issue $5,000,000 of treasury notes, which was more than sufficient to cover the actual falling off of the imports below the estimate.

I will say to my friends, that if they adopt it as a principle to grant supplies in such cases whenever the Secretary chooses to make a deficit, vain would be their resistance to those now in power. Let it not be said, that to pursue such a course would endanger public credit, or arrest the wheels of Government. The majority in power, whose extravagance or neglect may cause the deficit, will be held responsible for supplying it; but they had no right in such cases to call for the vote of those who are opposed to them.

I hold that there is a distinction in this respect between a state of peace and war. In the latter, the right of withholding the supplies ought ever to be held subordinate to the energetic and successful prosecution of the war. I go further, and regard the withholding of supplies, with a view of forcing the country into a dishonorable peace, as not only to be, what it had been called, moral treason, but very little short of actual treason itself. It was this which rendered the attempt to withhold supplies by the Federal party, dur-. ing the late war, so odious.

But I am not compelled to resort to this high elementary principle to justify my opposition to the present measure. It furnishes abundant ground, connected with its details, to justify the most decided opposition; and among others, it will be sufficient of itself that it asks too much. It proposes a loan of $12,000,000 with a power of issuing treasury notes in the place of those that may be redeemed, amounting to 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 more ;-thereby authorizing a loan of about $18,000,000, when, in fact, the deficiency of the year cannot require more than $5,000,000. I will not repeat the arguments necessary to establish this fact. It has been clearly shown that that sum would be sufficient, with due economy, not only to cover the deficiency in the treasury at

the end of the year, but to leave a sufficient supply in the mint for the purpose of coinage, and in the treasury to meet the current expenses of the Government.

I am unwilling to vote any supplies beyond the exigencies of the year. I can see no good reason for it ;—but, on the contrary, many against it. A large portion of the supposed deficiency of the next year, whatever it may be, cannot take place before the 4th of March,-and much of it not until nearly this time twelvemonth. Why then provide for it at this extraordinary session, when our attention is absorbed in other and more important subjects? Why not wait until the next regular session, when there will be so much more leisure,-when the state of the treasury will be so much more accurately known,-and when the revision of the tariff-whether it should take place at this or the regular session-will enable us to decide so much more accurately on the amount that may be required. I do not regard it as a case for confidence, as claimed by the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), but simply of prudence and discretion. Our confidence may be asked when it becomes necessary to act, but never in such a case as this, when there is no such necessity.

But there are other and stronger reasons why the grant of supplies should not extend beyond the present exigencies of the Government. If this bill should become a law, it would, as has been stated, place at the disposal of the treasury a sum not less, in all probability, than $18,000,000. Past experience has taught us that the expenditures of the Government never fail to keep pace with its means,-which would most certainly be the case in this as in all former instances. There is no government on earth that has a stronger disposition to extravagance than this. Make this large and unnecessary grant of supply, and we shall hear no more of economy and retrenchment-virtues so essential to a republic, and so necessary at the present time. Truth demands that I should say they are required in every depart

ment of the Government,-beginning with Congress and going down to the humblest officer. It is not my object to blame any party or any individual. The disease originated in the Tariff of 1828, which poured millions upon millions into the treasury, beyond the wants of the Government,→→→ and that, too, on the very eve of the final discharge of the public debt. So strong was the current that the difficulty was to discover expedients by which the surplus could be disposed of. It is not at all extraordinary that, in such a state of things, all ideas of economy, retrenchment, and accountability should be lost, and the most wasteful extravagance pervade every department. For this there was but one remedy-to cut off the supplies by reducing the duties and by withdrawing the surplus from the treasury. Both were successfully applied-the former by the Compromise Act, and the latter by the Deposit Act of 1836. An exhausted treasury was the result; and there followed, as ever will follow, from an embarrassed treasury, a spirit of economy, retrenchment, and the enforcement of accountability, which have effected, in the last two years, a very great reduction under the auspices of the late Secretary of the Treasury, the Senator behind me. It is our true policy to continue the embarrassment, as the only means of enforcing the necessary reform. A government, like a family, spoiled by an extravagant income, can only be reformed by stinted means. This measure would relieve the embarrassment-give a large temporary surplus to the disposal of Congress, and put an end to all further reform.

I next object to the mode. I prefer treasury notes to permanent loans. It will be far cheaper. Instead of six per cent., which the loan will cost, treasury notes will not cost more than three. I understand that the I understand that the average interest on the whole amount heretofore issued by the Government since the suspension of 1837, is 4 per cent., 2 per cent. less than that proposed to be given on the loan:—which, on

$12,000,000, would make a saving of $240,000 annually. But this is not all. In the case of treasury notes, interest never begins to accrue until they are used; while on the contrary, in making loans, interest is paid on large amounts long before they are used,-a difference which cannot be estimated at less than 1 per cent. making an additional saving of $120,000 in favor of the former. The two items. make $360,000 annually, and upwards of $1,000,000 in three years the period before which the loan cannot be redeemed. But this is not the only loss which the country would suffer. The bill provides for the exchange of treasury notes for the stock which it proposes to create, and which, as has been stated, would not be redeemable in less than three years-while none of the treasury notes have more than one year to run, at the expiration of which the interest ceases. Again: many of the treasury notes bear but 2 per cent. interest, and some less than that, having a mere nominal interest, and others 5 per cent. None exceed 6 per cent. These are to be exchanged for stock bearing 6 per cent.making a clear loss to the Government, and a corresponding gain to the holders of the notes (principally banks and brokers,) equal to the difference in the interest.

As great as this may be, it is by no means the strongest objection under this aspect. To understand the real loss to the country, we must cast our eyes, as I said on another occasion, to what is passing in the other wing of the Capitol. A bill has been introduced there to raise the duties on all articles now duty free, and those which pay less than 20 per cent. to 20 per cent., which would raise the revenue from the imports to $25,000,000 annually,-provided such heavy duties should not reduce the exports, and, in consequence, the imports. I speak on the supposition that the exports will continue to increase for the next three or four years in the same ratio that they have since the reduction of the

tariff, which they will do, in all probability, unless kept down by high duties on imports.

What, then, must be the effects of this exchange of treasury notes, payable in the course of a year, for stocks that have three years to run? How will this vast increase of revenue be absorbed during that period, when no part of it can be applied to the discharge of the debt, or absorption of treasury notes? One of two results must necessarily follow there must be a great and extravagant increase of expenditure, equalling at least $28,000,000, comprehending the revenue from the public lands, or the reaccumulation of another surplus, to be followed by another expansion, with all the disastrous consequences which we have so recently experienced from the late surplus. If the former, what becomes of the promises of reform, retrenchment, and economy, so profusely made during the late canvass ?

In all this, the gain to the banks will be not less clear than the loss to the Government. Should a surplus be permitted to accumulate, it would be but an increase of the deposits in the bank-that is, so much additional bank capital for the time, advanced by the Government, without interest. Should it, on the contrary, be spent in expenditures, it would but add to the increase of bank circulation, in which it would be collected and disbursed. To which add, that, in converting treasury notes into loans or stocks, it will give to the former a shape in which it would become a commodity, having a demand in the foreign market,instead of being confined to our country, so long as it continued in the original form,-and would thereby enable its holders to acquire the means of putting and continuing the bank in operation.

But why all these sacrifices, amounting, I may safely say, to millions in this single transaction, in favor of banks, brokers, and stock-jobbers? How is it to be explained? If