cannot obscure yourselves, nor bury your talent. In the common welfare, in the common prosperity, in the common glory of Americans, you have a stake, of value not to be calculated. You have an interest in the preservation of the Union, of the constitution, and of the true principles of the government, which no man can estimate. You act for yourselves, and for the generations that are to come after you; and those who, ages hence, shall bear your names, and partake your blood, will feel in their political and social condition, the consequences of the manner in which you discharge your political duties." The appeal for action in this paragraph is vehement. It takes every form of violent desire which is known to the art of entreaty. Supplication, solicitation, remonstrance, importunity, prayer, menace! until rising to the dignity of a debt due from a moneyed metropolis to an expectant community, he demanded payment as matter of right! and enforced the demand as an obligation of necessity, as well as of duty, and from which such a community could not escape, if it would. The nature of the action which was so vehemently desired, could not be mistaken. I hold it a fair interpretation of this appeal that it was an exhortation to the business population of the commercial metropolis of the Union to take the initiative in suspending specie payments, and a justificatory manifesto for doing so; and that the speech itself was the first step in the grand performance: and so it seemed to be understood. It was received with unbounded plause, lauded to the skies, cheered to the echo, carefully and elaborately prepared for publication,-published and republished in newspaper and pamphlet form; and universally circulated. This was in the first month of Mr. Van Buren's presidency, and it will be seen what the second one brought forth. ap The specie circular-that treasury order of President Jackson, which saved the public lands from being converted into broken bank paper was the subject of repeated denunciatory reference-very erroneous, as the event has proved, in its estimate of the measure; but quite correct in its history, and amusing in its reference to some of the friends of the administration who undertook to act a part for and against the rescission of the order at the same time. "Mr. Webster then came to the treasury circular, and related the history of the late legislation upon it. A member of Congress,' said he, prepared this very treasury order in 1836, but the only vote he got for it was his own-he stood 'solitary' and 'alone' (a laugh); and yet eleven days after Congress had adjournedonly six months after the President in his annual message had congratulated the people upon the prosperous sales of the public lands,— this order came out in known and direct opposition to the wishes of nine-tenths of the members of Congress."" from This is good history from a close witness of what he relates. The member referred to as having prepared the treasury order, and offered it in the shape of a bill in the Senate, and getting no vote for it but his own,-who stood solitary and alone on that occasion, as well as on some others-was no other than the writer of this View; and he has lived to see about as much unanimity in favor of that measure since as there was against it then. Nine-tenths of the members of Congress were then against it, but very different motives-some because they were deeply engaged in land speculations, and borrowed paper from the banks for the purpose; some because they were in the interest of the banks, and wished to give their paper credit and circulation; others because they were sincere believers in the paper system; others because they were opposed to the President, and believed him to be in favor of the measure; others again from mere timidity of temperament, and constitutional inability to act strongly. And these various descriptions embraced friends as well as foes to the administration. Mr. Webster says the order was issued eleven days after that Congress adjourned which had so unanimously rejected it. That is true. We only waited for Congress to be gone to issue the order. Mr. Benton was in the room of the private secretary (Mr. Donelson), hard by the council chamber, while the cabinet sat in council upon this measure. They were mostly against it. General Jackson ordered it, and directed the private Secretary to bring him a draft of the order to be issued. He came to Mr. Benton to draw it who did so: and being altered a little, it was given to the Secretary of the Treasury to be promulgated. Then Mr. Benton asked for his draft, that he might destroy it. The private secretary said no that the time might come when it should be known who was at the bottom of that Treasury order: and that he would keep it. It was issued on the strong will and clear head of President Jackson, and saved many ten millions to the public treasury. Bales of bank notes were on the road to be converted into public lands which this order overtook, and sent back, to depreciate in the vaults of the banks instead of the coffers of the treasury. To repeal the order by law was the effort as soon as Congress met, and direct legislation to that effect was proposed by Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, but superseded by a circumlocutory bill from Mr. Walker and Mr. Rives, which the President treated as a nullity for want of intelligibility: and of which Mr. Webster gave this account: with the "bold man" who despised flinching, and loved decision, even in a foe. Thus: "At the commencement of the last session, as you know, gentlemen, a resolution was brought forward in the Senate for annulling and abrogating this order, by Mr. Ewing, a gentleman of much intelligence, of sound principles, of vigorous and energetic character, whose loss from the service of the country, I regard as a public misfortune. The whig members all supported this resolution, and all the members, I believe, with the exception of some five or six, "If he himself had had power, he would have were very anxious, in some way, to get rid of voted for Mr. Ewing's proposition to repeal the the treasury order. But Mr. Ewing's resoluorder, in terms which Mr. Butler and the late tion was too direct.. It was deemed a pointed President could not have misunderstood; but and ungracious attack on executive policy. power was so strong, and members of Congress Therefore, it must be softened, modified, qualihad now become so delicate about giving offence fied, made to sound less harsh to the ears of to it, that it would not do, for the world, to men in power, and to assume a plausible, polrepeal the obnoxious circular, plainly and forth-ished, inoffensive character. It was accordingly with; but the ingenuity of the friends of the put into the plastic hands of the friends of the administration must dodge around it, and over executive, to be moulded and fashioned, so that it-and now Mr. Butler had the unkindness to it might have the effect of ridding the country tell them that their views neither he, lawyer as of the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to he is, nor the President, could possibly under- question executive infallibility. All this did stand (a laugh), and that, as it could not be not answer. The late President is not a man understood, the President had pocketed it-and to be satisfied with soft words; and he saw in left it upon the archives of state, no doubt to the measure, even as it passed the two houses, be studied there. Mr. W. would call attention a substantial repeal of the order. He is a man to the remarkable fact, that though the Senate of boldness and decision; and he respects boldacted upon this currency bill in season, yet it ness and decision in others. If you are his was put off, and put off-so that, by no action friend, he expects no flinching; and if you are upon it before the ten days allowed the Presi- his adversary, he respects you none the less, for dent by the constitution, the power over it was carrying your opposition to the full limits of completely in his will, even though the whole honorable warfare." nation and every member of Congress wished for its repeal. Mr. W., however, believed that such was the pressure of public opinion upon the new President, that it must soon be repealed." This amphibology of the bill, and delay in passing it, and this dodging around and over, was occasioned by what Mr. Webster calls the delicacy of some members who had the difficult part to play, of going with the enemies of the administration without going against the administration. A chapter in the first volume of this View gives the history of this work; and the last sentence in the passage quoted from Mr. Webster's speech gives the key to the views in which the speech originated, and to the proceedings by which it was accompanied and followed. "It is believed that such is the pressure of public opinion upon the new President that it must soon be repealed." In another part of his speech, Mr. Webster shows that the repealing bill was put by the whigs into the hands of certain friends of the administration, to be by them seasoned into a palatable dish; and that they gained no favor Mr. Webster must have been greatly dissatisfied with his democratic allies, when he could thus, in a public speech, before such an audience, and within one short month after they had been co-operating with him, hold them up as equally unmeritable in the eyes of both parties. History deems it essential to present this New York speech of Mr. Webster as part of a great movement, without a knowledge of which the view would be imperfect. It was the first formal public step which was to inaugurate the new distress, and organize the proceedings for shutting up the banks, and with them, the federal treasury, with a view to coerce the government into submission to the Bank of the United States and its confederate politicians. Mr. Van Buren was a man of great suavity and gentleness of deportment, and, to those who associated the idea of violence with firmness, might be supposed deficient in that quality. An experiment upon his nerves was resolved on-a pressure of public opinion, in the language of Mr Webster, under which his gentle temperamentuate those principles which were bequeathed us was expected to yield. CHAPTER IV. PROGRESS OF THE DISTRESS, AND PRELIM- THE speech of Mr. Webster-his appeal for action-was soon followed by its appointed consequence-an immense meeting in the city of New York. The speech did not produce the meeting, any more than the meeting produced the speech. Both were in the programme, and performed as prescribed, in their respective places—the speech first, the meeting afterwards; and the latter justified by the former. It was an immense assemblage, composed of the elite of what was foremost in the city for property, talent, respectability; and took for its business the consideration of the times: the distress of the times, and the nature of the remedy. The imposing form of a meeting, solemn as well as numerous and respectable, was gone through: speeches made, resolutions adopted: order and emphasis given to the proceedings. A president, ten vice-presidents, two secretaries, seven orators (Mr. Webster not among them: he had performed his part, and made his exit), officiated in the ceremonies; and thousands of citizens constituted the accumulated mass. The spirit and proceedings of the meeting were concentrated in a series of resolves, each stronger than the other, and each more welcome than the former; and all progressive, from facts and principles declared, to duties and performances recommended. The first resolve declared the existence of the distress, and made the picture gloomy enough. It was in these words: by our fathers, and which we are bound to make every honorable effort to maintain." After the fact of the distress, thus established by a resolve, came the cause; and this was the condensation of Mr. Webster's speech, collecting into a point what had been oratorically diffused over a wide surface. What was itself a condensation cannot be further abridged, and must be given in its own words: "That the wide-spread disaster which has overtaken the commercial interests of the country, and which threatens to produce general bankruptcy, may be in a great measure ascribed to the interference of the general government with the commercial and business operations of the country; its intermeddling with the currency; its destruction of the national bank; its attempt to substitute a metallic for a credit currency; and, finally, to the issuing by the President of the United States of the treasury order, known as the "specie circular." The next resolve foreshadowed the consequences which follow from governmental perseverance in such calamitous measures-general bankruptcy to the dealing classes, starvation to the laboring classes, public convulsions, and danger to our political institutions; with an admonition to the new President of what might happen to himself, if he persevered in the “ experiments" of a predecessor whose tyranny and oppression had made him the scourge of his country. But let the resolve speak for itself: "That while we would do nothing which might for a moment compromit our respect for the laws, we feel it incumbent upon us to remind the executive of the nation, that the govhas become the oppressor of the people, instead ernment of the country, as of late administered, of affording them protection-that his perseverance in the experiment of his predecessor (after the public voice, in every way in which that voice could be expressed, has clearly denounced it as ruinous to the best interests of the country) has already caused the ruin of thousands of merchants, thrown tens of thousands of mechanics and laborers out of employment, depreciated the value of our great staple millions of dollars, destroyed the internal exchanges, and prostrated the energies and blighted the prospects of the industrious and enterprising portion of our people; and must, if persevered in, not only produce starvation among the laboring classes, but inevitably lead to disturbances which may endanger the stability of our institutions themselves." "Whereas, the great commercial interests of our city have nearly reached a point of general ruin our merchants driven from a state of prosperity to that of unprecedented difficulty and bankruptcy-the business, activity and energy, which have heretofore made us the polar star of the new world, is daily sinking, and taking from us the fruits of years of industry-reducing the aged among us, who but yesterday were sufficiently in affluence, to a state of comparative want; and blighting the prospects, and blasting the hopes of the young throughout our once prosperous land: we deem it our duty to express to the country our situation and desires, while yet there is time to reThis word "experiment" had become a statrace error, and secure those rights and perpet-ple phrase in all the distress oratory and litera ture of the day, sometimes heightened by the the committee of fifty, after their return from prefix of "quack," and was applied to all the Washington, were directed to call another genefforts of the administration to return the federal meeting of the citizens of New York, and eral government to the hard money currency, which was the currency of the constitution and the currency of all countries; and which efforts were now treated as novelties and dangerous innovations. Universal was the use of the phrase by one of the political parties some twenty years ago: dead silent are their tongues upon it now! Twenty years of successful working of the government under the hard money system has put an end to the repetition of a phrase which has suffered the fate of all catch-words of party, and became more distasteful to its old employers than it ever was to their adversaries. It has not been heard since the federal government got divorced from bank and paper money! since gold and silver has become the sole currency of the federal government! since, in fact, the memorable epoch when the Bank of the United States (former sovereign remedy for all the ills the body politic was heir to) has become a defunct authority, and an "obsolete idea." The next resolve proposed a direct movement upon the President-nothing less than a committee of fifty to wait upon him, and “ remonstrate" with him upon what was called the ruinous measures of the government. "That a committee of not less than fifty be appointed to repair to Washington, and remonstrate with the Executive against the continuance of "the specie circular;" and in behalf of this meeting and in the name of the merchants of New York, and the people of the United States, urge its immediate repeal." to report to them the results of their mission. A concluding resolution invited the co-operation of the other great cities in these proceedings, and seemed to look to an imposing demonstration of physical force, and strong determination, as a means of acting on the mind, or will of the President; and thus controlling the free action of the constitutional authorities. This resolve was specially addressed to the merchants of Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, and generally addressed to all other commercial cities, and earnestly prayed their assistance in saving the whole country from ruin. Baltimore, and the commercial cities of the "That merchants of Philadelphia, Boston, Union, be respectfully requested to unite with us in our remonstrance and petition, and to use their exertions, in connection with us, to induce of the people, and to recede from a measure under the evils of which we are now laboring, and which threatens to involve the whole country in ruin." the Executive of the nation to listen to the voice The language and import of all these resolves and proceedings were sufficiently strong, and indicated a feeling but little short of violence towards the government; but, according to the newspapers of the city, they were subdued and moderate-tame and spiritless, in comparison to the feeling which animated the great meeting. A leading paper thus characterized that feeling: "The meeting was a remarkable one for the vast numbers assembled-the entire decorum of the proceedings-and especially for the deep, This formidable committee, limited to a minthough subdued and restrained, excitement imum of fifty, open to a maximum of any which evidently pervaded the mighty mass. amount, besides this "remonstrance" against It was a spectacle that could not be looked the specie circular, were also instructed to pe- upon without emotion,-that of many thousand tition the President to forbear the collection of ruin, owing to the measures, as they verily bemen trembling, as it were, on the brink of merchants' bonds by suit; and also to call an lieve, of their own government, which should extra session of Congress. The first of these be their friend, instead of their oppressor-and measures was to stop the collection of the ac- yet meeting with deliberation and calmness, liscruing revenues: the second, to obtain from tening to a narrative of their wrongs, and the causes thereof, adopting such resolutions as Congress that submission to the bank power were deemed judicious; and then quietly sepawhich could not be obtained from the Presi- rating, to abide the result of their firm but redent. Formidable as were the arrangements spectful remonstrances. But it is proper and for acting on the President, provision was dis-fit to say that this moderation must not be miscreetly made for a possible failure, and for the prosecution of other measures. With this view, VOL. II.-2 taken for pusillanimity, nor be trifled with, as though it could not by any aggravation of wrong be moved from its propriety. No man accustomed, from the expression of the countenance, to translate the emotions of the heart, could have looked upon the faces and the bearing of the multitude assembled last evening, and not have felt that there were fires smouldering there, which a single spark might cause to burst into flame." of houses engaged in extensive business: that within the same period, a decline of twenty millions of dollars has occurred in our local stocks, including those railroad and canal incorporations, which, though chartered in other States, depend chiefly upon New York for their sale: that the immense amount of merchandise in our warehouses has within the same period Smouldering fires which a single spark might fallen in value at least thirty per cent.; that light into a flame! Possibly that spark might within a few weeks, not less than twenty thouhave been the opposing voice of some citizen, sand individuals, depending on their daily labor who thought the meeting mistaken, both in the for their daily bread, have been discharged by their employers, because the means of retaining fact of the ruin of the country and the attribu- them were exhausted-and that a complete tion of that ruin to the specie circular. No blight has fallen upon a community heretofore such voice was lifted—no such spark applied, so active, enterprising and prosperous. The and the proposition to march 10,000 men to error of our rulers has produced a wider desolation than the pestilence which depopulated Washington to demand a redress of grievances our streets, or the conflagration, which laid was not sanctioned. The committee of fifty them in ashes. We believe that it is unjust to was deemed sufficient, as they certainly were, attribute these evils to any excessive developfor every purpose of peaceful communication. ment of mercantile enterprise, and that they really flow from that unwise system which They were eminently respectable citizens, any aimed at the substitution of a metallic for a two, or any one of which, or even a mail trans- paper currency-the system which gave the mission of their petition, would have com- first shock to the fabric of our commercial manded for it a most respectful attention. prosperity by removing the public deposits from the United States bank, which weakened The grand committee arrived at Washington-every part of the edifice by the destruction of asked an audience of the President-received it; but with the precaution (to avoid mistakes) that written communications should alone be used. The committee therefore presented their demands in writing, and a paragraph from it will show the degree to which the feeling of the city had allowed itself to be worked up. "We do not tell a fictitious tale of woe; we have no selfish or partisan views to sustain, when we assure you that the noble city which we represent, lies prostrate in despair, its credit blighted, its industry paralyzed, and without a hope beaming through the darkness of the future, unless the government of our country can be induced to relinquish the measures to which we attribute our distress. We fully appreciate the respect which is due to our chief magistrate, and disclaim every intention inconsistent with that feeling; but we speak in behalf of a community which trembles upon the brink of ruin, which deems itself an adequate judge of all questions connected with the trade and currency of the country, and believes that the policy adopted by the recent administration, and sustained by the present, is founded in error, and threatens the destruction of every department of industry. Under a deep impression of the propriety of confining our declarations within moderate limits, we affirm that the value of our real estate has, within the last six months, depreciated more than forty millions: that within the last two months, there have been more than two hundred and fifty failures that useful and efficient institution, and now threatens to crumble it into a mass of ruins under the operations of the specie circular, which withdrew the gold and silver of the country from the channels in which it could be profitably employed. We assert that the experiment has had a fair—a liberal trial, and that disappointment and mischief are visible in all its results-that the promise of a regulated currency and equalized exchanges has been broken, the currency totally disordered, and internal exchanges almost entirely discontinued. We, therefore, make our earnest appeal to the Executive, and ask whether it is not time to interpose the paternal authority of the government, and abandon the policy which is beggaring the people." The address was read to the President. He heard it with entire composure-made no sort of remark upon it-treated the gentlemen with exquisite politeness-and promised them a written answer the next day. This was the third of May: on the fourth the answer was delivered. It was an answer worthy of a President-a calm, quiet, decent, peremptory refusal to comply with a single one of their demands ! with a brief reason, avoiding all controversy, and foreclosing all further application, by a clean refusal in each case. The committee had nothing to do but to return, and report: and they did so. There had been a mistake committed in |