Part 34 (2/2)

Toward the close of the last session, Gentleress for such an alteration of the law as should adold and silver The mover voted for his own proposition; but I do not recollect that any other member concurred in the vote The proposition was rejected at once; but, as in other cases, that which Congress refused to do, the executive power did Ten days after Congress adjourned, having had thisany alteration in the existing laws, a treasury order was issued, coress had been requested and had refused to do Just as in the case of the removal of the deposits, the executive power acted in this case also against the knoell understood, and recently expressed will of the representatives of the people There never has been a islative ould have sanctioned the object of that order; probably never a ress would have concurred in it The act was done without the assent of Congress, and against the well-known opinion of Congress That act altered the law of the land, or purported to alter it, against the well-knoill of the law- power

For one, I confess I see no authority whatever in the Constitution, or in any law, for this treasury order Those who have undertaken to rounds, not only different, but inconsistent and contradictory The reason which one gives, another rejects; one confutes what another argues With one it is the joint resolution of 1816 which gave the authority; with another, it is the law of 1820; with a third, it is the general superintending power of the President; and this last argument, since it resolves itself intoto point out the sources of that power, is not only the shortest, but in truth the most just He is the most sensible, as well as the most candid reasoner, in round of the pleasure of the executive, and stops there I regard the joint resolution of 1816 asthis subject, in which all have so deep an interest, beyond the caprice, or the arbitrary pleasure, or the discretion, of the Secretary of the Treasury I believe there is not the slightest legal authority, either in that officer or in the President, to make a distinction, and to say that paper old and silver only shall be received at the land offices And now for the sequel

At the commencement of the last session, as you know, Gentleht forward in the Senate for annulling and abrogating this order, by Mr Ewing, of Ohio, a gentleorous and energetic character, whose loss froard as a publicmembers all supported this resolution, and all the members, I believe, with the exception of soet rid of the treasury order But Mr Ewing's resolution was too direct It was deeracious attack on executive polity It must therefore be softened, modified, qualified, made to sound less harsh to the ears of men in power, and to assume a plausible, polished, inoffensive character It was accordingly put into the plastic hands of friends of the executive to be ht have the effect of ridding the country of the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to question executive infallibility All this did not answer The late President is not a man to be satisfied with soft words; and he saw in the measure, even as it passed the two houses, a substantial repeal of the order He is a man of boldness and decision; and he respects boldness and decision in others

If you are his friend, he expects no flinching; and if you are his adversary, he respects you none the less for carrying your opposition to the full liret the course of the President in regard to this bill, and certainly hly disapprove it But I do not suffer the arnish it, in order toit thrown back in enious, diplo a laas a response from the President and the Attorney-General, that the bill in question was obscure, ill penned, and not easy to be understood

The bill, therefore, was neither approved nor negatived If it had been approved, the treasury order would have been annulled, though in a cluatived, and returned to Congress, no doubt it would have been passed by two thirds of both houses, and in that way have becoated the order But it was not approved, it was not returned; it was retained It had passed the Senate in season; it had been sent to the House in season; but there it was suffered to lie so long without being called up, that it was completely in the power of the President when it finally passed that body; since he is not obliged to return bills which he does not approve, if not presented to him ten days before the end of the session The bill was lost, therefore, and the treasury order reain the representatives of the people, in both houses of Congress, by majorities almost unprecedented, endeavored to abolish this obnoxious order On hardly any subject, indeed, has opinion been so unaniress Yet the order remains

And now, Gentlemen, I ask you, and I ask all ht of thinking for themselves, whether, from 1832 to the present moment, the executive authority has not effectually superseded the power of Congress, thwarted the will of the representatives of the people, and even of the people themselves, and taken the whole subject of the currency into its own grasp? In 1832, Congress desired to continue the bank of the United States, and a majority of the people desired it also; but the President opposed it, and his will prevailed In 1833, Congress refused to remove the deposits; the President resolved upon it, however, and his will prevailed Congress has never been willing to overnment, and administered, of course, by executive hands; but this was the President's object, and he attained it, in a great measure, by the treasury selection of deposit banks In this particular, therefore, to a great extent, his will prevailed In 1836, Congress refused to confine the receipts for public lands to gold and silver; but the President willed it, and his will prevailed In 1837, both houses of Congress, bythe for the treasury order; but the President willed, notwithstanding, that the order should reain prevailed I repeat the question, therefore, and I would put it earnestly to every intelligent man, to every lover of our constitutional liberty, are we under the doovernreat interest of the currency, been in a single hand?

Gentlemen, I have done with the narrative of events and measures I have done with the history of these successive steps, in the progress of executive power, towards a complete control over the revenue and the currency The result is now all before us These pretended reforms, these extraordinary exercises of power froood of the people, what have they brought us to?

In 1829, the currency was declared to be _neither sound nor uniforether at variance with the fact, because I do not believe there ever was a country of equal extent, in which paper formed any part of the circulation, that possessed a currency so sound, so uniform, so convenient, and so perfect in all respects, as the currency of this country, at the e, in 1829

But how is it now? Where has the ireat cry for hard money accomplished? Is the currency _uniforood, or nearly so, as es at par, or only at the same low rates as in 1829 and other years? Every one here knows that all the benefits of this experiravated distress

And as to the _soundness_ of the currency, how does that stand? Are the causes of alarm less now than in 1829? Is there less bank paper in circulation? Is there less fear of a general catastrophe? Is property more secure, or industry more certain of its reward? We all know, Gentleainst all banks, banks have vastly increased Millions upon millions of bank paper have been added to the circulation Everywhere, and nowhere so much as where the present administration and its measures have been most zealously supported, banks have multiplied under State authority, since the decree was made that the Bank of the United States should be suffered to expire Look at Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Virginia, and other States Do we not see that banking capital and bank paper are enor? The opposition to banks, therefore, so much professed, whether it be real or whether it be but pretended, has not restrained either their number or their issues of paper Both have vastly increased

And noord or two, Gentlemen, upon this hard-money scheiven birth Gentlemen, this is a subject of delicacy, and one which it is difficult to treat with sufficient caution, in a popular and occasional address like this I profess to be a _bullionist_, in the usual and accepted sense of that word I am for a solid specie basis for our circulation, and for specie as a part of the circulation, so far as itno value to paper, merely as paper I abhor paper; that is to say, irredeeold or silver at the will of the holder But while I hold to all this, I believe, also, that an exclusive gold and silver circulation is an utter impossibility in the present state of this country and of the world We shall none of us ever see it; and it is credulity and folly, in my opinion, to act under any such hope or expectation The States will overnard to reater will be the a the country Of this I entertain not a particle of doubt

While I thus hold to the absolute and indispensable necessity of gold and silver, as the foundation of our circulation, I yet think nothing more absurd and preposterous, than unnatural and strained efforts to import specie There is but so reatly or suddenly increased Indeed, there are reasons for supposing that its amount has recently diminished, by the quantity used in manufactures, and by the di amount of specie, however, must support the paper circulations, and the systems of currency, not of the United States only, but of other nations also One of its great uses is to pass fro occasional balances in commercial transactions It always finds its way, naturally and easily, to places where it is needed for these uses But to take extraordinary pains to bring it where the course of trade does not bring it, where the state of debt and credit does not require it to be, and then to endeavor, by unnecessary and injurious regulations, treasury orders, accumulations at the mint, and other contrivances, there to retain it, is a course of policy bordering, as it appears to me, on political insanity It is boasted that we have seventy-five or eighty millions of specie now in the country But what more senseless, what ainst us abroad, of which payment is desired sooner than remittances of our own products are likely tothat which is not ours, which belongs to others, and which the convenience of others, and our own convenience also, require that they should possess? If Boston were in debt to New York, would it be wise in Boston, instead of paying its debt, to contrive all possiblespecie fro it at home? And yet this, as I think, would be precisely as sensible as the course which the government of the United States at present pursues We have, beyond all doubt, a great amount of specie in the country, but it does not answer its accustooes abroad to settle balances against us, and thereby quiet those who have demands upon us; nor is it so disposed of at home as to sustain the circulation to the extent which the circureat part of it is in the Western banks, in the land offices, on the roads through the wilderness, on the passages over the Lakes, from the land offices to the deposit banks, and from the deposit banks back to the land offices Another portion is in the hands of buyers and sellers of specie; of men in the West, who sell land-office h preain, is kept in private hands, to be used when circumstances shall tempt to the purchase of lands And, Gentlemen, I am inclined to think, so loud has been the cry about hardthe denunciation of all paper, that private holding, or hoarding, prevails to sohty ood We are weaker in our circulation, I have no doubt, our credit is feebler, money is scarcer with us, at this moment, than if twenty eneral confidence thereby restored

Gentleht not have come upon us, if the treasury order had not issued I will not say that there has not been over-trading, and over-production, and a too great expansion of bank circulation This may all be so, and the last-mentioned evil, it was easy to foresee, was likely to happen when the United States discontinued their own bank But what I do say is, that, acting upon the state of things as it actually existed, and is now actually existing, the treasury order has been, and now is, productive of great distress It acts upon a state of things which gives extraordinary force to its stroke, and extraordinary point to its sting It arrests specie, when the free use and circulation of specie are most important; it cripples the banks, at a moment when the banks more than ever need all their means It makes the merchant unable to remit, when reeneral adjusteneral question, whether prices must not come down, and adjust the in Europe and Aovernment on the subject of the currency, and I insist that these measures have been most unfortunate, and most ruinous in their effects on the ordinary means of our circulation at home, and on our ability of rees, by deranging andthe specie which is in the country, are most disastrous Let him who has lent an ear to all these promises of a more uniform currency see how he can now sell his draft on New Orleans or Mobile Let the Northern manufacturers and mechanics, those who have sold the products of their labor to the South, and heretofore realized the prices with little loss of exchange, let them try present facilities Let them see what reform of the currency has done for them Let them inquire whether, in this respect, their condition is better or worse than it was five or six years ago

Gentlemen, I hold this disturbance of the e, this derangement, and, if I may so say, this violation of the currency, to be one of the most unpardonable of political faults He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread He panders, indeed, to greedy capital, which is keen-sighted, and ars labor, which is honest, unsuspecting, and too busy with the present to calculate for the future The prosperity of the working classes lives,in established credit, and a steady es destroy it Honest industry never comes in for any part of the spoils in that scramble which takes place when the currency of a country is disordered Did wild schemes and projects ever benefit the industrious? Did irredeemable bank paper ever enrich the laborious? Did violent fluctuations ever do good to him who depends on his daily labor for his daily bread? Certainly never All these things ain, or the rashness of daring speculation; but they can bring nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and honest labor Who are they that profit by the present state of things? They are not the many, but the few They are speculators, brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant interest S dispersed, as usual, in various parts of the country, and this er either money or credit And all classes of labor partake, and must partake, in the same calamity And what consolation for all this is it, that the public lands are paid for in specie?

that, whatever embarrassment and distress pervade the country, the Western wilderness is thickly sprinkled over with eagles and dollars?

that gold goes weekly froain froo, and perforress in many other instances, in the Western States? It is reeneral convenience, with all this sky-rending claovernets a dollar So far as I know, the United States have not now a single specie dollar in the world If they have, where is it? The gold and silver collected at the land-offices is sent to the deposit banks; it is there placed to the credit of the government, and thereby becoovernment, therefore, after all, consists in mere bank credits; that very sort of security which the friends of the administration have so much denounced

Reainst all banks, that, if it shall create such a panic as shall shut up the banks, it will shut up the treasury of the United States also

Gentlely be a prophet of ill I s; and I believe the repeal of the treasury order would tend very s And I am of opinion, that, sooner or later, the order will be repealed I think it must be repealed I think the East, West, North, and South will demand its repeal But, Gentlemen, I feel it my duty to say, that, if I should be disappointed in this expectation, I see no ireatly fear, even, that the worst is not yet[107] I look for severer distresses; for extrereater inconveniences in remittance, and for a sudden fall in prices Our condition is one which is not to be ta soood, the public voice is right in de that repeal It is true, if repealed now, the relief will co to be insisted on, and pursued, till it shall be accomplished

This executive control over the currency, this power of discri, by treasury order, between onenot to be endured in a free country; and it should be the constant, persisting deal treasury order, restore the rule of the law, place all branches of the revenue on the saovernment of the country where the Constitution leaves it, in the hands of the representatives of the people in Congress” This point should never be surrendered or compromised Whatever is established, let it be equal, and let it be legal Let men know, to-day, what money may be required of thees of the statute-book, not a secret, in the executive breast

Gentlemen, in the session which has now just closed, I have done my utmost to effect a direct and immediate repeal of the treasury order

I have voted for a bill anticipating the payment of the French and Neapolitan indemnities by an advance froreat satisfaction for the restoration of duties on goods destroyed in the great conflagration in this city

I have voted for a deposit with the States of the surplus which may be in the treasury at the end of the year All these measures have failed; and it is for you, and for our fellow-citizens throughout the country, to decide whether the public interest would, or would not, have been promoted by their success

But I find, Gentle an unpardonable trespass on your indulgent patience I will pursue these remarks no further And yet I cannot persuadeyou, with the utned to you in the political concerns of your country, and of the great influence of your opinions, your exaeneral prosperity and happiness