tion. The entire South may well apply to the Senator, as the author of the tariff of 1828, the reply which a distinguished Senator (Mr. Tazewell of Virginia) gave, after its passage, to one who now occupies a higher station than he then did, and who undertook to explain to him his vote on the occasion; "Sir, you have deceived me once-that was your fault; but if you deceive me again, the fault will be mine." Alas for Virginia! that once proud and patriotic State! She has dismissed her honest and enlightened son, who served her with so much fidelity, and has elevated to the highest office him who betrayed her and trampled her interest in the dust.

I know full well the attempts that will be made to misrepresent my position on this occasion, and to weaken me in the confidence of the public. I fear them not. I know well those whom I represent. They have too clear a conception of their true interest, and place too high an estimate on truth and honor, to withhold their confidence from him who fearlessly follows their dictates. They will scorn the miserable boon proffered by the Senator from New-York, and the hand that offers it, and will cling to the act which they so proudly wrung from this Government. Were I to listen to the voice of the Senator from New-York, they would hold me blind to their interests, and indifferent to their honor. I shall firmly maintain the position I have taken. I shall not assent to disturb the act of 1833, in the slightest degree, so long as the manufacturing interests shall adhere to its provisions, be the conduct of politicians what it may. Thus far they have firmly adhered. Not a murmur has been heard, or a petition offered, from that quarter against it, from its passage to the present day; while the memorials of the legislatures of the two great tariff States, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, which pledge themselves to abide by the provisions of the act, give strong additional assurance that, if we do not disturb it on our part, they will not on theirs.

SPEECH

On the Bill authorizing the issue of Treasury Notes, delivered in the Senate, September 19th, 1837.

MR. PRESIDENT: An extraordinary course of events, with which all are too familiar to need recital, has separated, in fact, the Government and the banks. What relation shall they bear hereafter? Shall the banks again be used as fiscal agents of the Government? be the depositories of the public money? And, above all, shall their notes be considered and treated as money, in the receipts and expenditures of the Government? This is the great and leading question; one of the first magnitude, and full of consequences. I have given it my most anxious and deliberate attention; and have come to the conclusion that we have reached the period when the interests both of the Government and the banks forbid a reunion. I now propose to offer my reasons for this conclusion. I shall do it with that perfect frankness due to the country, and the position I occupy. All I ask is, that I may be heard with a candor and fairness corresponding to the sincerity with which I shall deliver my sentiments.

Those who support a reunion of the banks and the Government, have to overcome a preliminary difficulty. They are now separated, by operation of law, and cannot be united. while the present state of things continues, without repealing the law which has disjoined them. I ask, who is willing to propose its repeal? Is there any one who, during the suspension of specie payments, would advocate their employment as the fiscal agents of the Government? who would make them the depositories of the public revenue, or who would receive and pay away their notes in the public dues?

If there be none, then it results that the separation must continue for the present, and that the reunion must be the work of time, and depending on the contingency of the resumption of specie payments.

But, suppose this difficulty to be removed, and that the banks were regularly redeeming their notes-from what party in this body can the proposition come, or by which can it be supported, for a reunion between them and the Government? Who, after what has happened, can advocate the reunion of the Government with the league of State banks? Can the opposition, who for years have been denouncing it as the most dangerous instrument of power-the most efficient means of corrupting and controlling the Government and country? Can they, after the exact fulfilment of all their predictions of disastrous consequences from the connection, now turn round and support that which they have so long and loudly condemned? We have heard much from the opposite side of untried experiments on the currency. I concur in the justice of the censure. Nothing can be more delicate than the currency. Nothing can require to be more delicately handled. It ought never to be tampered with, nor touched, until it becomes absolutely necessary. But if untried experiments justly deserve censure, what condemnation would a repetition of an experiment that has failed deserve? an experiment that has so signally failed, both in the opinion of supporters and opponents, as to call down the bitter denunciation of those who tried it? If to make the experiment was folly, the repetition would be madness. But if the opposition cannot support the measure, how can it be expected to receive support from the friends of the administration, in whose hands the experiment has so signally failed, as to call down from them execrations deep and loud?

If, Mr. President, there be any one point fully established by experience and reason, I hold it to be the utter incom

petency of the State banks to furnish, of themselves, a sound and stable currency. They may succeed in prosperous times, but the first adverse current necessarily throws them into utter confusion. Nor has any device been found to give them the requisite strength and stability, but a great, central and controlling bank, instituted under the authority of this Government. I go further. If we must continue our connection with the banks-if we must receive and pay away their notes as money, we not only have the right to regulate and give uniformity and stability to them, but we are bound to do so, and to use the most efficient means for that purpose. The constitution makes it our duty to lay and collect the taxes and duties uniformly throughout the Union; to fulfil which, we are bound to give the highest possible equality of value, throughout every part of the country, to whatever medium it may be collected in; and if that be bank-notes, to adopt the most effective means of accomplishing it, which experience has shown to be a Bank of the United States. This has been long my opinion. I entertained it in 1816, and repeated it in my place here on the deposit question in 1834. The only alternative then is, disguise it as you may, between a disconnection and a Bank of the United States. This is the real issue to which all must come, and ought now to be openly and fairly met.

But there are difficulties in the way of a national bank, no less formidable than a reconnection with the State banks. It is utterly impracticable, at present, to establish one. There is reason to believe that a majority of the people of the United States are deliberately and unalterably opposed to it. At all events, there is a numerous, respectable, and powerful party (I refer to the old State Rights party), who are, and ever have been, from the beginning of the Government, opposed to the bank; and whose opinions, thus long and firmly entertained, ought at least to be so much respected as to forbid the creation of one, without an amendment

of the constitution. To this must be added the insuperable difficulty, that the Executive branch of the Government is openly opposed to it, and pledged to interpose his veto, on constitutional grounds, should a bill pass to incorporate one. For four years, at least, then, it will be impracticable to charter a bank. What must be done in the mean time? Shall the treasury be reorganized to perform the functions which have been recently discharged by the banks, or shall the State institutions be again employed until a bank can be created? In the one case, we shall have the so much vilified and denounced sub-treasury, as it is called; and in the other, difficulties insurmountable would grow up against the establishment of a bank. Let the State institutions be once reinstated, and reunited to the Government as its fiscal agents, and they will be found the first and most strenuous opponents of a national bank, by which they would be overshadowed and curtailed in their profits. I hold it certain that, in prosperous times, when the State banks are in full operation, it is impossible to establish a national bank. Its creation, then,-should the reunion with the State banks take place, will be postponed until some disaster, similar to the present, shall again befall the country. But it requires little of the spirit of prophecy to see that such another disaster would be the death of the whole system. Already it has had two paralytic strokes-the third would prove fatal.

But, suppose these difficulties were overcome, I would still be opposed to the incorporation of a bank. So far from affording the relief which many anticipate, it would be the most disastrous measure that could be adopted. Great as is the calamity under which the country is suffering, it is nothing to what would follow the creation of such an institution, under existing circumstances. In order to compel the State institutions to pay specie, the bank must have a capital as great, or nearly as great, in proportion to the existing institutions, as the late bank had, when established, to those