Volume 2 — SPEECHES. (continued 13)

But, Mr. President, if the banishment from circulation of all bank paper, and the exclusive use of specie in this country were desirable, is it practicable, can it be possibly brought about? I have said that the legislator is bound to have due regard to the wants, wishes, necessities, and condition of the country for which he acts. But a practical American statesman has a further duty to perform; that of attentively considering the distribution of the power of government in this confederacy. Here we have local governments for the respective states, and general government for the whole. The general government has but few, limited, and well defined powers, the states severally possessing all power not denied to them, or delegated by the federal constitution. Whatever difference of opinion might exist, if it were a new question, it cannot now be controverted, that each of the twenty-six state governments has the power to bring into existence as many banks as it pleases. Banks have accordingly been created, and will continue, and must exist, in spite of the general government. The paper of banks will, therefore, remain, as it has been, a part of the general circulation, in defiance of any policy which this government may proclaim. And if one or more of the states were to adopt the hard money policy, there would be others which would find, in the very forbearance of certain members of the confederacy to establish or continue banks, a fresh motive to create and sustain them; for the issues of their banks would run into the states which had them not, and they would thus appropriate to themselves, at the expense of others, all the benefits of banking. I recollect well how banks were originally first introduced into many of the southern and western states. They found themselves exposed to all the inconveniences, without enjoying the benefits, of the banking system; and they were reduced to the necessity of establishing banks, to share the advantages, as well as the disadvantages, of the system.

Banks, bank notes, a convertible paper money, are, therefore, inevitable. There is no escape from them. You may deliver as many homilies as you please, send forth from this capitol as many essays and disquisitions as you think proper, circulate president’s messages denouncing them as widely as you choose, and thunder forth from a party press, as loud and as long as you can, against banks, and they will continue to exist in spite of you. What, then, is it the duty of a wise, practical, federal statesman to do? Since he finds a state of things which is unalterable, to which he must submit, however convinced he may be of the utility of a change, his duty is to accommodate his measures to this immutable state of public affairs. And, if he cannot trust the eight or nine hundred local banks which are dispersed through the country, create a federal bank, amenable to the general government, subject to its inspection and authority, and capable of supplying a general currency worthy of its confidence; make, in short, the government of the whole partake of the genius, and conform to the fixed character, of the party.

Mr. President, I never have believed that the local banks were competent to supply such a general currency, of uniform value, as this people wants, or to perform those financial offices which are necessary to a successful administration of this government. I pronounced them incompetent, at the period of the removal of the deposits; and we foretold the unfortunate state of things that now exist. But the party in power, which now denounce them, proclaimed their entire ability, not only to supply as good, but a better currency, than that which was furnished by the bank of the United States, and to perform all the financial duties which that institution fulfilled. After that party had succeeded in putting down the bank of the United States, and got their system of state banks into full operation, it continued, year after year, to announce to the public that all its expectations had been fully realized.

A bank of the United States established by this government would not only furnish it a currency in which it might safely confide, in all receipts and payments, and execute every financial office, but it would serve as a sentinel; a cement, and a regulator to the state banks. The senator from Pennsylvania has urged that the present bank of the United States of Pennsylvania, has a charter more extensive than that of the late bank of the United States; that it is, in fact, the old bank with a new charter; and that, with all its vast resources and means, it has been not only unable to act as a regulator of the local banks, but was recently the first to set the pernicious example of a suspension of specie payments.

Mr. President, can the distinguished senator be serious in his description of these attributes of the Pennsylvania bank? Surely he must have intended that part of his speech for some other theatre. In the first place, Pennsylvania, besides sundry other onerous conditions of loans and subscriptions to objects of internal improvements, levied upon the present bank, in the form of bonus, some four or five millions of dollars. Then the general government has withdrawn from it the seven millions of stock which it held in the old bank—a circumstance which I have no doubt has tended to cripple its operations. And it is wholly without the deposits of the government, which the former bank possessed. Instead of being an ally, the general government has been in the relation of an enemy to it. And it has had to encounter all the enmity of a powerful party, within the bosom of the commonwealth. So far from assuming the office of a regulator of the local banks, its late distinguished president, upon whose authority the senator relies for proof of the extent and liberality of its new charter, expressly declared that it had ceased to be a general agent, and had retired within the circle of its state duties. So far from having derived any strength from its connection with the late bank of the United States, there cannot be a doubt that that connection rendered it far less efficient than it would have been, if it had gone into operation with an unencumbered capital, freshly subscribed, of thirty-five millions of dollars.

To guard against all misconception or misrepresentation, I repeat, what I said on a former occasion, that, although I am convinced, thoroughly convinced, that this country cannot get along well without a bank of the United States, I have no thought of proposing such a bank, and have no wish to see it proposed by any other, until it is demanded by a clear and undisputed majority of the people of the United States.

Seeing that a bank of the United States could not be established, two years ago, I expressed my willingness to make an experiment with the state banks, rather than resort to this perilous measure. And now, such are my deep convictions of the fatal tendency of this project of a sub-treasury, that I would greatly prefer the employment of the agency of state banks. But whilst I should entertain hopes of their success, I confess that I should not be without strong apprehensions of their failure. My belief is, that the state banks would be constantly exposed to disorder and derangement, without the coöperation of a bank of the United States; and that our banking system will only be safe and complete, when we shall have both a bank of the United States, and state banks.

We are told by the president of the United States, in his message at the opening of the session, that a great moneyed power exists in London, that exerts a powerful influence on this country that it is the result of the credit system; and that every bank established in a remote village in this country, becomes bound to that power by a cord, which it touches at its pleasure.

There is, sir, some truth in this representation, and every genuine American must feel it with shame and regret. It is a melancholy fact, that the arrival of steam vessels in the port of New York, from England, is looked for with more curiosity and interest, on account of the financial intelligence which they bear from London and the bank of England, than the arrival of the mail from congress. Our people have been taught, by sad experience, to expect nothing good from the councils of their own country, and turn their attention towards the operations in a foreign country. Was this eager inquiry into the transactions of the bank of England made during the existence of the bank of the United States? No sir, no sir. You denounced this bank as a monster, destroyed it; and you have thrown us into the jaws of a foreign-monster, which we can neither cage nor control. You tore from us our best shield against the bank of England, and now profess to be surprised at the influence which it exercises upon our interests! We do not find that the continental nations of Europe, that have national banks, complain of the influence of the bank of England upon them. On the contrary, the bank of England has recently been compelled to apply to the bank of France for a large sum of specie to sustain its credit and character.

But, sir, we must look to higher and much more potent causes than the operations of any bank, foreign or domestic, for the lively interest which is felt in this country, in the monetary transactions of England. In England, the credit system, as it is called, exists in a much more extensive degree than in this country; and, if it were true of the nature of that system, as is alleged, to render one country dependent upon another, why should not England be more dependent upon us, than we upon England? The real cause of our dependence arises out of the unfavorable balance of our foreign trade. We import too much, and export too little. We buy too much abroad, make too little at home. If we would shake off this degrading foreign dependence, we must produce more, or buy less. Increase our productions, in all the variety of forms in which our industry can be employed; augment the products of our soil, extend our manufactures, give new stimulus to our tonnage and fishing interests, sell more than we buy, get out of debt and keep out of debt to the foreigner, and he will no longer exert an influence upon our destiny.

And this unfavorable balance of our foreign trade is wholly independent of, and unconnected with, the nature of the character of the currency of the country, whether it be exclusively metallic, or mixed with paper and the precious metals. England, in a great measure, by means of that credit or paper system, now so much denounced, has become the centre of the commerce, the exchanges, and the moneyed operations of the world. By the extent, variety, and perfection of her manufactures, she lays most nations that admit them freely, under contribution to her. And if we had no currency but specie, we should be just as much exposed to the moneyed power of London, or, which is the true state of the case, to the effects of an unfavorable balance of trade, as we now are. We should probably be more so; because a large portion of the specie of the country being in the vaults of a few depositaries, it would be easier then to obtain it for exportation, in the operations of commerce, than now, when it is dispersed among nine hundred or a thousand banks. What was our condition during the colonial state, when, with the exception of small amounts of government paper money, we had no currency but specie, and no banks? Were we not constantly and largely in debt to England? Was not our specie perpetually drained to obtain supplies of British goods? Do you not recollect that the subject of the British debts formed one of those matters which were embraced in the negotiations and treaty of peace, which terminated the revolutionary war? And that it was a topic of angry and protracted discussion long after, until it was finally arranged by Mr. Jay’s treaty of 1794?

Look into the works of Doctor Franklin, in which there is more practical good sense to be found, than is to be met with in the same compass any where. He was the agent of Pennsylvania, from about the middle of the last century until the breaking out of the revolutionary war, and a part of the time the agent, also, of the colonies of Georgia, and Massachusetts. His correspondence shows, that the specie of the colonies was constantly flowing from them for the purchase of British goods, insomuch that the colonies were left absolutely destitute of a local currency; and one of the main objects of his agency was to obtain the sanction of the parent country to those issues of paper money, which the necessities of Pennsylvania compelled her to make. The issue was strenuously opposed by the merchants engaged in the American trade, on account of the difficulty which it created in making collections and remittances home. So great was that drain of specie, that we know that Virginia and other colonies were constrained to adopt tobacco as a substitute for money.

The principal cause, therefore, of the influence of the moneyed power of London over this country, is to be found in the vast extent of our dealings with her. The true remedy is, to increase our manufactures and purchase less of hers, and to augment our exports by all the means in our power, and to diminish our imports as much as possible. We must increase our productions, or economise much more than we have done. New Jersey, before the revolution, being much pressed for one hundred thousand pounds sterling, Doctor Franklin proposed a plan, by which she could in one year make up that sum. The plan was this; she was in the habit of importing annually from England merchandise to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds. He recommended that the ladies should buy only half the amount of silks, calicoes, teas, and so forth, during the year, which they had been in the habit of consuming; and in this way by saving, the colony would make the required sum of one hundred thousand pounds. If we would, for a few years, import only half the amount from England that we have been in the habit of doing, we should no longer feel the influence of the London money power.

Mr. President, gentlemen, in my humble opinion, utterly deceive themselves, in supposing that this measure is demanded by a majority of the people of the United States, and in alleging that this is proved by the result of elections of the past year. That there were a vast majority of them opposed to it was demonstrated incontestably by previous elections. The elections of last year did not in many, perhaps most instances, turn at all upon the merits of this measure. In several states the people were deceived by assurances that the sub-treasury was at an end, and would be no longer agitated. In others, the people had reason to be dissatisfied with the conduct of their banks; and they were artfully led to believe this bill would supply a corrective of the errors of the banking system. And where they have apparently yielded their assent to the bill, it has been that sort of assent which the patient yields, whose constitution has been exhausted and destroyed by the experiments of empiricism, and who finally consents to take the last quack medicine offered to him in the hope of saving his life. I know the people of the United States well. They are ever ready cheerfully to submit to any burden demanded by the interest, the honor, or the glory of their country. But what people ever consented to increase their own burdens unnecessarily? The effect of this measure is, by exacting specie exclusively from the people, and paying it out to the official corps and the public creditor, to augment the burdens of the people, and to swell the emoluments of office. It is an insult to the understanding and judgment of the enlightened people of the United States, to assert that they can approve such a measure.

No true patriot can contemplate the course of the party in power without the most painful and mortified feelings. They began some years ago their war on the bank of the United States. It was dangerous to liberty; it had failed to fulfil the purposes of its institution; it did not furnish a sound currency, although the sun, in all its course, never shone upon a better. In short, it was a monster, which was condemned to death, and it was executed accordingly. During the progress of that war, the state banks were the constant theme of praise, in speech and song, of the dominant party. They were the best institutions in the world, free from all danger to public liberty, capable of carrying on the exchanges of the country, and of performing the financial duties to government, and of supplying a far better currency for the people than the bank of the United States. We told you that the state banks would not do, without the coöperation of a bank of the United States. We told you that you would find them a weak league; a mere fleet of open boats tied together by a hickory withe, and which the first storm would disperse and upset. But you scorned all our warnings, and continued, year after year, to puff and praise the operations of these banks. You had the boldness, in the face of this abused nation, to aver that the country had been supplied by them with a better currency, and better exchanges, than it had been by the bank of the United States. Well, by your own measures, by your treasury circular, distribution of the surplus, and so forth, you accelerated the catastrophe of the suspension of the banks. You began with promises to the people of a better currency, better times, more security to civil liberty; and you end with no currency at all, the worst possible times, an increase of executive power, and a consequent increase of danger to civil liberty. You began with promises to fill the pockets of the people, and you end by emptying theirs and filling your own.

I now proceed, sir, to the object which constituted the main purpose of my rising at this time. I have hitherto considered the bill, as its friends in the senate represent it, as a measure simply for exacting specie, keeping it in the custody of officers of the government, and disbursing it in a course of administration. I mean now to show that, whatever its friends here may profess or believe, the bill lays the foundations, deep and broad, of a government bank—a treasury bank, under the sole management of the president. Let us first define a bank. It may have three faculties, separately, or combined; the faculty of issues, entering into and forming a part of the circulating medium of the country; that of receiving deposits, and that of making discounts. Any one of these three faculties makes it a bank; and by far the most important of the three, is that of the power of issues. That this bill creates a bank of issues, I most sincerely believe, and shall now attempt to prove; and the proof will be first extraneous, and secondly intrinsic.

As to the extraneous proof, I rely upon the repeated declarations of the late president of the United States, in his annual messages. On more than one occasion, he stated the practicability of establishing a bank on the revenue of the government, and to be under the superintendence of the secretary of the treasury. And when he vetoed the charter of the late bank of the United States, he expressly declared, that, if congress had applied to him, he could have furnished the scheme of a bank, free from all constitutional objections; doubtless meaning a treasury bank. The present chief magistrate and the present secretary of the treasury have also, repeatedly, in language, in their messages and reports, characteristically ambiguous, it is true, but sufficiently intelligible, intimated the facilities which the commerce and business of the country would derive from the drafts issued by the treasury in virtue of this bill. The party, its press, and its leaders, have constantly put this sub-treasury scheme in competition with a bank of the United States, and contended that the issue was sub-treasury or bank of the United States. But how can they be compared, or come in competition with each other, if the most important function of a bank of the United States—that of supplying a medium of general circulation and uniform value—is not to be performed under this bill?

I pass to the more important, and, I think, conclusive proof, supplied by the provisions themselves of the bill. After providing that all money paid to government for duties, public lands, and other dues, shall be deposited with the treasurer of the United States, the receivers-general; and the mints, the tenth section enacts:

‘That it shall be lawful for the secretary of the treasury to transfer the moneys in the hands of any depositary hereby constituted, to the treasury of the United States; to the mint at Philadelphia; to the branch mint at New Orleans; or to the offices of either of the receivers-general of public moneys, by this act directed to be appointed; to be there safely kept, according to the provisions of this act; and also to transfer moneys in the hands of any one depositary constituted by this act, to any other depositary constituted by the same, at his discretion, and as the safety of the public moneys, and the convenience of the public service, shall seem to him to require; which authority to transfer the moneys belonging to the post-office department is also hereby conferred upon the postmaster-general, so far as its exercise by him may be consistent with the provisions of existing laws; and every depositary constituted by this act, shall keep his account of the moneys paid to or deposited with him, belonging to the post-office department, separate and distinct from the account kept by him of other public moneys so paid or deposited. And for the purpose of payments on the public account, it shall be lawful for the treasurer of the United States to draw upon any of the said depositaries, as he may think most conducive to the public interests, or to the convenience of the public creditors, or both.’

Thus is the secretary invested with unlimited authority to transfer the public money from one depositary to another, and to concentrate it all, if he pleases, at a single point. But, without this provision, the city of New York necessarily must be the place at which the largest portion of the public money will be constantly in deposit. It collects alone about two thirds of the duties on imports, and is becoming, if it be not already, the money centre of the United States. It is not indispensable, to create a bank of issues, that the place of issue and the place of payment should be identical. The issue of the paper may be at one city, and the place of payment may be a different and even distant city. Nor is the form of the paper material, so as to carry it into the general circulation of the money of the country. Whether it be in the shape of bank notes, bank checks, post-notes, or treasury drafts, is of no consequence. If there be confidence in it, and the paper be of convenient amount, passes by delivery, and entitles the holder to demand the specie upon its face, at his pleasure, it will enter into the general circulation; and the extent of its circulation will be governed by the amount issued, and the confidence which it enjoys.

I presume that no one will contest these principles. Let us apply them to the provisions of this bill. The last clause of the tenth section, already cited, declares:

‘And for the purpose of payments on the public account, it shall be lawful for the treasurer of the United States to draw upon any of the said depositaries as he may think most conducive to the public interests, or to the convenience of the public creditors, or both.’

Here is no restriction whatever as to the amount or form of the draft. There is nothing to prevent his making it for one hundred dollars, or fifty dollars, or ten dollars. There is nothing to prevent the use of bank paper; and the draft will have the number of signatures usual to bank paper. It will or may be signed by the treasurer, register, and comptroller.

Now, sir, let me suppose that a citizen has a demand upon the government for five thousand dollars, and applies to the treasurer for payment. On what receiver-general will you, he will be asked, have the amount? On the receiver-general at New York? In what sum? One half of the sum in drafts of one hundred dollars, and the other in drafts of fifty dollars. The treasurer cannot lawfully decline furnishing the required drafts. He is bound by law to consult the convenience of the public creditor. The drafts are given to him. What will he do with them? There is not a spot in the whole circumference of the United States, in which these drafts will not command a premium, or be at par. Every where to the south and west of New York they will command a premium of from one fourth to two and a half per centum. Every where east and north, they will be at par. What, I again ask, will the holder do with them? Will he commit the indiscretion or folly of cashing these drafts, and expose himself to the hazard and inconvenience of losing or carrying the specie about him? No such thing. Being every where better than or equal to specie, he will retain the drafts, and carry them with him to his home, and use them in his business. What I have supposed likely to be done by one, will be done by every creditor of the government. These drafts, to a considerable extent, will remain out, enter the general circulation, and compose a part of the common currency of the country, commanding, at particular places, as notes of the bank of the United States have done, and now do, a premium, but any where being certainly good for the amount on their face. All this is perfectly plain and inevitable; and the amount of this element of government drafts, in the general currency of the country, will be somewhat governed by the amount of the annual disbursements of the government. In the early administration of this treasury bank, its paper will command general and implicit confidence. It will be as much better than the paper of the bank of the United States or the bank of England, as the resources of the United States are superior to those of any mere private corporation. Sub-treasurers and receivers-general may fly with the public money committed to their charge; may peculate or speculate as they please, and, unlike the condition of banks, whose fraudulent officers squander the means of those institutions, the nation remains bound for the redemption of all paper issued under its authority. But the paper of the late bank of the United States acquired a confidence every where, more or less, in and out of the United States. It was received in Canada, in Europe, and at Canton. The government drafts upon receivers-general will have a much more sure and extensive circulation. Who will doubt their payment? Who will question the honor and good faith of the United States in their redemption? The bankers of Europe, the Rothschilds and the Barings, will receive them without hesitation, and prefer them to the specie they represent, whenever the rate of exchange is not decidedly against this country, because they can be more safely and conveniently kept than specie itself. And with respect to our state banks, the treasury drafts will form the basis of their operations. They will be preferred to specie, because they will be more convenient, and free from the hazards incident to the possession of specie. The banks will require no more specie than the wants of the community for change make necessary.

Thus, sir, will these government drafts, or bank notes, as they may be called, remain out in circulation. The issues of the first year, under appropriations of the public revenue, will be followed by the issues of succeeding years. More and more will it be perceived to be needless and indiscreet to cash them; and more and more will the specie of the country accumulate in the custody of the receivers-general, until, after a few years, the greater part of the specie of the country will be found in the vaults of the depositaries, represented by an equal amount of government paper in circulation. I can conceive of no case or motive, but one, for withdrawing the specie from the vaults of the depositaries, and that is, when, from an unfavorable state of our foreign trade, the course of foreign exchange is much against us; and then this system will furnish great facilities to the export of the precious metals.

In process of time, it will be seen, as was observed with respect to the bank of Amsterdam, that there is a much larger amount of specie in deposit with the receivers-general, than is likely to be called for by the paper representing it in circulation, in the common transactions of the business and commerce of the country; and what has been done before, will be done again. Government in a time of necessity, will be tempted to increase its paper issues upon the credit of this dormant specie capital. It will be tempted again and again to resort to this expedient, since it is easier to make emissions of paper, than to lay the burden of taxation on the people. The history of American paper money, during the revolution, of French assignats, and of government banks, throughout the world, tells the whole tale, and gives you the denouement.

But we shall be informed, as has been insisted, that this bill cautiously guards against the degeneracy of the system into a government bank, by the provision contained in the twenty-third section, enjoining the secretary of the treasury ‘to issue and publish regulations to enforce the speedy presentation of all government drafts for payment at the places where payable; and to prescribe the time, according to the different distances of the depositaries from the seat of government, within which all drafts upon them respectively, shall be presented for payment; and in default of such presentation, to direct any other mode and place of payment which he may deem proper.’

Then it is to depend upon the secretary of the treasury whether we have a government bank or not! We are delivered over to the tender mercies of his legislation, in the form of the regulations which he may choose to issue and publish! And the extraordinary power is vested in him, if any dare violate his regulations, of denouncing the severe penalty of receiving payment ‘in any other mode and place which he may deem proper.’ Now, sir, between a draft on the receivers-general at St. Louis, and at New York, there will be a difference at all times of at least two per centum; and at some periods a much greater difference. Is it fitting; is it in accordance with the genius of free institutions, with the spirit of a country of laws, to confide such a power to a mere secretary of the treasury? What a power is it not to reward political friends or punish political enemies.

But, sir, I look at the matter of this restriction in a higher point of view. You cannot maintain it; why should you? You have provided all the means, as you profess to believe, of perfect security for the custody of the public money in these public depositories. Why should you require the holder of a government draft, often ignorant of the legislation of the secretary of the treasury, to present it for payment by a given day, under a severe penalty depending upon his discretion? Will not the inconvenience to the community, of a precise day and a short day, for the presentation of the draft, be vastly greater than that of the public in retaining the money for an indefinite day, until it suits the holder’s convenience to demand payment? And will you not be tempted to keep possession of the specie for the incidental advantages which it affords? Ah! sir; are we to overlook the possible uses to which, in corrupt days of the republic, this dormant specie maybe applied in the crisis of a political election, or the crisis of the existence of a party in power? Congress will be called upon, imperatively called upon, by the people, to abolish all restrictions which the secretary of the treasury may promulgate for the speedy presentation for payment of government drafts. The wants of the people, and the necessity of the country for a paper medium, possessing a uniform value, and capable of general circulation, will demand it at your hands, and you will be most ready to grant the required boon. We should regard the system according to its true and inherent character, and not be deceived by provisions, inevitably temporary in their nature, which the policy or the prudence of its authors may throw around it. The greatest want of this country, at the present period, in its circulating medium, is some convertible paper, which, at every extremity of the union, will command the confidence of the public, and circulate without depreciation. Such a paper will be supplied in the form of these government drafts.

But if the restriction which I have been considering could be enforced and continued, it would not alter the bank character of this measure. Bank or no bank, is a question not depending upon the duration of time which its issues remain out, but upon the office which they perform whilst out. The notes of the bank of the United States of Pennsylvania are not deprived of their character of composing a part of the circulating medium of the country, although they might be returned to the bank in some ten or twenty days after their issue.

I know that it has been argued, and will be argued again, that at all times, since the commencement of the government, the practice of the treasury has been, to issue its drafts upon the public depositaries; that these drafts have not heretofore circulated as money; and that if they now do, it is an incident which attaches no blame to the government.

But heretofore these drafts were issued upon banks, and the holders of them passed to their credit with the banks or received payment in bank notes. The habit of the country—and habit was a great thing—was to use bank notes. Moreover, there were bank notes of every kind in use; those which were local and those which were general in their credit and circulation. Now, having no bank of the United States in existence, there are no bank notes which maintain the same value, and command the public confidence, throughout the union. You create, therefore, an inexorable necessity for the use of government drafts as a medium of general circulation, and argue from a state of things when no such necessity existed!

The protestation of the friends of the bill in this chamber, the denunciations of its opponents, and the just horror which the people entertain of a government bank, may prompt the secretary of the treasury, slowly and slyly, to lift the veil which masks its true features. A government bank may not suddenly burst upon us, but there it is, embodied in this bill; and it is not the least objection to the measure that it depends upon the discretion of a secretary of the treasury to retard or accelerate the commencement of its operation at his pleasure. Let the reëlection of the present chief magistrate be secured, and you will soon see the bank disclosing its genuine character. But, thanks be to God, there is a day of reckoning at hand. All the signs of the times clearly indicate its approach; and on the fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord 1841, I trust that the long account of the abuses and corruptions of this administration, in which this measure will be a conspicuous item, will be finally and for ever adjusted.

Mr. President, who is to have the absolute control of this government bank? We have seen, within a few years past, a most extraordinary power asserted and exercised. We have seen in a free, representative, republican government, the power claimed by the executive, and it is now daily enforced, of dismissing all officers of the government without any other cause than a mere difference of opinion. No matter what may be the merits of the officer; no matter how long and how faithfully he may have served the public; no matter what sacrifices he may have made; no matter how incompetent from age and poverty, he may be to gain a subsistence for himself and family, he is driven out to indigence and want for no other reason than that he differs in opinion with the president on the sub-treasury, or some other of the various experiments upon the prosperity of this people. But this is not all; if you call upon the president to state the reasons which induced him, in any particular instance, to exercise this tremendous power of dismission, wrapping himself up in all the dignity and arrogance of royal majesty, he refuses to assign any reason whatever, and tells you it is his prerogative! that you have no right to interrogate him as to the motives which have prompted him in the exercise of any of his constitutional powers! Nay, more; if you apply to a subordinate—a mere minion of power—to inform you why he has dismissed any of his subordinates, he replies, that he will not communicate the grounds of his action. I have understood that in more cases than one, the person acting as postmaster-general, has refused, this session, to inform members of congress of the grounds on which he has dismissed deputy postmasters. We have witnessed the application of this power to a treasurer of the United States recently, without the pretence of his failure to discharge his public duties, all of which he performed with scrupulous exactness, honor, and probity.

And what, sir, is the consequence of a power so claimed, and so exercised? The first is, that, in a country of constitution and laws, the basis and genius of which are, that there is and should be the most perfect responsibility on the part of every, even the highest functionary, here is a vast power, daily exercised with the most perfect impunity, and without the possibility of arraigning a guilty chief magistrate. For how can he be impeached or brought to trial if he will not disclose, and you have no adequate means of ascertaining the grounds on which he has acted?

The next consequence is, that as all the officers of government, who hold their offices by the tenure to which I allude, hold them at the president’s mercy, and without the possibility of finding any redress, if they are dismissed without cause, they become his pliant creatures, and feel that they are bound implicitly to obey his will.

Now, sir, put this government bank into operation, and who are to be charged with the administration of its operations? The secretary of the treasury, the treasurer of the United States, the register and comptroller of the treasury, and the receivers-general, and so forth; every one of them holding his office at the pleasure and mercy of the president; every one of them, perhaps, depending for his bread upon the will of the president; every one of them taught, by sad experience, to know that his safest course is to mould his opinions, and shape his conduct, so as to please the president; every one of them knowing perfectly, that, if dismissed, he is without the possibility of any remedy or redress whatever. In such a deplorable state of things, this government bank will be the mere bank of the president of the United States. He will be the president, cashier, and teller. Yes, sir, this complete subjection of all the subordinate officers of the government to the will of the president, will make him sole director, president, cashier, and teller of this government bank. The so much dreaded union of the purse and the sword will at last be consummated, and the usurpation, by which the public deposits, in 1837, were removed by the advancement of the one, and the removal of another secretary of the treasury, will not only be finally legalized and sanctioned, but the enormity of the danger of that precedent will be transcended by a deliberate act of the congress of the United States!

Mr. President, for ten long years we have been warring against the alarming growth of executive power; but, although we have been occasionally cheered, it has been constantly advancing, and never receding. You may talk as you please about bank expansions. There has been no pernicious expansion in this country like that of executive power; and, unlike the operations of banks, this power never has any periods of contraction. You may denounce, as you please, the usurpations of congress. There has been no usurpation but that of the executive, which has been both of the powers of other coördinate departments of this government, and upon the states. There scarcely remains any power in this government but that of the president. He suggests, originates, controls, checks every thing. The insatiable spirit of the Stuarts, for power and prerogative, was brought upon our American throne on the fourth of March, 1829. It came under all the usual false and hypocritical pretences and disguises, of love of the people, desire of reform, and diffidence of power. The Scotch dynasty still continues. We have had Charles the first, and now we have Charles the second. But I again thank God, that our deliverance is not distant; and that, on the fourth of March, 1841, a great and glorious revolution, without blood and without convulsion, will be achieved.

AT THE WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION OF YOUNG MEN.

AT BALTIMORE, MAY 4, 1840.

[A NATIONAL convention of whig young men assembled at Baltimore in May, 1840, to take measures to promote the election of general Harrison, as president of the United States. On this occasion, an immense assemblage of delegates from the different states of the union attended, and the convention was addressed by various distinguished citizens, particularly by members of congress, which body was then in session, at Washington. Mr. Clay being present, was called upon to address the multitude, to which he responded briefly as follows.]

MR. CLAY commenced by a reference to the northwest wind, which blew almost a gale, and compared it happily to the popular voice of the immense multitude who were present. Difficult as it was to be heard by such a throng, he said he could not refrain from obeying the general summons, and responding to the call. He was truly grateful for the honor conferred upon him. This, said he, is no time to argue; the time for discussion has passed, the nation has already pronounced its sentence. I behold here the advanced guard. A revolution, by the grace of God and the will of the people, will be achieved. William Henry Harrison will be elected president of the United States.

We behold, continued Mr. Clay, in his emphatic and eloquent manner, the ravages brought upon our country under the revolutionary administrations of the present and the past. We see them in a disturbed country, in broken hopes, in deranged exchanges, in the mutilation of the highest constitutional records of the country. All these are the fruits of the party in power, and a part of that revolution which has been in progress for the last ten years. But this party, Mr. Clay thought he could say, had been, or was demolished. As it had demolished the institutions of the country, so it had fallen itself. As institution after institution had fallen by it, and with them interest after interest, until a general and wide-spread ruin had come upon the country, so now the revolution was to end in the destruction of the party and the principles which had been instrumental in our national sufferings.

This, said Mr. Clay, is a proud day for the patriot. It animated his own bosom with hope, and I, he added, am here to mingle my hopes with yours, my heart with yours, and my exertions with your exertions. Our enemies hope to conquer us, but they are deluded, and doomed to disappointment.

Mr. Clay then alluded most happily, and amid the cheers of all around him, to the union of the whigs. We are, said he, all whigs, we are all Harrison men. We are united. We must triumph.

One word of myself, he said, referring to the national convention which met at Harrisburgh in December last. That convention was composed of as enlightened and as respectable a body of men as were ever assembled in the country. They met, deliberated, and after a full and impartial deliberation, decided that William Henry Harrison was the man best calculated to unite the whigs of the union against the present executive. General Harrison was nominated, and cheerfully, and without a moment’s hesitation, I gave my hearty concurrence in that nomination. From that moment to the present, I have had but one wish, one object, one desire, and that is, to secure the election of the distinguished citizen who received the suffrages of the convention.

Allow me here to say, continued Mr. Clay, that his election is certain. This I say, not in any boasting or over confident sense, far from it. But I feel sure, almost, that there are twenty states who will give their votes for Harrison. Do not the glories of this day authorize the anticipation of such a victory? I behold before me more than twenty thousand freemen, and is it anticipating too much to say that such an assembly as this is a sign ominous of triumph.

Mr. Clay then warned his friends of two great errors in political warfare—too much confidence, and too much despondency. Both were to be feared. There should be no relaxation. The enemy were yet powerful in numbers, and strong in organization. It became the whigs, therefore, to abstain from no laudable exertion necessary to success. Should we fail, he added, should Mr. Van Buren be reëlected, which calamity God avert, though he would be the last man to despair of the republic, he believed the struggle of restoring the country to its former glory would be almost a hopeless one. That calamity, however, or the alternative, was left with the twenty thousand whigs here assembled.

We received our liberty, said Mr. Clay, in conclusion, from our revolutionary ancestors, and we are bound in all honor, to transfer it unimpaired to our posterity. The breeze which this day blows from the right quarter, is the promise of that popular breeze which will defeat our adversaries, and make William Henry Harrison the president of the United States.

ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY UNDER MR. VAN BUREN’S ADMINISTRATION.

AT HANOVER COUNTY, VIRGINIA, JUNE 27, 1840.

[MR. CLAY, having accepted an invitation to visit his friends in his native county of Hanover, Virginia, met them at a public entertainment given him at Taylorsville, in that county, on the above day, and, in accordance with their wishes and expectations, he addressed them in the following elaborate remarks on topics of great interest, which then particularly engaged the public mind. Reviewing the measures of Mr. Van Buren’s administration, preceded by those of general Jackson’s, he gives his views of the measures necessary to be adopted to restore public prosperity, and concludes with an exhortation to his whig friends to do their duty in the then forthcoming election, which resulted in the success of their candidate, general Harrison.]

THE sentiment in compliment to Mr. Clay was received with a long-continued applause. That gentleman rose and addressed the company substantially as follows.

I think, friends and fellow-citizens, that, availing myself of the privilege of my long service in the public councils, just adverted to, the resolution, which I have adopted, is not unreasonable, of leaving to younger men, generally, the performance of the duty, and the enjoyment of the pleasure, of addressing the people in their primary assemblies. After the event which occurred last winter at the capitol of Pennsylvania, I believed it due to myself, to the whig cause, and to the country, to announce to the public, with perfect truth and sincerity, and without any reserve, my fixed determination heartily to support the nomination of William Henry Harrison there made. To put down all misrepresentations, I have, on suitable occasions, repeated this annunciation; and now declare my solemn conviction, that the purity and security of our free institutions, and the prosperity of the country, imperatively demand the election of that citizen to the office of chief magistrate of the United States.

But the occasion forms an exception from the rule which I have prescribed to myself. I have come here to the county of my nativity in the spirit of a pilgrim, to meet, perhaps for the last time, the companions, and the descendants of the companions, of my youth. Wherever we roam, in whatever climate or land we are cast by the accidents of human life, beyond the mountains or beyond the ocean, in the legislative halls of the capitol, or in the retreats and shades of private life, our hearts turn with an irresistible instinct to the cherished spot which ushered us into existence. And we dwell with delightful associations on the recollection of the streams in which, during our boyish days, we bathed, the fountains at which we drank, the piny fields, the hills and the valleys where we sported, and the friends who shared these enjoyments with us. Alas! too many of these friends of mine have gone whither we must all shortly go, and the presence here of the small remnant left behind, attests both our loss and our early attachment. I would greatly prefer, my friends, to employ the time which this visit affords in friendly and familiar conversation on the virtues of our departed companions, and on the scenes and adventures of our younger days; but the expectation which prevails, the awful state of our beloved country, and the opportunities which I have enjoyed in its public councils, impose on me the obligation of touching on topics less congenial with the feelings of my heart, but possessing higher public interest. I assure you, fellow-citizens, however, that I present myself before you for no purpose of exciting prejudices or inflaming passions, but to speak to you in all soberness and truth, and to testify to the things which I know, or the convictions which I entertain, as an ancient friend, who has lived long, and whose career is rapidly drawing to a close. Throughout an arduous life, I have endeavored to make truth and the good of our country the guides of my public conduct; but in Hanover county, for which I cherish sentiments of respect, gratitude, and veneration, above all other places, would I avoid saying any thing that I did not sincerely and truly believe.

Why is the plough deserted, the tools of the mechanic laid aside, and all are seen rushing to gatherings of the people? What occasions those vast and unusual assemblages, which we behold in every state, and in almost every neighborhood? Why those conventions of the people, at a common centre, from all the extremities of this vast union, to consult together upon the sufferings of the community, and to deliberate on the means of deliverance? Why this rabid appetite for public discussions? What is the solution of the phenomenon, which we observe, of a great nation agitated upon its whole surface, and at its lowest depths, like the ocean when convulsed by some terrible storm? There must be a cause, and no ordinary cause.

It has been truly said, in the most memorable document that ever issued from the pen of man, that ‘all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’ The recent history of our people furnishes confirmation of that truth. They are active, enterprising, and intelligent; but are not prone to make groundless complaints against public servants. If we now every where behold them in motion, it is because they feel that the grievances under which they are writhing can be no longer tolerated. They feel the absolute necessity of a change, that no change can render their condition worse, and that any change must better it. This is the judgment to which they have come; this the brief and compendious logic which we daily hear. They know that, in all the dispensations of Providence, they have reason to be thankful and grateful; and if they had not, they would be borne with fortitude and resignation. But there is a prevailing conviction and persuasion, that, in the administration of government, there has been something wrong, radically wrong, and that the vessel of state has been in the hands of selfish, faithless, and unskilful pilots, who have conducted it amidst the breakers.

In my deliberate opinion, the present distressed and distracted state of the country may be traced to the single cause of the action, the encroachments, and the usurpations of the executive branch of the government. I have not time here to exhibit and to dwell upon all the instances of these, as they have occurred in succession, during the last twelve years. They have been again and again exposed, on other more fit occasions. But I have thought this a proper opportunity to point out the enormity of the pretensions, principles, and practices of that department, as they have been, from time to time, disclosed, in these late years, and to show the rapid progress which has been made in the fulfilment of the remarkable language of our illustrious countryman, that the federal executive had an awful squinting towards monarchy. Here, in the county of his birth, surrounded by sons, some of whose sires with him were the first to raise their arms in defence of American liberty against a foreign monarch, is an appropriate place to expose the impending danger of creating a domestic monarch. And may I not, without presumption, indulge the hope, that the warning voice of another, although far humbler, son of Hanover, may not pass unheeded?

The late president of the United States advanced certain new and alarming pretensions for the executive department of the government, the effect of which, if established and recognised by the people, must inevitably convert it into a monarchy. The first of these, and it was a favorite principle with him, was, that the executive department should be regarded as a unit. By this principle of unity, he meant and intended, that all the executive officers of government should be bound to obey the commands and execute the orders of the president of the United States, and that they should be amenable to him, and he be responsible for them. Prior to his administration, it had been considered that they were bound to observe and obey the constitution and laws, subject only to the general superintendence of the president, and responsible by impeachment, and to the tribunals of justice, for injuries inflicted on private citizens.

But the annunciation of this new and extraordinary principle was not of itself sufficient for the purpose of president Jackson; it was essential that the subjection to his will, which was its object, should be secured by some adequate sanction. That he sought to effect by an extension of another principle, that of dismission from office, beyond all precedent, and to cases and under circumstances which would have furnished just grounds of his impeachment, according to the solemn opinion of Mr. Madison, and other members of the first congress, under the present constitution.

Now, if the whole official corps, subordinate to the president of the United States, are made to know and to feel that they hold their respective offices by the tenure of conformity and obedience to his will, it is manifest, that they must look to that will, and not to the constitution and laws, as the guide of their official conduct. The weakness of human nature, the love and emoluments of office, perhaps the bread necessary to the support of their families, would make this result absolutely certain.

The development of this new character to the power of dismission, would have fallen short of the aims in view, without the exercise of it were held to be a prerogative, for which the president was to be wholly irresponsible. If he were compelled to expose the grounds and reasons upon which he acted, in dismissals from office, the apprehension of public censure would temper the arbitrary nature of the power, and throw some protection around the subordinate officer. Hence the new and monstrous pretension has been advanced, that, although the concurrence of the senate is necessary by the constitution, to the confirmation of an appointment, the president may subsequently dismiss the person appointed, not only without communicating the grounds on which he has acted to the senate, but without any such communication to the people themselves, for whose benefit all offices are created! And so bold and daring has the executive branch of the government become, that one of its cabinet ministers, himself a subordinate officer, has contemptuously refused, to members of the house of representatives, to disclose the grounds on which he has undertaken to dismiss from office persons acting as deputy postmasters in his department!

As to the gratuitous assumption, by president Jackson, of responsibility for all the subordinate executive officers, it is the merest mockery that was ever put forth. They will escape punishment by pleading his orders, and he, by alleging the hardship of being punished, not for his own acts, but for theirs. We have a practical exposition of this principle in the case of the two hundred thousand militia. The secretary of war comes out to screen the president, by testifying that he never saw what he strongly recommended; and the president reciprocates that favor by retaining the secretary in place, notwithstanding he has proposed a plan for organizing the militia, which is acknowledged to be unconstitutional. If the president is not to be held responsible for a cabinet minister, in daily intercourse with him, how is he to be rendered so for a receiver; in Wisconsin or Iowa? To concentrate all responsibility in the president, is to annihilate all responsibility. For who ever expects to see the day arrive when a president of the United States will be impeached; or, if impeached, when he cannot command more than one third of the senate to defeat the impeachment?

But to construct the scheme of practical despotism, whilst all the forms of free government remained, it was necessary to take one further step. By the constitution, the president is enjoined to take care that the laws be executed. This injunction was merely intended to impose on him the duty of a general superintendence; to see that offices were filled; officers at their respective posts, in the discharge of their official functions; and all obstructions to the enforcement of the laws were removed, and, when necessary for that purpose, to call out the militia. No one ever imagined, prior to the administration of president Jackson, that a president of the United States was to occupy himself with supervising and attending to the execution of all the minute details of every one of the hosts of offices in the United States.

Under the constitutional injunction just mentioned, the late president put forward that most extraordinary pretension that the constitution and laws of the United States were to be executed as he understood them; and this pretension was attempted to be sustained, by an argument equally extraordinary, that the president, being a sworn officer, must carry them into effect, according to his sense of their meaning. The constitution and laws were to be executed, not according to their import, as handed down to us by our ancestors, as interpreted by contemporaneous expositions, as expounded by concurrent judicial decisions, as fixed by an uninterrupted course of congressional legislation, but in that sense in which a president of the United States happened to understand them!

To complete this executive usurpation, one further object remained. By the constitution, the command of the army and the navy is conferred on the president. If he could unite the purse with the sword, nothing would be left to gratify the insatiable thirst for power. In 1838 the president seized the treasury of the United States, and from that day to this, it has continued substantially under his control. The seizure was effected by the removal of one secretary of the treasury, understood to be opposed to the measure, and by the dismissal of another, who refused to violate the law of the land upon the orders of the president.

It is, indeed, said, that not a dollar in the treasury can be touched without a previous appropriation by law, nor drawn out of the treasury, without the concurrence and signature of the secretary, the treasurer, the register, and the comptroller. But are not all these pretended securities idle and unavailing forms? We have seen, that by the operation of the irresponsible power of dismission, all those officers are reduced to mere automata, absolutely subjected to the will of the president. What resistance would any of them make, with the penalty of dismission suspended over their heads, to any orders of the president, to pour out the treasure of the United States, whether an act of appropriation existed or not? Do not mock us with the vain assurance of the honor and probity of a president, nor remind us of the confidence which we ought to repose in his imagined virtues. The pervading principles of our system of governments—of all free government—is not merely the possibility, but the absolute certainty of infidelity and treachery, with even the highest functionary of the state; and hence all the restrictions, securities, and guarantees, which the wisdom of our ancestors or the sad experience of history had inculcated, have been devised and thrown around the chief magistrate.

Here, friends and fellow-citizens, let us pause and contemplate this stupendous structure of executive machinery and despotism, which has been reared in our young republic. The executive branch of the government is a unit; throughout all its arteries and veins, there is to be but one heart, one head, one will. The number of the subordinate executive officers and dependents in the United States has been estimated, in an official report, founded on public documents, made by a senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) at one hundred thousand. Whatever it may be, all of them, wherever they are situated, are bound implicitly to obey the orders of the president. And absolute obedience to his will is secured and enforced, by the power of dismissing them, at his pleasure, from their respective places. To make this terrible power of dismission more certain and efficacious, its exercise is covered up in mysterious secrecy, without exposure, without the smallest responsibility. The constitution and laws of the United States are to be executed in the sense in which the president understands them, although that sense may be at variance with the understanding of every other man in the United States. It follows, as a necessary consequence, from the principles deduced by the president from the constitutional injunction as to the execution of the laws, that, if an act of congress be passed, in his opinion, contrary to the constitution, or if a decision be pronounced by the courts, in his opinion, contrary to the constitution or the laws, that act or that decision the president is not obliged to enforce, and he could not cause it to be enforced, without a violation, as is pretended, of his official oath. Candor requires the admission that the principle has not yet been pushed in practice in these cases; but it manifestly comprehends them; and who doubts that, if the spirit of usurpation is not arrested and rebuked, they will be finally reached? The march of power is ever onward. As times and seasons admonished, it openly and boldly, in broad day, makes its progress; or, if alarm be excited by the enormity of its pretensions, it silently and secretly, in the dark of the night, steals its devious way. It now storms and mounts the ramparts of the fortress of liberty; it now saps and undermines its foundations. Finally, the command of the army and navy being already in the president, and having acquired a perfect control over the treasury of the United States, he has consummated that frightful union of purse and sword, so long, so much, so earnestly deprecated by all true lovers of civil liberty. And our present chief magistrate stands solemnly and voluntarily pledged, in the face of the whole world, to follow in the footsteps, and carry out the measures and the principles, of his illustrious predecessor!

The sum of the whole is, that there is but one power, one control, one will, in the state. All is concentrated in the president. He directs, orders, commands, the whole machinery of the state. Through the official agencies, scattered throughout the land, and absolutely subjected to his will, he executes, according to his pleasure or caprice, the whole power of the commonwealth, which has been absorbed and engrossed by him. And one sole will predominates in, and animates the whole of, this vast community. If this be not practical despotism, I am incapable of conceiving or defining it. Names are nothing. The existence or non-existence of arbitrary government does not depend upon the title or denomination bestowed on the chief of the state, but upon the quantum of power which he possesses and wields. Autocrat, sultan, emperor, dictator, king, doge, president, are all mere names, in which the power respectively possessed by them is not to be found, but is to be looked for in the constitution, or the established usages and practices, of the several states which they govern and control. If the autocrat of Russia were called president of all the Russias, the actual power remaining unchanged, his authority, under his new denomination, would continue undiminished; and if the president of the United States were to receive the title of autocrat of the United States, the amount of his authority would not be increased, without an alteration of the constitution.

General Jackson was a bold and fearless reaper, carrying a wide row, but he did not gather the whole harvest; he left some gleanings to his faithful successor, and he seems resolved to sweep clean the field of power. The duty of inculcating on the official corps the active exertion of their personal and official influence, was left by him to be enforced by Mr. Van Buren, in all popular elections. It was not sufficient that the official corps was bound implicitly to obey the will of the president. It was not sufficient that this obedience was coerced by the tremendous power of dismission. It soon became apparent, that this corps might be beneficially employed, to promote, in other matters than the business of their offices, the views and interest of the president and his party. They are far more efficient than any standing army of equal numbers. A standing army would be separated, and stand out from the people, would be an object of jealousy and suspicion; and, being always in corps, or in detachments, could exert no influence on popular elections. But the official corps is dispersed throughout the country, in every town, village, and city, mixing with the people, attending their meetings and conventions, becoming chairmen and members of committees, and urging and stimulating partisans to active and vigorous exertion. Acting in concert, and, throughout the whole union, obeying orders issued from the centre, their influence, aided by executive patronage, by the post-office department, and all the vast other means of the executive, is almost irresistible.

To correct this procedure, and to restrain the subordinates of the executive from all interference with popular elections, my colleague, (Mr. Crittenden,) now present, introduced a bill in the senate. He had the weight of Mr. Jefferson’s opinion, who issued a circular to restrain federal officers from intermeddling in popular elections. He had before him the British example, according to which, place-men and pensioners were not only forbidden to interfere, but were not, some of them, even allowed to vote at popular elections. But his bill left them free to exercise the elective franchise, prohibiting only the use of their official influence. And how was this bill received in the senate? Passed, by those who profess to admire the character, and to pursue the principles of Mr. Jefferson? No such thing. It was denounced as a sedition bill. And the just odium of that sedition bill, which was intended to protect office-holders against the people, was successfully used to defeat a measure of protection of the people against the office-holders! Not only were they left unrestrained, but they were urged and stimulated by an official report, to employ their influence in behalf of the administration, at the elections of the people.

Hitherto, the army and the navy have remained unaffected by the power of dismission, and they have not been called into the political service of the executive. But no attentive observer of the principles and proceedings of the men in power could fail to see that the day was not distant, when they, too, would be required to perform the partisan offices of the president. Accordingly, the process of converting them into executive instruments has commenced in a court-martial assembled at Baltimore. Two officers of the army of the United States have been there put upon their solemn trial, on the charge of prejudicing the democratic party, by making purchases for the supply of the army, from members of the whig party! It is not pretended that the United States were prejudiced by those purchases; on the contrary, it was, I believe, established that they were cheaper than could have been made from the supporters of the administration. But the charge was, that the purchase at all from the opponents, instead of the friends, of the administration, was an injury to the democratic party, which required that the offenders should be put upon their trial, before a court-martial! And this trial was commenced at the instance of a committee of a democratic convention, and conducted and prosecuted by them! The scandalous spectacle is presented to an enlightened world, of the chief magistrate of a great people executing the orders of a self-created power, organized within the bosom of the state; and, upon such an accusation, arraigning before a military tribunal, gallant men, who are charged with the defence of the honor and the interest of their country, and with bearing its eagles in the presence of an enemy!

But the army and navy are too small, and, in composition, are too patriotic to subserve all the purposes of this administration. Hence, the recent proposition of the secretary of war, strongly recommended by the president, under color of a new organization of the militia, to create a standing force of two hundred thousand men, an amount which no conceivable foreign exigency can ever make necessary. It is not my purpose now to enter upon an examination of that alarming and most dangerous plan of the executive department of the federal government. It has justly excited a burst of general indignation; and nowhere has the disapprobation of it been more emphatically expressed than in this ancient and venerable commonwealth.

The monstrous project may be described in a few words. It proposes to create the force by breaking down Mason and Dixon’s line, expunging the boundaries of states; melting them up in a confluent mass, to be subsequently cut up into ten military parts, alienates the militia from its natural association, withdraws it from the authority and command and sympathy of its constitutional officers, appointed by the states, puts it under the command of the president, authorises him to cause it to be trained, in palpable violation of the constitution, and subjects it to be called out from remote and distant places, at his pleasure, and on occasions not warranted by the constitution!

Indefensible as this project is, fellow-citizens, do not be deceived, by supposing that it has been or will be abandoned. It is a principle of those who are now in power, that an election or a reëlection of the president implies the sanction of the people to all the measures which he had proposed, and all the opinions which, he had expressed, on public affairs, prior to that event. We have seen this principle applied on various occasions. Let Mr. Van Buren be reëlected in November next, and it will be claimed that the people have thereby approved of this plan of the secretary of war. All entertain the opinion, that it is important to train the militia, and render it effective; and it will be insisted, in the contingency mentioned, that the people have demonstrated that they approve of that specific plan. There is more reason to apprehend such a consequence, from the fact that a committee of the senate, to which this subject was referred, instead of denouncing the scheme as unconstitutional, and dangerous to liberty, presented a labored apologetic report, and the administration majority in that body ordered twenty thousand copies of the apology to be printed, for circulation among the people. I take pleasure in testifying, that one administration senator had the manly independence to denounce, in his place, the project as unconstitutional. That senator was from your own state.

I have thus, fellow-citizens, exhibited to you a true and faithful picture of executive power, as it has been enlarged and expanded within the last few years, and as it has been proposed further to extend it. It overshadows every other branch of the government. The source of legislative power is no longer to be found in the capitol, but in the palace of the president. In assuming to be a part of the legislative power, as the president recently did, contrary to the constitution, he would have been nearer the actual fact if he had alleged that he was the sole legislative power of the union. How is it possible for public liberty to be preserved, and the constitutional distributions of power, among the departments of government, to be maintained, unless the executive career be checked and restrained?

It may be urged that two securities exist; first, that the presidential term is of short duration; and, second, the elective franchise. But it has been already shown, that whether a depository of power be arbitrary or compatible with liberty, does not depend upon the duration of the official term, but upon the amount of power invested. The dictatorship in Rome, was an office of brief existence, generally shorter than the presidential term. Whether the elective franchise be an adequate security or not, is a problem to be solved next November. I hope and believe it yet is. But if Mr. Van Buren should be reëlected, the power already acquired by the executive be retained, and that which is in progress be added to that department, it is my deliberate judgment that there will be no hope remaining for the continuance of the liberties of the country.

And yet the partisans of this tremendous executive power arrogate to themselves the name of democrats, and bestow upon us, who are opposed to it, the denomination of federalists! In the senate of the United States, there are five gentlemen who were members of the federal party, and four of them have been suddenly transformed into democrats, and are now warm supporters of this administration, whilst I, who had exerted the utmost of my humble abilities to arouse the nation to a vindication of its insulted honor, and its violated rights, and to the vigorous prosecution of the war against Great Britain, to which they were violently opposed, find myself, by a sort of magical influence, converted into a federalist! The only American citizen that I ever met with, who was an avowed monarchist, was a supporter of the administration of general Jackson; and he acknowledged to me, that his motive was to bring about the system of monarchy, which his judgment preferred.

There were other points of difference between the federalists and the democratic, or rather republican party, of 1798, but the great, leading, prominent discrimination between them, related to the constitution of the executive department of the government. The federalists believed that, in its structure, it was too weak, and was in danger of being crushed by the preponderating weight of the legislative branch. Hence they rallied around the executive, and sought to give to it strength and energy. A strong government, an energetic executive was, among them, the common language and the great object of that day. The republicans, on the contrary, believed that the real danger lay on the side of the executive; that, having a continuous and uninterrupted existence, it was always on the alert, ready to defend the power it had, and prompt in acquiring more; and that the experience of history demonstrated that it was the encroaching and usurping department. They, therefore, rallied around the people and the legislature.

What are the positions of the two great parties of the present day? Modern democracy has reduced the federal theory of a strong and energetic executive to practical operation. It has turned from the people, the natural ally of genuine democracy, to the executive, and, instead of vigilance, jealousy, and distrust, has given to that department all its confidence, and made to it a virtual surrender of all the powers of government. The recognised maxim of royal infallibility is transplanted from the British monarchy into modern American democracy, and the president can do no wrong! This new school adopts, modifies, changes, renounces, renews, opinions at the pleasure of the executive. Is the bank of the United States a useful and valuable institution? Yes, unanimously pronounces the democratic legislature of Pennsylvania. The president vetoes it as a pernicious and dangerous establishment. The democratic majority in the same legislature pronounce it to be pernicious and dangerous. The democratic majority of the house of representatives of the United States, declare the deposits of the public money in the bank of the United States to be safe. The president says they are unsafe, and removes them. The democracy say they are unsafe, and approve the removal. The president says that a scheme of a sub-treasury is revolutionary and disorganizing. The democracy say it is revolutionary and disorganizing. The president says it is wise and salutary. The democracy say it is wise and salutary.

The whigs of 1840 stand where the republicans of 1798 stood, and where the whigs of the revolution were, battling for liberty, for the people, for free institutions, against power, against corruption, against executive encroachments, against monarchy.

We are reproached with struggling for offices and their emoluments. If we acted on the avowed and acknowledged principle of our opponents, ‘that the spoils belong to the victors,’ we should indeed be unworthy of the support of the people. No! fellow-citizens; higher, nobler, more patriotic motives actuate the whig party. Their object is the restoration of the constitution, the preservation of liberty, and rescue of the country. If they were governed by the sordid and selfish motives acted upon by their opponents, and unjustly imputed to them, to acquire office and emolument, they have only to change their names, and enter the presidential palace. The gate is always wide open, and the path is no narrow one which leads through it. The last comer, too, often fares best.

On a resurvey of the few past years we behold enough to sicken and sadden the hearts of true patriots. Executive encroachment has quickly followed upon executive encroachment; persons honored by public confidence, and from whom nothing but grateful and parental measures should have flowed, have inflicted stunning blow after blow, in such rapid succession, that, before the people could recover from the reeling effects of one, another has fallen heavily upon them. Had either of various instances of executive misrule stood out separate and alone, so that its enormity might have been seen and dwelt upon with composure, the condemnation of the executive would have long since been pronounced; but it has hitherto found safety and impunity in the bewildering effects of the multitude of its misdeeds. The nation has been in the condition of a man who, having gone to bed after his barn has been consumed by fire, is aroused in the morning to witness his dwelling-house wrapped in flames. So bold and presumptuous had the executive become, that, penetrating in its influence the hall of a coördinate branch of the government, by means of a submissive or instructed majority of the senate, it has caused a record of the country to be effaced and expunged, the inviolability of which was guarantied by a solemn injunction of the constitution! And that memorable and scandalous scene was enacted only because the offensive record contained an expression of disapprobation of an executive proceeding.

If this state of things were to remain—if the progress of executive usurpation were to continue unchecked, hopeless despair would seize the public mind, or the people would be goaded to acts of open and violent resistance. But, thank God, the power of the president, fearful and rapid as its strides have been, is not yet too great for the power of the elective franchise; and a bright and glorious prospect, in the election of William Henry Harrison, has opened upon the country. The necessity of a change of rulers has deeply penetrated the hearts of the people; and we every where behold cheering manifestations of that happy event. The fact of his election alone, without reference to the measures of his administration, will powerfully contribute to the security and happiness of the people. It will bring assurance of the cessation of that long series of disastrous experiments which have so greatly afflicted the people. Confidence will immediately revive, credit be restored, active business will return, prices of products will rise; and the people will feel and know that, instead of their servants being occupied in devising measures for their ruin and destruction, they will be assiduously employed in promoting their welfare and prosperity.

But grave and serious measures will, unquestionably, early and anxiously command the earnest attention of the new administration. I have no authority to announce, and do not pretend to announce the purposes of the new president. I have no knowledge of them, other than that which is accessible to every citizen. In what I shall say as to the course of a new administration, therefore, I mean to express my own sentiments, to speak for myself, without compromiting any other person. Upon such an interesting occasion as this is, in the midst of the companions of my youth, or their descendants, I have felt that it is due to them and to myself, explicitly to declare my sentiments, without reserve, and to show that I have been, and, as I sincerely believe, the friends with whom I have acted have been, animated by the disinterested desire to advance the best interests of the country, and to preserve its free institutions.

The first, and, in my opinion, the most important object, which should engage the serious attention of a new administration, is that of circumscribing the executive power, and throwing around it such limitations and safe-guards as will render it no longer dangerous to the public liberties.

Whatever is the work of man necessarily partakes of his imperfections; and it was not to be expected, that, with all the acknowledged wisdom and virtues of the framers of our constitution, they could have sent forth a plan of government, so free from all defect, and so full of guarantees, that it should not, in the conflict of embittered parties and of excited passions, be perverted and misinterpreted. Misconceptions or erroneous constructions of the powers granted in the constitution, would probably have occurred, after the lapse of many years, in seasons of entire calm, and with a regular and temperate administration of the government; but, during the last twelve years, the machine, driven by a reckless charioteer, with frightful impetuosity, has been greatly jarred and jolted, and it needs careful examination and a thorough repair.

With the view, therefore, to the fundamental character of the government itself, and especially of the executive branch, it seems to me that, either by amendments of the constitution, when they are necessary, or by remedial legislation, when the object falls within the scope of the powers of congress, there should be,

First, a provision to render a person ineligible to the office of president of the United States, after a service of one term.

Much observation and deliberate reflection have satisfied me that too much of the time, the thoughts, and the exertions of the incumbent, are occupied, during his first term, in securing his reëlection. The public business, consequently, suffers; and measures are proposed or executed with less regard to the general prosperity than to their influence upon the approaching election. If the limitation to one term existed, the president would be exclusively devoted to the discharge of his public duties; and he would endeavor to signalize his administration by the beneficence and wisdom of its measures.

Secondly, the veto power should be more precisely defined, and be subjected to further limitations and qualifications. Although a large, perhaps the largest, proportion of all the acts of congress passed at the short session of congress, since the commencement of the government, were passed within the three last days of the session, and when, of course, the president for the time being had not the ten days for consideration, allowed by the constitution, president Jackson, availing himself of that allowance, has failed to return important bills. When not returned by the president, within the ten days, it is questionable whether they are laws or not. It is very certain that the next congress cannot act upon them by deciding whether or not they shall become laws, the president’s objections notwithstanding. All this ought to be provided for.

At present, a bill, returned by the president, can only become a law by the concurrence of two thirds of the members of each house. I think if congress passes a bill after discussion and consideration, and, after weighing the objections of the president, still believes it ought to pass, it should become a law provided a majority of all the members of each house concur in its passage. If the weight of his argument, and the weight of his influence conjointly, cannot prevail on a majority, against their previous convictions, in my opinion, the bill ought not to be arrested. Such is the provision of the constitutions of several of the states, and that of Kentucky among them.

Thirdly, the power of dismission from office should be restricted, and the exercise of it be rendered responsible.

The constitutional concurrence of the senate is necessary to the confirmation of all important appointments; but, without consulting the senate, without any other motive than resentment or caprice, the president may dismiss, at his sole pleasure, an officer created by the joint action of himself and the senate. The practical effect is, to nullify the agency of the senate. There may be, occasionally, cases in which the public interest requires an immediate dismission without waiting for the assembling of the senate; but, in all such cases, the president should be bound to communicate fully the grounds and motives of the dismission. The power would be thus rendered responsible. Without it, the exercise of the power is utterly repugnant to free institutions, the basis of which, is perfect responsibility, and dangerous to the public liberty, as has been already shown.

Fourthly, the control over the treasury of the United States, should be confided and confined exclusively to congress; and all authority of the president over it, by means of dismissing the secretary of the treasury, or other persons having the immediate charge of it, be rigorously precluded.

You have heard much, fellow-citizens, of the divorce of banks and government. After crippling them and impairing their utility, the executive and its partisans have systematically denounced them. The executive and the country, were warned again and again of the fatal course that has been pursued; but the executive nevertheless persevered, commencing by praising, and ending by decrying, the state banks. Under cover of the smoke which has been raised, the real object all along has been, and yet is, to obtain the possession of the money power of the union. That accomplished and sanctioned by the people—the union of the sword and the purse in the hands of the president effectually secured—and farewell to American liberty. The sub-treasury is the scheme for effecting that union; and, I am told, that of all the days in the year, that which gave birth to our national existence and freedom, is the selected day to be disgraced by ushering into existence a measure imminently perilous to the liberty, which, on that anniversary, we commemorate in joyous festivals. Thus, in the spirit of destruction which animates our rulers, would they convert a day of gladness and of glory, into a day of sadness and mourning. Fellow-citizens, there is one divorce urgently demanded by the safety and the highest interests of the country—a divorce of the president from the treasury of the United States.

And, fifthly, the appointment of members of congress to any office, or any but a few specific offices, during their continuance in office, and for one year thereafter, should be prohibited.

This is a hackneyed theme, but it is not less deserving of serious consideration. The constitution now interdicts the appointment of a member of congress to any office created, or the emoluments of which had been increased whilst he was in office. In the purer days of the republic, that restriction might have been sufficient, but in these more degenerate times, it is necessary, by an amendment of the constitution, to give the principle greater extent.

These are the subjects, in relation to the permanent character of the government itself, which, it seems to me, are worthy of the serious attention of the people, and of a new administration. There are others, of an administrative nature, which require prompt and careful consideration.

First, the currency of the country, its stability and uniform value, and, as intimately and indissolubly connected with it, the insurance of the faithful performance of the fiscal services, necessary to the government, should be maintained and secured by exercising all the powers requisite to those objects with which congress is constitutionally invested. These are the great ends to be aimed at; the means are of subordinate importance. Whether these ends, indispensable to the well being of both the people and the government, are to be attained by sound and safe state banks, carefully selected, and properly distributed, or by a new bank of the United States, with such limitations, conditions, and restrictions, as have been indicated by experience, should be left to the arbitrament of enlightened public opinion.

Candor and truth require me to say, that, in my judgment, whilst banks continue to exist in the country, the services of a bank of the United States cannot be safely dispensed with. I think that the power to establish such a bank is a settled question; settled by Washington and by Madison, by the people, by forty years’ acquiescence, by the judiciary, and by both of the great parties which so long held sway in this country. I know and I respect the contrary opinion, which is entertained in this state. But, in my deliberate view of the matter, the power to establish such a bank being settled, and being a necessary and proper power, the only question is, as to the expediency of its exercise. And on questions of mere expediency, public opinion ought to have a controlling influence. Without banks, I believe we cannot have a sufficient currency; without a bank of the United States, I fear we cannot have a sound currency. But it is the end, that of a sound and sufficient currency, and a faithful execution of the fiscal duties of government, that should engage the dispassionate and candid consideration of the whole community. There is nothing in the name of the bank of the United States which has any magical charm, or to which any one need be wedded. It is to secure certain great objects, without which society cannot prosper; and if, contrary to my apprehension, these objects can be accomplished by dispensing with the agency of a bank of the United States, and employing that of state banks, all ought to rejoice, and heartily acquiesce, and none would more than I should.

Second, that the public lands, in conformity with the trusts created expressly, or by just implication, on their acquisition, be administered in a spirit of liberality towards the new states and territories, and in a spirit of justice towards all the states.

The land bill which was rejected by president Jackson, and acts of occasional legislation, will accomplish both these objects. I regret that the time does not admit of my exposing here the nefarious plans and purposes of the administration as to this vast national resource. That, like every other great interest of the country, is administered with the sole view of the effect upon the interests of the party in power. A bill has passed the senate, and is now pending before the house, according to which, forty millions of dollars are stricken from the real value of a certain portion of the public lands by a short process; and a citizen of Virginia, residing on the southwest side of the Ohio, is not allowed to purchase lands as cheap by half a dollar per acre, as a citizen living on the northwest side of that river. I have no hesitation in expressing my conviction, that the whole public domain is gone if Mr. Van Buren be reëlected.