not have failed to put an early termination to the present commercial and pecuniary embarrassments. This the Senator, in his reply, met by stating that I had called on him and his friends to follow my lead; and thus regarding it, he made it the pretext of some ill-natured personal remarks, which I shall notice hereafter. I never dreamed of making such a call; and what I said cannot be tortured, by the force of construction, to bear a meaning having the least resemblance to it.

After making these preliminary remarks, I took up the substitute, and showed that it proposed to make a bargain with the banks. I then stated the particulars and the conditions of the proposed bargain; that its object was to enable the banks to pay their debts-and for that purpose it proposed to confer important privileges; to give them the use of the public funds from the time of deposit to disbursement, and to have their notes received as cash in the dues of the Government. I then asked if we had a right to make such a bargain. The Senator, leaving out all these particulars, represented me as saying that the Government had no right to make a bargain with the banks; and then undertakes to involve me in an inconsistency in supporting the bill, because it proposes to bargain with the banks for the use of their vaults as a place of safe-keeping for the public money; as if there was a possible analogy between the two cases. Nothing is more easy than to refute the most demonstrative argument in this way. Drop an essential part of the premises, and the most irresistible conclusion, of course, fails.

In the same summary and easy mode of replying to my arguments, the Senator perverted my denial that the Government had a right to receive bank-notes as cash, into the assertion that it had no right to receive any thing but cash; and then accuses me of inconsistency, because I voted, at the extra session, for the bill authorizing the receipt of treasury notes in the dues of the Government; as if any one

ever doubted that it could receive its own paper, or securities, in payment of its own debts. Such are the misstatements of the Senator, taken in their regular order as they stand in his reply; and they present a fair specimen of what he chooses to consider an answer to my argument. There is not one less unfairly stated, or unfairly met, than the instances I have cited.

The Senator presented two difficulties in reply to what I said against receiving bank-notes by the Government, which demand a passing notice before I dismiss this part of the subject. He objected, first, that it was contrary to the provision of the bill itself, which authorizes the receipts of the notes of specie-paying banks for a limited time. To answer this objection, it will be necessary to advert to the object of the provision. By the provisions of the Joint Resolution of 1816, the notes of specie-paying banks are made receivable in the dues of the Government; and, of course, on the resumption of specie payments, bank-notes would again be received by the Government as heretofore, without limitation as to time, unless some provision be adopted to prevent it. In a word, the Government, though wholly separated, in fact, at present from the banks, is not so by law; and the object of the provision was to effect a permanent separation in law and in fact. This it proposed to do by a gradual repeal of the Joint Resolution of 1816, in order to prevent, as far as possible, any injurious effects to the community or the banks. The Senator, in making his objection, overlooks the broad distinction between the doing and undoing of an unconstitutional act. There are some unconstitutional acts that are difficult, if not impossible, to be undone; such, for instance, as the admission of Louisiana into the Union, admitting it to be unconstitutional, which I do not. There are others which cannot be undone suddenly, without wide-spread distress and ruin; such as the Protective Tariff, of which, accordingly, the Compromise Act allowed upward of eight

years, for the gradual repeal. Such, also, is the case under consideration, which, under the provisions of the bill, would be effected in seven years. In all such cases, I hold it to be not only clearly constitutional for Congress to make a gradual repeal, but its duty is to do so; otherwise it would be often impossible to get clear of an unconstitutional act short of a

revolution.

His next objection was, that the reasons which would make the receipt of bank-notes unconstitutional, would also make the China trade so, which he represented as absorbing a large portion of the specie of the country. There is no analogy whatever between the two cases. The very object of specie is, to carry on trade, and it would be idle to attempt to regulate the distribution and fluctuation which result from its operation. Experience proves that all attempts of the kind must either prove abortive or mischievous. In fact, it may be laid down as a law, that the more universal the demand for specie, and the less that demand is interrupted, the more steady and uniform its value, and the more perfectly, of course, it fulfils the great purpose of circulation, for which it was intended. There are, however, not a few who, taking a different view, have thought it to be the duty of the Government to prohibit the exportation of specie to China, on the very ground which the Senator assumes, and I am not certain but that he himself has been in favor of the

measure.

But the Senator did not restrict himself to a reply to my arguments. He introduced personal remarks, which neither self-respect, nor a regard to the cause I support, will permit me to pass without notice, averse as I am to all personal controversies. Not only my education and disposition, but, above all, my conception of the duties belonging to the station I occupy, indisposes me to such controversies. We are sent here, not to wrangle or indulge in personal abuse, but to deliberate and decide on the common interests of the States

of this Union, as far as they have been subjected by the constitution to our jurisdiction. Thus thinking and feeling, and having perfect confidence in the cause I support, I addressed myself, when I was last up, directly and exclusively to the reason of the body, carefully avoiding every remark which had the least personal bearing. In proof of this, I appeal to you, Senators, my witnesses on this occasion.

But it seems that no caution on my part could prevent what I was so anxious to avoid. The Senator, having no pretext to give a personal direction to the discussion, made a premeditated and gratuitous attack on me. I say having no pretext for there is not a shadow of foundation for the assertion that I called on him and his party to follow my lead, at which he seemed to take offence, as I have already shown. I made no such call, or any thing that could be construed into it. It would have been impertinent, in the relation between myself and his party, at any stage of this question; and absurd at that late period, when every Senator had made up his mind. As there was, then, neither provocation nor pretext, what could be the motive of the Senator in making the attack? It could not be to indulge in the pleasure of personal abuse, the lowest and basest of all our passions, and which is so far beneath the dignity of the Senator's character and station. Nor could it be with the view to intimidation. The Senator knows me too long and too well to make such an attempt. I am sent here by constituents as respectable as those he represents, in order to watch over their peculiar interests and take care of the general concern; and if I were capable of being deterred by any one, or any consequence, in discharging my duty-from denouncing what I regard as dangerous or corrupt, or giving a decided and zealous support to what I think right and expedient-I would, in shame and confusion, return my commission to the patriotic and gallant State I represent, to be placed in more resolute and trustworthy hands.

If, then, neither the one nor the other of these be the motive, what, I again repeat, can it be? In casting my eyes over the whole surface, I can see but one-which is, that the Senator, despairing of the sufficiency of his reply to overthrow my arguments, had resorted to personalities, in the hope, with their aid, to effect what he could not accomplish by main strength. He well knows that the force of an argument, on moral or political subjects, depends greatly on the character of him who advances it; and that, to cast suspicion on his motive, or to shake confidence in his understanding, is often the most effectual mode of destroying its force. Thus viewed, his personalities may be fairly regarded as constituting a part of his reply to my argument; and we, accordingly, find the Senator throwing them in front, like a skilful general, in order to weaken my arguments, before he brought on his main attack. In repelling, then, his personal attacks, I also defend the cause which I advocate. It is against that his blows are aimed, and he strikes at it through me, because he believes his blows will be the more effectual.

Having given this direction to his reply, he had imposed on me a double duty to repel his attacks-duty to myself and the cause I support. I shall not decline its performance; and when it is discharged, I trust I shall have placed my character as far beyond the shafts which he has hurled at it, as my arguments have proved to be above his abilities to refute. In doing this, I shall be compelled to speak of myself. No one can be more sensible than I am, how odious it is to speak of one's self. I shall endeavor to confine myself within the limits of the strictest propriety; but if any thing should escape me that may wound the most delicate ear, the odium ought, in justice, to fall, not on me, but the Senator who, by his unprovoked and wanton attack, has imposed on me the painful necessity of speaking of myself.

The leading charge of the Senator-that on which all others depend, and which, being overthrown, they fall to the