FEB. 2, 1831.] Bank of the United States. [SENATE. The Bank of Eng 12. To have all these unjust privileges secured to the approved principles of banking. corporators as a monopoly, by a pledge of the public faith land may, perhaps, propose, as they did upon a former to charter no other bank.--This is the most hideous fea- occasion, the extension of the term of their exclusive priture in the whole mass of deformity. If these banks are vilege, as to the metropolis and its neighborhood, beyond beneficial institutions, why not several? one, at least, and the year 1833, as the price of this concession, [immediate each independent of the other, to each great section of the surrender of exclusive privileges.] It would be very much Union? If malignant, why create one? The restriction to be regretted that they should require any such condiconstitutes the monopoly, and renders more invidious what tion.** It is obvious, from what passed before, that was sufficiently hateful in itself. It is, indeed, a double Parliament will never agree to it. **** Such privileges monopoly, legislative as well as banking; for the Congress are out of fashion; and what expectation can the bank, of 1816 monopolized the power to grant these monopolies. under present circumstances, entertain that theirs will be It has tied up the hands of its successors; and if this can renewed?"-Jan. 13. be done on one subject, and for twenty years, why not Answer of the Court of Directors.--Extract. upon all subjects, and for all time? Here is the form of "Under the uncertainty in which the Court of Directors words which operate this double engrossment of our rights: find themselves with respect to the death of the bank, and "No other bank shall be established by any future law of the effect which they may have on the interests of the Congress during the continuance of the corporation hereby bank, this court cannot feel themselves justified in recomenacted, for which the faith of Congress is hereby pledg- mending to the proprietors to give up the privilege which ed," with a proviso for the District of Columbia. And they now enjoy, sanctioned and confirmed as it is by the that no incident might be wanting to complete the title of solemn acts of the Legislature."--Jan. 20. this charter, to the utter reprobation of whig republicans, this compound monopoly, and the very form of words in Second communication from the Ministers.--Extract. which it is conceived, is copied from the charter of the Exchequer have considered the answer of the bank of the "The First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Bank of England!--not the charter of William and Mary, 20th instant. They cannot but regret that the Court of as granted in 1694, (for the Bill of Rights was then fresh Directors should have declined to recommend to the Court in the memories of Englis' men,) but the charter as amend- of Proprietors the consideration of the paper delivered by ed, and that for money, in the memorable reign of Queen the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Anne, when a tory Queen, a tory Ministry, and a tory Par- Exchequer to the Governor and Deputy Governor on the liament, and the apostle of toryism, in the person of Dr. 13th instant. The statement contained in that paper ap Sacheverell, with his sermons of divine right, passive obedience, and non-resistance, were riding and ruling over of the Exchequer so full and explicit on all the points to pears to the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor the prostrate liberties of England! This is the precious which it related, that they have nothing further to add, period, and these the noble authors, from which the idea although they would have been, and still are, ready to anwas borrowed, and the very form of words copied, which now figure in the charter of the Bank of the United States, be put, for the purpose of removing the uncertainty in swer, as far as possible, any specific questions which might constituting that double monopoly, which restricts at once which the Court of Directors state themselves to be with the powers of Congress and the rights of the citizens. -Jan. 23. These, Mr. President, are the chief of the exclusive respect to the details of the plan suggested in that paper." privileges which constitute the monopoly of the Bank of the United States. I have spoken of them, not as they deSecond answer of the Bank.--Extract. served, but as my abilities have permitted. I have shown "The Committee of Treasury [bank] having taken into you that they are not only evil in themselves, but copied consideration the paper received from the First Lord of from an evil example. I now wish to show you that the the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, dated Government from which we have made this copy has con- January 23d, and finding that His Majesty's ministers perdemned the original; and, after showing this fact, I think severe in their desire to propose to restric: immediately I shall be able to appeal, with sensible effect, to all liberal the exclusive privilege of the bank, as to the number of minds, to follow the enlightened example of Great Britain partners engaged in banking to a certain distance from the in getting rid of a dangerous and invidious institution, after metropolis, and also continue to be of opinion that Parliahaving followed her pernicious example in assuming it. ment would not consent to renew the privilege at the exFor this purpose, I will have recourse to proof, and will piration of the period of their present charter; finding, read from British state papers of 1826. I will read ex-also, that the proposal by the bank of establishing branch tracts from the correspondence between Earl Liverpool, banks is deemed by His Majesty's ministers inadequate to first Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Robinson, Chancellor the wants of the country, are of opinion that it would be of the Exchequer, on one side, and the Governor and desirable for this corporation to propose, as a basis, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England on the other; act of 6th of George the Fourth, which states the condithe subject being the renewal, or rather non-renewal, of tions on which the Bank of Ireland relinquished its excluthe charter of the Bank of England. sive privileges; this corporation waiving the question of a prolongation of time, although the committee [of the Communications from the First Lord of the Treasury and bank] cannot agree in the opinion of the First Lord of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Governor and Deputy Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they Governor of the Bank of England.--Extracts. are not making a considerable sacrifice, adverting espe "The failures which have occurred in England, unac- cially to the Bank of Ireland remaining in possession of companied as they have been by the same occurrences in that privilege five years longer than the Bank of England." Scotland, tend to prove that there must have been an un---Jan. 25. solid and delusive system of banking in one part of Great Here, Mr. President, is the end of all the exclusive priBritain, and a solid and substantial one in the other. * In Scotland, there are not more than thirty banks, (three chartered,) and these banks have stood firm amidst all the convulsions in the money market in England, and amidst all the distresses to which the manufacturing and agricultural interests in Scotland, as well as in England, have occasionally been subject. Banks of this description must necessarily be conducted upon the generally understood and vileges and odious monopoly of the Bank of England. That ancient and powerful institution, so long the haughty tyrant of the moneyed world-so long the subsidizer of Kings and ministers--so long the fruitful mother of national debt and useless wars--so long the prolific manufactory of nabobs and paupers-so long the dread dictator of its own terms to Parliament-now droops the conquered wing, lowers its proud crest, and quails under the blows SENATE.] Bank of the United States. [FEB. 2, 1831. of its late despised assailants. It first puts on a coura- in the Bank of the United States, the unjust and odious geous air, and takes a stand upon privileges sanctioned privileges which they can no longer find in the Bank of by time, and confirmed by solemn acts. Seeing that the England? Shall the copy survive here after the original ministers could have no more to say to men who would has been destroyed there? Shall the young whelp triumph talk of privileges in the nineteenth century, and be- in America, after the old lion has been throttled and ing reminded that Parliament was inexorable, the bully strangled in England? No! never! The thing is impossisuddenly degenerates into the craven, and, from showing ble! The Bank of the United States dies, as the Bank of fight, calls for quarter. The directors condescend to beg England dies, in all its odious points, upon the limitation for the smallest remnant of their former power, for five of its charter; and the only circumstance of regret is, that years only; for the city of London even; and offer to send the generous deliverance is to take effect two years earbranches into all quarters. Denied at every point, the lier in the British monarchy than in the American republic. subdued tyrant acquiesces in his fate, announces his sub- One word, Mr. President, upon an incidental topic. It mission to the spirit and intelligence of the age; and quiet is shown that the stock of the Bank of the United States ly sinks down into the humble, but safe and useful, condi- has fallen five per cent. in consequence of the opinions tion of a Scottish provincial bank. disclosed in the President's messages; and, thereupon, a And here it is profitable to pause; to look back, and see complaint is preferred against the President for depreciatby what means this ancient and powerful institution--this ing the property of innocent and unoffending people. I Babylon of the banking world-was so suddenly and so to- made a remark upon this complaint in the beginning of tally prostrated. Who did it? And with what weapons? my speech, and now have a word more to bestow upon it. Sir, it was done by that power which is now regulating I wish to contrast this conduct of the American stockthe affairs of the civilized world. It was done by the holders with that of the Bank of England stockholders, power of public opinion, invoked by the working mem- in a similar, and to them, much more disastrous, case. bers of the British Parliament. It was done by Sir Henry The Bank of England stockholders also, have had a deParnell, who led the attack upon the Wellington ministry cline in the price of stock; not of five dollars, but of thiron the night of the 15th of November; by Sir William ty-five pounds, in the share. Bank of England stock, in Pulteney, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. Hume, Mr. Edvard Ellice, consequence of Earl Liverpool's communication, and of and others, the working members of the House of Com- the debates in Parliament, has fallen from 238 to 203; mons, such as had, a few years before, overthrown the gi- equal to a loss of $165 in every share. This is something gantic oppressions of the salt tax. These are the men more than $5. Yet I have never heard that Earl Liverwho have overthrown the Bank of England. They began pool, or any member of Parliament, has been called to the attack in 1824, under the discouraging cry of too soon, account for producing this depreciation. It would seem too soon-for the charter had then nine years to run! and that the liberty of speech, and the rights of discussion, in ended with showing that they had began just soon enough. Great Britain, extended to the affairs of the Bank of EngThey began with the ministers in their front, on the side land; and that ministers and legislators were safe in handof the bank, and ended with having them on their own ling it like any other subject. side, and making them co-operators in the attack, and the Fourthly. I object, Mr. President, to the renewal of instruments and inflicters of the fatal and final blow. But the bank charter, because this bank is an institution too let us do justice to these ministers. Though wrong in the costly and expensive for the American people to keep up. beginning, they were right in the end; though monarch- Let no one cavil at this head of objection, under the beists, they behaved like republicans. They were not Po-lief that the Bank of the United States supports itself, like lignacs. They yielded to the intelligence of the age; they the hibernal bear, by sucking its own paws; or that it derives yielded to the spirit which proscribes monopolies and pri- its revenues, as a spider spins its web, from the recesses vileges, and in their correspondence with the bank direc- of its own abdomen. Such a belief would be essentially tors, spoke truth and reason, and asserted liberal princi- erroneous, and highly unbecoming the intelligence of the ples, with a point and power which quickly put an end to nineteenth century. The fact is, that the bank lives upon dangerous and obsolete pretensions. They told the bank the people! that all its expenses are made out of the peothe mortifying truths, that its system was unsolid and de- ple; all its profits derived from, and all its losses re-imburslusive--that its privileges and monopoly were out of ed by, them. This is the naked truth; by consequence fashion-that they could not be prolonged for five years every shilling held, or issued, by the bank, over and above even--nor suffered to exist in London alone; and, what the capital stock, is a tax upon the people; and, as such, was still more cutting, that the banks of Scotland, which I shall look into the amount of the levy, and prove it to be had no monopoly, no privilege, no connexion with the too great for the people to bear any longer. Government, which paid interest on deposites, and whose In the first place, we have the direct expenses of the stockholders were responsible to the amount of their bank, the actual cost of its annual administration. These shares were the solid and substantial banks, which alone expenses are returned at $572,000 for the year 1830; and, the public interest could hereafter recognise. They did assuming that sum for an average, the total cost of the their business, when they undertook it, like true men; and, administration for twenty years will be about seven and a in the single phrase, out of fashion, achieved the most pow- half millions of dollars. The enormity of this sum must erful combination of solid argument, and contemptuous strike every mind; but, to judge it accurately, let us comscarcasm, that ever was compressed into two words. It pare it to the expenses of some known establishment. Let is a phrase of electrical power over the senses and pas- us take the civil list of the Federal Government in the sions. It throws back the mind to the reigns of the Tu- first term of President Washington's administration. dors and Stuarts-the termagant Elizabeth and the peda-sorting to this standard, I find the expenditure of this gogue James--and rouses within us all the shame and rage branch of the Government to be: for 1792, $381,000; for we have been accustomed to feel at the view of the scan-'93, $358,000; for '94, $441,000; for '95, $361,000; predalous sales of privileges and monopolies which were the scnting an annnal average of $385,000; which is but a tridisgrace and oppression of these wretched times. Out of fle over the bank expenditure for 1830. Now, what were fashion! Yes; even in England, the land of their early the heads of expenditure included in the civil list at the peribirth, and late protection. And shall they remain in od referred to? They were the salaries of the President and fashion here? Shall republicanism continue to wear, in Vice President; the salaries of all the Secretaries, their clerks America, the antique costume which the doughty cham- and messengers, and the purchase of the paraphernalia of pions of antiquated fashion have been compelled to doff in all their offices; compensation to both Houses of Congress, England? Shall English lords and ladies continue to find, and the discharge of every attendant expense; salaries to Re FEB. 2, 1831.] Bank of the United States. [SENATE. all the federal judges, their marshals and district attor-killed in battle, but of American citizens fleeced at home. neys, and the cost of their court rooms; the expense of This is a grievous aggravation of the amount of the tax. missions abroad, and of territorial governments at home. It is the aggravation which renders taxation insupportable. These were the items of the civil list; comprehending the It is "absenteeism" in a new and legalized form. It is the whole expenditure of the administration for all objects, whole mischief of that system of absenteeism, which except the army; there being at that time no navy. The drains off the wealth of Ireland to fertilize England, administration of the bank, therefore, actually involves an France, and Italy, leaving Ireland itself the most distressexpenditure, rivalling that of the Federal Government in ed and exhausted country in Europe, instead of remaining, 1792, '93, '94 and '95; omitting the single item of the as God created it, one of the richest and most flourishing. army, which was then on a war establishment. The next Eternal drawing out, and no bringing back, is a process item of bank tax, is that of the profits, in the shape of an- which no people, or country, can endure. It is a process nual dividends. These profits are now seven per cent; which would exhaust the resources of nature herself. The but have been less; and at one time, owing to an explosion earth would be deprived of its moisture, and changed produced by stock jobbing, were nothing. Assuming six into a desert, if the exhalations of the day did not return per cent. for the average of twenty years, and the aggre- in dews at night. The vast ocean itself, with all its deep gate will be $42,000,000. In the third place, the contin- and boundless waters, would be sucked up and dried gent fund, reserved to cover losses, is near 5,000,000 dol-away, if the vapors drawn up by the sun did not form inlars. Fourthly, the real estate, including banking houses, to clouds, and descend in rain and snow. So will any is above 4,000,000 dollars. Fifthly, bonus, reimbursed to people be exhausted of their wealth, no matter how great the bank, is 1,500,000 dollars. Sixthly, the interest on the that wealth may be, whose miserable destiny shall subject public deposites, which the bank was receiving from the them to a system of taxation which is forever levying, and United States or individuals, while the United States were never refunding: a system whose cry is that of the horsepaying interest on the same amount to the bank or to leech, more! more! more!-whose voice is that of the others, was six millions of dollars on the standing deposite grave, give! give! give!--whose attribute is that of the of about five millions. The aggregate is sixty-six millions grave also, never to render back!--and, such precisely is of dollars; to say nothing of the profit on the stock itself, the system of taxation to which the people of these States which is now twenty-six per cent., equal to $9,000,000 are now subjected by the federal bank. addition to the original capital. The annual average of Of the three great divisions, Mr. President, into which this aggregate levy of sixty six millions, is above three this question divides itself, I have touched but one. I millions and a quarter of dollars; being very nearly as have left untouched the constitutional difficulty, and the much as the whole expenditure of the Federal Govern- former mismanagement of the bank. I have handled the ment in the second year of Mr. Jefferson's administration, question as if the constitutional authority for the bank was which was but 3,737,000 dollars, the army included, and express, and as if its whole administration had been free the navy also, which had then sprung into existence. Will from reproach. I have looked to the nature of the instiSenators reflect upon the largeness of this levy, and con- tution alone; and, finding in its very nature insurmountasider how much it adds to the multiplied burdens of our ble objections to its existence, I have come to the conclucomplicated system of taxation? I say complicated: for, sion that the public good requires the institution to cease. under our duplicate form of government, every citizen is I believe it to be an institution of too much power; of tenmany times taxed, and by various authorities. First, his dencies too dangerous; of privileges too odious; of exState tax, then his county tax, then his corporation tax, pense too enormous, to be safely tolerated under any Go(if he live in a city,) then his federal tax, and, since 1816, vernment of free and equal laws. My mind is made up his bank tax. The amount of each is considerable, of the that the present charter ought to be allowed to expire on whole, is excessive; of the bank tax, in addition to the others, its own limitation; and, that no other, or subsequent one, intolerable. The direct tax of 1798, which contributed should ever after be granted. This is my opinion; I may so much to the overthrow of the men then at the head of add, my belief: for I have the consolation to believe that affairs, was an inconsiderable burden compared to this the event will not deceive my hopes. bank levy. Not so much as one million was ever paid in I am willing to see the charter expire, without providany one year under the direct tax; while the annual levy ing any substitute for the present bank. I am willing to of the bank tax is three millions and a quarter. The one see the currency of the Federal Government left to the is as truly a tax as the other, and as certainly paid by the hard money mentioned and intended in the constitution; people; and, as the reduction of taxes is now the policy I am willing to have a hard money Government, as that of of the country, I present this contribution to the federal France has been since the time of assignats and mandats. bank, as the fit and eminent item to head and grace the list Every species of paper might be left to the State authori of abolition. I say, to head and grace the list! For it is ties, unrecognized by the Federal Government, and only a tax not only great in itself, and levied to support a most fouched by it for its own convenience when equivalent to dangerous and invidious institution, but doubly and pecu- gold and silver. Such a currency filled France with the liarly oppressive upon the people, because no part of it is precious metals, when England, with her overgrown bank, ever refunded to them in the shape of beneficent expen- was a prey to all the evils of unconvertible paper. It diture. In the case of every other tax, in all the contri- furnished money enough for the imperial Government butions levied for the purposes of Government, there is when the population of the empire was three times more some alleviation of the burden--some restitution of the numerous, and the expenses of Government twelve times abducted treasure--some return to the people-some re- greater, than the population and expenses of the United infusion of strength into their ranks--in the customary re- States; and, when France possessed no mines of gold or imbursement of the revenue. The Government usually pays silver, and was destitute of the exports which command it back, or a portion ofit, for salaries, services, and supplies. the specie of other countries. The United States posBut, in the case of the bank tax, there is nothing of this re-sess gold mines, now yielding half a million per annum, imbursement. The bank refunds nothing; but all the mo- with every prospect of equalling those of Peru. But this ney it makes out of the people is gone from them forever. is not the best dependence. We have what is superior to It goes into a corner of the Union, and remains there: it mines, namely, the exports which command the money of goes into private hands, and becomes individual property. the world; that is to say, the food which sustains life, and The stockholders divide it among themselves. Twice, in the raw materials which sustain manufactures. Gold and every year, they make the division of these modern spolia silver is the best currency for a republic; it suits the men opima--these dearest spoils-not of the enemy's general of middle property and the working people best; and if I was going to establish a working man's party, it should be on the basis of hard money; a hard money party against a paper party. [FEB. 2, 1831. and the reduced expenditures of the Government will be made where the money is collected. The army and the navy, after the extinction of the debt, will be the chief I would prefer to see the charter expire without any objects of expenditure; and they will require the money, substitute; but I am willing to vote for the substitute re- either on the frontiers, convenient to the land office, or commended by the President, stripped as it is of all power on the seaboard, convenient to the custom-houses. Thus to make loans and discounts. Divested of that power, it will transfers of revenue become unnecessary. 3. "To loses the essential feature, and had as well lose the name, make loans to the Federal Government." That is nothing: of a bank. It becomes an office in the treasury, limited for the Federal Government will want no loans in time of to the issue of a species of exchequer bills, differing from peace, not even out of its own deposites; and the prosthe English bills of that name in the vital particular of a pect of war is rather too distant at present to make new prompt and universal convertibility into coin. Such bills loans on that account. 4. To pay the pensioners." would be in fact, as well as in name, the promissory notes That is something now, I admit, when the pensioners are of the United States of America. They would be paya- still fifteen thousand, and the payments exceed a million ble at every land office, custom-house, and post office, per annum. But what will it be after 1836? When the and by every collector of public moneys, in the Union. hand of death, and the scythe of time, shall have commitPayable every where, they would be at par every where. ted five years more of ravages in their senile ranks. The Equal to gold and silver on the spot, they would be supe-mass of these heroical monuments are the men of the Rerior to it for travelling and remittances. This is not volution. They are far advanced upon that allegorical opinion, but history. Our own country, this Federal Go-bridge so beautifully described in the vision of Mirza. vernment, has proved it; and that on a scale sufficiently They have passed the seventy arches which are sound and large to test its operation, and recent enough to be re entire, and are now treading upon the broken ones, where membered by every citizen. I allude to the Mississippi the bridge is full of holes, and the clouds and darkness scrip, issued from the Treasury some fifteen years ago. setting in. At every step some one stumbles and falls This scrip was no way equal to the proposed exchequer through, and is lost in the ocean beneath. In a few steps bills: for its reception was limited to a single branch of more the last will be gone. Surely it cannot be necessary the revenue, namely, lands, and to a small part of them; to keep up for twenty years, the vast establishment of the and the quantity of scrip, five millions of dollars, was federal bank to pay the brief stipends of these fleeting excessive, compared to the fund for its redemption; yet, shadows. Their country can do it--can pay the pensions as soon as the land offices of Alabama and Mississippi as well as give them--and do it for the little time that reopened, the scrip was at par, and currently exchanged for mains, with no other regret than that the grateful task is gold and silver, dollar for dollar. Such, and better, would to cease so soon. 5. To regulate the currency." I be the proposed bills. To the amount of the revenues, answer, the joint resolution of 1816 will do that, and will they would be founded on silver. This amount, after the effect the regulation without destroying on one hand, and payment of the public debt, (post office included,) may without raising up a new power, above regulation, on the be about fifteen millions of dollars. They would supply other. Besides, there is some mistake in this phrase curthe place of the United States' notes as they retired; and, rency. The word in the constitution is coin. It is the issuing from the Treasury only in payments, or exchange value of coin which Congress is to regulate; and to include for hard money, all room for favoritism, or undue influ- bank notes under that term, is to assume a power, not of ence, would be completely cut off. If the Federal Go-construction--for no construction can be wild and boundvernment is to recognise any paper, let it be this. Let it less enough to construe coin, that is to say, metallic mobe its own. ney, melted, cast, and stamped, into paper notes printed I have said that the charter of the Bank of the United and written--but it is to assume a power of life and death States cannot be renewed. And in saying this, I wish to over the constitution; a power to dethrone and murder be considered, not as a heedless denunciator, supplying one of its true and lawful words, and to set up a bastard the place of argument by empty menace, but as a Sena- pretender in its place. I invoke the spirit of America tor, considering well what he says, after having attentively upon the daring attempt! 6. "To equalize exchanges, surveyed his subject. I repeat, then, that the charter and sell bills of exchange for the half of one per cent.' cannot be renewed! And, in coming to the conclusion of This is a broker's argument; very fit and proper to deterthis peremptory opinion, I acknowledge no necessity to mine a question of brokerage; but very insufficient to look beyond the walls of this Capitol-bright as may be determine a question of great national policy, of State the consolation which rises on the vision from the other rights, of constitutional difficulty, of grievous taxation, end of the avenue!--I confine my view to the halls of and of public and private subjugation to the beck and nod Congress, and joyfully exclaim, it is no longer the year of a great moneyed oligarchy. 7. "A bonus of a million 1816! Fifteen years have gone by; times have changed; and a half of dollars." This, Mr. President, is Esau's and former arguments have lost their application. We view of the subject; a very seductive view to an improviwere then fresh from war, loaded with debt, and with all dent young man, who is willing to give up the remainder the embarrassments which follow in the train of war. We of his life to chains and poverty, provided he can be soare now settled down in peace and tranquillity, with all laced for the present with a momentary and insignificant the blessings attendant upon quiet and repose. There is gratification. But what is it to the United States?--to the no longer a single consideration urged in favor of charter- United States of 1836! without a shilling of debt, and ing the bank in 1816, which can have the least weight or mainly occupied with the reduction of taxes! Still this application, in favor of rechartering it now. This is my bonus is the only consideration that can now be offered, assertion! a bold one it may be; but no less true than bold. and surely it is the last one that ought to be accepted. Let us see! What were the arguments of 1816? Why, We do not want the money; and, if we did, the recourse first, "to pay the public creditors." I answer this is no to a bonus would be the most execrable form in which we longer any thing: for before 1836, that function will cease: could raise it. What is a bonus? Why, in monarchies, it is there will be no more creditors to pay. 2. "To transfer a price paid to the King for the privilege of extorting money the public moneys." That will be nothing: for after the out of his subjects; with us, it is a price paid to ourselves payment of the public debt, we shall have no moneys to for the privilege of extorting money out of ourselves. transfer. The twelve millions of dollars which are now The more of it the worse; for it all has to be paid back transferred annually to the Northeast, to pay the public to the extortioners, with a great interest upon it. It is recreditors, will then remain in the pockets of the people, [lated by the English historian, Clarendon, who cannot be FEB. 3, 1831.] Indian Annuity. [SENATE. And, this is Mr. WEBSTER demanded the yeas and nays on the question to grant leave for the introduction of the resolution; and the vote being taken, was decided, without further debate, as follows: YEAS--Messrs. Barnard, Benton, Bibb, Brown, Dickerson, Dudley, Forsyth, Grundy, Hayne, Iredell, King, M'Kinley, Poindexter, Sanford, Smith, of S. C., Tazewell, Troup, Tyler, White, Woodbury-20. NAYS-Messrs. Barton, Bell, Burnet, Chase, Clayton, Foot, Frelinghuysen, Hendricks, Holmes, Johnston, Knight, Livingston, Marks, Noble, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Seymour, Silsbee, Smith, of Md., Sprague, Webster, Willey--23. So the Senate refused leave for the introduction of the resolution. suspected of overstating any fact to the prejudice of the avail themselves of their intelligences, and their means, Stuart Kings, that for £1,500 advanced to Charles the to buy out the small stockholders on the eve of the reFirst in bonuses, not less than £200,000 were extorted newal. These would be the owners. And where would from his subjects: being at the rate of £133 taken from all this power and money centre? In the great cities the subject for £1 advanced to the King. What the Bank to the northeast, which have been for forty years, and of the United States will have made out of the people of the that by force of federal legislation, the lion's den of United States, in twenty years, in return for its bonus of Southern and Western money—that den into which all the $1,500,000, (which, I must repeat, has been advanced to tracks point inwards; from which the returning track of us out of our own money,) has been shown to be about a solitary dollar has never yet been seen. sixty-six millions of dollars. What it would make in the the institution for which a renewed existence is soughtnext twenty years, when secure possession of the renewed for which the votes of the people's representatives are charter should free the institution from every restraint, claimed! But, no! Impossible! It cannot be! The bank and leave it at full liberty to pursue the money, goods, is done. The arguments of 1816 will no longer apply. and lands of the people in every direction, cannot be as- Times have changed; and the policy of the Republic certained. Enough can be ascertained, however, to show changes with the times. The war made the bank; peace that it must be infinitely beyond what it has been. There will unmake it. The baleful planet of fire, and blood, are some data upon which some partial and imperfect cal- and every human woe, did bring that pestilence upon us; culations can be made, and let us essay them. In the first the benignant star of peace shall chase it away. Having place, the rise of the stock, which cannot be less than that concluded-of the Bank of England, in its flourishing days, (probably more, as all Europe is now seeking investments here,) may reach 250 per cent., or 150 above par. This, upon a capital of 35 millions, would give a profit of $42,500,000; a very pretty sum to be cleared by operation of law!-to be added to the fortunes of some individuals, aliens as well as citizens, by the mere passage of an act of Congress! In the next place, the regular dividends, assuming them to equal those of the Bank of England in its meridian, would be ten per cent. per annum. This would give $3,500,000 for the annual dividend; and $70,000,000 for the aggregate of twenty years. In the third place, the direct expenses of the institution, now less than $400,000 per annum, would, under the new and magnificent expansion which the operations of the bank would take, probably exceed half a million per annum; say $10,000,000 for the whole term. Putting these three items together, which is as far as data in hand will enable us to calculate, and we have $122,500,000 of profits made out of the people, equal to a tax of $6,000,000 per annum. How much more may follow is wholly unascertainable, and would depend upon the moderation, the justice, the clemency, the mercy and forbearance of the supreme central directory, who, sitting on their tripods, and shaking their tridents over the moneyed ocean, are able to raise, and repress, the golden waves at pleasure; who, being chief purchasers of real estate, may take in towns and cities, and the whole country round, at one fell swoop; who, being sole lenders of money, may take usury, not only at 46, but at 460 per cent.; who, being masters of all other banks, and of the Federal Government itself, may compel these tributary establishments to ransom their servile existences with the heavy, and repeated, exactions of Algerine cupidity. The gains of such an institution defy calculation. There is no The resolution of Mr. GRUNDY, on the subject of example on earth to which to compare it. The bank of certain witnesses proposed to be examined in relation to England, in its proudest days, would afford but an inade- the causes of their removal from the Post Office Departquate and imperfect exemplar; for the power of that bankment, was taken up, and again, in consequence of the was counterpoised, and its exactions limited, by the wealth absence of the honorable Senator, laid on the table. of the landed aristocracy, and the princely revenues of great merchants and private bankers. But with us, there' would be no counterpoise, no limit, no boundary, to the extent of exactions. All would depend upon the will of the supreme central directory. The nearest approach to the value of this terrific stock, which my reading has suggested, would be found in the history of the famous the Whole. South Sea Company of the last century, whose shares Mr. SMITH, of Md., said, that, when this bill was rose in leaps from 100 to 500, and from 500 to 1,000 per laid on the table, some days ago, he had addressed a letcent.; but, with this immeasurable and lamentable differ- ter to the Secretary of War, asking information on the ence that that was a bubble! this, a reality! And who subject, and, in consequence, he had received an answer would be the owners of this imperial stock? Widows from the Secretary, enclosing a letter from a Mr. Nourse, and orphans, think you? as ostentatiously set forth in the one of the clerks in the Register's Office, addressed to report of last session? No, sir! a few great capitalists; him, containing all the facts that were necessary for a aliens, denizens, naturalized subjects, and some native proper understanding of the matter. There would be citizens, already the richest of the land, and who would some little confusion, Mr. S. said, in the accounts be Mr. GRUNDY said, that, in the select committee appointed to examine into the condition of the Post Office Department, a serious difference of opinion existed in relation to the description of testimony to be brought before them; and that he, for one, was unwilling that the opinions of part of that committee should prevail, without the concurrence of the Senate. He, therefore, submitted the following resolution: Resolved, That the select committee appointed on the 15th day of December last, to inquire into the condition of the Post Office Department, are not authorized to call before them the persons who have been dismissed from office, for the purpose of ascertaining the reasons or causes of their removal. Adjourned. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3. INDIAN ANNUITY. On motion of Mr. DUDLEY, the bill from the House granting an annuity of $6,000 to the Seneca tribe of Indians was taken up, together with the amendments of Mr. SMITH, of Md., and considered as in Committee of |