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DEC. 19, 1836.]

Treasury Circular.

[SENATE.

are not to embark on the ocean of paper money.
I cannot say, indeed, that this resolution will certainly
produce the desired end. It may fail. Its success, as
is obvious, must essentially depend on the course pur-
sued by the Treasury Department."

always the most certain destroyers of national prosperity. They come in no questionable shape. They an nounce their own approach, and the general safety is preserved by the general alarm. Not so with the evils of a debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, or a depressed and falling public credit. Not so with the Having disposed of the charge of illegality, Mr. B. plausible and insidious mischiefs of a paper money sys- took up that of the unconstitutionality of the Treasury tem. These insinuate themselves in the shape of facili- order. He read from the published speech of the Senties, accommodation, and relief. They hold out the ator from Ohio, [Mr. EwING,] as found in a revised most fallacious hope of an easier payment of debts, and form in the National Intelligencer, the specific allegaa lighter burden of taxation. It is easy for a portion of tion of this alleged unconstitutionality, which ran thus: the people to imagine that Government may properly "There is a provision in the constitution directly in continue to receive depreciated paper, because they the face of this order. Those who drew up the order have received it, and because it is more convenient to seemed to have been aware of it, and to have avoided obtain it than to obtain other paper or specie. But on employing the same words as are used in the article of these subjects it is that Government ought to exercise its the constitution; but it is not, therefore, any the less own peculiar wisdom and caution. It is supposed to pos- in violation of its provisions. The constitution declares sess, on subjects of this nature, somewhat more of fore-that the citizens of each of the United States shall ensight than has fallen to the lot of individuals. It is bound joy all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of to forsee the evil before every man feels it, and to take the several States; even the States themselves cannot all necessary measures to guard against it, although they discriminate. But this order gives to the citizens of may be measures attended with some difficulty, and not one State a privilege which the citizens of no other without some temporary inconvenience. * State are allowed to enjoy-that of paying for public The only power which the Government possesses of re- land in the ordinary currency of the country. With straining the issues of the State banks, is to refuse their some this argument will have but little effect, especially notes in the receipts of the Treasury. This power it as it is directed against an executive act; but it is not can exercise now, or at least provide now for exercising therefore the less sound." it in reasonable time, because the currency of some part of the country is yet sound, and the evil is not yet universal. But I have expressed my belief on more than one occasion, and I now repeat the opinion, that it was the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, on the return of peace, to have returned to the legal and proper mode of collecting the revenue. * * * It can hardly be doubted that the influence of the Treasury could have effected all this. If not, it could have withdrawn the deposites, and the countenance of Government, from institutions which, against all rule and all propriety, were holding great sums in Government stocks, and making enormous profits from the circulation of their own dishonored paper. That which was most wanted was the designation of a time for the corresponding operation of banks of different places. This could have been made by the head of the Treaury better than by any body, or every body else. This Government has a right, in all cases, to protect its own revenues, and to guard them against defalcation or bad and depreciated paper. It is bound, also, to collect the taxes of the people on a uniform system. ** As to the opinion advanced by some, that the object of the resolution cannot, in any way, be answered-that the revenues cannot be collected otherwise than they now are, in the paper of any and every banking association which chooses to issue paper, it cannot for a moment be attempted. * * The thing, therefore, is to be done; at any rate it is to be attempted. That it will be accomplished by the Treasury Department, without the interference of Congress, I have no belief. If from that source no reformation came, when reformation was easy, it is not now to be expected. Especially after the vote of yesterday, those whose interest it is to continue the present state of things will arm themselves with the authority of Congress. They will justify themselves by the decision of this House. They will say, and say truly, that this House, having taken up the subject, and discussed it, has not thought fit so much as to declare that it is expedient even to relieve the country or its revenues from a paper money system. * * But while some gentlemen oppose these resolutions, because they fix a time too near, others think they fix a day too distant. In my own judgment, it is not so material what the time is, as it is to fix a time. The great object is, that our legal currency is to be preserved, and that we

Mr. B. said there was an error in the quotation in this place, and not only in the quotation, but in the gentleman's head also. The constitution was erroneously quoted by the gentleman, and that error had pervaded his argument; and, if followed out to its legitimate conclusions, would present a picture of the rarest absurdities and impossibilities. The quotation says, "the citi zens of each State of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the sev eral States. The constitution said, "all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The error of the quotation was in using the definite article the, and the preposition of; and this error unhinged the meaning of the clause, and conducted the argument off on a track which would lead into boundless confusion. The clause, as it stands in the constitution, is general and indefinite, clearly meaning that the States were to treat each other's citizens as members of the same general Government, and not as aliens. The quotation, and the argument upon it, give individuality and particularity to this general right; and, by giving to the citizens of each State the rights of the citizens of all the other States, abolishes at a blow all State lines, and makes one consolidated Government of the whole Union. Thus, by this reading, whatever any citizen can do in his own State, every citizen of every State in the Union may come there and do also-vote with him; hold offices with him; exercise licensed trades and professions with him; contend with him for the honors and emoluments of the State, without owing it allegiance, or paying it a tax, or residing within its limits. What scenes this would give rise to! What crusading visits, or visitations, at the successive elections! Whole States wou'd precipitate themselves in masses upon their neighbors! Some zealous partisans, by aid of steam cars, and race horses, and flying chariots, might succeed in voting in every State in the Union! Suppose the gentleman was right, and this grand secret had been found out before the late presidential election, what a moving flood of living heads we should have seen! such as has never been beheld since Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, or Peter the Hermit led his countless host to the Holy Land! But it will not do. The definite article the, and the preposition of, which figure in the gentleman's quotation, and rule his argument, are not in the constitu tion; and so the citizens of every State are not to enjoy

SENATE.]

Treasury Circular.

the rights and immunities of the citzens of every other State. Little Delaware is not to give two millions of votes at the next presidential election! Pursuing his error, the gentleman says the States themselves cannot discriminate between the rights of their own citizens and those of other States. But we all know that they an, and that they do discriminate. Every election proves it; every tenure of office proves it; many trades and professions prove it; the requiring or dispensing with bail proves it; the whole distinction between foreign and domestic attachment is founded upon this discrimination. Truly, the gentleman must choose between his pride and his patriotism-between his speech and his country; for his error must be fatal to his argument, or fatal to the States.

Another branch of the constitution assigned by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. EwING] is the temporary discrimination between payments from settlers and specuJators. He insists that all should have the privilege of paying in paper money. Now, the constitution of the United States does not recognise paper for money; it does not recognise the existence of such currency; it is in vain, then, to talk of violations of the constitution on such a point. Again, if it be unconstitutional to discriminate between revenue payments, then Congress cannot do it; and yet Congress has done it, and that in relation to the lands themselves. In March, 1823, an act was passed to make the foreign gold coins of England, France, Spain, and Portugal receivable in payment of the public lands. This was a discrimination, and an exception; for an act of 1819 had illegalized the circulation of foreign coins. But the discrimination which excites greatest complaint is that between the classes of the purchasers-between the settlers and the speculators. What clause of the constitution is to be relied upon to favor these speculators? It is presumed it will be as hard to find their names as the name of paper money in that instrument. But, in one respect at least, they seem to be in a favorable way; they are gaining new friends, and finding advocates and protectors in those who denounced and stigmatized them six months ago! They are now in the hug of those whose kicks they received a few short months ago. But there is a distinction, founded in the nature of things, and recognised by laws, between the settler and the speculator. One is a meritorious class, deserving the favor of all Governments; the other is a pestilential and injurious class, discountenanced every where. The first report ever made under the Federal Government for the sale of our public lands recognised this distinction. It was made by General Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1790, and is explicitly to the point. This is an extract from the report:

“That, in the formation of a plan for the disposition of the vacant lands of the United States, there appear to be two leading objects of consideration: one the facility of advantageous sales according to the probable course of purchases; the other the accommodation of individuals now inhabiting the Western country, or who may hereafter emigrate thither. The former, as an operation of finance, claims primary attention; the latter is important, as it relates to the satisfaction of the inhabitants of the Western country. It is desirable, and does not appear impracticable, to conciliate both. Purchasers may be contemplated in three classes: moneyed individuals and companies, who will buy to sell again; associations of persons, who intend to make settlements themselves; single persons or families, now resident in the Western country, or who may emigrate there bereafter. The two first will be frequently blended, and will always want considerable tracts; the last will generally purchase small quantities. Hence a plan for the sale of the Western lands, while it may have a due regard to the last, should be calculated to obtain all the advantages which may be derived from the two first classes."

[DEC. 19, 1836.

Thus (said Mr. B.) the discrimination between settlers and speculators, and between residents and non-residents, is as old as the first plan for the sale of the public lands; and with these distinctions the legislation of Con. gress has corresponded from that day down to the time when propositions were made for dividing the proceeds of the lands. Up to that day pre-emptions were granted to settlers; since that day there has been a strenuous opposition to such grants. The new policy is, not to settle the country with meritorious farmers, but to fill the Treasury with paper money for distribution. Formerly settlers were favored; and hence the settled legislation of the country for above forty years. The statute book contains nearly fifty laws in favor of pre-emptions. They begin in 1792, and continue down to about 1830. Six or eight of these laws were applicable to the State of Ohio, and may easily be found under the head of "preemptions," in the volume of laws relating to the public The pre-emption system, thus founded in a distinction resting on the nature of things recognised in General Hamilton's report, and practised upon for above forty years by Congress, makes two discriminations-one as to classes of purchasers, the other as to price. The pre-emptioner was a resident; he paid the minimum price, without competition at auction sales. Now, if these distinctions are unconstitutional, Congress could not make them; if they were unjust or unwise, forty years' legislation would not have recognised them. Sir, (said Mr. B.) the Treasury circular, in making this discrimination, only conforms to General Hamilton's report, to forty years' legislation, and to the common sense and common justice of all mankind. It has the sanction of reason, law, time, and precedent; and the only reason why it is attacked, is because we live in times when nothing that President Jackson can do, or not do, can escape attack.

lands.

sion.

Mr. B. having now fully answered, and, as he believed, entirely refuted, the legal and constitutional objection to the Treasury order, would take up the other branch of the general charge, namely, the ruinous and pernicious effect of the order upon the banks, business, prosperity, confidence, and industry of the country. The news of all this approaching calamity was given out in advance in the Kentucky speech and the Philadelphia letter, already referred to; and the fact of its positive advent and actual presence was vouched by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. EWING] on the last day that the Senate was in sesI do not permit myself (said Mr. B.) to bandy con. tradictory asseverations and debatable assertions across this floor. I choose rather to make an issue, and to test In this way I assertion by the application of evidence. will proceed at present. I will take the letter of the President of the Bank of the United States as being official in this case, and most authoritative in the distress department of this combined movement against President Jackson. He announces, in November, the forthcoming of the national calamity in December; and after charging part of this ruig and mischief on the mode of executing what he ostentatiously styles the distribution law, when there is no such law in the country, he goes on to charge the remainder, being ten-fold more than the former, upon the Treasury order, which excludes paper money from the land offices. Here is his picture of dis

tress:

"The commercial community were thus taken by surprise. The interior banks making no loans, and conVerting their Atlantic funds into specie, the debtors in the interior could make no remittances to the merchants in the Atlantic cities, who are thus thrown for support on the banks of those cities at a moment when they are unable to afford relief, on account of the very abstraction of their specie to the West. The creditor States not only receive no money, but their money is carried

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away to the debtor States, who, in turn, cannot use it,
either to pay old engagements or to contract new.
this unnatural process the specie of New York and the
other commercial cities is piled up in the Western States;
not circulated, not used, but held as a defence against
the Treasury; and while the West cannot use it, the
East is suffering for the want of it. The result is, that
the commercial intercourse between the West and the
Atlantic is almost wholly suspended, and the few opera-
tions which are made are burdened with the most ex-
travagant expense. In November, 1836, the interest of
money has risen to twenty-four per cent.; merchants are
struggling to preserve their credit by ruinous sacrifices;
and it costs five or six times as much to transmit funds from
the West and Southwest, as it did in November, 1835,
or '34, or '32. Thus, while the exchanges with all the
world are in our favor, while Europe is alarmed, and the
Bank of England itself uneasy at the quantity of specie
we possess, we are suffering, because, from mere mis-
management, the whole ballast of the currency is shifted
from one side of the vessel to the other."

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"In the absence of good reasons for these measures, and as a pretext for them, it is said that the country has overtraded, that the banks have over-issued, and that the purchasers of public lands have been very extravagant. I am not struck by the truth or the propriety of these complaints."

[SENATE.

the conduct of the banks acting with politicians and with the Bank of the United States. The general prosperity of the country is great; but there are places, Philadelphia, New York, and some others, where the withdrawal of money under the deposite act has occasioned a pressure, and where the policy to create distress, and to throw it upon the Treasury order, is seconded by the ability to accomplish what is desired. This is about the true state of the question; and evidence will be at hand to show it. Mr. B. said it would be remembered that, when this resolution was called up a few days ago, he had specified his intention to obtain from the Treasury Department the comparative returns of many banks, both in the new States, where there were public lands, and in the Atlantic States, where there were none; and, by looking into their condition before the Treasury order. was issued, and since that order had gone into full operation, he would be able to see in what manner the banks had been affected by it. He had now obtained those returns. They, of course, were limited to the deposite banks; but being scattered over every State in the West, from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and throughout the Atlantic States from Maine to Georgia, the result which they would present could not be otherwise than a fair index to the general condition of the whole country. He had looked carefully over these returns, covering as "Now the fact is, that, at this moment, the exchanges they did eight large folio pages, and the result indicated are all in favor of this country; that is, you can buy a bill not only a good condition, but an improved condition; of exchange on a foreign country.cheaper than you can not only an ability to aid the community, but aid actually send specie to that country. Accordingly, much specie given. Mr. B. then went over the returns, one by one, has come in-none goes out; this, too, at a moment taking for his points of comparison the months of July when the exchange for the last crop is exhausted, and and November; that is to say, the month before the that of the new crop has not yet come into the market; order went into operation, and the latest month at which and when we are on the point of sending to Europe the the banks had been heard from since. He examined produce of the country, to the amount of eighty or one them under the three heads of 1. Loans; 2. Specie on hundred millions of dollars. How, then, has the coun- hand; and, 3. Circulation; and the general results were, try overtraded? Exchange with all the world is in fa- that the loans in November were larger than in July; the vor of New York." specie greater in November than in July; the circulation "The people of the United States, through their rep-in many instances not diminished, in some increased; and resentatives, rechartered that institution. But the Exe- in most instances the specie on hand and the circulation cutive, discontented with its independence, rejected the brought to a nearer proportion to each other; insomuch act of Congress, and the favorite topic of declamation that banks which had eight, ten, or twelve dollars of was, that the States would make banks, and that these paper out for one dollar of silver in their vaults in July, banks could create a better system of currency and ex- were now brought to the safer proportion of three or changes. The States accordingly made bank; and then four to one in November. This was proof that the followed idle parades about the loans of these banks, banks were not crippled. It was proof that they were and their large dealings in exchange. And what is the not denying accommodations. The proof was complete, consequence? The Bank of the United States has not as far as it went, and it went all over the Union, that ceased to exist more than seven months, and already these banks were not injured by the Treasury order, the whole currency and exchanges are running into inex- but were benefited by it; it was proof that they were tricable confusion, and the industry of the country is not only able and willing to assist the community, but burdened with extravagant charges on all the commer- actually had assisted them. cial intercourse of the Union.”

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"In the mean time, all forbearance and calmness should be maintained. There is great reason for anxiety-none whatever for alarm; and with mutual confidence and courage, the country may yet be able to defend itself against the Government. In that struggle my own poor efforts shall not be wanting. I go for the country, whoever rules it. I go for the country, best loved when worst governed-and it will afford me far more gratification to assist in repairing wrongs, than to triumph over those who inflict them."

Here (said Mr. B) is a woful picture of distress, drawn in the same colors in which the same pictures were drawn in 1833. But is it a true picture? and, if it is true, what has caused it? To these questions the answers are plain: first, that the picture is not true, except in places where the Bank of the United States and its affiliated banks have power to make it so; and, secondly, that whatever real distress is felt in some places, is occasioned by the deposite act.of the last session, and VOL. XIII.-3

On the other hand, there might be banks which were not assisting the community, and which were accomplishing a pecuniary and political object at the same time, by shutting their doors upon borrowers, and throwing them into the hands of money dealers at three per cent. discount per month. This was said to be the case in Philadelphia; that Philadelphia which was the seat of the new United States Bank, with her capital of thirtyfive millions, which one short year ago was to make money so plenty in that State, and to reduce interest to 5 per cent. per annum. Three per cent. discount, equal to 4 per cent. interest, is now the rate of usury which prevails around her! And she can make it 6 or 12 per cent. per month whenever she pleases. Where banks have monopolized the currency, and become the dispensers of money, they can make interest, or usury, what they please. They have only to stop discounts, and throw the borrowers into the hands of usurers. Pretexts will never be wanting. Any thing that happens, or does not happen, will do; the removal of the depos

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ites the issuance of the Treasury order-or the last year's snow. One thing is as good as another; for the banks themselves are the sole judges of their own reasons, decide without argument, and without appeal, and act upon the decision without mercy and without re

morse.

This is now going on in some of the principal cities, where the deposite act, creating a real pressure, gives to the Bank of the United States and its affiliated institutions the power to do great mischief. Of this power they avail themselves; but their sphere of action is limited, not general. Their victims are individuals, and not the Union. They destroy individuals, or, at most, isolated communities. At the most, they only do a Goliad business-kill their prisoners; that is to say, the debtors; a pen-full, or a pail-full, at a time. The debtor part of the community, where the powers of the Bank of the United States and its associates predominate, suffer severely and cruelly; but the remoter parts of the Union are safe. The Briærian arms of the monster no longer reach to the extremities of the Union. It can no longer strike down exchanges, sink the price of produce and property, and demolish merchants and traders in the towns and cities of the South and West. The tragedy of 1833, now performing on the local theatres of some of the Atlantic cities, cannot be again extended to the country towns and remote States.

Mr. B. remarked upon the statements in Mr. Biddle's letter; he chose to refer to that letter as being the revealed source of this proceeding against President Jackson, and the fountain from which all the arguments of the opposition are drawn; he remarked upon the statements in it, that it was the great transfer of specie to the West which occasioned distress in the East; that much specie had gone to the West, and that none had been exported. Mr. B. said he had prepared himself with facts to reply to these two assertions. In the first place, a Treasury return which he held in his hand, showed that no more than $1,463,656 in specie had been received at all the land offices under the Treasury order, and a like return showed that $312,811 in gold, and $4,123,004 in silver, had been exported from the United States this year. Here then was an export of specie to foreign countries of three times the amount of that which went into the land offices; yet the public are to be told by the president of the bank bearing the name of the United States, that no specie had been exported!

It is in this way that the public is deceived, and that the Treasury order is made the pack-horse, to be loaded with every thing that can be heaped upon it. The export of four and a half millions of specie to foreign countries is called nothing-is said to be none-while one and a half millions, gone into our land offices, has overset -the national ship, and deranged the business of a continent! One million and a half out of seventy-five mil lions has gone into the land offices. Who would feel it? How could it disturb the business of the country? And, especially, how could one million and a half, by going into the interior of our country, do all this mischief, when four and a half millions, by going to foreign coun tries, is not felt or known? But there was another operation in specie of which Mr. B. had been informed, and which he should bring under the inquiries of a committee, if he should be so fortunate as to be allowed one, and which he mentioned now, not as evidence to convince the Senate, but as a ground for demanding a com mittee. His information was this: that in the month of September last, the merchants and bankers of New Orleans became suddenly surprised at the mysterious scarcity of specie. It had vanished as if by magic. A meeting was held to know what had become of it; and it was ascertained that the Bank of the United States had collected and boxed up $1,800,000 in that city, and

[DEC. 19, 1836.

refused a dollar of it to her creditors there! and that bank holding $300,000 of her notes, had to send them, and did send them, to Philadelphia to be cashed, at great expense, and, what was more material, at great loss of time, when the city was otherwise pressed for specie by the double cause of demands to supply the Western land purchasers, and failure to receive the accustomed supplies from Mexico, on account of the Texian war. Here, then, was $300,000 more taken out of circulation by the Bank of the United States in one month, than all the land offices received in four months; and if the fact was true, as related to him, the evidence was clear and incontestable that this bank was itself making the scarcity and pressure which it has been falsely throwing upon the Treasury order, and upon President Jackson. Mr. B. asked no one to condemn the bank unheard upon this statement; but he also asked that no one would refuse to have it inquired into by a committee.

The real cause of the pecuniary pressure and derangement of the exchanges experienced in some of the large cities, exclusive of that created by some of the banks, was the deposite act of the last session. That act causes thirty odd millions of dollars, about fifteen millions of which is money appropriated to useful and essential objects, to be suddenly withdrawn from the vortex of business, and transferred to places where it must stagnate for some time before it can come again into active employment. Aware of this, and sensible that the public eye was fixed upon this act as the real source of a bonafide distress, the attempt is made to turn off the effect from the act itself, to the mode of its execution. It is not the transfer of these thirty millions, they say, which has done the mischief, but the manner of making the transfer! This (said Mr. B.) is a repetition of the old song about the removal of the deposites. It was not the removal, but the manner of the removal, which had done all the mischief in 1833. And when pressed to explain what was this mystical manner of acting which was so magically calamitous, the solution was in the destruction of confidence. This was the solution then; it is the solution now; for the president of the Bank of the United States expressly declares that the instant recision of the Treasury order would restore confidence in twentyfour hours, and relief in as many days. This was the declaration during the whole panic of 1833; and its meaning then and now is the same: that the Bank of the United States and its affiliated institutions would cease scourging the country the instant that Congress would grant its president the victory and triumph which he demands over President Jackson! The six months' cry of the session of 1833-'34 was, that the restoration of the deposites, or the recharter of the bank, would relieve the distress in twenty-four hours, and that nothing else ever could relieve it. Now it happens that the test of time, and the letter of the president of the Bank of the United States, has shown that this cry of six months' duration was entirely erroneous; for the distress did cease, and unbounded prosperity has ensued; while the only condition on which this was to take place has never happened; the deposites are not restored; the bank is not rechartered; the distress did cease; unexampled prosperity has ensued, which is attempted to be interrupted again by those who interrupted it then.

Mr. B. said the deposite act was the offspring of the land bill, and became the substitute for it. That bill had passed the Senate before the deposite bill was brought in, and, so far as the Senate was concerned, bad made a previous disposition of the same money. That bill was carried through the Senate by the votes of those who are considered as the tutelary deities of the merchants and bankers on this floor; yet the disposition which it proposed to make of what was called the pro

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ceeds of the sales of the public lands was ruinous to the banks and the merchants of the great Atlantic cities. It made a call for money, and a distribution of money, which must have driven every debtor to these banks to the immediate payment of every shilling which he owed in any deposite bank; and would have produced a pressure and consternation which would have pervaded the whole moneyed system, and the whole business community of the places where they were. This is the provision of the bill. It is the third section, in the form in which it passed the Senate, and went to the House of Representatives.

"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the several sums of money received in the Treasury as the nett proceeds of the sales of the public lands for the years eighteen hundred and thirty-three, eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and eighteen hundred and thirty-five, shall be paid and distributed as aforesaid, at the Treasury of the United States, one fourth part on the first day of July, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, and one fourth part at the end of each ninety days thereafter, until the whole is paid; and those which shall be received for the years eighteen hundred and thirty-six and eighteen hundred and thirty-seven shall also be paid at the Treasury half-yearly, on the first day of July and January, in each of those years, to such person or persons as the respective Legislatures of the said States shall authorize and direct to receive the same."

Now, (said Mr. B.,) let any banker or merchant of the great commercial cities count up the sums which would have been payable in the short period of nine months under this act. They would have been these: eighteen millions and three quarters of a million of dollars on the first day of July last; six millions on the first day of October last; eighteen millions and three quarters on the first day of January next; and six millions on the first day of April next; amounting, in the whole, to forty-nine and one half millions of dollars; for such was the amount of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands for the years mentioned up to 1836. But the section also included the proceeds of the sales for 1837, which were to be divided out on the first days of July, 1837, and January, 1838. Their amount cannot be known so as to be added. The Secretary of the Treasury, on the basis of hard money payments, estimates them at five millions of dollars; but if these resolutions pass, and the notes of all the banks in the Union become receivable for public lands, the whole national domain may be swept. Every acre may be changed into paper, and that paper be added to the mass of the unavailable funds now in the Treasury.

Mr. B. deemed it right to bring these facts to the recollection of the Senate, and to place them before the eyes of those who looked upon the authors of such measures as their peculiar protectors. That third section of the land bill would have been desolation to the great cities; it was opposed as such on this floor; yet it passed this Chamber, but hung in the House of Representatives until the deposite bill was passed here, and sent down to supersede it. That deposite bill, which proposes only thirty odd millions for abstraction from the great channels of commerce, is, in reality, crippling banks and merchants, and distressing the great cities. What, then, would it have been if forty-nine and a half millions had been taken from them in the short space of nine months? And what would have been its effect upon the Treasury of the United States? Bankruptcy! For it is now seen that there will be in the Treasury on the first of January next but about forty-one millions of dollars, and that inclusive of fifteen millions of unexpended balances, applicable to objects of great necessity, and not completed. Let these facts and these views be kept in mind, whenever the land bill and the deposite act are mentioned.

[SENATE.

Mr. B. had a question to put to the defenders of the banks which affected to be crippled and half killed, and unable to lend a dollar, on account of this Treasury order. It was this: How comes it that these banks never felt a wound, or uttered a complaint, during the many years in which their paper was excluded from both. branches of the revenue of the Federal Government, by the by-laws of the Bank of the United States? Mr. B. had read, for another purpose, the 24th article of the by-laws of this corporation, by which the notes of all the local banks of the Union were excluded from receivability in any revenue payment whatever, except the notes of the specie paying banks in the same city or place where the branch bank was situated. He would now read the 25th article of the same bank code, which would show that this exception in favor of the local banks in the same place with the branch was of no advantage to them, but the contrary, as it merely amounted to a collection of their notes for immediate convertibility into coin. The article is in these words:

"ARTICLE XXV. The offices of discount and deposite shall, at least once every week, settle with the State banks for their notes received in payment of the revenue, or for the engagements of individuals to the bank, so as to prevent the balance due to the office from swelling to an inconvenient amount."

Here (said Mr. B.) is the condition of the whole catalogue of State banks, during the days of the reign of the Bank of the United States. All excluded from revenue payments, both land and customs, except those in the twenty-five places where branch banks were situated, and the few thus excepted called upon for the weekly redemption of their notes. This, in fact, was an exclusion of their paper, and a receipt of their specie alone, and worse to them than a total exclusion; for the nominal reception would cease then to be taken out of the channels of circulation, brought to the branch to meet the revenue payments, and thence sent back to their And this conown counters for redemption in coin. tinued to be the case down to the day of the removal of the deposites. Yet these banks never affected to be unable to do business in this long state of total exclusion from all revenue payments by the power of the Bank of the United States. It is only when one half of the same thing is done by President Jackson that they pretend to be ruined. Mr. B. said it was time for the public to mark the conduct of banks, and to discriminate between those which maintained their course as moneyed institutions, and those which were nothing but shaving shops and political engines. Many banks had so acted as to prove that they were at the beck and nod of politicians, and subservient to the mischievous designs of the Bank of the United States. They were ready to close their doors upon borrowers at the approach of the elections, and to storm Congress with petitions in favor of any movement of the Bank of the United States. forget their petitions at the veto session, and at the panic session, in which they stooped so low as to pray to have the Bank of the United States kept in existence to rule over them, and prevent them from issuing more notes than they could pay? Who can forget their refusal to receive the public deposites, when that refusal was necessary to help out the Bank of the United States in its attempts to embarrass the Government, and injure the country? These things, and many others, must be remembered, and marked; and the community and the Government must learn to discriminate between institutions which conduct themselves on business principles, and those which are at the service of politicians whenever a political effect is to be produced, and at the service of a revengeful institution whenever it suits her policy to have a panic in the country,

Who can

Mr. B. referred to the general state of the country to

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