Part 26 (2/2)

In our Atlantic States, it is as high as five or six, taking the whole length of the seaboard; in the Northwestern States, it is eight or ten, and in the Southwestern ten or twelve If the introduction, then, of foreign capital be discountenanced and discouraged, the American moneylender may fix his own rate anywhere from five to twelve per cent

per annun capital be countenanced and encouraged, its effects to keep down the rate of interest, and to bring the value of money in the United States so much the nearer to its value in older and richer countries Every dollar brought from abroad, and put into the mass of active capital at home, by so much diminishes the rate of interest; and by soclasses of society, at the expense of the American capitalist Yet the President's invention, for such it deserves to be called, that which is to secure us against the possibility of being oppressed by a ainst all introduction of foreign capital!

Mr President, what is it that has eneral banker for the civilized world? Why is it that capital frolobe accuain distributed? Doubtless, Sir, it is because she invites it, and solicits it She sees the advantage of this; and no Britishso rash, so inconsiderate, so startling, as to exhibit a groundless feeling of dissatisfaction at the introduction or en capital

Sir, of all the classes of society, the larger stockholders of the bank are a those least likely to suffer from its discontinuance There are, indeed, on the list of stockholders many charitable institutions,small amounts To these, and other proprietors of a like character, the breaking up of the bank will, no doubt, be seriously inconvenient But the capitalist, he who has invested money in the bank merely for the sake of the security and the interest, has nothing to fear The refusal to renew the charter will, it is true, diminish the value of the stock; but, then, the same refusal will create a scarcity of money; and this will reduce the price of all other stocks; so that the stockholders in the bank, receiving, on its dissolution, their portion respectively of its capital, will have opportunities of new and advantageous investreat loss, the sore e from this VETO, will fall on the public, and especially on the more active and industrious portion of the public It will inevitably create a scarcity of money; in the Western States, it will reatly enhance, everywhere, the price of doe; it threatens, everywhere, fluctuations of the currency; and it drives all our well-settled and safe operations of revenue and finance out of their accustoround of a constitutional scruple, which no respect for the opinion of others, no deference to legislative precedent, no decent regard to judicial decision, no hoe to public opinion, expressed and maintained for forty years, have power to overcoainst the experience of almost half a century; loose and flieneral notoriety; and argu the charter, so superficial and frivolous, and yet so evidently addressed to those of the community who have never had occasion to be conversant with subjects of this sort, that an intelligent reader, ishes to avoid ied to content hie, whatever and wherever that source uished share of the endowments of intellect

Mr President, as early as Deceress to the subject of the bank, in the e of that date You will find that he then felt constrained, by an irresistible sense of duty to the various interests concerned, not to delay beyond that ress to take up the subject He brought forward the saes; yet when Congress _did_ act upon it, and, on the fourth of July, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO, _did_ send hi these objections, he not only complained _that the executive was not consulted on the propriety of present action_, but affirmed also, in so many words, _that present action was deemed premature by the executive department_

Let me ask, Mr President, if it be possible that the saistrate, the saes? Certainly they , on this point, precisely opposite opinions The e of Deceress to consider the bank subject; the ress on the saes were sent to Congress by the President of the United States Sir, I leave these two es to be compared and considered by the people

Mr President, I will here take notice of but one other suggestion of the President, relative to the ti the late bill

A decent respect for the legislature of the country has hitherto been observed by all who have had occasion to hold official intercourse with it, and especially by all other branches of the governard to any measure, has never been assailed froe there is one expression, which, as it see There is an expression, evidently not casual or accidental, but inserted with design and composed with care, which does carry a direct imputation of the possibility of the effect of _private interest_ and _private influence_ on the deliberations of the two Houses of Congress I quote the passage, and shall leave it without a single remark:--”Whatever interest or influence, whether public or private, has given birth to this act, it cannot be found either in the wishes or necessities of the executive department, by which present action is deereat interests of the country, Mr President, there is one which appears to me not to have attracted froether equal to its nitude I mean the public lands

If we run our eye over the ions, almost boundless, which now constitute the public do itself, and if we recollect the amount of annual revenue derived from this source, we shall hardly fail to be convinced that few branches of national interest are of e a territory, belonging to the public, forms a subject of national concern of a very delicate nature, especially in popular governments We know, in the history of other countries, hat views and designs the public lands have been granted Either in the foresses, or in that of reduction of prices to amounts ined, the public domain, in other countries and other times, has not only been diverted from its just use and destination, but has been the occasion, also, of introducing into the state and into the public counsels no small portion both of distraction and corruption

Happily, our own systereat interest has hitherto been both safe and successful Nothing under the govern, thus far, more beneficially conducted But the tirowth and prosperity, when it has become necessary to reflect, not on any new mode of sale, for that can hardly be improved, but on some disposition of the proceeds such as shall be just and equal to the whole country, and shall insure also a constant and vigilant attention to this important subject from the people of all the States

It is not to be denied or disguised, that senti up, in so the ownershi+p, the just proprietary interest, in these lands The lands are well known to have been obtained by the United States, either by grants fron powers In both cases, and in all cases, the grants and cessions were to the United States, for the interest of the whole Union; and the grants from individual States contain express li up the whole property to the common use of all the States for ever Yet, of late years, an idea has been suggested, indeed seriously advanced, _that these lands, of right, belong to the States respectively in which they happen to lie_ This doctrine, Sir, which, I perceive, strikes this asseument derived, as is supposed, fronty It has been openly espoused, by candidates for office, in some of the new States, and, indeed, has been announced in the Senate of the United States

To the credit of the country, it should be stated, that, up to the present moment, these notions have not spread widely; and they will be repudiated, undoubtedly, by the power of general opinion, so soon as that opinion shall be awakened and expressed But there is another tendency more likely, perhaps, to run to injurious excess; and that is, a constant effort to reduce the price of land to su settleovernment has been, uniformly, to keep the prices of the public lands low; so low that every actual settler ht easily obtain a farm; but yet not so low as to tee quantities to hold for speculation The object has been to meet, at all times, the whole actual demand, at a cheap rate; and this object has been attained It is obviously of the greatest importance to keep the prices of the public lands frole one of the desire of supplying the whole actual demand at a cheap rate The present minimum price is one dollar and a quarter per acre; and millions of acres of land, much of it of an excellent quality, are now in the market at this rate Yet every year there are propositions to reduce the price, and propositions to graduate the price; that is to say, to provide that all lands having been offered for sale for a certain length of time at the established rate, if not then sold, shall be offered at a less rate; and again reduced, if not sold, to one still less I have ht, that, in soht usefully be adopted of disposing of the re the offices; but a universal syste prices at short intervals, and by large degrees, could have no other effect than a general depression of price in regard to the whole ement of the public property This convention, Sir, will think it singular enough, that a reduction of prices of the public lands should have been deround _that other impositions for revenue, such as the duty on tea and coffee, have been re the sums received for lands sold as a _tax_, a _burden_, an _ireat _drain_ on the oes froland to one of the Western States, buys a hundred acres of the best land in the world for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, pays his money, and receives an indisputable title; and iress to call this operation the laying of a _tax_, the imposition of a _burden_; and the whole of these purchases and payether, are represented as an intolerable _drain_ on the money and the industry of the new States I know not, Sir, which deserves to pass for the original, and which for the copy; but this reasoning is not unlike that whichcommunity of the West will be exhausted and ruined by the privilege of borrowing money of the Bank of the United States at six per cent interest; this interest being, as is said in the veto e, a burden upon their industry, and a drain of their currency, which no country can bear without inconvenience and distress!

It was in a forced connection with the reduction of duties of impost, that the subject of the public lands was referred to the Committee of Manufactures in the Senate, at the late session of Congress This was a legislativea leading part on the subject of the tariff and the reduction of duties, a new and delicate responsibility From this responsibility, however, Mr

Clay did not shrink He took up the subject, and his report upon it, and his speech delivered afterwards in defence of the report, are, inthe very ablest of the efforts which have distinguished his long public life I desire to commend their perusal to every citizen of Massachusetts They will show hi the rest, in the security, and proper ement, and disposal, of the public domain Founded on the report of the co for the distribution a to population, of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands for five years, first e in favor of the new States; the sums thus received by the States to be disposed of by them in favor of education, internal iht choose for itself This bill passed the Senate It was vigorously opposed in the House of Representatives by the main body of the friends of the administration, and finally lost by a small majority By the provisions of the bill, Massachusetts would have received, as her dividend, at the present average rate of sales, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars a year

I am free to confess, Sir, that I had hoped to see so of this subject, with the observance of justice towards all the States, by the government of the United States itself, without a distribution through the intervention of the State governments Such a way, however, I have not discovered I therefore voted for the bill of the last session

Mr President, let reat extent of this public property

Only twenty millions of acres have been as yet sold, froovernment One hundred and twenty millions, or about that quantity, are now cleared froes, and sections, and ready in the market for sale

I think, Sir, the whole surface of Massachusetts embraces about six millions of acres; so that the United States have a body of land, now surveyed and in market, equal to twenty States, each of the size of Massachusetts But this is but a very s yet unsurveyed, and inal Indian title The present income to the treasury from the sales of land is esti will thus see, Sir, how ihly it becoainst perversion and badthe bills which failed, at the last session, for want of the President's approval, was one in which this State had a great pecuniary interest It was the bill for the payment of interest to the States on the funds advanced by the the war, the principal of which had been paid, or assuo, a bill was introduced into the Senate bya large part of the principal sum advanced by Massachusetts for militia expenses for defence of the country This has been paid The residue of the claim is in the proper course of exaht to be alloill doubtless be paid hereafter, _vetos_ being out of the way, be it always understood In the late bill, it was proposed that _interest_ should be paid to the States on these advances, in cases where it had not been already paid It passed both Houses I recollect no opposition to it in the Senate nor do I remember to have heard of any considerable objection in the House of Representatives The argument for it lay in its own obvious justice; a justice too apparent, as it seeress, Sir, a day or two before its adjourne on ratulations on this additional act of justice thus rendered to Massachusetts, as well as other States But I had hardly reached Fraratulations were prenature had been refused, and the bill was not a law! The only reason which I have ever heard for this refusal is, that Congress had not been in the practice of allowing interest on claiht not Congress be trusted with the ht it not ood cause? There is no doubt that, in regard to old and long-neglected claims, it has been customary not to allow interest; but the Massachusetts claim was not of this character, nor were the claims of other States None of them had reislature of this Commonwealth have never oates in Congress have endeavored to discharge their duty by supporting that demand It has been already decided, in repeated instances, as well in regard to States as to individuals, that when money has been actually _borrowed_, for objects for which the general governht to provide, interest paid on such _borrowed money_ shall be refunded by the United States Now, Sir, would it not be a distinction without a difference to allow interest in such a case, and yet refuse it in another, in which the State had not borrowed the money, and paid interest for it, but had raised it by taxation, or, as I believe was the case with Massachusetts, by the sale of valuable stocks, _bearing interest_? Is it not apparent, that, in her case, as clearly as in that of a _borrowing_ State, she has actually _lost_ the interest? Can any man maintain that between these two cases there is any sound distinction, in law, in equity, or in n this bill has deprived Massachusetts and Maine of a very large sum of money, justly due to them It is now fifteen or sixteen years since the money was advanced; and it was advanced for the most necessary and praiseworthy public purposes The interest on the sum already refunded, and on that which may reasonably be expected to be hereafter refunded, is not less than _five hundred thousand dollars_ But for the President's refusal, in this unusual ive his approbation to a bill which had passed Congress almost unanimously, these two States would already have been in the receipt of a very considerable portion of this money, and the residue, to be received in due season, would have been made sure to them

Mr President, I do not desire to raise mere pecuniary interests to an undue importance in political matters I adation and importance I would not oppose the President ht her entitled to, in a matter of money, provided he had made known his reasons, and they had appeared to be such as ent and honest reat and direct importance to a State, where the justice of the case is so plain, thatelse, where her clairess without considerable opposition in either House, a refusal to approve the bill without giving the slightest reason, the taking advantage of the rising of Congress to give it a silent go-by, _is_ an act that may well awaken the attention of the people in the States concerned It _is_ an act requiring close examination It _is_ an act which calls loudly for justification by its author And now, Sir, I will close what I have to say on this particular subject by stating, that, on the 22d of March, 1832, the President did actually approve and sign a bill, in favor of South Carolina, by which it was enacted that her claim _for interest uponthe late war should be settled and paid; _thebeen drawn by the State fro interest_ This was precisely the case of Massachusetts

Mr President, I now approach an inquiry of a far deeper andinterest Are the principles and erous to the Constitution and to the union of the States? Sir, I believe therounds of that belief

In the first place, any aderous to the Constitution and to the union of the States, which denies the essential powers of the Constitution, and thus strips it of the capacity to do the good intended by it