authority to make such compensation as to make grants for roads and bridges, almshouses, penitentiaries, and other similar objects, in the District. A general and absolute power of legislation carries with it all the necessary and just incidents belonging to such legislation.

Mr. Clay having made some remarks in reply, Mr. Webster rejoined :

The honorable member from Kentucky asks the Senate to suppose the opposite case; to suppose that the seat of government had been fixed in a free State, Pennsylvania, for example; and that Congress had attempted to establish slavery in a district over which, as here, it had thus exclusive legislation. He asks whether, in that case, Congress could establish slavery in such a place. This mode of changing the question does not, I think, vary the argument; and I answer, at once, that, however improbable or improper such an act might be, yet, if the power were universal, absolute, and without restriction, it might unquestionably be so exercised. No limitation being expressed or intimated in the grant itself, or any other proceeding of the parties, none could be implied.

And in the other cases, of forts, arsenals, and dock-yards, if Congress has exclusive and absolute legislative power, it must, of course, have the power, if it could be supposed to be guilty of such folly, whether proposed to be exercised in a district within a free State, to establish slavery, or in a district in a slave State, to abolish or regulate it. If it be a district over which Congress has, as it has in this District, unlimited power of legislation, it seems to me that whatever would stay the exercise of this power, in either case, must be drawn from discretion, from reasons of justice and true policy, from those high considerations which ought to influence Congress in questions of such extreme delicacy and importance; and to all these considerations I am willing, and always shall be willing, I trust, to give full weight. But I cannot, in conscience, say that the power so clearly conferred on Congress by the Constitution, as a power to be exercised, like others, at its own discretion, is immediately taken away again by an implied faith that it shall not be exercised at all.

THE COMMONWEALTH BANK, BOSTON.*

Mr. WEBSTER submitted, on the 17th of January, 1838, the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be requested to obtain information, and lay the same before the Senate, with as little delay as possible, respecting any payments of pensions, by the late pension agent of Boston, or of fishing bounties, recently made by the collector at Boston, in bills of the Commonwealth Bank of that city; and the whole amount of such payments; and that he further inform the Senate by what authority or direction payment of such pensions and bounties has been made in such bills; and whether any, and, if any, how much, of the public money of the United States is in deposit at said bank; and, if any of such money be therein deposited, at what time or times such deposits were made.”

On this resolution Mr. Webster spoke as follows:

In presenting this resolution, I feel it to be my duty to call the attention of the Senate to the circumstances here alluded to, at the earliest opportunity, in order to the institution of an official inquiry into the facts of the case, and to obtain information with respect to the manner in which the duty of public officers has been discharged, in reference to the causes by which a severe loss has been made to fall upon a large number of industrious and meritorious citizens. I do not submit this resolution for inquiry on the ground of mere newspaper rumor. I have received letters from highly respectable private sources, informing me of the general facts of the case. I understand the case to be, that, at the period when the fishing bounties became

* Remarks made in the Senate of the United States, on the 17th of January, 1838, in relation to the Commonwealth Bank, Boston.

due, money well and hardly earned, by a laborious, industrious, and worthy class of citizens, -application for payment was made to the collector at Boston, he being the officer charged on the part of the government with the duty and business of paying this money. That officer paid the fishermen, not as the law directs, in specie, or bills equivalent to specie, but in the bills of this now broken bank, or in checks upon it, which checks, of course, it was known would not be paid in specie. I have been given to understand that this officer refused to pay the bounty due in treasury-notes, when asked to do so; and that he refused also to pay the money in specie, although requested; and that, substantially and in effect, the parties entitled to payment were put to the option of taking the paper of this bank, or of taking nothing at all. This is my information.

I hold in my hand a letter from one of the most considerable fishing towns in the State, Marblehead, and I am thereby informed that, very shortly before this bank failed, that is, within a week or two, the money due from government to these fishermen was paid in the manner described, a large amount of it entirely in the bills and notes of this bank. The whole amount of bills of this bank paid out by the government officer on the part of the government is unknown to me. My letter states it at ten thousand dollars in Marblehead alone; and I have heard of similar payments in other towns; the whole amounting, as report says, to fifty or a hundred thousand dollars, and paid out when the bank was on the eve of a total crash, and within a few days of its failure.

Well, Sir, when the money in these large quantities had been paid out, the bank failed; and all that these poor fishermen have received in payment from the United States is now dead on their hands.

I wish that a proper inquiry should be made by Congress into these allegations, and for this object I have drawn the attention of the Senate to the circumstances of the case, with a view to the obtaining of information on two points;-1st. As to the facts; how far the public officer of the government has been engaged in paying out the notes of this bank for the dues of the United States; and 2dly. As to the authority; that is, by what legal authority the officer of the United States government has made such payments, and whether it was done by the

direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, or whether it was permitted and allowed by him.

However much gentlemen may differ in opinion as to the resolution of 1816, whether that resolution is the law of the land, or whether it be a mere recommendation or admonition, as some have maintained, though I myself have always considered it to be a law, however that question may be settled, I have thought that the law now existing, respecting payments by the government, is at least clear and indisputable; so that no one would venture to defend the act of the government, in paying in notes of banks known to be of less value than specie.

I beg to refer to the solemn enactment of Congress, made only two years ago. It will be found in the second section of the appropriation bill of the 14th of April, 1836, and is as follows:

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That hereafter no bank-note of less denomination than ten dollars, and that from and after the third day of March, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, no banknote of less denomination than twenty dollars, shall be offered in payment in any case whatsoever in which money is to be paid by the United States or the Post-Office Department; nor shall any bank-note of any denomination be so offered, unless the same shall be payable, and paid on demand, in gold or silver coin, at the place where issued, and which shall not be equivalent to specie at the place where offered, and convertible into gold or silver upon the spot, at the will of the holder, and without delay or loss to him; Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to make any thing but gold or silver a legal tender by an individual, or by the United States."

Will any gentleman rise up and say, in the very teeth of the law, that the passing of these large amounts of notes, known not to be equivalent to specie, and immediately before the failure of the bank, was legal, was justifiable, either on the part of government or its officers? The law expressly says, that no public officer shall offer in payment bank-bills not equivalent to specie on the spot where they are offered. Will it be said that the United States officer in the present instance did not know that these notes were not equivalent to specie? This is not possible; he knew that this bank, like others, had not paid specie since May last, and that since that time its bills have not been equivalent to specie. Or will it be said he did not know the

law? Certainly the Secretary of the Treasury must have drawn the attention of all disbursing officers to this act of Congress.

I think it possible that it may be said, in excuse of this transaction, that these poor fishermen and pensioners took this now worthless money voluntarily, or at their own option. But whether the individual who is to be paid may be made willing to take such irredeemable paper or not, the law is direct and peremptory, and prohibits the officer from offering it. The consent f an individual, therefore, to take it, especially when he can get nothing else, will not justify that violation in any quarter. But what consent can that be esteemed, what voluntary taking is there in such cases, where a man, because he cannot get all that is due to him, is compelled to take part, rather than have none? What is there voluntary about it? This is coercion, and not consent. Congress has not yet admitted the notion, and I hope it never will, that the receipt of paper under par is voluntary, whenever officers of government can prevail on those who are entitled to the payment of money from the United States to take it, under the penalty of getting nothing. The letter, indeed, says that specie had been asked for, and was refused; but whether asked for or not, or whether the fishermen knew they were entitled to specie or not, it is equally the duty of the officer to refrain from offering these bills. I therefore wish to know by what authority government, or the officer of government, dispensed with the law; by what authority they repealed the statute, or disregarded it; by what license they obtained the dispensing power.

It is a notorious fact that no bank paper is, in the present state of the currency, equivalent to specie; it is refused by the government, which demands and obtains specie, or treasurynotes, for debts due to itself. How, then, can the collector of Boston be justified in passing bad money in fulfilment of one of the most sacred duties of the government, namely, the payment of the pensions of the aged and destitute Revolutionary pensioners?

It is said (though I do not myself know the fact to be so) that there was a large amount of United States money in that bank. This is also a subject on which I am desirous that some information should be given to the Senate, for I have heretofore understood that the public money had all, or nearly all, been drawn out of the bank. I wish to know when, and by whom,