MR. TANEY'S REPORT ON THE FINANCES--EXPOSURE OF THE DISTRESS
ALARMS--END OF THE PANIC.
About the time when the panic was at its height, and Congress most
heavily assailed with distress memorials, the Secretary of the
Treasury was called upon by a resolve of the Senate for a report
upon the finances--with the full belief that the finances were going
to ruin, and that the government would soon be left without adequate
revenue, and driven to the mortifying resource of loans. The call
on the Secretary was made early in May, and was answered the middle
of June; and was an utter disappointment to those who called for
it. Far from showing the financial decline which had been expected,
it showed an increase in every branch of the revenue! and from that
authentic test of the national condition, it was authentically shown
that the Union was prosperous! and that the distress, of which so
much was heard, was confined to the victims of the United States
Bank, so far as it was real; and that all beyond that was fictitious
and artificial--the result of the machinery for organizing panic,
oppressing debtors, breaking up labor, and alarming the timid. When
the report came into the Senate, the reading of it was commenced
at the table of the Secretary, and had not proceeded far when Mr.
Webster moved to cease the reading, and send it to the Committee on
Finance--that committee in which a report of that kind could not
expect to find either an early or favorable notice. We had expected
a motion to get rid of it, in some quiet way, and had prepared for
whatever might happen. Mr. Taney had sent for me the day before it
came in; read it over with me; showed me all the tables on which
it was founded; and prepared me to sustain and emblazon it: for
it was our intention that such a report should go to the country,
not in the quiet, subdued tone of a State paper, but with all the
emphasis, and all the challenges to public attention, which the
amplifications, the animation, and the fire and freedom which
the speaking style admitted. The instant, then, that Mr. Webster
made his motion to stop the reading, and refer the report to the
Finance Committee, Mr. Benton rose, and demanded that the reading be
continued: a demand which he had a right to make, as the rules gave
it to every member. He had no occasion to hear it read, and probably
heard nothing of it; but the form was necessary, as the report was
to be the text of his speech. The instant it was done, he rose and
delivered his speech, seizing the circumstance of the interrupted
reading to furnish the brief exordium, and to give a fresh and
impromptu air to what he was going to say. The following is the
speech:
Mr. Benton rose, and said that this report was of a nature to
deserve some attention, before it left the chamber of the Senate,
and went to a committee, from which it might not return in time
for consideration at this session. It had been called for under
circumstances which attracted attention, and disclosed information
which deserved to be known. It was called for early in May, in the
crisis of the alarm operations, and with confident assertions that
the answer to the call would prove the distress and the suffering
of the country. It was confidently asserted that the Secretary of
the Treasury had over-estimated the revenues of the year; that
there would be a great falling off--a decline--a bankruptcy;
that confidence was destroyed--enterprise checked--industry
paralyzed--commerce suspended! that the direful act of one man, in
one dire order, had changed the face of the country, from a scene
of unparalleled prosperity to a scene of unparalleled desolation!
that the canal was a solitude, the lake a desert waste of waters,
the ocean without ships, the commercial towns deserted, silent, and
sad; orders for goods countermanded; foreign purchases stopped! and
that the answer of the Secretary would prove all this, in showing
the falsity of his own estimates, and the great decline in the
revenue and importations of the country. Such were the assertions
and predictions under which the call was made, and to which the
public attention was attracted by every device of theatrical
declamation from this floor. Well, the answer comes. The Secretary
sends in his report, with every statement called for. It is a report
to make the patriot's heart rejoice! full of high and gratifying
facts; replete with rich information; and pregnant with evidences
of national prosperity. How is it received--how received by those
who called for it? With downcast looks, and wordless tongues! A
motion is even made to stop the reading! to stop the reading of such
a report! called for under such circumstances; while whole days
are given up to reading the monotonous, tautologous, and endless
repetitions of distress memorials, the echo of our own speeches,
and the thousandth edition of the same work, without emendation or
correction! All these can be read, and printed, too, and lauded
with studied eulogium, and their contents sent out to the people,
freighted upon every wind; but this official report of the Secretary
of the Treasury, upon the state of their own revenues, and of
their own commerce, called for by an order of the Senate, is to be
treated like an unwelcome and worthless intruder; received without a
word--not even read--slipped out upon a motion--disposed of as the
Abbé Sieyes voted for the death of Louis the Sixteenth: _mort sans
phrase!_ death, without talk! But he, Mr. B., did not mean to suffer
this report to be dispatched in this unceremonious and compendious
style. It had been called for to be given to the people, and the
people should hear of it. It was not what was expected, but it is
what is true, and what will rejoice the heart of every patriot in
America. A pit was dug for Mr. Taney; the diggers of the pit have
fallen into it; the fault is not his; and the sooner they clamber
out, the better for themselves. The people have a right to know the
contents of this report, and know them they shall; and if there is
any man in this America, whose heart is so constructed as to grieve
over the prosperity of his country, let him prepare himself for
sorrow; for the proof is forthcoming, that never, since America had
a place among nations, was the prosperity of the country equal to
what it is at this day!
Mr. B. then requested the Secretary of the Senate to send him the
report, and comparative statements; which being done, Mr. B. opened
the report, and went over the heads of it to show that the Secretary
of the Treasury had not over-estimated the revenue of the year, as
he had been charged, and as the report was expected to prove: that
the revenue was, in fact, superior to the estimate; and that the
importations would equal, if not exceed, the highest amount that
they had ever attained.
To appreciate the statements which he should make, Mr. B. said it
was necessary for the Senate to recollect that the list of dutiable
articles was now greatly reduced. Many articles were now free of
duty, which formerly paid heavy duties; many others were reduced
in duty; and the fair effect of these abolitions and reductions
would be a diminution of revenue even without a diminution of
imports; yet the Secretary's estimate, made at the commencement
of the session, was more than realized, and showed the gratifying
spectacle of a full and overflowing treasury, instead of the empty
one which had been predicted; and left to Congress the grateful
occupation of further reducing taxes, instead of the odious task of
borrowing money, as had been so loudly anticipated for six months
past. The revenue accruing from imports in the first quarter of the
present year, was 5,344,540 dollars; the payments actually made
into the treasury from the custom-houses for the same quarter, were
4,435,386 dollars; and the payments from lands for the same time,
were 1,398,206 dollars. The two first months of the second quarter
were producing in a full ratio to the first quarter; and the actual
amount of available funds in the treasury on the 9th day of this
month, was eleven millions, two hundred and forty-nine thousand,
four hundred and twelve dollars. The two last quarters of the year
were always the most productive. It was the time of the largest
importations of foreign goods which pay most duty--the woollens--and
the season, also, for the largest sale of public lands. It is well
believed that the estimate will be more largely exceeded in those
two quarters than in the two first; and that the excess for the
whole year, over the estimate, will be full two millions of dollars.
This, Mr. B. said, was one of the evidences of public prosperity
which the report contained, and which utterly contradicted the idea
of distress and commercial embarrassment which had been propagated,
from this chamber, for the last six months.
Mr. B. proceeded to the next evidence of commercial prosperity; it
was the increased importations of foreign goods. These imports,
judging from the five first months, would be seven millions more
than they were two years ago, when the Bank of the United States
had seventy millions loaned out; and they were twenty millions more
than in the time of Mr. Adams's administration. At the rate they
had commenced, they would amount to one hundred and ten millions
for the year. This will exceed whatever was known in our country.
The imports, for the time that President Jackson has served, have
regularly advanced from about $74,000,000 to $108,000,000. The
following is the statement of these imports, from which Mr. B. read:
1829 $74,492,527
1830 70,876,920
1831 103,191,124
1832 101,029,266
1833 108,118,311
Mr. B. said that the imports of the last year were greater in
proportion than in any previous year; a temporary decline might
reasonably have been expected; such declines always take place after
excessive importations. If it had occurred now, though naturally
to have been expected, the fact would have been trumpeted forth as
the infallible sign--the proof positive--of commercial distress,
occasioned by the fatal removal of the deposits. But, as there was
no decline, but on the contrary, an actual increase, he must claim
the evidence for the other side of the account, and set it down as
proof positive that commerce is not destroyed; and, consequently,
that the removal of the deposits did not destroy commerce.
The next evidence of commercial prosperity which Mr. B. would
exhibit to the Senate, was in the increased, and increasing number
of ship arrivals from foreign ports. The number of arrivals for
the month of May, in New-York, was two hundred and twenty-three,
exceeding by thirty-six those of the month of April, and showing
not only a great, but an increasing activity in the commerce of
that great emporium--he would not say of the United States, or even
of North America--but he would call it that great emporium of the
two Americas, and of the New World; for the goods imported to that
place, were thence distributed to every part of the two Americas,
from the Canadian lakes to Cape Horn.
A third evidence of national prosperity was in the sales of the
public lands. Mr. B. had, on a former occasion, adverted to these
sales, so far as the first quarter was concerned; and had shown,
that instead of falling off, as had been predicted on this floor,
the revenue from the sales of these lands had actually doubled, and
more than doubled, what they were in the first quarter of 1833. The
receipts for lands for that quarter, were $668,526; for the first
quarter of the present year they were $1,398,206; being two to one,
and $60,000 over! The receipts for the two first months of the
second quarter, were also known, and would carry the revenue from
lands, for the first five months of this year, to two millions of
dollars; indicating five millions for the whole year; an enormous
amount, from which the people of the new States ought to be, in
some degree, relieved, by a reduction in the price of lands. Mr. B.
begged in the most emphatic terms, to remind the Senate, that at
the commencement of the session, the sales of the public lands were
selected as one of the criterions by which the ruin and desolation
of the country were to be judged. It was then predicted, and the
prediction put forth with all the boldness of infallible prophecy,
that the removal of the deposits would stop the sales of the public
lands; that money would disappear, and the people have nothing to
buy with; that the produce of the earth would rot upon the hands of
the farmer. These were the predictions; and if the sales had really
declined, what a proof would immediately be found in the fact to
prove the truth of the prophecy, and the dire effects of changing
the public moneys from one set of banking-houses to another! But
there is no decline; but a doubling of the former product; and a
fair conclusion thence deduced that the new States, in the interior,
are as prosperous as the old ones, on the sea-coast.
Having proved the general prosperity of the country from
these infallible data--flourishing revenue--flourishing
commerce--increased arrivals of ships--and increased sales of
public lands, Mr. B. said that he was far from denying that actual
distress had existed. He had admitted the fact of that distress
heretofore, not to the extent to which it was charged, but to a
sufficient extent to excite sympathy for the sufferers; and he had
distinctly charged the whole distress that did exist to the Bank
of the United States, and the Senate of the United States--to the
screw-and-pressure operations of the bank, and the alarm speeches
in the Senate. He had made this charge; and made it under a full
sense of the moral responsibility which he owed to the people, in
affirming any thing so disadvantageous to others, from this elevated
theatre. He had, therefore, given his proofs to accompany the
charge; and he had now to say to the Senate, and through the Senate
to the people, that he found new proofs for that charge in the
detailed statements of the accruing revenue, which had been called
for by the Senate, and furnished by the Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. B. said he must be pardoned for repeating his request to the
Senate, to recollect how often they had been told that trade was
paralyzed; that orders for foreign goods were countermanded; that
the importing cities were the pictures of desolation; their ships
idle; their wharves deserted; their mariners wandering up and
down. Now, said Mr. B., in looking over the detailed statement
of the accruing revenue, it was found that there was no decline
of commerce, except at places where the policy and power of the
United States Bank was predominant! Where that power or policy
was predominant, revenue declined; where it was not predominant,
or the policy of the bank not exerted, the revenue increased;
and increased fast enough to make up the deficiency at the other
places. Mr. B. proceeded to verify this statement by a reference
to specified places. Thus, at Philadelphia, where the bank holds
its seat of empire, the revenue fell off about one third; it was
$797,316 for the first quarter of 1833, and only $542,498 for the
first quarter of 1834. At New-York, where the bank has not been
able to get the upper hand, there was an increase of more than
$120,000; the revenue there, for the first quarter of 1833, was
$3,122,166; for the first of 1834, it was $3,249,786. At Boston,
where the bank is again predominant, the revenue fell off about one
third; at Salem, Mass., it fell off four fifths. At Baltimore, where
the bank has been defeated, there was an increase in the revenue
of more than $70,000. At Richmond, the revenue was doubled, from
$12,034 to $25,810. At Charleston, it was increased from $69,503 to
$102,810. At Petersburg, it was slightly increased; and throughout
all the region south of the Potomac, there was either an increase,
or the slight falling off which might result from diminished duties
without diminished importations. Mr. B. said he knew that bank
power was predominant in some of the cities of the South; but he
knew, also, that the bank policy of distress and oppression had not
been practised there. That was not the region to be governed by
the scourge. The high mettle of that region required a different
policy: gentleness, conciliation, coaxing! If the South was to be
gained over by the bank, it was to be done by favor, not by fear.
The scourge, though so much the most congenial to the haughty spirit
of the moneyed power, was only to be applied where it would be
submitted to; and, therefore, the whole region south of the Potomac,
was exempted from the lash.
Mr. B. here paused to fix the attention of the Senate upon these
facts. Where the power of the bank enabled her to depress commerce
and sink the revenue, and her policy permitted her to do it,
commerce was depressed; and the revenue was sunk, and the prophecies
of the distress orators were fulfilled; but where her power did
not predominate, or where her policy required a different course,
commerce increased, and the revenue increased; and the result of the
whole is, that New-York and some other anti-bank cities have gained
what Philadelphia and other bank cities have lost; and the federal
treasury is just as well off, as if it had got its accustomed supply
from every place.
This view of facts, Mr. B. said, must fasten upon the bank the odium
of having produced all the real commercial distress which has been
felt. But at one point, at New Orleans, there was further evidence
to convict her of wanton and wicked oppression. It was not in the
Secretary's reports, but it was in the weekly returns of the
bank; and showed that, in the beginning of March, that institution
had carried off from her branch in New Orleans, the sum of about
$800,000 in specie, which it had been collecting all the winter, by
a wanton curtailment, under the pretext of supplying the amount of
the deposits taken from her at that place. These $800,000 dollars
were collected from the New Orleans merchants in the very crisis of
the arrival of Western produce. The merchants were pressed to pay
debts, when they ought to have been accommodated with loans. The
price of produce was thereby depressed; the whole West suffered from
the depression; and now it is proved that the money was not wanted
to supply the place of the deposits, but was sent to Philadelphia,
where there was no use for it, the bank having more than she can
use; and that the whole operation was a wanton and wicked measure
to coerce the West to cry out for a return of the deposits, and a
renewal of the charter, by attacking their commerce in the market of
New Orleans. This fact, said Mr. B., would have been proved from the
books of the bank, if they had been inspected. Failing in that, the
proof was intelligibly found in the weekly returns.
Mr. B. took up another table to prove the prosperity of the country:
it was in the increase of specie since the programme for the
distress had been published. That programme dated from the first day
of October last, and the clear increase since that time is the one
half of the whole quantity then in the United States. The imports
had been $11,128,291; the exports only $998,761.
Mr. B. remarked, upon this statement, that it presented a clear gain
of more than ten millions of dollars. He was of opinion that two
millions ought to be added for sums not entered at the custom-house,
which would make twelve millions; and added to the six millions of
1833, would give eighteen millions of specie of clear gain to the
country, in the last twenty months. This, he said was prosperity. It
was wealth itself; and besides, it showed that the country was not
in debt for its large importations, and that a larger proportion of
foreign imports now consisted of specie than was ever known before.
Mr. B. particularized the imports and exports of gold; how the
former had increased, and the latter diminished, during the last
few months; and said that a great amount of gold, both foreign and
domestic, was now waiting in the country to see if Congress would
raise gold to its fair value. If so raised, this gold would remain,
and enter into circulation; if not, it would immediately go off to
foreign countries; for gold was not a thing to stay where it was
undervalued. He also spoke of silver, and said that it had arrived
without law, but could not remain without law. Unless Congress
passed an act to make it current, and that at full value as money,
and not at the mint value, as bullion, it would go off.
Mr. B. had a further view to give of the prosperity of the country,
and further evidence to show that all the distress really suffered
was factitious and unnatural. It was in the great increase of money
in the United States, during the last year and a half. He spoke of
money; not paper promises to pay money, but the thing itself--real
gold and silver--and affirmed that there was a clear gain of from
eighteen to twenty millions of specie, within the time that he had
mentioned. He then took up the custom-house returns to verify this
important statement, and to let the people see that the country
was never so well off for money as at the very time that it was
proclaimed to be in the lowest state of poverty and misery. He first
showed the imports and exports of specie and bullion for the year
ending the 30th of September, 1833. It was as follows:
_Year ending September 30, 1833._
Imports. Exports.
Gold bullion, $48,267 $26,775
Silver do. 297,840
Gold coin, 563,585 495,890
Silver do. 6,160,676 1,722,196
--------- ---------
$7,070,368 $2,244,861
Mr. B. having read over this statement, remarked upon it, that it
presented a clear balance of near five millions of specie in favor
of the United States on the first day of October last, without
counting at least another million which was brought by passengers,
and not put upon the custom-house books. It might be assumed, he
said, that there was a clear accession of six millions of specie
to the money of the United States, on the morning of that very day
which had been pitched upon by all the distress orators in the
country, to date the ruin and desolation of the country.
Mr. B. then showed a statement of the imports and exports of specie
and bullion, from the first of October, 1833, to the 11th of June,
instant.
Mr. B. recapitulated the evidences of national prosperity--increased
imports--revenue from customs exceeding the estimate--increased
revenue from public lands--increased amount of specie--above eleven
millions of available funds now in the treasury--domestic and
foreign commerce active--the price of produce and property fair and
good--labor every where finding employment and reward--more money in
the country than ever was in it at any one time before--the numerous
advertisements for the purchase of slaves, in the papers of this
city, for the Southern market, which indicated the high price of
Southern products--and affirmed his conscientious belief, that the
country was more prosperous at this time than at any period of its
existence; and inveighed in terms of strong indignation against the
arts and artifices, which for the last six months had disturbed and
agitated the country, and done serious mischief to many individuals.
He regretted the miscarriage of the attempt to examine the Bank of
the United States, which he believed would have completed the proof
against that institution for its share in getting up an unnatural
and factitious scene of distress, in the midst of real prosperity.
But he did not limit his invective to the bank, but came directly to
the Senate, and charged a full share upon the theatrical distress
speeches, delivered upon the floor of the Senate, in imitation of
Volney's soliloquy over the ruins of Palmyra. He repeated some
passages from the most affecting of these lamentations over the
desolation of the country, such as the Senate had been accustomed
to hear about the time of the New-York and Virginia elections. "The
canal a solitude! The lake a desert waste of waters! That populous
city lately resounding with the hum of busy multitudes, now silent
and sad! A whole nation, in the midst of unparalleled prosperity,
and Arcadian felicity, suddenly struck into poverty, and plunged
into unutterable woe! and all this by the direful act of one wilful
man!" Such, said Mr. B., were the lamentations over the ruins,
not of the Tadmor in the desert, but of this America, whose true
condition you have just seen exhibited in the faithful report of
the Secretary of the Treasury. Not even the "baseless fabric of a
vision" was ever more destitute of foundation, than those lamentable
accounts of desolation. The lamentation has ceased; the panic has
gone off; would to God he could follow out the noble line of the
poet, and say, "leaving not a wreck behind." But he could not say
that. There were wrecks! wrecks of merchants in every city in
which the bank tried its cruel policy, and wrecks of banks in this
district, where the panic speeches fell thickest and loudest upon
the ears of an astonished and terrified community!
But, continued Mr. B., the game is up; the alarm is over; the people
are tired of it; the agitators have ceased to work the engine of
alarm. A month ago he had said it was "the last of pea-time" with
these distress memorials; he would now use a bolder figure, and say,
that the Secretary's report, just read, had expelled forever the
ghost of alarm from the chamber of the Senate. All ghosts, said Mr.
B., are afraid of the light. The crowing of the cock--the break of
day--remits them all, the whole shadowy tribe, to their dark and
dreary abodes. How then can this poor ghost of alarm, which has
done such hard service for six months past, how can it stand the
full light, the broad glare, the clear sunshine of the Secretary's
report? "Alas, poor ghost!" The shade of the "noble Dane" never quit
the stage under a more inexorable law than the one which now drives
thee away! This report, replete with plain facts, and luminous
truths, puts to flight the apparition of distress, breaks down the
whole machinery of alarm, and proves that the American people are,
at this day, the most prosperous people on which the beneficent sun
of heaven did ever shine!
Mr. B. congratulated himself that the spectre of distress could
never be made to cross the Mississippi. It made but slow progress
any where in the Great Valley, but was balked at the King of Floods.
A letter from St. Louis informed him that an attempt had just been
made to get up a distress meeting in the town of St. Louis; but
without effect. The officers were obtained, and according to the
approved rule of such meetings, they were converts from Jacksonism;
but there the distress proceedings stopped, and took another turn.
The farce could not be played in that town. The actors would not
mount the stage.
Mr. B. spoke of the circulation of the Bank of the United States,
and said that its notes might be withdrawn without being felt or
known by the community. It contributed but four millions and a
quarter to the circulation at this time. He verified this statement
by showing that the bank had twelve millions and a quarter of specie
in its vaults, and but sixteen millions and a half of notes in
circulation. The difference was four millions and a quarter; and
that was the precise amount which that gigantic institution now
contributed to the circulation of the country! Only four millions
and a quarter. If the gold bill passed, and raised gold sixteen to
one, there would be more than that amount of gold in circulation in
three months. The foreign coin bill, and the gold bill, would give
the country many dollars in specie, without interest, for each paper
dollar which the bank issues, and for which the country pays so
dearly. The dissolution of the bank would turn out twelve millions
and a quarter of specie, to circulate among the people; and the
sooner that is done the better it will be for the country.
The Bank is now a nuisance, said Mr. B. With upwards of twelve
millions in specie, and less than seventeen millions in circulation,
and only fifty-two millions of loans, it pretends that it cannot
lend a dollar, not even to business men, to be returned in sixty
days; when, two years ago, with only six millions of specie and
twenty-two millions of circulation, it ran up its loans to seventy
millions. The president of the bank then swore, that all above six
millions of specie was a surplus! How is it now, with near double
as much specie, and five millions less of notes out, and twelve
millions less of debt? The bank needs less specie than any other
banking institution, because its notes are receivable, by law, in
all federal payments; and from that circumstance alone would be
current, at par, although the bank itself might be wholly unable to
redeem them. Such a bank is a nuisance. It is the dog in the manger.
It might lend money to business men, at short dates, to the last day
of its existence; yet the signs are for a new pressure; a new game
of distress for the fall elections in Pennsylvania, New-York, and
Ohio. If that game should be attempted, Mr. B. said, it would have
to be done without excuse, for the bank was full of money; without
pretext, for the deposit farce is over; without the aid of panic
speeches, for the Senate will not be in session.
Mr. B. said, that among the strange events which took place in
this world, nothing could be more strange than to find, in our own
country, and in the nineteenth century, any practical illustration
of the ancient doctrine of the metempsychosis. Stranger still,
if that doctrine should be so far improved, as to take effect in
soulless bodies; for, according to the founders of the doctrine, the
soul alone could transmigrate. Now, corporations had no souls; that
was law, laid down by all the books: that all corporations, moneyed
ones especially, and above all, the Bank of the United States,
was most soulless. Yet the rumor was, that this bank intended to
attempt the operation of effecting a transfer of her soul; and after
submitting to death in her present form, to rise up in a new one.
Mr. B. said he, for one, should be ready for the old sinner, come
in the body of what beast it might. No form should deceive him, not
even if it condescended, in its new shape, to issue from Wall-street
instead of Chestnut!
A word more, and Mr. B. was done. It was a word to those gentlemen
whose declarations, many ten thousand times issued from this floor,
had deluded a hundred thousand people to send memorials here,
certifying what those gentlemen so incontinently repeated, that
the removal of the deposits had made the distress, and nothing but
the restoration of the deposits, or the renewal of the charter,
could remove the distress! Well! the deposits are not restored,
and the charter is not renewed; and yet the distress is gone!
What is the inference? Why that gentlemen are convicted, and
condemned, upon their own argument! They leave this chamber to go
home, self-convicted upon the very test which they themselves have
established; and after having declared, for six months, upon this
floor, that the removal of the deposits made the distress, and
nothing but their restoration, or the renewal of the bank charter,
could relieve it, and that they would sit here until the dog-days,
and the winter solstice, to effect this restoration or renewal:
they now go home in good time for harvest, without effecting the
restoration or the renewal; and find every where, as they go the
evidences of the highest prosperity which ever blessed the land.
Yes! repeated and exclaimed Mr. B. with great emphasis, the deposits
are not restored--the charter is not renewed--the distress is
gone--and the distress speeches have ceased! No more lamentation
over the desolation of the land now; and a gentleman who should
undertake to entertain the Senate again in that vein, in the face
of the present national prosperity--in the face of the present
report from the Secretary of the Treasury--would be stared at, as
the Trojans were accustomed to stare at the frantic exhibitions of
Priam's distracted daughter, while vaticinating the downfall of Troy
in the midst of the heroic exploits of Hector.
At the conclusion of this speech Mr. Webster spoke a few words,
signifying that foreigners might have made the importations which
kept up the revenue; and Mr. Chambers, of Maryland, spoke more
fully, to show that there was not time yet for the distress to work
its effect nationally. Mr. Webster then varied his motion, and,
instead of sending the Secretary's report to the Finance Committee,
moved to lay it upon the table: which was done: and being printed,
and passed into the newspapers, with the speech to emblazon it, had
a great effect in bringing the panic to a close.