must fail again! he tells you they will fail! and in the very same moment he presses the compulsory reception of all the notes on all these banks upon the federal treasury! What is this but a proposition to ruin the finances-to bankrupt the Treasury-to disgrace the administration-to demonstrate the incapacity of the State banks to serve as the fiscal agents of the government, and to gain a new argument for the creation of a national bank, and the elevation of the bank party to power? This is the clear inference from the proposition; and viewing it in this light, I feel it to be my duty to expose, and to repel it, as a proposition to inflict mischief and disgrace upon the country.

But to return to the point, the contrast between the effects and events of former bank stoppages, and the effects and events of the present one. The effects of the former were to sink the price of labor and of property to the lowest point, to fill the States with stop laws, relief laws, property laws, and tender laws; to ruin nearly all debtors, and to make property change hands at fatal rates; to compel the federal government to witness the heavy depreciation of its treasury notes, to receive its revenues in depreciated paper; and, finally, to sub

loo awaits them, and a St. Helena is prepared for them." Here is a direct menace, and coming from a source which is able to make good what it threatens. Without hostile attacks, the resuming banks have a perilous process to go through. The business of resumption is always critical. It is a case of impaired credit, and a slight circumstance may excite a panic which may be fatal to the whole. The public having seen them stop payment, can readily believe in the mortality of their nature, and that another stoppage is as easy as the former. On the slightest alarm-on the stoppage of a few inconsiderable banks, or on the noise of a groundless rumor-a general panic may break out. Sauve qui peut――save himself who can -becomes the cry with the public; and almost every bank may be run down. So it was in England after the long suspension there from 1797 to 1823; so it was in the United States after the suspension from 1814 to 1817; in each country a second stoppage ensued in two years after resumption; and these second stoppages are like relapses to an individual after a spell of sickness: the relapse is more easily brought on than the original disease, and is far more dangerous. The banks in England suspended in 1797-mit to the establishment of a national bank as they broke in 1825; in the United States it was a suspension during the war, and a breaking in 1819-20. So it may be again with us. There is imminent danger to the resuming banks, without the pressure of premeditated hostility; but, with that hostility, their prostration is almost certain. The Bank of the United States can crush hundreds on any day that it pleases. It can send out its agents into every State of the Union, with sealed orders to be opened on a given day, like captains sent into different seas; and can break hundreds of local banks within the same hour, and over an extent of thousands of miles. It can do this with perfect ease-the more easily with resurrection notes—and thus excite a universal panic, crush the resuming banks, and then charge the whole upon the government. This is what it can do; this is what it has threatened; and stupid is the bank, and doomed to destruction, that does not look out for the danger, and fortify against it. In addition to all these dangers, the senator from Kentucky, the author of the resolution himself, tells you that these banks

the means of getting it out of its deplorable condition-that bank, the establishment of which was followed by the seven years of the greatest calamity which ever afflicted the country; and from which calamity we then had to seek relief from the tariff, and not from more banks. How different the events of the present time! The banks stopped in May, 1837; they resume in May, 1838. Their paper depreciated but little; property, except in a few places, was but slightly affected; the price of produce continued good; people paid their debts without sacrifices; treasury notes, in defiance of political and moneyed combinations to depress them, kept at or near par; in many places above it; the government was never brought to receive its revenues in depreciated paper; and finally all good banks are resuming in the brief space of a year; and no national bank has been created. Such is the contrast between the two periods; and now, sir, what is all this owing to? what is the cause of this great difference in two similar periods of bank stoppages? It is owing to our gold bill of 1834, by which we

which they saw their predecessors fall. Those who prevented the renewal of the bank charter in 1811, did nothing else but prevent its renewal; they provided no substitute for the notes of the bank; did nothing to restore the currency of the constitution; nothing to revive the gold currency; nothing to increase the specie of the country. They fell back upon the exclusive use of local bank notes, without even doing any thing to strengthen the local banks, by discarding their paper under twenty dollars. They fell back upon the local banks; and the consequence was, the total prostration, the utter helplessness, the deplorable inability of the government to take care of itself, or to relieve and restore the country, when the banks failed. Those who prevented the recharter of the second Bank of the United States had seen all this; and they determined to avoid such error and calamity. They set out to revive the national gold currency, to increase the silver currency, and to reform and strengthen the banking system. They set out to do these things; and they have done them. Against a powerful combined political and moneyed confederation, they have succeeded; and the one hundred millions of gold and silver now in the country attests the greatness of their victory, and insures the prosperity of the country against the machinations of the wicked and the factious.

corrected the erroneous standard of gold, and which is now giving us an avalanche of that metal; it is owing to our silver bill of the same year, by which we repealed the disastrous act of 1819, against the circulation of foreign silver, and which is now spreading the Mexican dollars all over the country; it is owing to our movements against small notes under twenty dollars; to our branch mints, and the increased activity of the mother mint; to our determination to revive the currency of the constitution, and to our determination not to fall back upon the local paper currencies of the States for a national currency. It was owing to these measures that we have passed through this bank stoppage in a style so different from what has been done heretofore. It is owing to our "experiments" on the currency-to our "humbug" of a gold and silver currency-to our "tampering" with the monetary system -it is owing to these that we have had this signal success in this last stoppage, and are now victorious over all the prophets of woe, and over all the architects of mischief. These experiments, this humbugging, and this tampering, has increased our specie in six years from twenty millions to one hundred millions; and it is these one hundred millions of gold and silver which have sustained the country and the government under the shock of the stoppage-has enabled the honest solvent banks to resume, and will leave the insolvent and political banks without excuse or justification for not resuming. Our experiments-I love the word, and am sorry that gentlemen of the opposition have ceased to repeat it-have brought an avalanche of gold and silver into the country; it is satu- MR. CLAY'S RESOLUTION IN FAVOR OF RESUM

rating us with the precious metals, it has relieved and sustained the country; and now when these experiments have been successfulhave triumphed over all opposition-gentlemen cease their ridicule, and go to work with their paper-money resolutions to force the government to use paper, and thereby to drive off the gold and silver which our policy has brought into the country, destroy the specie basis of the banks, give us an exclusive paper currency again, and produce a new expansion and a new explosion.

Justice to the men of this day requires these things to be stated. They have avoided the errors of 1811. They have avoided the pit into

CHAPTER XXII.

ING BANKS, AND MR. BENTON'S REMARKS UPON
IT.

AFTER the New York banks had resolved to recommence specie payments, and before the day arrived for doing so, Mr. Clay submitted a resolution in the Senate to promote resumption by making the notes of the resuming banks receivable in payment of all dues to the federal government. It was clearly a movement in behalf of the delinquent banks, as those of New York, and others, had resolved to return to specie payments without requiring any such condition. Nevertheless he placed the banks of the State of New York in the front rank for the benefits to be received under his proposed

measure. They had undertaken to recommence bank to resume; a moral sense, and a fear of payments, he said, not from any ability to do consequences, will compel them to do it. The so, but from compulsion under a law of the importations of specie are now enormous, and State. The receivability of their notes in pay-equalling every demand, if it was not supment of all federal dues would give them a pressed. There can be no doubt but that the credit and circulation which would prevent quantity of specie in the country is equal to the their too rapid return for redemption. So of amount of bank notes in circulation-that they others. It would be a help to all in getting are dollar for dollar-that the country is better through the critical process of resumption; and off for money at this day than it ever was bein helping them would benefit the business and fore, though shamefully deprived of the use of prosperity of the country. He thought it wise gold and silver by the political and insolvent to give that assistance; but reiterated his opin- part of the banks and their confederate poliion that, nothing but the establishment of a ticians. national bank would effectually remedy the evils of a disordered currency, and permanently cure the wounds under which the country was now suffering. Mr. Benton replied to Mr. Clay, and said:

The solvent banks will resume, and Congress cannot prevent them if it tried. They have received the aid which they need in the $100,000,000 of gold and silver which now relieves the country, and distresses the politicians who predicted no relief, until a national bank was created. Of the nine hundred banks in the country, there are many which never can resume, and which should not attempt it, except to wind up their affairs. Many of these are rotten to the core, and will fall to pieces the instant they are put to the specie test. Some of them even fail now for rags; several have so failed in Massachusetts and Ohio, to say nothing of those called wild cats-the progeny of a general banking law in Michigan. We want a resumption to discriminate between banks, and to save the community from impositions.

This resolution of the senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY], is to aid the banks to resume-to aid, encourage, and enable them to resume. This is its object, as declared by its mover; and it is offered here after the leading banks have resumed, and when no power can even prevent the remaining solvent banks from resuming. Doubtless, immortal glory will be acquired by this resolution! It can be heralded to all corners of the country, and celebrated in all manner of speeches and editorials, as the miraculous cause of an event which had already occurred! Yes, sir-already occurred! for the solvent banks have resumed, are resuming, and We wanted specie, and we have got it. Five will resume. Every solvent bank in the United years ago-at the veto session of 1832-there States will have resumed in a few months, and were but twenty millions in the country. So no efforts of the insolvents and their political said the senator from Massachusetts who has confederates can prevent it. In New York the just resumed his seat [Mr. WEBSTER]. We resumption is general; in Massachusetts, Rhode have now, or will have in a few weeks, one Island, Maine, and New Jersey, it is partial; hundred millions. This is the salvation of the and every where the solvent banks are prepar- country. It compels resumption, and has deing to redeem the pledge which they gave when feated all the attempts to scourge the country they stopped-that of resuming whenever New into a submission to a national bank. While York did. The insolvent and political banks that one hundred millions remains, the country will not resume at all, or, except for a few can place at defiance the machinations of the weeks, to fail again, make a panic and a new run | Bank of the United States, and its confederate upon the resuming banks-stop them, if possi-politicians, to perpetuate the suspension, and to ble, then charge it upon the administration, and recommence their lugubrious cry for a National Bank.

The resumption will take place. The masses of gold and silver pouring into the country under the beneficent effects of General Jackson's hard-money policy, will enable every solvent

continue the reign of rags and shin-plasters. Their first object is to get rid of these hundred millions, and all schemes yet tried have failed to counteract the Jacksonian policy. Ridicule was tried first; deportation of specie was tried next; a forced suspension has been continued for a year; the State governments and the peo

they begin! that nothing but a national bank can hold them up to specie payments, and that we have no such bank. This is the language of the mover; it is the language, also, of all his party; more than that-it is the language of Mr. Biddle's letter-that letter which is the true exposition of the principles and policy of the opposition party. Here, then, is a proposition to compel the administration, by law, to give up the public lands for the paper of banks which are to fail-to fill the Treasury with the paper of such banks-and to pay out such paper to the public creditors. This is the prop

accomplishing what was attempted in this chamber a few weeks ago, namely, a direct receipt of irredeemable paper money! That proposition was too naked and glaring; it was too rank and startling; it was rebuked and repulsed. A circuitous operation is now to accomplish what was then too rashly attempted by a direct movement. Receive the notes of 900 banks for the lands and duties; these 900 banks will all fail again;-so says the mover, because there is no king bank to regulate them. We have then lost our lands and revenues, and filled our Treasury with irredeemable paper. This is just the point aimed at by the original proposition to receive irredeemable paper in the first instance: it ends in the reception of such paper. If the resolution passes, there will be another explosion: for the receivability of these

ple were vanquished; still the specie came in, because the federal government created a demand for it. This firm demand has frustrated all the schemes to drive off specie, and to deliver up the country to the dominion of the papermoney party. This demand has been the stumbling block of that party; and this resolution now comes to remove that stumbling block. It is the most revolting proposition ever made in this Congress! It is a flagrant violation of the constitution, by making paper money a tender both to and from the government. It is fraught with ruin and destruction to the public property, the public Treasury, and the pub-osition, and it is nothing but another form of lic creditors. The notes of nine hundred banks are to be received into the Treasury, and disbursed from the Treasury. They are to be paid out as well as paid in. The ridiculous proviso of willingness to receive them on the part of the public creditor is an insult to him; for there is no choice-it is that or nothing. The disbursing officer does not offer hard money with one hand, and paper with the other, and tell the creditor to take his choice. No! he offers paper or nothing! To talk of willingness, when there is no choice, is insult, mockery and outrage. Great is the loss of popularity which this administration has sustained from paying out depreciated paper; great the deception which has been practised upon the government in representing this paper as being willingly received. Necessity, and not good will, ruled the creditor; indignation, resent-notes for the public dues, and especially for the ment, and execrations on the administration, were the thanks with which he received it. This has disgraced and injured the administration more than all other causes put together; it has lost it tens of thousands of true friends. It is now getting into a condition to pay hard money; and this resolution comes to prevent such payment, and to continue and to perpetuate the ruinous paper-money payments. Defeat the resolution, and the government will quickly pay all demands upon it in gold and silver, and will recover its popularity; pass it, and paper money will continue to be paid out, and the administration will continue to lose ground.

The resolution proposes to make the notes of 900 banks the currency of the general government, and the mover of the resolution tells you, at the same time, that all these banks will fail! that they cannot continue specie payments if

public lands, will run out another vast expansion of the paper system-to be followed, of course, by another general explosion. The only way to save the banks is to hold them down to specie payments. To do otherwise, and especially to do what this resolution proposes, is to make the administration the instrument of its own disgrace and degradation—to make it join in the ruin of the finances and the currency—in the surrender of the national domain for broken bank paper-and in producing a new cry for a national bank, as the only remedy for the evils it has produced.

[The measure proposed by Mr. CLAY was defeated, and the experiment of a specie currency for the government was continued.]

CHAPTER XXIII.

RESUMPTION BY THE PENNSYLVANIA UNITED

foundations, and would stop again, and for ever. I said this to Mr. Van Buren at the time, and he gave the opinion I expressed a better acceptance than he had accorded to the previous one in February, 1837. Parting from him at the

STATES BANK; AND OTHERS WHICH FOLLOW- end of the session, 1838-'39, I said to him, this

ED HER LEAD.

bank would stop before we meet again; that is to say, before I should return to Congress. It did so, and for ever. At meeting him the ensuing November, he was the first to remark upon the truth of these predictions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PROPOSED ANNEXATION OF TEXAS: MR. PRES

TON'S MOTION AND SPEECH: EXTRACTS.

THE resumption by the New York banks had its effect. Their example was potent, either to suspend or resume. All the banks in the Union had followed their example in stopping specie payments: more than half of them followed them in recommencing payments. Those which did not recommence became obnoxious to public censure, and to the suspicion of either dishonesty or insolvency. At the head of this delinquent class stood the Bank of the United States, justly held accountable by the public voice for the delinquency of all the rest. Her position became untenable. She was compelled THE republic of Texas had now applied for adto descend from it; and, making a merit of ne- mission into the federal Union, as one of its cessity, she affected to put herself at the head States. Its minister at Washington, Memucan of a general resumption; and in pursuance of Hunt, Esq., had made the formal application to that idea invited, in the month of July, through our executive government. That was one oba meeting of the Philadelphia banks, a general stacle in the way of annexation removed. It meeting in that city on the 25th of that month, was no longer an insult to her to propose to to consult and fix a time for resumption. A annex her; and she having consented, it referred few banks sent delegates; others sent letters, the question to the decision of the United agreeing to whatever might be done. In all States. But there was still another objection, there were one hundred and forty delegates, or and which was insuperable: Texas was still at letters, from banks in nine States; and these war with Mexico; and to annex her was to andelegates and letters forming themselves into a nex the war-a consequence which morality general convention of banks, passed a resolution and policy equally rejected. Mr. PRESTON, of for a general resumption on the 13th of August South Carolina, brought in a resolution on the ensuing. And thus ended this struggle to act subject—not for annexation, but for a legislaupon the government through the distresses of tive expression in favor of the measure, as a the country, and coerce it into a repeal of the basis for a tripartite treaty between the United specie circular-into a recharter of the United States, Mexico and Texas; so as to effect the States Bank-the restoration of the deposits- annexation by the consent of all parties, to and the adoption of the notes of this bank for a avoid all cause of offence; and unite our own national currency. The game had been over- legislative with the executive authority in acplayed. The public saw through it, and derived complishing the measure. In support of this a lesson from it which put bank and state per- motion, he delivered a speech which, as showing manently apart, and led to the exclusive use of the state of the question at the time, and pregold and silver by the federal government; and senting sound views, and as constituting a link the exclusive keeping of its own moneys by its in the history of the Texas annexation, is here own treasurers. All right-minded people re-introduced-some extracts to exhibit its leadjoiced at the issue of the struggle; but there were some that well knew that the resumption on the part of the Bank of the United States was hollow and deceptive-that she had no

ing ideas.

"The proposition which I now submit in regard to this prosperous and self-dependent State would be indecorous and presumptuous, had not