standing with an English bookseller, but has been unable to find him in modern Europe. The Senator from the Fourth had a mateless copy, which, like the survivor among the servants of Job, had been spared from the general ruin, to tell of the fate which had overwhelmed all others around it. This, by the paternal and fostering care of the Senate of the great State of New York, has been rescued from the forlorn fate of its brethren, and warmed into life and motion. But for this, the renowned Jeremy Bentham himself, with all his “blushing honors thick upon him," would have been virtually numbered with the things that were, and the State of New York would have been compelled to legislate in dark ness. The first great principle sought to be established by the |