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SENATE.]

Treasury Circular.

what the legal provision is. On the 30th of April, 1816, a resolution passed both Houses of Congress. It was in the common form of a joint resolution, and was approved by the President; and no one doubts, I suppose, that, for the purpose intended by it, it was as authentic and valid as a law in any other form. It provides that, "from and after the 20th day of February next, [1817,] no duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable in specie on demand, in the said legal currency of the United States."

This joint resolution authoritatively fixed the rights of parties paying, and the duties of officers receiving. So far as respects the notes of the Bank of the United States, it was altered by a law of the last session; but, in all other particulars, it is, as I suppose, in full force at the present moment; and as it expressly authorizes the receipt of such bank notes as are payable and paid on demand, I cannot understand how the receipt of such notes is a matter of "indulgence." We may as well say that to be allowed to pay in Treasury notes, or in foreign coins, or, indeed, in our own gold and silver, is an indulgence, since the act places all on the same ground.

The honorable member from Missouri has, indeed, himself furnished a complete answer to the Secretary's idea; that is to say, he defends the order on grounds not only differing from, but totally inconsistent with, those assumed by the Secretary. He does not consider the receipt of bank notes hitherto, or up to the time of issuing the order, as an indulgence, but as a lawful right while it lasted. How he proves this right to be now terminated, and terminated by force of the order, I shall consider presently. I only say now, that his argument entirely deprives the Secretary of the only ground assigned by him for the Treasury order.

The Secretary directs the receivers "to receive in payment of the public lands nothing except what is directed by the existing laws, viz: gold and silver, and, in the proper cases, Virginia land scrip." Gold and silver, then, and, in the proper cases, Virginia land scrip, are, in the opinion of the Secretary, all that is directed to be received by the existing laws. The receipt of bank notes he considers, therefore, but an indulgence, a thing against law, to be tolerated a little longer, as to some cases, and then to be finally suppressed.

Apparently not at all satisfied with this view of the Secretary, of the ground upon which his own order must stand, the member from Missouri not only abandons it altogether, but sets up another, wholly inconsistent with it. He admits the legality of payment in such bank notes up to the date of the order itself, but insists that the Secretary of the Treasury had a right of selection, and a right of rejection also; and that, although the va rious modes of payment provided by the resolution of 1816 were all good and lawful, till the Secretary should make some of them otherwise, yet that, by virtue of his power of selection or rejection, he might at any time strike one or more of them out of the list. And this power of selection or rejection he thinks he finds in the resolution of 1816 itself.

I incline to think, sir, that the Secretary will be as lit tle satisfied with the footing on which his friend, the honorable member from Missouri, thus places his order, as that friend is with the Secretary's own ground. For my part, I think them both just half right; that is to say, both, in my humble judgment, are just so far right as they distrust and disclaim the reasoning of each other. Let me state, sir, as I understand it, the honorable member's argument. It is that the law of 1816 gives the Secretary a selection; that it provides four different

[DEC. 21, 1836.

modes, or media, of payment; that the Secretary is to
collect the revenue in one, or several, or all these four
modes, or media, at his discretion; that all are in the dis-
junctive, as I think he expressed it; and that the resolu
tion or law is not mandatory or conclusive in favor of
any one. According to the honorable member, there-
fore, if the Secretary had chosen to say that our own
eagles and our own dollars should no longer be receiva-
ble, whether for customs, taxes, or public lands, he had
a clear right to say so, and to stop their reception.
Before a construction of so extraordinary a character
be fixed on the law of 1816, something like the appear-
ance of argument, I think, might be expected in its fa-
yor. But what is there upon which to found such an
implied power in the Secretary of the Treasury? Is
there a syllable in the whole law which countenances any
such idea for a single moment? There clearly is not.
The law was intended to provide, and does provide, in
what sorts of money or other means of payment those
who owe debts to the Government shall pay those debts.
It enumerates four kinds of money or other means of
payment; and can any thing be plainer than that he who
has to pay may have his choice out of all four? All be-
ing equally lawful, the choice is with the payer, and not
with the receiver. This would seem to be too plain
either to be argued or to be denied. Other laws of the
United States have made both gold and silver coins a
tender in the payment of private debts. Did any man
ever imagine that in that case the choice between the
coins to be tendered was to lie with the party receiving?
No one could ever be guilty of such an absurdity. And
unless there be something in the law of 1816 itself, which
either expressly, or by reasonable inference, confers a
similar power on the Secretary of the Treasury in regard
to public payments, is there, in the nature of things, any
difference between the cases? Now, there is nothing,
either in the law of 1816, or any other law, which con-
fers any such power on the Secretary of the Treasury,
either directly or indirectly, or which suggests, or inti-
mates, any ground upon which such power might be im.
plied. Indeed, the statement of the argument seems to
me enough to confute it. It makes the law of 1816 not
a rule, but the dissolution of all rule; not a law, but the
abrogation of all existing laws. According to the argu-
ment, the Secretary of the Treasury had authority, not
only to refuse the receipt of the Treasury notes, which
had been issued upon the faith of statutes expressly
making them receivable for debts and duties, and notes
of the Bank of the United States, which were also made
receivable by the law creating the bank, but to refuse
also foreign coins, and the coinage of our own mint; put-
ting thus the legislation of Congress for five-and-twenty
years at the unrestrained and absolute discretion of the
Secretary of the Treasury. It appears to me quite im-
possible that any gentleman, on reflection, can under-
take to support such a construction.

But the gentleman relies on a supposed practice, to maintain his interpretation of the law. What practice? Has any Secretary ever refused to receive the notes of specie-paying banks, either at the custom-house or the land offices, for a single hour? Never. Has any Secretary presumed to strike foreign coin, or Treasury notes, or our own coin, out of the list of receivables? Such an idea certainly never entered into the head of any Secretary. The gentleman argues that the Treas ury has made discriminations; but what discriminations? I suppose the whole truth to be simply this: that, admitting at all times the right of the party paying to pay in notes of specie-paying banks, the collectors and receivers have not been held bound to receive notes of distant banks of which they knew nothing, and could not judge, therefore, whether their notes came within the law. Those collectors and receivers were bound to re

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ceive the bills of specie-paying banks; but, as that duty arose from the fact that the notes tendered were the notes of specie-paying banks, that fact, if not notorious or already known to them, must be made known, with reasonable certainty, before the duty to receive them became imperative. I suppose there may have been Treasury orders, regulating the conduct of collectors and receivers in this particular. Any orders which went further than this would go beyond the law.

The honorable member quotes one of the by-laws of the late Bank of the United States; but what has that to do with the subject? Does the honorable member think that the by-laws of the late bank were laws to the people of the United States? The bank was under no ob ligation to receive any notes on deposite except its own. It might, therefore, make just such an arrangement with the Treasury as it saw fit, if it saw fit to make any. But neither the Treasury, nor the bank, nor both together, could do away with the written letter of an act of Congress; nor did either undertake so to do.

But, sir, what have been the gentleman's own opinions on this subject heretofore? Has he always been of opinion that the Secretary enjoyed this power of selection, as he now calls it, under the law of 1816? Has he heretofore looked upon the various provisions of that law only as so many moveable and shifting parts, to be thrown into gear and out of gear by the mere touch of the Secretary's hand? Certainly, sir, he has not thought so; certainly he has looked upon that law as fixed, definite, and beyond executive power, as clearly as other laws; as a statute, to be repealed or modified only by another statute. No longer ago than the 23d day of last April, the honorable member introduced a resolution into the Senate, in the following words: "Resolved, That, from and after the

day of

in the year 1836, nothing but gold and silver coin ought to be received in payment for public lands; and that the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to report a bill accordingly.”

And now, sir, I ask why the honorable member moved here for a bill and a law, if the whole matter was, in his opinion, within the power of the Secretary of the Treasury?

The Senate did not adopt this resolution. A day or two after its introduction, and when some little discussion had been had upon it, a motion to lay it on the table prevailed, hardly opposed, I think, except by the gen ileman's own vote. A few weeks after this disposition had been made of this resolution, the session came to a close, and, seven days after the close of the session, the Treasury order made its appearance.

But this is not all. There is higher authority than even that of the honorable member. Looking to the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the United States, the President, in his annual message in December lest, said it was incumbent on Congress to discontinue, by law, the receipt of the bills of that bank in payment of the public revenue. Now, as the charter was to expire on the 3d of March, there was nothing to make its bills receivable after that period, except the law of 1816. To strike the provisions respecting notes of the bank out of that law, another law was indeed necessary, according to my understanding; but I do not conceive how it should be thought necessary, upon the construction of the honorable member. Both Houses being of opinion, however, that the thing could not be done without law, an act was passed for that purpose, and was approved by the President. Here, then, sir, is the gentleman's own authority, the authority of the President, and the authority of both Houses of Congress, for saying that nothing contained in the law of 1816 can be thrust out of it by any other power than the power of a subsequent statute.

VOL. XIII.-7

[SENATE.

I am, therefore, of opinion that the Treasury order of the 11th of July is against the plain words and meaning of the law of 1816; against the whole practice of the Government under that law; against the honorable gentleman's own opinion, as expressed in his resolution of the 23d of April; and not reconcileable with the necessity which was supposed to exist for the passage of the act of last session.

On this occasion, I have heard of no attempt to justify the order on the ground of any other law or act but the act of 1816. When the order was published, however, it was accompanied with an exposition, apparently halfofficial, which looked to the land laws as the Secretary's source of power, and which took no notice at all of the law of 1816. The land law referred to was the act of 1820; but it turns out, upon examination, that there is nothing at all in that law to support the order, or give it any countenance whatever. The only clause in it which could be supposed to have the slightest reference to the subject is in the proviso in the 4th section. That section provides for the sale of such lands as, having been once sold on credit, should revert or become forfeited to the United States through failure of payment; and the proviso declares that no such lands shall be again sold on any other terms than those of "cash payment." These words, "cash payment,” have been seized upon, as if they had wrought an entire change in the important provisions of the law of 1816, and already established an exclusive specie payment for lands. The idea is too futile for serious refutation. In the first place, the whole section applies only to forfeited lands; but the truth is, the term "cash payment" means only payment down, in contradistinction to credit, which had formerly been al lowed; just as the words in the tariff act of July, 1832, mean payment down, instead of payment secured by bonds, when it says that the duties on certain articles shall be paid in "cash."

As to the second section of the land law of 1820, which was set forth with great formality in the exposi tion to which I have referred, as furnishing authority for the Secretary's order, there is not a word in it having any such tendency; not a syllable which has any application to the matter. That section simply declares that, after the first day of July in that year, every purchaser of land at public sale shall, on the day of purchase, make a complete payment therefor; and the purchaser at private sale shall produce a receipt for the amount of the purchase-money on any tract, before he shall enter the same at the land office. This is all. It does not say how the purchaser shall make complete payment, nor in what currency the purchase-money shall be received. It is quite evident, therefore, that that section lends the order no support whatever.

The defence of the order, then, stands thus: The Secretary founds it upon the idea that nothing but gold and silver was ever lawfully receivable, and that the receipt of bank bills has been all along an "indulgence" against law. For this opinion he gives no reasons.

The honorable member from Missouri rejects this doctrine; he admits the receipt of bark notes to have been lawful until made unlawful by the order itself; and insists that the Secretary's power of stopping their further receipt arises under the law of 1816, and is an authority derived from it. But, then, the long and halfofficial exposition which accompanied the publication of

the order has no faith in the law of 1816 as a source of power, but makes a parade of a totally and perfectly inapplicable section, out of the land law of 1820. Grounds of defence so totally inconsistent cannot all be sound, but they may be all unsound; and whether they be so or not, is a question which I would willingly leave to the decision of any man of good sense and honest judgment. I take leave of this part of the case for the present. I

SENATE.]

Treasury Circular.

may pause at least, I hope, until those who defend the order shall be better agreed on what ground to place it. Mr. President, the subject of the currency is so important, so delicate, and, in my judgment, surrounded, at the present moment, with so much both of difficulty and of danger, that I am desirous, before making the few observations which I intend on the existing condition of things and its causes, to avoid all misapprehension, by a general statement of my opinions respecting that subject.

I am certainly of opinion, then, that gold and silver, at rates fixed by Congress, constitute the legal standard of value in this country; and that neither Congress nor any State has authority to establish any other standard, or to displace this. But I am also of opinion that an exclusive circulation of gold and silver is a thing absolutely impracticable; and, if practicable, not at all to be desired; inasmuch as its effect would be to abolish credit, to repress the enterprise, and diminish the carnings of the industrious classes; and to produce, faster and sooner than any thing else in this country can produce, a moneyed aristocracy.

I am of opinion that a mixed currency, partly coin and partly bank notes, the notes not issued in excess, and always convertible into specie at the will of the holder, is, in the present state of society, the best practical currency-always remembering, however, that bills of exchange perform a great part of the duty of currency, and, therefore, that the state of domestic exchanges is always a matter of high importance and great actual bearing on commercial business.

I admit that a currency partly composed of bank notes has always a liability, and often a tendency, to excess; and that it requires the constant care and oversight of Government.

I am of opinion, even, that the convertibility of bank notes into gold and silver, although it be a necessary guard, is not an absolute security against occasional excess of paper issues.

I believe, even, that the confining of discounts to such notes and bills as represent real transactions of purchase and sale, or to real business paper, as it is called, though generally a sufficient check, is not always so; because I believe there is sometimes such a thing as over-trading or over-production.

What, then, it will be asked, is a sufficient check? I can only repeat what I have before said, that it is a subject which requires the constant care, watchfulness, and superintendence of Government. But our misfortune is, that we have withdrawn all care and all superintendence from the whole subject. We have surrendered the whole matter to cight-and-twenty States and Territories. With the power of coinage and the power and duty of regulating commerce, both external and internal, this Government has little more control over the mass of money which circulates in the country, than a foreign Government. Upon the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the United States, new banks were created by the States. Sixty or eighty millions of banking capital, have thus been added to the mass since 1832. All this it was easy to foresee: it was all foreseen, and all fo etold. | The wonder only is, that the evil has not already become greater than it is; and it would have been greater, and we should have had such an excess as would perhaps have depreciated the currency, had it not been for the extraordinary prosperity of the country. No very great excess, I believe, has as yet in fact happened, or rather no very great excess does now exist. There are suffi cient evidences, I think, of this.

In the first place, the amount of specie in the country is far greater than was ever known before, and it is not exported. In the next place, as all the banks as yet maintain their credit, and all pay specie on demand, the

[Dec. 21, 1836.

whole circulation is, in effect, equivalent to a specie cir-
culation; and the state of the foreign exchanges shows
that the value of our money, in the mass, is not depreci
ated, since it may be transferred without any loss into
the currency of other countries. Our money, therefore,
is as good as the money of other countries. If it had
fallen below the value of money abroad, the rates of ex-
change would instantly show that fact. There has been,
therefore, as yet, or at least there exists at present, no
considerable depreciation of money. If, then, it be ask-
ed, what keeps up the value of money in this vast and
sudden expansion and increase of it, I have already giv
en the answer which appears to me to be the true one.
It is kept up by an equally vast and sudden increase in
the property of the country, and in the value of that
property, intrinsic as well as marketable. None of us,
I think, have estimated this increase high enough, and
for that reason we have all been looking for an earlier
fall in prices. It seems obvious to me that an augment-
ation in the value of property, far exceeding all former
experience in any country, even our own, has taken
place in the United States within the last few years.
The public lands may furnish one instance of this rapid
increase. It was estimated last session, by my honorable
friend from Ohio, [Mr. EwING,] that the demands of ac-
tual settlers for land for settlement were eight millions
of acres per annum, on an average of some years. These
eight millions, if taken up at the Government prices at
private entry, would cost $10,000,000. Now, partly by
cultivation, but more by the continued rush of emigra-
tion, both from Europe and the Atlantic coast, the value
of these ten millions in a very few years springs up to
forty millions; that is to say, lands taken up at one dol
lar and a quarter an acre, soon become worth five dol-
lars an acre for actual cultivation, and in intrinsic value.
And it is to be remembered that these lands are aliena-
ble and saleable, with as little of form and ceremony, al-
most, as if they were goods and chattels. Now, if we
make an estimate, not merely on the eight millions of
acres required for actual settlement, but on the whole
quantity selected and taken up annually, we shall see
something of the addition to the whole amount of proper-
ty which accrues annually from the public lands. A
rise has taken place, too, though less striking, in the
value of other lands in the country; and property, in
goods, merchandise, products, and other forms, is rapid-
ly augmented, also, both in quantity and value, by the
industry and skill of the people, and the extension and
most successful use of machinery.

Another most important element in the general estimate of the progress of wealth in the country, is the wonderful annual increase of the cotton crops, and the prices which the article bears. Last year's crop reached, probably, to eighty millions of dollars. Now, most of the cotton produced in the United States is sold, once, at least, in the country, and much of it many times. The bills drawn against it when shipped, either for Europe or the Atlantic ports, are usually cashed at the place of drawing, commonly, no doubt, by means of

bank notes or bank credits.

I put all these cases but as instances showing the increased value of property and amount of business in the country, and accounting, therefore, for an expansion of the circulation, without supposing great excess; since it is obvious that the circulating money of a country naturally bears a proportion to the whole mass of property, and to the number and amount of business transactions.

But there is another cause of a less favorable character, which may have had its effect already; or if not, is very likely to have it hereafter, in augmenting the cir cutation of bank notes: I mean the obstruction and embarrassment of the domestic exchanges. In a proper and natural state of affairs, the place of currency, or

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money, is filled to a great extent by bills of exchange; and this continues to be the case, so long as the rates of exchange remain low and steady. Nobody, for example, will send bank notes or specie from New York to New Orleans, if he can buy a good bill at par, or near par. But when exchange becomes disturbed, when rates rise and fluctuate, bills cease to be able to perform this function, and then bank notes begin to be sent about from place to place, in quantities to supply the place of bills of exchange, in payment of debts and balances. All such, and all other derangements and distractions in the free course of domestic exchanges, necessarily produce an unnatural and considerable increase of the circulation. So far as our circulation has been or may be augmented by this cause, so far both the cause and the effect are to be deplored. In my opinion, we have certainly reason to fear this excess hereafter. What is to prevent it? Is it possible that so many State banks, so far apart, so unknown to each other, with no common objects, no common principles of discount, and no general regulation whatever, should act so much in concert, and upon system, as to maintain the currency of the country steady, without either unjust expansion or unnecessary contraction? I believe it is not possible. I believe many of those who insist so much on hard-money circulation believe this also; and that they press their im practicable hard-money notions, from a consciousness that the discontinuance of a national institution has brought the country into a condition in which it is threatened with issues of irredeemable paper.

It

Our present evil, however, is of a different kind. is, indeed, somewhat novel and anomalous. With high general prosperity, good crops, generally speaking, an abundance of the precious metals, and a favorable state of foreign exchanges, men of business have yet felt for some months an unprecedented scarcity of money. That is the state of things; its cause, in my opinion, is expressed in a few words: it is the derangement of internal intercourse and internal exchange. Our difficulty is not exhaustion, but obstruction. Every body has means enough, but nobody can use his means. All the usual channels of commercial dealing are blocked up. The manufacturers of the North cannot obtain from the South the proceeds of the sales of their articles; the South finds money scarce, too, in the midst of its abundant exports.

In a country so extensive and so busy, every mer chant's means become more or less dispersed, and exist in various places in the shape of debts. Exchange is the instrument, the wand, by which he reaches forth to these means, wherever they are, and-uses them for his immediate and daily purposes. But this instrument is now broken. He can no longer touch with it his distant debt, and make that debt present money. He seeks, therefore, for expedients; borrows money, if he can, till times change; pays enormous rates of interest to maintain credit; thinks things, when at the worst, must soon change; looks for reaction, and sacrifices to capitalists, to brokers, and money-lenders, the hard earnings of years, rather than fail to fulfil bis commercial engagements. It is a happy and blessed hour, this, for greedy capital and grasping brokerage; an excruciating one for honest industry. The very rich grow every day richer; the laborious and industrious, every day poorer. Meantime, the highways of commercial dealing and exchanges grow more and more founderous, or are all breaking up. Specie, always most useful as the basis of a circulation, when most in repose, gets upon the move. Any time the last four months it might have hap pened, and many times doubtless it has happened, that steamboats from New York, carrying specie to Boston, have passed in the Sound steamboats from Boston carrying specie to New York. Boating and carting money,

[SENATE.

backward and forward, becomes the order of the day; and there are those who, the more they hear of specie hauled and transported about from place to place, in masses, the more they flatter themselves with the idea that the country is returning rapidly to a safe and happy specie circulation!

There may be other minor causes. They are not worth enumerating. The great and immediate origin of evil is disturbance in the exchange; and, in my opinion this disturbance has been caused by the agency of the Government itself. The fifty millions in the Treasury have been agitated by unnecessary transfers. As a large portion of this sum was to be deposited with the States at the beginning of next year, the Secretary seems to have thought it necessary to cut up, divide, and remove assigned portions of it before the time came. It is this idea of removal that has wrought the mischief. In consequence of this, money has been taken from places of active commercial business, where it was much needed, and all used, and carried to places where it was not needed, and could not be used.

The agricultural State of Indiana, for example, is full of specie; the highly commercial and manufacturing State of Massachusetts is severely drained. In the mean time, the money in Indiana cannot be used. It is waiting for the new year. The moment the Treasury grasp is let loose from it, it will tend again to the great marts of business; that is to say, the restoration of the natural state of things will begin to correct the evil of arbitrary and artificial financial arrangements. The money will go back to the places where it is wanted. It will seek its level, and its place of usefulness. In my opinion, the proper execution of the deposite law did not make it at all neces sary for the Treasury to order these previous local changes. The law itself is not answerable for the inconvenience which has resulted. When the time came, the States, all of them, would have been very glad to receive the money where it was. They wanted but an order for it. They desired no carting. Can any thing be more preposterous than to transfer specie from New York to Nashville, when to a man in Nashville specie in New York is two per cent. more valuable than if he had it in his own house? There is always a tendency in specie, not actually in the pockets of the people, towards the great marts and places of exchange. Those who want it, want it there. There the great transactions of commerce are performed, and there the means of those transactions naturally exist, simply because there they are required. Now, what reason was there for disturbing the revenue, thus lying where it had been collected, and thus mingled with the commerce of the country? Why laboriously drag it off, far from its place of useful action, to places where it was not wanted, and could do no good, and there hold it under the key of the Treasury?

This anticipation of the operation of the deposite law, this attempt at local distribution, this arbitrary system of transfer, which seems to forget, at once, the necessities of commerce, and the real uses of money, I regard as the direct and prime cause of the pressure felt by the community. But the Treasury order came powerfully in aid of this. This order checked the use of bank notes in the West, and made another loud call for specie. The specie, therefore, is transferred to the West, to pay for lands; being received for lands, it becomes public revenue, is brought to the East for expenditure, and passes, on its way, other quantities going West, to buy lands also, and in the same way to return again to the East. Now, sir, how does all this improve the currency? What fraud does it prevent? what speculation does it arrest? what monopoly does it suppress? I am very much mistaken if all this does not embarrass the small purchaser of land much more than the large one. He who has fifty or a hundred thousand dollars to lay out, may collect his specie, not

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Texas--Treasury Circular.

without some charge, it is true, but without a very heavy charge. But if there be a man, with a hundred or two dollars, waiting to take up a small parcel for actual settlement, and his money be in bank notes, and the bank, perhaps, at a great distance, what has he to do? He must send far to exchange a little money; or else he must submit to any brokerage which he may find estab lished in the neighborhood of the land office. Upon the local operation of this order, however, I say the less, as on that point Western gentlemen are better informed and better judges.

I am willing to hope, sir, and, indeed, I do hope and believe, that when the first payment or deposite under the act of last session shall have been made, and the States shall have found some use and employment for the money, and when this unnatural transfer system shall cease, money will seek its natural channels, and commercial business resume, in some measure, its accustomed habits. But this Treasury order will be a disturbing agent, every hour it is suffered to exist. Indeed, it cannot be allowed to exist long. It is not possible that the West can submit to a measure at once so inju rious and so partial. Hard money at the land office, and bank notes at the custom-house, must make men open their eyes after a while, whatever degree of political confidence weighs down their lids. I look upon it, therefore, as certain, that the order will not be permitted long to remain in force.

If I am now asked, sir, whether, supposing this order to be rescinded, and the deposite law executed, and the transfers discontinued, affairs will return to their former state, I answer, with all candor, that though I look, in those events, for a great improvement, I do not expect to see the domestic exchanges and the currency return entirely to their former state. I do not believe there is any agency at work, at present, competent to bring about this desirable end. In other words, I do not believe that the deposite banks, however well adminis tered, can fully supply the place of a national institution; and I am very much mistaken if intelligent men connected with those institutions themselves believe any such thing. I find that, in 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832, exchange at New York, on the Southern and Southwestern cities, averaged three fourths of one per cent. discount, or thereabouts. Now, I doubt whether the most sanguine of those connected with the deposite banks expect to be able, through their means, to bring back exchanges to that state, or any thing like it.

The deposite banks are separate and distinct institutions, many of them strangers to each other, without full confidence in each other, and all acting without uniformity of purpose. Their objects are distinct, their capitals distinc', their interests distinct. If one of them has connexion with some others, it yet has no unbroken chain of connexion. They have nothing which runs through the whole circle of the exchanges, as that circle is drawn through the great commercial cities of the Union. They can only act in the business of exchange to the extent of funds, or not much beyond it, actually existing. A national institution, with branches or agencies at different points, may deal in exchanges between these points in amounts to meet the convenience of the public, without reference to the fact of the existence of local funds. One institution, therefore, with branches, has facilities which never can be possessed by different institutions, however honorably or ably conducted.

For myself, I am of the same opinion as formerly, that for the administration of the finances of the country, for the facility of internal exchanges, and for the due control and regulation of the actual currency, a national institution, under proper guards and limits, is by far the best means within our reach. And I am, as I always have been, of opinion, that Congress, having the power

[DEC. 22, 1836.

of regulating commerce, and the power over the coinage, has power, also, which it is bound to exercise, by lawful means, over that currency in which the revenue is to be collected, and which is to carry on that commerce, external and internal, which is thus committed to its regulation and protection. All the duties of this Government are, in my judgment, not fulfilled, while it leaves these great interests, thus confided to its own care, to the discretion of others, or to the results of chance. But I will not go further into these subjects at the present time.

Mr. President, I am indifferent to the form in which the Treasury order may be done away. Gentlemen may please themselves in the mode. I shall be satisfied with the substance. Believing it to be both illegal and inju rious, I shall vote to rescind, to revoke, to abolish, to supersede, to do any thing which may have the effect of terminating its existence.

Before Mr. WEBSTER concluded his speech, as given entire above,

[Mr. BENTON laid the following on the table, in the way of notice: Motion (to be made hereafter) to invest the committee to which the resolution (of Mr. EwING) shall be sent, with authority to inquire into the effect and operation of the Treasury order of July 11th, upon the business of the country, and the banking institutions of the States, and into the conduct of banks in relation to that order, and into their attempts (if any) to withdraw specie from circulation, and to embarrass the exchanges and business of the country. The committee to summon witnesses before them, if any such are near at hand, and to conduct their inquiries at a distance by interrogatories.] The Senate then adjourned.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22.

TEXAS.

A message was received from the President of the United States relative to the recognition of the independ ence of Texas, and its admission into the Union, and unfavorable to both measures at the present time.

On motion of Mr. BUCHANAN, and after an examination of the documents by the Committee on Foreign Relations, 1,500 extra copies of the message and documents were ordered to be printed. (Vide Debates H. of R. post.)

TREASURY CIRCULAR.

The Senate resumed the consideration of Mr. EwING'S resolution to rescind the Treasury order of July 11th, 1836, and to prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from delegating his power to specify what kind of funds shall be received in payment for the public lands.

Mr. WEBSTER concluded his remarks, as given entire above. When Mr. WEBSTER had concluded his speech,

Mr. NILES rose and addressed the Chair as follows: Mr. President: I had intended to submit some remarks on the resolution before the Senate, and may as well do it at this time as any other. In the course of the debate there have been several topics drawn into consideration, not necessarily embraced in the question to be decided, yet somewhat connected with the general subject. Some of these I shall have occasion to allude to as I proceed; but will here notice one preliminary observation of the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. WEBSTER.] That Senator took occasion to say that the vote on this resolution would form a test question; that those who vote against the resolution will be understood as being favorable to the ultra, and, as he regarded them, extreme opinions of the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] regarding the currency and the public revenue, and observed that it might be fortunate the public is to be thus

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