SPEECH

On the Independent Treasury Bill, in reply to Mr. Clay, delivered in the Senate, March 10th, 1838.

I RISE to fulfil a promise I made some time since, to notice, at my leisure, the reply of the Senator from Kentucky furthest from me (Mr. Clay) to my remarks when I first addressed the Senate on the subject now under discussion.

On comparing with care the reply with the remarks, I am at a loss to determine whether it is most remarkable for its omissions or misstatements. Instead of leaving not a hair on the head of my arguments, as the Senator threatened (to use his not very dignified expression), he has not even attempted to answer a large, and not the least weighty portion; and of such as he has noticed, there is not one fairly stated or fairly answered. I speak literally, and without exaggeration; nor would it be difficult to make good to the letter what I assert, if I could reconcile it to myself to consume the time of the Senate in establishing a long series of negative propositions, in which they could take but little interest, however important they may be regarded by the Senator and myself. To avoid so idle a consumption of time, I propose to present a few instances of his misstatements, from which the rest may be inferred; and, that I may not be suspected of having selected them, I shall take them in the order in which they stand in his reply.

The Senate will recollect, that when the Senator from Virginia furthest from me (Mr. Rives) introduced his substitute, he accompanied it with the remark that it was his first choice, and the second choice of those who are allied with him on this occasion. In noticing this remark, I stated, that if I might judge from appearances, which could scarcely

deceive any one, the Senator might have said not only the second, but, under existing circumstances, it was their first choice; and that, despairing of a bank for the present, they would support his substitute. Assuming this inference to be correct, I stated that the question was narrowed down, in fact, to the bill and substitute, of which one or the other must be selected. The Senator from Kentucky, in his reply, omitted all these qualifications, and represented me as making the absolute assertion that, in the nature of the case, there was no other alternative but the bill or the substitute, and then gravely pointed out two others—to do nothing, or adopt a National Bank-as if I could possibly be ignorant of what was so obvious. After he had thus replied, not to what I really said, but his own misstatement of it, as if to make compensation, he proceeded in the same breath to confirm the truth of what I did say, by giving his support to the substitute, which he called a "half-way house," where he could spend some pleasant hours. Nothing is more easy than to win such victories.

Having inferred, as has turned out to be the fact, that there was no other alternative, at present, but the bill and substitute, I next showed the embarrassment to which the gentlemen opposite to me would be involved from having, four years ago, on the question of the removal of the deposits, denounced a league of State banks similar to that proposed to be revived by the substitute. After enlarging on this point, I remarked, that if I might be permitted to state my opinion, the gentlemen had taken a course on this subject unfortunate for themselves and the country-unfortunate for them-for, let what would come, they would be responsible. If the bill was lost, theirs would be the responsibility; if the substitute was carried, on them the responsibility would fall; and if nothing was done, it would be at their door-and unfortunate for the country, because it had prevented the decision of the question at the extra session, which would

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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