position that present evils are no way attributable to the policy of Government; that they all spring from some extraneous and independent cause. If the honorable member means that the disasters which have fallen upon us arise from causes which Government cannot control, such as overtrading or speculation, and that Government is answerable for nothing, I can understand him, though I do not at all concur with him. But that the resources of the country are not now in a state of great depression and stagnation, is what I had supposed none would assert. Sir, what are the resources of the country? The first of all, doubtless, is labor. Does this meet no impediment? Does labor find itself rewarded, as heretofore, by high prices, paid in good money? The whole mass of industry employed in commerce and manufactures, does it meet with no obstruction, or hinderance, or discouragement? And commerce and manufactures, in the aggregate, embracing capital as well as labor, are they, too, in a high career of success? Is nothing of impediment or obstruction found connected with their present condition? Again, sir; among our American resources, from the very first origin of this Government, credit and confidence have held a high and foremost rank. We owe more to credit and to commercial confidence than any nation which ever existed; and ten times more than any nation, except England. Credit and confidence have been the life of our system, and powerfully productive causes of all our prosperity. They have covered the seas with our commerce, replenished the Treasury, paid off the national debt, excited and stimulated the manufacturing industry, encouraged labor to put forth the whole strength of its sinews, felled the forests, and multiplied our numbers, and augmented the national wealth, so far beyond all example as to leave us a phenomenon for older nations to look at with wonder. And this credit, and this confidence, are they now no way obstructed or impeded? Are they now acting with their usual efficiency, and their usual success, on the concerns of society?

The honorable member refers to the exchanges. No doubt, sir, the rate of foreign exchange has nothing in it alarming; nor has it had, if our domestic concerns had been in a proper condition. But that the internal exchanges are in a healthful condition, as the honorable member alleges, is what I can by no means admit. I look upon the derangement of the internal exchanges as the precise form in which existing evils most manifestly exhibit themselves. Why, sir, look at the rates between large cities in the neighborhood of each other. Exchange between Boston and New York, and also between Philadelphia and New York, is 1 a 2 per cent. This could never happen but from a deranged currency; and can this be called a healthful state of domestic exchange?

I understand that the cotton crop has done much towards equalising exchange between New Orleans and New York; and yet I have seen, not many days since, that in other places of the South, I believe Mobile, exchange on New York was at a premium of five to ten per cent.

The manufacturers of the North can say how they have found, and how they now find, the facilities of exchange. I do not mean, exclusively, or principally, the large manufacturers of cotton and woollen fabrics; but the smaller manufacturers, men who, while they employ many others, still bestow their own labor on their own capital; the shop manufacturers, such manufacturers as abound in New Jersey, Connecticut, and other parts of the North. I would ask the gentlemen from these States how these neighbors of theirs find exchanges, and the means of remittance, between them and their correspondents and purchasers in the South. The carriage makers, the furniture makers, the hatters, the dealers in leather, in all its branches, the

dealers in domestic hardware; I should like to hear the results of the experience of all these persons, on the state of the internal exchanges, as well as the general question, whether the industry of the country has encountered any obstacle, in the present state of the currency.

Mr. President, the honorable member from New York stated correctly, that this bill has two leading objects.

The first is, a separation of the revenue, and the funds of the Government, from all connexion with the concerns of individuals, and of corporations; and especially a separation of these funds from all connexion with any banks. The second is, a gradual change in our system of currency, to be carried on till we can accomplish the object of an exclusive specie or metallic circulation, at least in all payments to Government, and all disbursements by Government.

Now, sir, I am against both these propositions, ends as well as means.

I am against this separation of Government and people, as unnatural, selfish, and an abandonment of the most important political dutios.

I am for having but one currency, and that a good one, both for the people and the Government.

1 am opposed to the doctrines of the message of September, and to every thing which grows out of those doctrines. I feel as if I were on some other sphere, as if I were not home, as if this could not be America, when I see schemes of public policy proposed, having for their object the convenience of Government only, and leaving the people to shift for themselves, in a matter which naturally and necessarily belongs, and in every other country is admitted to belong, to the solemn obligations, and the undoubted power of Government. Is it America, where the Government, and men in the Government, are to be better off than the people? Is it America, where Government is to shut its eyes, and its ears, to public complaint, and to take care only of itself? Is it America, Mr. President, is it your country, and my country, in which, at a time of great public distress, when all eyes are turned to Congress, and when most men feel that substantial and practical relief can come only from Congress, that Congress, nevertheless, has nothing on earth to propose, but bolts and bars, safes and vaults, cells and hiding-places, for the better security of its own money, and nothing on earth, not a beneficent law, not even a kind word, for the people themselves? Is it our country, in which the interest of Government has reached such an ascendency over the interest of the people, in the estimate of the representatives of the people? Has this, sir, come to be the state of things, in the old thirteen, with the new thirteen added to them? For one, I confess, I know not what is American, in policy, in public interest, or in public feeling, if these measures be deemed American.

The first general aspect, or feature of the bill, the character written broadly on its front, is this abandonment of all concern for the general currency of the country. This is enough for me. It secures my opposition to the bill in all stages. Sir, this bill ought to have had a preamble. It ought to have been introduced by a recital, setting forth that, whereas the currency of the country has become totally deranged; and whereas it has heretofore been thought the bounden duty of this Government to take proper care of that great branch of the national interest; and whereas that opinion is erroneous, obsolete, and heretical; and whereas, according to the true reading of the constitution, the great duty of this Government, and its exclusive duty, so far as currency is concerned, is to take care of itself; and whereas, if Government can but secure a sound currency for itself, the people may very

well be left to such a currency as the States, or the banks, or their own good fortune, or bad fortune, may give them; therefore be it enacted, &c. &c. &c.. The very first provision of the bill is in keeping with its general objects, and general character. It abandons all the sentiments of civilized mankind, on the subject of credit and confidence, and carries us back to the dark ages. The first that we hear, is of safes, and vaults, and cells, and cloisters. From an intellectual, it goes back to a physical age. From commerce, and credit, it returns to hoarding, and hiding; from confidence, and trust, it retreats to bolts, and bars, to locks with double keys, and to pains and penalties for touching hidden treasure. It is a law for the times of the feudal system; or a law for the heads and governors of the piratical States of Barbary. It is a measure fit for times when there is no security in law, no value in commerce, no active industry among mankind. Here, it is altogether out of time, and out of place. It has no sympathy with the general sentiments of this age, still less has it any congeniality with our American character, any relish of our hitherto approved and successful policy, or any agreement or conformity with the general feeling of the country.

The gentleman, in stating the provisions of the first section, proceeds to say, that it is strange, that none of our laws, heretofore, has ever attempted to give to the Treasury of the United States a "local habitation." Hence it is the object of this first section of the bill to provide and define such local habitation. A local habitation for the Treasury of a great commercial country, in the nineteenth century! Why, sir, what is the Treasury? The existing laws call it a "Department." They say, there shall be a Department, with various officers, and a proper assignment of their duties and functions; and that this shall be the Department of the Treasury. It is, thus, an organized part of Government; an important and indispensable branch of the general administration, conducting the fiscal affairs of the country, and controlling subordinate agents.

But this bill does away with all legal and political ideas, and brings this important Department down to a thing of bricks and mortar. It enacts that certain rooms, in the new building, with their safes and vaults, shall constitute the Treasury of the United States! And this adoption of new and strange notions, and this abandonment of all old ideas, is all for the purpose of accomplishing the great object of separating the affairs of the Government from the affairs of the country. The nature of the means shows the nature of the object; both are novel, strange, untried, and unheard of. The scheme, sir, finds no precedent, either in our own history, or the history of any other respectable nation. It is admitted to be new, original, experimental; and yet its adoption is urged upon us as confidently as if it had come down from our ancestors, and had been the cherished policy of the country in all past times.

I am against it, altogether. I look not to see whether the means be adapted to the end. That end itself is what I oppose, and I oppose all the means leading to it. I oppose all attempts to make a separate currency for the Government, because I insist upon it, and shall insist upon it, until I see and feel the pillars of the constitution falling around me, and upon my head, that it is the duty of this Government to provide a good currency for the country, and for the people, as well as for itself.

I put it to gentlemen to say, whether currency be not a part of commerce, or an indispensable agent of commerce; and something, therefore, which this Government is bound to regulate, and to take care of? Gentlemen will not meet the argument. They shun the question. We demand that the just power of the constitution shall be administered. We assert that Congress has

power to regulate commerce, and currency as a part of commerce; we insist that the public exigency, at the present moment, calls loudly for the exercise of this power, and what do they do? They labor to convince us that the Government itself can get on very well without providing a currency for the people, and they betake themselves, therefore, to the sub-Treasury system, its unassailable walls, its iron chests, and doubly-secured doors. And having satisfied themselves that, in this way, Government may be kept going, they are satisfied. A sound currency for Government, a safe currency for revenue; these are the only things promised, the only things proposed. But these are not the old promise. The country, the country itself, and the whole people, were promised a better currency for their own use; a better general currency; a better currency for all the purposes of trade and business. This was the promise solemnly given by the Government in 1833, and so often afterwards renewed, through all successive years, down to May last. We heard nothing, all that time, of a separation between Government and people. No, sir, not a word. Both were to have an improved currency. Sir, I did not believe a word of all this; I thought it all mere pretence or empty boasting. I had no faith in these promises, not a particle. But the honorable member from New York was confident; confident then as he is now; confident of the success of the first scheme, which was plausible, as he is confident of this, which is strange, alien, and repulsive in its whole aspect. He was then as sure of being able to furnish a currency for the country, as he is now of furnishing a currency for Government. He told us, at that time, that he believed the system adopted by the late administration was fully competent to its object. He felt no alarm for the result. He believed all the President had done, from the removal of the deposites downwards, was constitutional and legal; and he was determined to place himself by the side of the President, and desired only to stand or fall in the estimation of his constituents, as they should determine in the result; and that result has now come.

As I have said, sir, I had no faith at all in all the promises of the administration, made before and at that time, and constantly repeated. I felt no confidence whatever in the whole project; I deemed it rash, headstrong, and presumptuous, to the last degree. And at the risk of the charge of some offence against good taste, I will read a paragraph from some remarks of mine, in February, 1834, which sufficiently shows what my opinion and my apprehensions then were.

"I have already endeavored to warn the country against irredeemable paper; against bank paper, when banks do not pay specie for their own notes; against that miserable, abominable, and fraudulent policy, which attempts to give value to any paper of any bank, one single moment longer than such paper is redeemable on demand in gold and silver. And I wish, most solemnly and earnestly, to repeat that warning. I see danger of that state of things ahead. I SEE IMMINENT Danger THAT MORE OR Fewer of THE STATE BANKS WILL STOP SPECIE PAYMENT. The late measure of the Secretary, and the infatuation with which it seems to be supported, tend directly and strongly to that result. Under pretence, then, of a design to return to a currency which shall be all specie, we are likely to have a currency in which there shall be no specie at all. We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper-mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, sir, representing nothing but BROKEN PROMISES, BAD FAITH, BANKRUPT CORPORATIONS, CHEATED CREDITORS, AND A RUINED PEOPLE!"

And now, sir, we see the upshot of the Experiment. We see around us

bankrupt corporations, and broken promises; but we see no promises more really and emphatically broken, than all those promises of the administration, which gave us assurance of a better currency. These promises, now broken, notoriously and openly broken, if they cannot be performed, ought at least to be acknowledged. The Government ought not, in common fairness and common honesty, to deny its own responsibility, seek to escape from the demands of the people, and to hide itself out of the way, and beyond the reach of the process of public opinion, by retreating into this sub-Treasury system. Let it at least come forth; let it bear a port of honesty and candor; let it confess its promises, if it cannot perform them; and, above all, now, even now, at this late hour, let it renounce schemes and projects, the inventions of presumption, and the resorts of desperation, and let it address itself, in all good faith, to the great work of restoring the currency by approved and constitutional means.

But, sir, so far is any such course from all probability of being adopted, so little ground of hope is there that this sub-Treasury system will be abandoned, that the honorable member from New York has contended and argued in his place, that the public opinion is more favorable to this measure now proposed, than to any other which has been suggested. He claims for it the character of a favorite with the people. He makes out this sub-Treasury plan to be quite high in popular estimation. Certainly, sir, if the honorable member thinks so, he and I see with different eyes, hear with different ears, or gather the means of opinion from very different sources. But what is the gentleman's argument? It is this: The two Houses of Congress, he says, reflect the wishes and opinions of the people; and with the two Houses of Congress, this system, he supposes, is more acceptable than any other.

Now, sir, with the utmost respect for the two Houses of Congress, and all their members, I must be permitted to express a doubt, and indeed a good deal more than a doubt, whether, on this subject, and at the present moment, the two Houses do exactly reflect the opinions and wishes of the people. I should not have adverted to the state of opinion here, compared with the state of public opinion in the country, if the gentleman had not founded an argument, on the supposed disposition of the two Houses, and on the fact, that they truly set forth the public opinion. But since he has brought forward such an argument, it is proper to examine its foundation.

In a general sense, undoubtedly, sir, the members of the two Houses must be understood to represent the sentiments of their constituents, the people of the United States. Their acts bind them, as their representatives, and they must be considered, in legal understanding, as conforming to the will of their constituents. But, owing to the manner of our organization, and to the periods and times of election, it certainly may happen, that at a particular moment, and on a particular subject, opinion out doors may be one way, while opinion here is another. And how is it now, if we may judge by the usual indications? Does the gentlemen hope for no vote, in this body, for his bill, but such as shall be, in his opinion, in strict accordance with the wishes, as generally understood, and most recently expressed, in the State from which the vote shall come?

I shall be exceedingly sorry, sir, for instance, to see a vote from Maine given for this bill. I hope I may not. But if there should be such a vote, can the gentleman say that he believes, in his conscience, it will express the wishes of a majority of the people of that State? And so of New Jersey, and one, if not more States in the West. I am quite sure that gentlemen who may give their votes, will discharge their duty, according to their own