not yet provided for by law, although great exertions were made at the last Congress in their behalf; and he would now tender to the honorable chairman of the Committee of Claims his acknowledgments of gratitude for his assiduity and exertions favorable to the relief of those patriotic young men he had the honor to represent, and who had sustained losses in the service of their country.

Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, the Government should always be scrupulously careful never to permit the patriotisin of her citizens to be rewarded with ingratitude and with losses, and, consequently, with embarrassments that may render their domestic peace and tranquillity precarious for years. Sir, it is not the aristocracy or the wealthy that most usually embark in the toils and dangers attendant on a campaign in times of troubles and of war; but, sir, real patriotism and love of country, in its most disinterested form, is always found with those whose circumstances are more humble-not humble in the common acceptation of the term, but only humble so far as wealth is concerned. These are the men who are always first in the field in defence of their country's rights and honor. In the late campaigns in the West, many of such men were volunteers; and many were they who had not the means of equipping themselves, furnishing their horses, &c., only upon time, and by the aid and endorsements of their friends. Now, I submit it to this House-I submit it particularly to the Committee of Claims, and to the country-whether such men as these are to be permitted to be the sufferers, on account of their manifested patriotisin and risks in the service? If so, I say to all that such conduct, such ingratitude, will deter all men in humble circumstances, or who are poor, from engaging in the country's defence.

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[Oct. 13, 1837.

Sir, I will take occasion to say here that, in my opinion, (if the reports be true that have reached my ears,) the Government has not dealt as kindly and as liberally as she should have done towards the volunteers of Tennessee. We provided by law at the last Congress, that the soldiers or volunteers who had rendezvoused, were mustered, and immediately discharged, should be paid one month's full pay; and, by the estimates furnished the Committee of Claims by the War Department, one month's full pay was made to amount to between $65 and $70, I think, perhaps $68 and some cents; and, by the decision of the Attorney General under the old law, another class of those volunteers, that were indefinitely furloughed, and required to return to service if they should be ordered to do so, were to be considered in service until absolutely dischaged, and consequently were entitled to their full pay. I have heard some hints, sir, that the War Department has not carried into effect this law, and this decision, as was contemplated by Congress and those representatives who were looked to to guard and sustain the rights of those particular individuals. I do not know, sir, how far the War Department has fail. ed in a compliance with the law; nor have I any idea as to what extent those volunteers have been injured by the defalcations of the Government. But I hope, and I have no doubt, I will be able to obtain the information; and, if my fears are realized, and they have been defrauded out of any portion of the amount that Congress intended they should have, and I cannot obtain redress by an application to the Secretary of War, I will feel myself bound to bring the subject again to the consideration of this House, believing that the representatives of the people are ready upon all occasions to do justice to the people. And I am glad now to The provisions of the laws now in force, for the payment have the assurance of the honorable chairman of the Comfor lost property, are limited, and do not cover the cases of mittee of Claims that he will afford all the aid in his power hardship to which I have allusion. Those laws merely pro- to render to the volunteers of my State ample compensation vide payment for property lost in battle, or lost on account for their service and their losses at the next meeting of of the Government failing to furnish the necessary supplies Congress. I have also a right to complain, on behalf of of provender. But, sir, there are other cases for which these men, in another point of view. I am informed our Congress is in honor and duty bound to make ample re- volunteers were paid off in the depreciated bank paper that muneration. I know some volunteers that involved them- was perhaps ten or fifteen per cent. below par. If this be selves, and their friends with them, to purchase horses and true, and my former suggestions be true, that they have other necessary equipage for the campaign, and who lost not been paid as much as Congress intendedthem to have, their horses in the service; but perhaps not in battle, nor why, sir, your volunteer soldiery of Tennessee have been for the want of forage. Therefore, by the laws now in cheated and defrauded out of half, or at least a large porforce, their claims cannot be recognised and paid by the tion, of their just dues. And if so, we must ask Congress Third Auditor, who is charged with the settlement of these hereafter, whenever the true state of facts can be ascertainclaims. But, sir, these horses were lost by casualty or un-ed, to grant such relief as the merits of those claimants avoidable accidents, and were lost in the service of the United States; and being so lost, the Government is as much bound, in honor and justice, to remunerate the soldier thus circumstanced, as though the loss had occurred in battle, or by the default of the United States in furnishing forage. Sir, some of these praiseworthy volunteers are now doon.ed to labor by the day, or the month, or by the year, to procure the money they owe for horses purchased and taken into the public service, and there lost by casualty; and thus far the Congress of the United States, who directed the Executive to invite them into service, have wholly failed to meet their distresses, by not ordering their relief, and indemnifying them against these liabilities and these losses. Is this right, sir? I say most unequivocally it is not; and I say, further, let the Government continue to refuse payment, and you cast a damp upon the patriotism of the West, and upon the whole country, which will, in all time to come, deter, in a great degree, men in moderate circumstances from incurring monetary liabilities, to go to the field, at the call of the Government, for her defence. And whenever you cut off that class, by your parsimony and rigid policy, you cut off that portion of the defence of the country that has never deceived you, and has never lent a deaf ear to your calls, and the distresses of the country.

may justly and honestly demand. And I have no doubt, from the disposition heretofore manifested by this House, and by the Committee of Claims, in relation to this deserv ing and meritorious class of claimants, that ample relief will be awarded them.

Mr. WHITTLESEY explained the grounds on which the Committee of Claims had reported the bill; and after a few remarks by Mr. CHAPMAN,

Mr. EWING offered an amendment extending the provisions of the bill to all persons engaged in the service at the battle of Tippecanoe, and prior to the late war with Great Britain.

After some few remarks by Mr. CARTER, the amendment was rejected.

Mr. THOMPSON moved to add a section to the bill providing payment for all horses impressed into the service in Florida.

After a few remarks by Messrs. THOMPSON, WHITTLESEY, and CLARK, the amendment was rejected. On motion of Mr. WHITTLESEY, the committee then rose and reported the bill to the House.

The SPEAKER having resumed the Chair, and the question being on the engrossment of the bill,

Mr. EWING, after some remarks, renewed the amendment he had submitted in the Committee of the Whole,

and called for the yeas and nays on the question; which were not ordered.

After a few words by Messrs. PETRIKIN, WHITTLESEY, and EWING, the amendment was rejected. Mr. EWING then varied his amendment somewhat, and moved it again; but the CHAIR ruled it to be out of order.

Mr. THOMPSON then renewed his amendment made in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. CARTER called for the yeas and nays, but the House refused to order them, and the amendment was rejected.

Mr. PETRIKIN moved that the further consideration of the bill be postponed until the first Monday in December next; lost.

The bill then, having been ordered to be engrossed, was read a third time and passed.

The House then proceeded to the orders of the day.

THE CURRENCY OF THE DISTRICT.
The Senate bill, restraining the circulation of small notes
in the District of Columbia, came up, and was read twice.
The question on its reference pending,

Mr. PATTON moved its reference to the Committee for the District of Columbia.

Mr. THOMPSON moved its postponement until the first Monday in December next.

Mr. THOMAS suggested the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. BOULDIN was in favor of the motion of Mr. PAT

TON.

He was sure the Committee for the District would give the subject proper attention.

Mr. ADAMS was in favor of the postponement. And he hopod that if it were referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia, that committee would report that it

was expedient to postpone it. After all the mass of legislation in the great State of New York, against such a circulation, it was still in full currency there, and it became Congress to pause before they adopted any such measure. Mr. HARLAN moved that the whole subject lie on the table; which, being a question entitled to precedence, was entertained and carried.

THE SUB-TREASURY BILL.

On motion of Mr. CAMBRELENG, the House then went into Committee of the Whole, and resuined the consideration of the Senate bill imposing additional duties on certain officers.

Mr. Dawson's amendment, providing that State banks be used as places of special deposite for the revenue, being immediately under consideration,

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[H. OF R.

ultimately derive from our reverses. A national visitation ought to be considered as a great providential lesson. It teaches the most momentous truths, and it teaches them in the most impressive manner, and what we have recently seen and felt will dispose us-if any thing can dispose us-to look the difficulties with which this subject is surrounded fairly in the face.

Sir, it is surrounded with difficulties. Even in England, as you perceive from the citation I have just made, they are felt and acknowledged by the most able men. I have upon my desk many other proofs of the same fact. They abound, for instance, in the minutes of evidence taken before the committee of the House of Commons on the renewal of the charter of the Bank of England, in 1832. You will find there, that while high authorities* agree in thinking that there should be but one bank of issue for the capital, at least, if not for the whole country, the representatives of the great commercial and manufacturing interests, on the contrary, protest against the continuance of a monopoly to which they impute the most sinister influence over their immense business,† and demand a system of jointstock banks, regulated by principles more agreeable, as they contend, to the course and policy of trade. party insists upon the necessity of compelling all banks of issue to give adequate security to the public, (in Government stock, &c.) for the redemption of their issues, while every stockholder or partner shall continue to be, as at present, responsible for all the debts of the company, to the whole amount of his private fortune. A fourth (and I have received from London a little volume in which that

A third

opinion is most plausibly maintained) urges the most

unlimited freedom in banking; and sees no more danger to society from perfect liberty in this than in any other brauch of business; the supplying, for example, the market of a great capital with the necessaries of life. In this complexity and distraction of English opinion upon this subject, however, all parties agree in one thing, and that is, in adhering to the paper system. Nobody there thinks of any thing so extravagant as the overthrow of that system, whatever defects may be seen or supposed to exist in it, or whatever projects may have been imagined to purify, to correct, and to improve it.

But if such is the state of English opinion in regard to this subject, how must it be with us, when to all the intrinsic difficulties of the thing itself, we add those arising out of the complicated structure of our political institutions? It would be hard enough to say what ought to be done, in the present emergency, were this a simple consolidated Government; but how much harder is it to advise the administration of a Federal Government as to the course it ought to pursue, where one happens to doubt its possessing all the power necessary to give complete relief, without a co-operation of others? For, sir, at the risk of being set down in that category of "tiny politicians," of whom the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. W. C. JOHNSON,] in a very amusing speech, in the course of which, however, he uttered some grave and important truths, spoke last night with such profound contempt, I must confess I agree with the Executive in the general principles of constitutional law involved in the message. In the divisions of the attributes of sovereignty between this Government and the States, it may and must happen, that we should experience sometimes a chasm, and sometimes a conflict of powers. More is taken from the States, perhaps, than has been *Messrs. Horsley, Palmer, Tooke, Rothchilds, &c.

Mr. LEGARE rose and addressed the chair as follows: Mr. Chairman: I do not know how I can more appropriately begin the remarks I am about to make, than in the very words with which a most able English writer, addressing himself to the causes and character of the recent crisis, concludes his: "The events (says Mr. Samuel Jones Lloyd, in a pamphlet published last spring) which have occured in connexion with the late pressure upon the moneyed and mercantile interests, are full of instructive illustrations of the effects, both beneficial and otherwise, of our present system; and the evil consequences of this pressure will be as nothing, compared with its benefits; if, amongst these, we shall be enabled to reckon an increased degree of intelligence upon subjects connected with currency, and a nearer approximation to sound principles in the management of our paper issues." The revulsion, it is true, has been far more disastrous on this side of the Atlantic than in England; and yet even at its darkest period-now, as I confidently believe, passed away to give place to returning reference to joint stock banks beyond 65 miles from London.

prosperity-I found consolation in the idea, that dearly as we were buying our experience in this important matter, the price would not be too high for the benefits we should

+ Messrs. Burt, Smith, and Dyer, of Manchester. It is worthy of remark, that these remonstrances were admitted to be well founded by the change which, in consequence of them, was made in the law, in

Messrs. Ricardo, McCullough, Norton, (the minutes, &c., just cited.)

§ Money and its Vicissitudes in Value, by the author of the Rationale of Political Representation, and Critical Dissertation on Value, &c. (Mr. Francis Bailey.)

And here, sir, I might take my seat again, if I had risen only to explain my own vote, or to influence those of others, on the proposed measure. But the true issue seems to me very far to transcend, in importance, that single measure, important as it unquestionably is. It involves, in my opinion, the whole credit system of the country. I do not say that the bill on your table presents that issue, still less that the Executive message presented it, or propounded any principle or opinion that should lead to it. But no one who has watched the progress of this discussion, in this House or in the Senate-in or out of this Capitol-fairs. will deny that it must soon come to that. Sir, if there is any truth, at all, in what has been urged with great ability and all the zeal, I had almost said the fanaticism, of the deepest conviction, by men accustomed to influence, nay, even to control public opinion in different parts of this country-if they have any idea of rigorously carrying out the principles they profess, to their logical consequences, in practice-if what they say in the highest places, on the most solemn occasions, is not such idle declamation as such men are not to be suspected of-they mean that, and nothing short of that. Doctrines have been uttered, with all the authority which can be imparted to paradox from talent ripened by experience, which seem to me inconsistent with the constitution, not only of American, but of all modern society, with its whole spirit and tendency with all its wants and all its ways. I have, sometimes, in the course of the debates, looked around me to see where I really was whether the shade of some old lawgiver, some Minos or Lycurgus, had not been evoked, to bring a degenerate age back to the stern principles of Dorian poli'y, to an agrarian equality of property, to iron money and black broth; or else, if it were not the spirit of Benedict

[H. OF R.

solitudes disturbed and desecrated by the sounds of active industry, and the busy hum of men. I asked what had brought about so great a change, and found the author of it-a man having a more numerous band of retainers and dependants than any baron bold of the fourteenth century, and in every respect more important than many of the sovereign princes on the other side of the Rhine-was an English manufacturer, who had established himself there some twenty years ago, without much capital, and had effected all this by his industry and enterprise. Such, sir, is the spirit of the age; of course, in this young and wonderfully progressive country, it is more eager and ardent, and therefore occasionally extravagant, than anywhere else. But it is vain to resist it. Nay, I believe it worse than vain. It is evidently in the order of nature, and we must take it with all its good and all its evils together. The great design of Providence, in giving to the most active and enterprising of all races, a new world to possess, to build up and to adorn, are not to be thwarted by our policy, even if we thought it good policy to thwart them; all the instincts of that race would revolt at a system which would disappoint its high destiny.

and a means of transport-the most powerful instrument hind; the very haunt of the "Wild Boar of the Ardennes," by far of pacification and commerce, and therefore of im- (See Quentin Durward) in the good old times of the House provement and happiness, that the world has ever seen; of Burgundy. I returned to it in 1835, and saw it covered which, while it increases capital, and multiplies beyond with mills and factories, begrimed with the smoke and soot imagination the products of industry, brings the most dis-of steam-engines; its romantic beauty deformed, its sylvan tant people into contract with one another-breaks down the barriers which exclusive legislation would oppose to the freedom of mercantile exchanges-effaces all peculiarities of national character, and promises, at no distant period, to make the whole Christian world, at least, one great family. Sir, the social effects of this great instrument of modern improvement, have been singularly promoted by a branch of industry in which,the part of the country I have the honor to represent is most deeply interested; and I will avail myself of this occasion to call the attention of the committee to a view of our Southern institutions, that may not have occurred to it before, or made the impression it ought to make upon it. I beg you, sir, to believe that I do not speak in what is called a "sectional" spirit; for I protest before God that nothing can be further from my heart. But let not those whose minds have been recently so much inflamed against what they consider as the abomination of domestic servitude, shut their eyes to the truth. Sir, I allude to the cultivation of cotton, and its effects, through the commerce it fosters, upon the condition of society. Whoever shall write the political history of that invaluable plant, will have a more important work to perform than has ever fallen to the lot of a biographer of statesmen or philosophers. I will venture to say, without going more into details, that the single circumstance of bringing the wonderfully cheap fabrics produced by modern machinery within the reach of even the humblest of the laboring classes, of substituting decent and comfortable raiment for the few scanty and filthy rags-the squalid exterior, which makes poverty not only more painful, but at once more humiliating and degrading to its victim, and more disgustful to others than it ought to be, will signally contribute to elevate the condition of the poor in the social scale, to raise their self esteem, and to increase the sympathy of others for them: in a word, to make them feel themselves men, entitled to a place among men; not pariahs and outcasts, whose contact is contamination. A people well clad and well housed will be sure to provide themselves with all the other comforts of life; and it is the diffusion of these comforts, and the growing taste for them among all classes of society in Europe-it is the desire of riches, as it is commonly called, that is gradually putting an end to the destructive and bloody game of war, and reserving all the resources hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises of industry and commerce, prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once vented itself in scenes of peril and car

nage.

But, sir, the result of all this is that very inequality of wealth, that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against which we have heard so much said lately, as if it was something inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes are acquired by a few years of prosperous commerce-mechanics and manufacturers rival and surpass the princes of the earth in opulence and splendor. The face of Europe is changed by this active industry, working with such mighty instruments, on so great a scale. I have travelled in parts of the continent which the spirit of gain, with its usual concomitants, industry and improvement, has invaded since the peace, at an interval of fifteen years, and been struck with the revolution that is going on.

There is a singularly beautiful, though rather barren tract of country between Liege and Spa, where, in 1819, my attention had been principally attracted by the striking features of a mountainous region, with here and there a ruin of the feudal past, and here and there a hovel of some poor

Mr. Chairman, have made these general remarks, because, as you will have perceived, they have a direct and important bearing upon the collateral issue presented by the advocates of this bill, though not in the bill itself as something to be accomplished hereafter. In a country so much governed by opinion, it is all important that opinion should be enlightened; and errors uttered by distinguished men in high stations, and surrounded with whatever talent can contribute to render them seductive and imposing, cannot, without public detriment, be suffered to pass unnoticed. On this occasion, as I have already intimated, it is far less the measure proposed, than what I consider as the quo animo of its advocates here and elsewhere, that has excited my alarms and my opposition. But I have objections, which I will now proceed to state, to the policy of the bill itself.

There are two very distinct questions presented to the committee. The first is, shall the revenues be collected only in gold and silver; the second, how shall they, when collected, be kept and disbursed; shall sub-treasuries be established by the Government, or shall banks be employed for that purpose as heretofore-and if the latter course be preferred, then shall the banks be allowed the use of the public deposites, or shall special deposites only be made with them. It is very evident that these propositions have no necessary connexion with each other, and that either of them may be approved or rejected, by those who do not reject or approve the other.

As to the collection of the revenue in specie, my objections are by no means so strong, or I should say so vehement now, as they were at the opening of the session, when gold and silver were selling at a premium of nine or ten per cent. At that time it appeared to me that such a measure would have been a mere wanton act of oppression upon the people of the States, for no earthly good purpose whatever. It would have been simply authorizing usurers and money brokers to lay upon the importers, and, through these, upon the consumers of foreign goods, that is to say, upon the public, and especially upon the planters of the South, a tariff of duties, in a good degree arbitrary, for their own benefit, and that of the functionaries of the Government. Believing, as I did and do, that the paper circulation of the country, from the great and sudden contraction in consequence of the panic, was rather too much reduced than redundant, I confess, as I said on a former occasion, I could