the tax on it? Again I ask, will the honorable member bring in a bill to take off the duty on wheat? There is a duty on brown sugar; will he move to repeal that? If he will comprehend all the items included under the same principle of economy, it will show at least some consistency; but to select this article of coal, and urge us to make it free because it is a necessary of life, while he advocates a tax on other things equally necessary, is to act with no consistency at all. I know very well that many of the citizens of Boston have applied to have this tax diminished, and, if I thought it could with propriety be done, I would cheerfully do it. Some petitions, too, have been presented from one of our fishing towns; but they ought to remember that all bounties on the fisheries, as well as this duty on coal, rest upon one great basis of mutual concession for the protection of labor, and for the benefit especially of the operative classes of society. And whoever says that this is a system which favors capital at the expense of the poor, misrepresents its advocates, and perverts the whole matter.

There are many other views which belong to the subject, but I will not now prosecute the argument. My object is to make coal cheap, permanently cheap; cheap to the poor man as well as the rich man; and to that end we shall arrive, if the laws are suffered to take their course. But to meddle with them, in the existing state of things, is the very worst thing that can be done either for poor or rich.

PAYMENT OF THE FOURTH INSTALMENT

OF THE SURPLUS REVENUE.*

THE importance of the present crisis, and the urgency of this occasion, are such as to lead me earnestly to desire that some measures of adequate relief may come from those who alone have the power to effect any thing, by the majority which they command. Much as I differ from them, I would be glad to accept any measure of substantial relief which they may bring forward. I think, Sir, I see such a necessity for relief as never before, within my recollection, has existed in this country; and I regret to be obliged to say, that the measures proposed by the President, in his message to Congress, and reiterated by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his report to the same body, only regard one object, and are, in their tendency, only directed to one branch of partial relief. The evils, however, under which the community now suffers, though related to each other, and of the same family, are yet capable of distinct consideration. In the first place, there are the wants of the treasury, arising from the stoppage of payments and the falling off of the reve nue. This is an exigency requiring the consideration of Congress; it is an evil threatening to suspend the functions of at least one department of the government, unless it be remedied. Another and a greater evil is the prostration of credit, the interruption brought upon all business transactions, arising from the suspension of all the local banks throughout the country, with some few and trifling exceptions. Hence have proceeded a prostration of the local currency, and a serious obstruction and difficulty in the way of buying and selling. A third want

* A Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the 14th of September, 1837, on the Bill to postpone the Payment to the States of the Fourth Instalment of the Surplus Revenue.

is the want of an accredited paper medium, equal to specie, having equal credit over all parts of the country, capable of serving for the payment of debts and carrying on the internal business of the country throughout and between the different and distant sections of this great Union. These three evils, though they are coexistent and cognate in their being, cannot be met by the same measures of relief. It does not follow, if relief is given to the one, that you will relieve the others. If you replenish the treasury, and thus bring a remedy to that evil, this affords no relief to the disordered currency. Again; if the local currency is relieved, it does not supply the other want, namely, that of a universally accredited medium.

It is no doubt a matter of general remark, that the most important objection to the message is, that it says nothing about relief to the country, directly and mainly; the whole amount of the proposition it contains relates to the government itself; the interest of the community is treated as collateral, incidental, and contingent. So, in the communication made by the Secretary of the Treasury, the state of the currency, the condition in which the commerce and trade of the country now are, is not looked at as a prominent and material object. The Secretary's report, as well as the message itself, exclusively regards the interest of the government, forgetting or passing by the people. The outpourings of the Secretary, which are very considerable in quantity, are under seven heads, the exact number of the seven vials of which we read; but the contents of none of these are concocted or prepared in reference to the benefit of the community; all the medicine is intended for the government treasury, and there is none for the sickness and disease of society, except collaterally, remotely, and by the way. It is, however, to the credit of the President that he has given, in an unequivocal and intelligible manner, his reasons for not recommending a plan for the relief of the country; and they are, that, according to his view, it is not within the constitutional province of government. I confess this declaration is to me quite astounding, and I cannot but think that, when it comes to be considered, it will produce a shock throughout the country. This avowed disregard for the public distress, upon the ground of the alleged want of power; this exclusive concern for the interest of government and revenue; this broad line of distinction, now, for the first

time, drawn between the interests of the government and the interests of the people, must certainly be regarded as commencing a new era in our politics. For one, I consider government as but a mere agency; it acts not for itself, but for the country; the whole end and design of its being are to promote the general interests of the community. Peculiar interests, selfish interests, exclusive regard for itself, are wholly incompatible with the objects of its institution, and pervert it from its true character as an agency for the people into a separate, dominant power, with purposes and objects exclusively its own.

Holding decided opinions on this subject, and being prepared to stand by and maintain them, I am certainly rejoiced at the clear shape which the question has at last assumed. Now, he that runs may read; there are none but can see what the question is: Is there any duty incumbent on this government to superintend the actual currency of the country? Has it any thing to do beyond the regulation of the gold and silver coin? In that state of mixed currency which existed when the Constitution was formed, and which has existed ever since, is it, or is it not, a part of the duty of the government to exercise a supervisory care and concern over that which constitutes by far the greater part of that currency? In other words, may this government abandon to the States and to the local banks, without control or supervision, the unrestrained issue of paper for circulation, without any attempt, on its own part, to establish a paper medium which shall be equivalent to specie, and universally accredited all over the country? Or, Mr. President, to put the question in still other words, since this government has the regulation of trade, not only between the United States and foreign countries, but between the several States themselves, has it nevertheless no power over that which is the most important and essential agent or instrument of trade, the actual circulating medium? On these questions, as I have already said, I entertain sentiments wholly different from those which the message

expresses.

It is, in my view, an imperative duty imposed upon this government by the Constitution, to exercise a supervisory care and control over all that is in the country assuming the nature of a currency, whether it be metal or whether it be paper; all the coinage of the country is placed in the power of the federal

government; no State, by its stamp, can give value to a brass farthing. The power to regulate trade and commerce between the United States and foreign or Indian nations, and also between the respective States themselves, is expressly conferred by the Constitution upon the general government. It is clear that the power to regulate commerce between the States carries with it, not impliedly, but necessarily and directly, a full power of regulating the essential element of commerce, namely, the currency of the country, the money, which constitutes the life and soul of commerce. We live in an age when paper money is an essential element in all trade between the States; its use is inseparably connected with all commercial transactions. That it is so is now evident, since, by the suspension of those institutions from which this kind of money emanates, all business is comparatively at a stand. Now, Sir, what I maintain is simply this; that it surely is the duty of somebody to take care of the currency of the country; it is a duty imposed upon some power in this country, as in every other civilized nation in the world.

I repeat, Sir, that it is the duty of some government or other to supervise the currency. Surely, if we have a paper medium. in the country, it ought only to exist under the sanction and supervision of the government of the country. If the general government does not exercise this supervision, who else, I should like to know, is to do it? Who supposes that it belongs to any of the State governments, for example, to provide for or regulate the currency between New Orleans and New York?

The idea has been thrown out, that it is not the duty of the government to make provision for domestic exchanges, and the practice of other governments has been referred to; but in this particular, I think, a great mistake has been committed. It is certainly far otherwise in England; she provides for them most admirably, though by means perhaps not altogether in our power. She, however, and other nations provide for them, and it is plain and obvious that, if we are to have a paper medium of general credit in this country, it must be under the sanction and supervision of the government. Such a currency is itself a proper provision for exchanges. If there be a paper medium always equivalent to coin, and of equal credit in every part of the country, this itself becomes a most important instrument of