Part 35 (1/2)

Whigs of New York! Patriotic citizens of this great metropolis! Lovers of constitutional liberty, bound by interest and by affection to the institutions of your country, Americans in heart and in principle!--you are ready, I am sure, to fulfil all the duties imposed upon you by your situation, and demanded of you by your country You have a central position; your city is the point froence emanates, and spreads in all directions over the whole land Every hour carries reports of your sentie of the Union You cannot escape the responsibility which circumstances have thrown upon you You must live and act, on a broad and conspicuous theatre, either for good or for evil to your country You cannot shrink from your public duties; you cannot obscure yourselves, nor bury your talent In the colory of Americans, you have a stake of value not to be calculated You have an interest in the preservation of the Union, of the Constitution, and of the true principles of the government, which no enerations that are to coes hence shall bear your names, and partake your blood, will feel, in their political and social condition, the consequences of the e your political duties

Having fulfilled, then, on your part and on h feebly and iard required by this occasion, shall we not use it to a higher and nobler purpose?

Shall we not, by this friendly , refresh our patriotisthen our resolutions of public duty? Shall we not, in all honesty and sincerity, with pure and disinterested love of country, as A back to the renown of our ancestors, and looking forward to the interests of our posterity, here, to-night, pledge our mutual faith to hold on to the last to our professed principles, to the doctrines of true liberty, and to the Constitution of the country, let ill prove true, or ill prove recreant? Whigs of New York! I e for my own performance of these duties, without qualification and without reserve Whether in public life or in private life, in the Capitol or at hoet that I have a country, to which I am bound by a thousand ties; and the stone which is to lie on the ground that shall cover rateful to his native land

FOOTNOTES

[106] A Speech delivered at Niblo's Saloon, in New York, on the 15th of March, 1837

[107] On the 10th of June following the delivery of this speech, all the banks in the city of New York, by common consent, suspended the payment of their notes in specie On the next day, the same step was taken by the banks of Boston and the vicinity, and the example was followed by all the banks south of New York, as they received intelligence of the suspension of specie payments in that city On the 15th of June, (just three months from the day this speech was delivered,) President Van Buren issued his proclaress for the first Monday of Septe toast having been proposed,--”Our distinguished guest,--his h unsuccessful, efforts to sustain the supreainst the encroachments of executive power, and to avert the catastrophe that now iratitude of his countrymen, and added a new lustre to that fame which was already imperishably identified with the history of our institutions,”--Mr Webster rose and responded, in substance, as follows

MR CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I cannot be indifferent to the reeted by you, nor can I suffer any show of delicacy to preventmy thanks for your kindness

I travel, Gentle what constitutes the important part of every country, the people

I find everywhere ratify admiration; and the pleasure I experience is only di the unparalleled state of distress which I have left behind , of severe evils, which I find to exist wherever I go

I cannot enable those who have not witnessed it to co in the Eastern cities It was painful, indeed, to behold it So reat and small dealers, so ether broken up in their business, so many families reduced from competence to want, so many hopes crushed, so many happy prospects for ever clouded, and such fearful looking for still greater calamities,--all united form such a mass of evil as I had never expected to see, except as the result of war, a pestilence, or some other external calas, nor should I have, indeed, if the state of things were different, to obtrude the expression of my political sentiments on such of my fellow-citizens as I may happen tothe their expression, whenever others desire that I should e public attention, I hope I may flatter myself that my opinions are already known

Recent evils have not at all surprised me, except that they have coh not surprised, I a but pleasure in this early fulfilment of my own predictions Much injury is done, which the wisest future counsels can never repair, and much more that can never be remedied but by such counsels and by the lapse of time From 1832 to the present moment, I have foreseen this result I may safely say I have foreseen it, because I have foretold and proclaimed its approach in every important discussion and debate in the public body of which I am a , now present, who has this day reminded me of what I then anticipated, as the result of thein regard to the currency In the suested to friends what I knew to be resolved upon by the executive, namely, the removal of the deposits of the public funds from the Bank of the United States, which was announced two months afterwards That was the avowed and declared commencement of the ”experiment” You know, Gentlemen, the obloquy then and since cast upon those of us who opposed this ”experients, bank advocates, bank hirelings You know that it has been a thousand ti could do better, that it was the highest possible evidence of the political wisdoacity of its contrivers, and that none opposed it or doubted its efficiency but the wicked or the stupid Well, Gentlemen, here is the end, if this _is_ the end, of this notable ”experis have wrought out an alrandeur, its flashes, that threw otherback into the shade, where are they now? Here is the ”fine of fines and the recovery of recoveries” Its panics, its scoffs, its jeers, its jests, its gibes at all former experience,--its cry of ”a new policy,” which was so ht and astonish mankind,--to this conclusion has it coainst the world; now lies it there, And none so poor to do it reverence!”

It is with no feelings of boasting or triuate superior wisdom or discernment, but it is with rief and affliction, that I contemplate the condition of difficulty and distress to which this country, so vigorous, so great, so enterprising, and so rich in internal wealth, has been brought by the policy of her government

We learn to-day that most of the Eastern banks have stopped payment, the deposit banks as well as others The experiment has exploded That bubble, which soof conceit, presueneral suspension of payment must be the result; a result which has come even sooner than was predicted Where is now that better currency that was promised? Where is that specie circulation? Where are those rivers of gold and silver, which were to fill the treasury of the governovern in the world but credit and deposits in banks that have already suspended payment? How are public creditors now to be paid in specie? How are the deposits, which the law requires to be made with the States on the 1st of July, now to be , and take a new start Every step in our financial banking system, since 1832, has been a false step; it has been a step which has conducted us farther and farther from the path of safety

The discontinuance of the national bank, the illegal removal of the deposits, the accumulation of the public revenue in banks selected by the executive, and for a long tiulation or restraint, and finally the unauthorized and illegal treasury order, have brought us where we are The destruction of the national bank was the signal for the creation of an unprecedented number of new State banks, often with nominal capitals, out of all proportion to the business of the quarters where they were established These banks, lying under no restraint froovernment or any of its institutions, issued paperto their own sense of their iain The deposit with the State banks of the whole public revenue, then accu this deposit without any legal restraint or control whatever, increased both the power and disposition of these banks for extensive issues In this way the government seems to have administered every possible provocation to the banks to induce them to extend their circulation It uniformly, zealously, and successfully opposed the land bill, a most useful measure, by which accumulation in the treasury would have been prevented; and, as if it desired and sought this accumulation, it finally resisted, with all its power, the deposit aed as a reason for the present overthrow, that an extraordinary spirit of speculation has gone abroad, and has been ly in the endeavor to purchase the public lands; but has not every act of the governed this spirit?

It accumulated revenue which it did not need, all of which is left in the deposit banks The banks had h ere ready to borrow, for the purpose of purchasing the public lands at governreat and efficientthose purchases which have since been so ant speculation and extensive monopoly These purchasers borrowed the public money; they used the public money to buy the public property; they speculated on the strength of the publicon, and every man saw it, the administration resisted, to the utmost of its power, every attempt to withdraw this money from the banks and fro the people to who, the governed it; if there have been rash speculations in the public lands, the government has furnished the means out of the treasury These unprecedented sales of the public dos, and of a wise adress, in opposition to executive wishes, passed the distribution law, thus withdrawing the surplus revenue from the deposit banks The success of that e in the executive policy, as the accuer desirable This is the most favorable motive to which I can ascribe the treasury order of July It is now said that that order was issued for the purpose of enforcing a strict execution of the lahich forbids the allowance of credits upon purchases of the public lands; but there was no such credit allowed before; not an hour was given beyond the time of sale In this respect, the order produces no difference whatever Its only effect is to require an immediate payment in specie, whereas, before, an i banks was demanded There is no overnets just as much specie in one case as in the other; for no sooner is the specie, which the purchaser is coe, paid to the receiver, than it is sent to the deposit banks, and the government has credit for it on the books of the bank; but the specie itself is again sold by the bank, or disposed of as it sees fit It is evident that the governh the purchasers of sains any thing but the banks and the brokers It is, moreover, most true that the art of ive to the large purchasers or speculators a decided preference and advantage over sht for actual settlee of the banks, however, has now placed the actual settler in a still more unfortunate situation How is he to obtain money to pay for his quarter-section? He must travel three or four times as many miles for it as he has dollars to pay, even if he should be able to obtain it at the end of that journey

I will not say that other causes, at ho about the present derangement I know that credits have been used beyond all former exahly excited, and that the pursuit of business may have been pressed too fast and too far All this I a to abate this tendency, the governing it It has parted voluntarily, and by advice, with all control over the actual currency of the country It has given a free and full scope to the spirit of banking; it has aided the spirit of speculation with the public treasures; and it has done all this, in thepromises of an exclusive specieinstitutions

It is vain, therefore, to say that the present state of affairs is owing, not to the acts of governovern to the course of the national govern to causes the operation of which governal powers to control

Is there an intelligent man in the community, at this moment, who believes that, if the Bank of the United States had been continued, if the deposits had not been removed, if the specie circular had not been issued, the financial affairs of the country would have been in as bad a state as they now are? When certain consequences are repeatedly depicted and foretold from particular causes, when the manner in which these consequences will be produced is precisely pointed out beforehand, and when the consequences come in the manner foretold, ill stand up and declare, that, notwithstanding all this, there is no connection between the cause and the consequence, and that all these effects are attributable to some other causes, nobody knohat?

No doubt but we shall hear every cause but the true one assigned for the present distress It will be laid to the opposition in and out of Congress; it will be laid to the bank; it will be laid to the merchants; it will be laid to the manufacturers; it will be laid to the tariff; it will be laid to the north star, or to the n influence of the last comet, whose tail swept near or across the orbit of our earth, before we shall be allowed to ascribe it to its just,with the currency, and an attempt to stretch executive power over a subject not constitutionally within its reach