CHAPTER CXXIII.

THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION.

From the moment of the Senate's condemnation of General Jackson, Mr.

Benton gave notice of his intention to move the expunction of the

sentence from the journal, periodically and continually until the

object should be effected, or his political life come to its end. In

conformity to this notice, he made his formal motion at the session

'34-'35; and in these words:

"_Resolved_, That the resolution adopted by the Senate, on

the 28th day of March, in the year 1834, in the following

words: '_Resolved_, That the President, in the late executive

proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed

upon himself authority and power not conferred by the

constitution and laws, but in derogation of both,' be, and

the same hereby is, ordered to be expunged from the journals

of the Senate; because the said resolution is illegal and

unjust, of evil example, indefinite and vague, expressing a

criminal charge without specification; and was irregularly and

unconstitutionally adopted by the Senate, in subversion of the

rights of defence which belong to an accused and impeachable

officer; and at a time and under circumstances to endanger the

political rights, and to injure the pecuniary interests of the

people of the United States."

This proposition was extremely distasteful to the Senate--to the

majority which passed the sentence on General Jackson; and Mr.

Southard, senator from New Jersey, spoke their sentiments, and his

own, when he thus bitterly characterized it as an indictment which

the Senate itself was required to try, and to degrade itself in its

own condemnation,--he said:

"The object of this resolution (said Mr. S.), not to obtain

an expression from the Senate that their former opinions were

erroneous, nor that the Executive acted correctly in relation

to the public treasury. It goes further, and denounces the

act of the Senate as so unconstitutional, unjustifiable, and

offensive, that the evidence of it ought not to be permitted to

remain upon the records of the government. It is an indictment

against the Senate. The senator from Missouri calls upon

us to sit in judgment upon our own act, and warns us that

we can save ourselves from future and lasting denunciation

and reproach only by pronouncing our own condemnation by

our votes. He assures us that he has no desire or intention

to degrade the Senate, but the position in which he would

place us is one of deep degradation--degradation of the most

humiliating character--which not only acknowledges error, and

admits inexcusable misconduct in this legislative branch of

the government, but bows it down before the majesty of the

Executive, and makes us offer incense to his infallibility."

The bitterness of this self trial was aggravated by seeing the

course which the public mind was taking. A current, strong and

steady, and constantly swelling, was setting in for the President

and against the Senate; and resolutions from the legislatures

of several States--Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, North

Carolina--had already arrived instructing their senators to vote

for the expurgation which Mr. Benton proposed. In the mean time he

had not yet made his leading speech in favor of his motion; and he

judged this to be the proper time to do so, in order to produce its

effects on the elections of the ensuing summer; and accordingly now

spoke as follows:

Mr. Benton then rose and addressed the Senate in support of his

motion. He said that the resolution which he had offered, though

resolved upon, as he had heretofore stated, without consultation

with any person, was not resolved upon without great deliberation in

his own mind. The criminating resolution, which it was his object

to expunge, was presented to the Senate, December 26th, 1833. The

senator from Kentucky who introduced it [Mr. Clay], commenced a

discussion of it on that day, which was continued through the months

of January and February, and to the end, nearly, of the month of

March. The vote was taken upon it the 28th of March; and about a

fortnight thereafter he announced to the Senate his intention to

commence a series of motions for expunging the resolution from the

journal. Here, then, were nearly four months for consideration; for

the decision was expected; and he had very anxiously considered,

during that period, all the difficulties, and all the proprieties,

of the step which he meditated. Was the intended motion to clear

the journal of the resolution right in itself? The convictions of

his judgment told him that it was. Was expurgation the proper mode?

Yes; he was thoroughly satisfied that that was the proper mode of

proceeding in this case. For the criminating resolution which he

wished to get rid of combined all the characteristics of a case

which required erasure and obliteration: for it was a case, as

he believed, of the exercise of power without authority, without

even jurisdiction; illegal, irregular, and unjust. Other modes of

annulling the resolution, as rescinding, reversing, repealing,

could not be proper in such a case; for they would imply rightful

jurisdiction, a lawful authority, a legal action, though an

erroneous judgment. All that he denied. He denied the authority of

the Senate to pass such a resolution at all; and he affirmed that

it was unjust, and contrary to the truth, as well as contrary to

law. This being his view of the resolution, he held that the true

and proper course, the parliamentary course of proceeding in such a

case, was to expunge it.

But, said Mr. B., it is objected that the Senate has no right to

expunge any thing from its journal; that it is required by the

constitution to keep a journal; and, being so required, could not

destroy any part of it. This, said Mr. B., is sticking in the bark;

and in the thinnest bark in which a shot, even the smallest, was

ever lodged. Various are the meanings of the word keep, used as a

verb. To keep a journal is to write down, daily, the history of what

you do. For the Senate to keep a journal is to cause to be written

down, every day, the account of its proceedings; and, having done

that, the constitutional injunction is satisfied. The constitution

was satisfied by entering this criminating resolution on the

journal; it will be equally satisfied by entering the expunging

resolution on the same journal. In each case the Senate keeps a

journal of its own proceedings.

It is objected, also, that we have no right to destroy a part of

the journal; and that to expunge is to destroy and to prevent the

expunged part from being known in future. Not so the fact, said Mr.

B. The matter expunged is not destroyed. It is incorporated in the

expunging resolution, and lives as long as that lives; the only

effect of the expurgation being to express, in the most emphatic

manner, the opinion that such matter ought never to have been put in

the journal.

Mr. B. said he would support these positions by authority, the

authority of eminent examples; and would cite two cases, out of a

multitude that might be adduced, to show that expunging was the

proper course, the parliamentary course, in such a case as the one

now before the Senate, and that the expunged matter was incorporated

and preserved in the expunging resolution.

Mr. B. then read, from a volume of British Parliamentary History,

the celebrated case of the Middlesex election, in which the

resolution to expel the famous John Wilkes was expunged from the

journal, but preserved in the expurgatory resolution, so as to

be just as well read now as if it had never been blotted out from

the journals of the British House of Commons. The resolution ran

in these words: "That the resolution of the House of the 17th

February, 1769, 'that John Wilkes, Esq., having been, in this

session of Parliament, expelled this House, was and is incapable

of being elected a member to serve in the present Parliament,' be

expunged from the journals of this House, as being subversive of the

rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom." Such, said

Mr. B., were the terms of the expunging resolution in the case of

the Middlesex election, as it was annually introduced from 1769 to

1782; when it was finally passed by a vote of near three to one, and

the clause ordered to be expunged was blotted out of the journal,

and obliterated, by the clerk at the table, in the presence of the

whole House, which remained silent, and all business suspended until

the obliteration was complete. Yet the history of the case is not

lost. Though blotted out of one part of the journal, it is saved

in another; and here, at the distance of half a century, and some

thousand miles from London, the whole case is read as fully as if no

such operation had ever been performed upon it.

Having given a precedent from British parliamentary history, Mr.

B. would give another from American history; not, indeed, from the

Congress of the assembled States, but from one of the oldest and

most respectable States of the Union; he spoke of Massachusetts, and

of the resolution adopted in the Senate of that State during the

late war, adverse to the celebration of our national victories; and

which, some ten years afterwards, was expunged from the journals by

a solemn vote of the Senate.

A year ago, said Mr. B., the Senate tried President Jackson; now the

Senate itself is on trial nominally before itself; but in reality

before America, Europe, and posterity. We shall give our voices in

our own case; we shall vote for or against this motion; and the

entry upon the record will be according to the majority of voices.

But that is not the end, but the beginning of our trial. We shall

be judged by others; by the public, by the present age, and by all

posterity! The proceedings of this case, and of this day, will not

be limited to the present age; they will go down to posterity, and

to the latest ages. President Jackson is not a character to be

forgotten in history. His name is not to be confined to the dry

catalogue and official nomenclature of mere American Presidents.

Like the great Romans who attained the consulship, not by the paltry

arts of electioneering, but through a series of illustrious deeds,

his name will live, not for the offices he filled, but for the deeds

which he performed. He is the first President that has ever received

the condemnation of the Senate for the violation of the laws and

the constitution, the first whose name is borne upon the journals

of the American Senate for the violation of that constitution

which he is sworn to observe, and of those laws which he is bound

to see faithfully executed. Such a condemnation cannot escape the

observation of history. It will be read, considered, judged! when

the men of this day, and the passions of this hour, shall have

passed to eternal repose.

Before he proceeded to the exposition of the case which he intended

to make, he wished to avail himself of an argument which had been

conclusive elsewhere, and which he trusted could not be without

effect in this Senate. It was the argument of public opinion. In

the case of the Middlesex election, it had been decisive with the

British House of Commons; in the Massachusetts case, it had been

decisive with the Senate of that State. In both these cases many

gentlemen yielded their private opinions to public sentiment; and

public sentiment having been well pronounced in the case now before

the Senate, he had a right to look for the same deferential respect

for it here which had been shown elsewhere.

Mr. B. then took up a volume of British parliamentary history for

the year 1782, the 22d volume, and read various passages from pages

1407, 1408, 1410, 1411, to show the stress which had been laid on

the argument of public opinion in favor of expunging the Middlesex

resolutions; and the deference which was paid to it by the House,

and by members who had, until then, opposed the motion to expunge.

He read first from Mr. Wilkes' opening speech, on renewing his

annual motion for the fourteenth time, as follows:

"If the people of England, sir, have at any time explicitly and

fully declared an opinion respecting a momentous constitutional

question, it has been in regard to the Middlesex election in 1768."

* * * * "Their voice was never heard in a more clear and distinct

manner than on this point of the first magnitude for all the

electors of the kingdom, and I trust will now be heard favorably."

He then read from Mr. Fox's speech. Mr. Fox had heretofore opposed

the expunging resolution, but now yielded to it in obedience to the

voice of the people.

"He (Mr. Fox) had turned the question often in his mind, he was

still of opinion that the resolution which gentlemen wanted to

expunge was founded on proper principles." * * * * "Though he

opposed the motion, he felt very little anxiety for the event of

the question; for when he found the voice of the people was against

the privilege, as he believed was the case at present, he would

not preserve the privilege." * * * * "The people had associated,

they had declared their sentiments to Parliament, and had taught

Parliament to listen to the voice of their constituents."

Having read these passages, Mr. B. said they were the sentiments of

an English whig of the old school. Mr. Fox was a whig of the old

school. He acknowledged the right of the people to instruct their

representatives. He yielded to the general voice himself, though

not specially instructed; and he uses the remarkable expression

which acknowledges the duty of Parliament to obey the will of the

people. "They had declared their sentiments to Parliament, and had

taught Parliament to listen to the voice of their constituents."

This, said Mr. B., was fifty years ago; it was spoken by a member of

Parliament, who, besides being the first debater of his age, was at

that time Secretary at War. He acknowledged the duty of Parliament

to obey the voice of the people. The son of a peer of the realm,

and only not a peer himself because he was not the eldest son, he

still acknowledged the great democratic principle which lies at

the bottom of all representative government. After this, after

such an example, will American Senators be unwilling to obey the

people? Will they require people to teach Congress the lesson which

Mr. Fox says the English people had taught their Parliament fifty

years ago? The voice of the people of the United States had been

heard on this subject. The elections declared it. The vote of many

legislatures declared it. From the confines of the Republic the

voice of the people came rolling in--a swelling tide, rising as it

flowed--and covering the capitol with its mountain waves. Can that

voice be disregarded? Will members of a republican Congress be less

obedient to the voice of the people than were the representatives of

a monarchical House of Commons?

Mr. B. then proceeded to the argument of his motion. He moved to

expunge the resolution of March 28, 1834, from the journals of the

Senate, because it was illegal and unjust; vague and indefinite;

a criminal charge without specification; unwarranted by the

constitution and laws; subversive of the rights of defence which

belong to an accused and impeachable officer; of evil example; and

adopted at a time and under circumstances to involve the political

rights and the pecuniary interests of the people of the United

States in peculiar danger and serious injury.

These reasons for expunging the criminating resolution from the

journals, Mr. B. said, were not phrases collected and paraded for

effect, or strung together for harmony of sound. They were each,

separately and individually, substantive reasons; every word an

allegation of fact, or of law. Without going fully into the argument

now, he would make an exposition which would lay open his meaning,

and enable each allegation, whether of law or of fact, to be fully

understood, and replied to in the sense intended.

1. _Illegal and unjust._--These were the first heads under which

Mr. B. would develope his objections, he would say the outline of

his objections, to the resolution proposed to be expunged. He held

it to be illegal, because it contained a criminal charge, on which

the President might be impeached, and for which he might be tried

by the Senate. The resolution adopted by the Senate is precisely

the first step taken in the House of Representatives to bring on an

impeachment. It was a resolution offered by a member in his place,

containing a criminal charge against an impeachable officer, debated

for a hundred days; and then voted upon by the Senate, and the

officer voted to be guilty. This is the precise mode of bringing on

an impeachment in the House of Representatives; and, to prove it,

Mr. B. would read from a work of approved authority on parliamentary

practice; it was from Mr. Jefferson's Manual. Mr. B. then read from

the Manual, under the section entitled Impeachment, and from that

head of the section entitled accusation. The writer was giving

the British Parliamentary practice, to which our own constitution

is conformable. "The Commons, as the grand inquest of the nation,

became suitors for penal justice. The general course is to pass

a resolution containing a criminal charge against the supposed

delinquent; and then to direct some member to impeach him by oral

accusation at the bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the

Commons."

Repeating a clause of what he had read, Mr. B. said the general

course is to pass a criminal charge against the supposed delinquent.

This is exactly what the Senate did; and what did it do next?

Nothing. And why nothing? Because there was nothing to be done

by them but to execute the sentence they had passed; and that

they could not do. Penal justice was the consequence of the

resolution; and a judgment of penalties could not be attempted

on such an irregular proceeding. The only kind of penal justice

which the Senate could inflict was that of public opinion; it was

to ostracize the President, and to expose him to public odium, as

a violator of the laws and constitution of his country. Having

shown the resolution to be illegal, Mr. B. would pronounce it

to be unjust; for he affirmed the resolution to be untrue; he

maintained that the President had violated no law, no part of the

constitution, in dismissing Mr. Duane from the Treasury, appointing

Mr. Taney, or causing the deposits to be removed; for these were

the specifications contained in the original resolution, also in

the second modification of the resolution, and intended in the

third modification, when stripped of specifications, and reduced

to a vague and general charge. It was in this shape of a general

charge that the resolution passed. No new specifications were even

suggested in debate. The alterations were made voluntarily, by the

friends of the resolution, at the last moment of the debate, and

just when the vote was to be taken. And why were the specifications

then dropped? Because no majority could be found to agree in them?

or because it was thought prudent to drop the name of the Bank of

the United States? or for both these reasons together? Be that as

it may, said Mr. B., the condemnation of the President, and the

support of the bank, were connected in the resolution, and will

be indissolubly connected in the public mind; and the President

was unjustly condemned in the same resolution that befriended and

sustained the cause of the bank. He held the condemnation to be

untrue in point of fact, and therefore unjust; for he maintained

that there was no breach of the laws and constitution in any thing

that President Jackson did, in removing Mr. Duane, or in appointing

Mr. Taney, or in causing the deposits to be removed. There was no

violation of law, or constitution, in any part of these proceedings;

on the contrary, the whole country, and the government itself,

was redeemed from the dominion of a great and daring moneyed

corporation, by the wisdom and energy of these very proceedings.

2. _Vague and indefinite_; a criminal charge without specification.

Such was the resolution, Mr. B. said, when it passed the Senate; but

such it was not when first introduced, nor even when first altered;

in its first and second forms it contained specifications, and these

specifications identified the condemnation of the President with the

defence of the bank; in its third form, these specifications were

omitted, and no others were substituted; the bank and the resolution

stood disconnected on the record, but as much connected, in fact,

as ever. The resolution was reduced to a vague and indefinite form,

on purpose, and in that circumstance, acquired a new character of

injustice to President Jackson. His accusers should have specified

the law, and the clause in the constitution, which was violated;

they should have specified the acts which constituted the violation.

This was due to the accused, that he might know on what points to

defend himself; it was due to the public, that they might know

on what points to hold the accusers to their responsibility, and

to make them accountable for an unjust accusation. To sustain

this position, Mr. B. had recourse to history and example, and

produced the case of Mr. Giles's accusation of General Hamilton,

then Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1793. Mr. Giles, he

said, proceeded in a manly, responsible manner. He specified the

law and the alleged violations of the law, so that the friends of

General Hamilton could see what to defend, and so as to make himself

accountable for the accusation. He specified the law, which he

believed to be violated, by its date and its title; and he specified

the two instances in which he held that law to have been infringed.

Mr. B. said he had a double object in quoting this resolution of Mr.

Giles, which was intended to lay the foundation for an impeachment

against General Hamilton; it was to show, first, the speciality

with which these criminating resolutions should be drawn; next, to

show the absence of any allegations of corrupt or wicked intention.

The mere violation of law was charged as the offence, as it was in

three of the articles of impeachment against Judge Chase; and thus,

the absence of an allegation of corrupt intention in the resolution

adopted against President Jackson, was no argument against its

impeachment character, especially as exhibited in its first and

second form, with the criminal averment, "dangerous to the liberties

of the people."

For the purpose of exposing the studied vagueness of the resolution

as passed, detecting its connection with the Bank of the United

States, demonstrating its criminal character in twice retaining

the criminal averment, "dangerous to the liberties of the people,"

and showing the progressive changes it had to undergo before it

could conciliate a majority of the votes, Mr. B. would exhibit

all three of the resolutions, and read them side by side of each

other, as they appeared before the Senate, in the first, second,

and third forms which they were made to wear. They appeared first

in the embryo, or primordial form; then they assumed their aurelia,

or chrysalis state; in the third stage, they reached the ultimate

perfection of their imperfect nature.

FIRST FORM.--_December 26, 1833._

"_Resolved_, That by dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury,

because he would not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, remove

the money of the United States, in deposit with the Bank of the

United States and its branches, in conformity with the President's

opinion, and by appointing his successor to make such removal, which

has been done, the President has assumed the exercise of a power

over the treasury of the United States not granted to him by the

constitution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."

SECOND FORM.--_March 28, 1834._

"_Resolved_, That, in taking upon himself the responsibility of

removing the deposit of the public money from the Bank of the

United States, the President of the United States has assumed the

exercise of a power over the treasury of the United States not

granted to him by the constitution and laws, and dangerous to the

liberties of the people."

THIRD FORM.--_March 28, 1834._

"_Resolved_, That the President, in the late executive proceedings,

in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself

authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but

in derogation of both."

Having exhibited the original resolution, with its variations,

Mr. B. would leave it to others to explain the reasons of such

extraordinary metamorphoses. Whether to get rid of the bank

association, or to get rid of the impeachment clause, or to

conciliate the votes of all who were willing to condemn the

President, but could not tell for what, it was not for him to

say; but one thing he would venture to say, that the majority who

agreed in passing a general resolution, containing a criminal

charge against President Jackson, for violating the laws and the

constitution, cannot now agree in naming the law or the clause in

the constitution violated, or in specifying any act constituting

such violation. And here Mr. B. paused, and offered to give way to

the gentlemen of the opposition, if they would now undertake to

specify any act which President Jackson had done in violation of law

or constitution.

3. _Unwarranted by the constitution and laws._--Mr. B. said this

head explained itself. It needed no development to be understood by

the Senate or the country. The President was condemned without the

form of a trial; and, therefore, his condemnation was unwarranted by

the constitution and laws.

4. _Subversive of the rights of defence, which belong to an

accused and impeachable officer._--This head, also (Mr. B. said),

explained itself. An accused person had a right to be heard before

he was condemned; an impeachable officer could not be condemned

unheard by the Senate, without subverting all the rights of

defence which belong to him, and disqualifying the Senate to act

as impartial judges in the event of his being regularly impeached

for the same offence. In this case, the House of Representatives,

if they confided in the Senate's condemnation, would send up an

impeachment; that they had not done so, was proof that they had no

confidence in the correctness of our decision.

5. _Of evil example._--Nothing, said Mr. B., could he more unjust

and illegal in itself, and therefore more evil in example, than to

try people without a hearing, and condemn them without defence. In

this case, such a trial and such a condemnation was aggravated by

the refusal of the Senate, after their sentence was pronounced, to

receive the defence of the President, and let it be printed for the

inspection of posterity! So that, if this criminating resolution

is not expunged, the singular spectacle will go down to posterity,

of a condemnation, and a refusal to permit an answer from the

condemned person standing recorded on the pages of the same journal!

Mr. B. said the Senate must look forward to the time--far ahead,

perhaps, but a time which may come--when this body may be filled

with disappointed competitors, or personal enemies of the President,

or of aspirants to the very office which he holds, and who may not

scruple to undertake to cripple him by senatorial condemnations; to

attaint him by convictions; to ostracise him by vote; and lest this

should happen, and the present condemnation of President Jackson

should become the precedent for such an odious proceeding, the evil

example should be arrested, should be removed, by expunging the

present sentence from the journals of the Senate. And here Mr. B.

would avail himself of a voice which had often been heard in the

two Houses of Congress, and always with respect and veneration. It

was the voice of a wise man, an honest man, a good man, a patriot;

one who knew no cause but the cause of his country; and who, a

quarter of a century ago, foresaw and described the scenes of this

day, and foretold the consequences which must have happened to any

other President, under the circumstances in which President Jackson

has been placed. He spoke of Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina,

and of the sentiments which he expressed, in the year 1810, when

called upon to give a vote in approbation of Mr. Madison's conduct

in dismissing Mr. Jackson, the then British minister to the United

States. He opposed the resolution of approbation, because the House

had nothing to do with the President in their legislative character,

except the passing of laws, calling for information or impeaching;

and, looking into the evil consequences of undertaking to judge of

the President's conduct, he foretold the exact predicament in which

the Senate is now involved, with respect to President Jackson. Mr.

B. then read extracts from the speech of Mr. Macon, on the occasion

referred to:

"I am opposed to the resolution, not for the reasons which have

been offered against it, nor for any which can be drawn from the

documents before us, but because I am opposed to addressing the

President of the United States upon any subject whatever. We have

nothing to do with him, in our legislative character, except the

passing of laws, calling on him for information, or to impeach.

On the day of the presidential election, we, in common with our

fellow-citizens, are to pass on his conduct, and resolutions of this

sort will have no weight on that day. It is on this ground solely

that I am opposed to adopting any resolution whatever in relation

to the Executive conduct. If the national legislature can pass

resolutions to approve the conduct of the President, may they not

also pass resolutions to censure? And what would be the situation

of the country, if we were now discussing a motion to request the

President to recall Mr. Jackson, and again to endeavor to negotiate

with him?"

6. _At a time, and under circumstances, to involve the political

rights and pecuniary interests of the people of the United States

in serious injury and peculiar danger._--This head of his argument,

Mr. B. said, would require a development and detail which he had not

deemed necessary at this time, considering what had been said by him

at the last session, and what would now be said by others, to give

the reasons which he had so briefly touched. But at this point he

approached new ground; he entered a new field; he saw an extended

horizon of argument and fact expand before him, and it became

necessary for him to expand with his subject. The condemnation of

the President is indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank!

The first form of the resolution exhibited the connection; the

second form did also; every speech did the same; for every speech

in condemnation of the President was in justification of the bank;

every speech in justification of the President was in condemnation

of the bank; and thus the two objects were identical and reciprocal.

The attack of one was a defence of the other; the defence of one

was the attack of the other. And thus it continued for the long

protracted period of nearly one hundred days--from December 26th,

1833, to March 28th, 1834--when, for reasons not explained to

the Senate, upon a private consultation among the friends of the

resolution, the mover of it came forward to the Secretary's table,

and voluntarily made the alterations which cut the connection

between the bank and the resolution! but it stood upon the record,

by striking out every thing relative to the dismissal of Mr. Duane,

the appointment of Mr. Taney, and the removal of the deposits.

But the alteration was made in the record only. The connection

still subsisted in fact, now lives in memory, and shall live in

history. Yes, sir, said Mr. B., addressing himself to the President

of the Senate; yes, sir, the condemnation of the President was in

indissolubly connected with the cause of the bank, with the removal

of the deposits, the renewal of the charter, the restoration of the

deposits, the vindication of Mr. Duane, the rejection of Mr. Taney,

the fate of elections, the overthrow of Jackson's administration,

the fall of prices, the distress meetings, the distress memorials,

the distress committees, the distress speeches; and all the long

list of hapless measures which astonished, terrified, afflicted, and

deeply injured the country during the long and agonized protraction

of the famous panic session. All these things are connected, said

Mr. B.; and it became his duty to place a part of the proof which

established the connection before the Senate and the people.

Mr. B. then took up the appendix to the report made by the Senate's

Committee of Finance on the bank, commonly called Mr. Tyler's

report, and read extracts from instructions sent to two-and-twenty

tranches of the bank, contemporaneously with the progress of the

debate on the criminating resolutions; the object and effect of

which, and their connection with the debate in the Senate, would be

quickly seen. Premising that the bank had dispatched orders to the

same branches, in the month of August, and had curtailed $4,066,000,

and again, in the month of October, to curtail $5,825,000, and to

increase the rates of their exchange, and had expressly stated in

a circular, on the 17th of that month, that this reduction would

place the branches in a position of entire security, Mr. B. invoked

attention to the shower of orders, and their dates, which he was

about to read. He read passages from page 77 to 82, inclusive. They

were all extracts of letters from the president of the bank in

person, to the presidents of the branches; for Mr. B. said it must

be remembered, as one of the peculiar features of the bank attack

upon the country last winter, that the whole business of conducting

this curtailment, and raising exchanges, and doing whatever it

pleased with the commerce, currency, and business of the country,

was withdrawn from the board of directors, and confided to one of

those convenient committees of which the president is ex officio

member and creator; and which, in this case, was expressly absolved

from reporting to the board of directors! The letters, then, are

all from Nicholas Biddle, president, and not from Samuel Jaudon,

cashier, and are addressed direct to the presidents of the branch

banks.

When Mr. B. had finished reading these extracts, he turned to the

report made by the senator from Virginia, who sat on his right

[Mr. Tyler], where all that was said about these new measures of

hostility, and the propriety of the bank's conduct in this third

curtailment, and in its increase upon rates of exchange, was

compressed into twenty lines, and the wisdom or necessity of them

were left to be pronounced upon by the judgment of the Senate. Mr.

B. would read those twenty lines of that report:

"The whole amount of reduction ordered by the above proceedings

(curtailment ordered on 8th and 17th of October) was $5,825,906. The

same table, No. 4, exhibits the fact, that on the 23d of January a

further reduction was ordered to the amount of $3,320,000. This was

communicated to the offices in letters from the president, stating

'that the present situation of the bank, and the new measures of

hostility which are understood to be in contemplation, make it

expedient to place the institution beyond the reach of all danger;

for this purpose, I am directed to instruct your office to conduct

its business on the following footing' (appendix, No. 9, copies of

letters). The offices of Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, St.

Louis, Nashville, and Natchez, were further directed to confine

themselves to ninety days' bills on Baltimore, and the cities north

of it, of which they were allowed to purchase any amount their means

would justify: and to bills on New Orleans, which they were to take

only in payment of pre-existing debts to the bank and its offices;

while the office at New Orleans was directed to abstain from drawing

on the Western offices, and to make its purchases mainly on the

North Atlantic cities. The committee has thus given a full, and

somewhat elaborate detail of the various measures resorted to by the

bank, from the 13th of August, 1833; of their wisdom and necessity

the Senate will best be able to pronounce a correct judgment."

This, Mr. B. said, was the meagre and stinted manner in which the

report treated a transaction which he would show to be the most

cold-blooded, calculating, and diabolical, which the annals of any

country on this side of Asia could exhibit.

[Mr. Tyler here said there were two pages on this subject to be

found at another part of the report, and opened the report at the

place for Mr. B.]

Mr. B. said the two pages contained but few allusions to this

subject, and nothing to add to or vary what was contained in the

twenty lines he had read. He looked upon it as a great omission

in the report; the more so as the committee had been expressly

commanded to report upon the curtailments and the conduct of the

bank in the business of internal exchange. He had hoped to have had

searching inquiries and detailed statements of facts on these vital

points. He looked to the senator from Virginia [Mr. Tyler] for these

inquiries and statements. He wished him to show, by the manner in

which he would drag to light, and expose to view, the vast crimes of

the bank, that the Old Dominion was still the mother of the Gracchi;

that the Old lady was not yet forty-five; that she could breed sons!

Sons to emulate the fame of the Scipios. But he was disappointed.

The report was dumb, silent, speechless, upon the operations of the

bank during its terrible campaign of panic and pressure upon the

American people. And now he would pay one instalment of the speech

which had been promised some time ago on the subject of this report;

for there was part of that speech which was strictly applicable and

appropriate to the head he was now discussing.

Mr. B. then addressed himself to the senator from Virginia, who sat

on his right [Mr. Tyler], and requested him to supply an omission

in his report, and to inform what were those new measures of

hostility alluded to in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction

of the bank, and repeated in the report, and which were made the

pretext for this third curtailment, and these new and extraordinary

restrictions and impositions upon the purchase of bills of exchange.

[Mr. Tyler answered that it was the expected prohibition upon the

receivability of the branch bank drafts in payment of the federal

revenue.]

Mr. B. resumed: The senator is right. These drafts are mentioned

in one of the circular letters, and but one of them, as the new

measure understood to be in contemplation, and which understanding

had been made the pretext for scourging the country. He (Mr. B.)

was incapable of a theatrical artifice--a stage trick--in a grave

debate. He had no question but that the senator could answer his

question, and he knew that he had answered it truly; but he wanted

his testimony, his evidence, against the bank; he wanted proof to

tie the bank down to this answer, to this pretext, to this thin

disguise for her conduct in scourging the country. The answer is

now given; the proof is adduced; and the apprehended prohibition of

the receivability of the branch drafts stands both as the pretext

and the sole pretext for the pressure commenced in January, the

doubling the rates of exchange, breaking up exchanges between the

five Western branch banks, and concentrating the collection of bills

of exchange upon four great commercial cities.

Mr. B. then took six positions, which he enumerated, and undertook

to demonstrate to be true. They were:

1. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there were any new

measures in contemplation, or action, to destroy the bank.

2. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that the President harbored

hostile and revengeful designs against the existence of the bank.

3. That it was untrue, in point of fact, that there was any

necessity for this third curtailment, which was ordered the last of

January.

4. That there was no excuse, justification, or apology for the

conduct of the bank in relation to domestic exchange, in doubling

its rates, breaking it up between the five Western branches turning

the collection of bills upon the principal commercial cities, and

forbidding the branch at New Orleans to purchase bills on any part

of the West.

5. That this curtailment and these exchange regulations in January

were political and revolutionary, and connected themselves with the

resolution in the Senate for the condemnation of President Jackson.

6. That the distress of the country was occasioned by the Bank of

the United States and the Senate of the United States, and not by

the removal of the deposits.

Having stated his positions, Mr. B. proceeded to demonstrate them.

1. As to the new measures to destroy the bank, Mr. B. said there

were no such measures. The one indicated, that of stopping the

receipt of the branch bank drafts in payments to the United States,

existed nowhere but in the two-and-twenty letters of instruction of

the president of the bank. There is not even an allegation that the

measure existed; the language is "in contemplation"--"understood

to be in contemplation," and upon this flimsy pretext of an

understanding of something in contemplation, and which something

never took place, a set of ruthless orders are sent out to every

quarter of the Union to make a pressure for money, and to embarrass

the domestic exchanges of the Union. Three days would have brought

an answer from Washington to Philadelphia--from the Treasury to

the bank; and let it be known that there was no intention to

stop the receipt of these drafts at that time. But it would seem

that the bank did not recognize the legitimacy of Mr. Taney's

appointment! and therefore would not condescend to correspond with

him as Secretary of the Treasury! But time gave the answer, even

if the bank would not inquire at the Treasury. Day after day, week

after week, month after month passed off, and these redoubtable

new measures never made their appearance. Why not then stop the

curtailment, and restore the exchanges to their former footing?

February, March, April, May, June, five months, one hundred and

fifty days, all passed away; the new measures never came; and yet

the pressure upon the country was kept up; the two-and-twenty orders

were continued in force. What can be thought of an institution

which, being armed by law with power over the moneyed system of the

whole country, should proceed to exercise that power to distress

that country for money upon an understanding that something was

in contemplation; and never inquire if its understanding was

correct, nor cease its operations, when each successive day, for

one hundred and fifty days, proved to it that no such thing was in

contemplation? At last, on the 27th of June, when the pressure is

to be relaxed, it is done upon another ground; not upon the ground

that the new measures had never taken effect, but because Congress

was about to rise without having done any thing for the bank. Here

is a clear confession that the allegation of new measures was a mere

pretext; and that the motive was to operate upon Congress, and force

a restoration of the deposits, and renewal of the charter.

Mr. B. said he knew all about these drafts. The President always

condemned their legality, and was for stopping the receipt of them.

Mr. Taney, when Attorney General, condemned them in 1831. Mr. B.

had applied to Mr. McLane, in 1832, to stop them; but he came to no

decision. He applied to Mr. Duane, by letter, as soon as he came

into the Treasury; but got no answer. He applied to Mr. Taney as

soon as he arrived at Washington in the fall of 1833; and Mr. Taney

decided that he would not stop them until the moneyed concerns of

the country had recovered their tranquillity and prosperity, lest

the bank should make it the pretext of new attempts to distress the

country; and thus the very thing which Mr. Taney refused to do, lest

it should be made a pretext for oppression, was falsely converted

into a pretext to do what he was determined they should have no

pretext for doing.

But Mr. B. took higher ground still; it was this: that, even if the

receipt for the drafts had been stopped in January or February,

there would have been no necessity on that account for curtailing

debts and embarrassing exchanges. This ground he sustained by

showing--1st. That the bank had at that time two millions of dollars

in Europe, lying idle, as a fund to draw bills of exchange upon;

and the mere sale of bills on this sum would have met every demand

which the rejection of the drafts could have thrown upon it. 2. That

it sent the money it raised by this curtailment to Europe, to the

amount of three and a half millions; and thereby showed that it was

not collected to meet any demand at home. 3d. That the bank had at

that time (January, 1834) the sum of $4,230,509 of public money in

hand, and therefore had United States money enough in possession to

balance any injury from rejection of drafts. 4th. That the bank had

notes enough on hand to supply the place of all the drafts, even

if they were all driven in. 5th. That it had stopped the receipt

of these branch drafts itself at the branches, except each for its

own in November, 1833, and was compelled to resume their receipt

by the energetic and just conduct of Mr. Taney, in giving transfer

drafts to be used against the branches which would not honour the

notes and drafts of the other branches. Here Mr. B. turned upon Mr.

Tyler's report, and severely arraigned it for alleging that the bank

always honored its paper at every point, and furnishing a supply of

negative testimony to prove that assertion, when there was a large

mass of positive testimony, the disinterested evidence of numerous

respectable persons, to prove the contrary, and which the committee

had not noticed.

Finally, M. B. had recourse to Mr. Biddle's own testimony to

annihilate his (Mr. Biddle's) affected alarm for the destruction of

the bank, and the injury to the country from the repulse of these

famous branch drafts from revenue payments. It was in a letter of

Mr. Biddle to Mr. Woodbury in the fall of 1834, when the receipt of

these drafts was actually stopped, and in the order which was issued

to the branches to continue to issue them as usual. Mr. B. read a

passage from this letter to show that the receipt of these drafts

was always a mere Treasury arrangement, in which the bank felt no

interest; that the refusal to receive them was an object at all

times of perfect indifference to the bank, and would not have been

even noticed by it, if Mr. Woodbury had not sent him a copy of his

circular.

Mr. B. invoked the attention of the Senate upon the fatal

contradictions which this letter of November, and these instructions

of January, 1834, exhibit. In January, the mere understanding of

a design in contemplation to exclude these drafts from revenue

payments, is a danger of such alarming magnitude, an invasion

of the rights of the bank in such a flagrant manner, a proof of

such vindictive determination to prostrate, sacrifice, and ruin

the institution, that the entire continent must be laid under

contribution to raise money to enable the institution to stand the

shock! November of the same year when the order for the rejection

actually comes, then the same measure is declared to be one of

the utmost indifference to the bank; in which it never felt any

interest; which the Treasury adopted for its own convenience; which

was always under the exclusive control of the Treasury; about which

the bank had never expressed a wish; of which it would have taken

no notice if the Secretary had not sent them a circular; and the

expediency of which it was not intended to question in the remotest

degree! Having pointed out these fatal contradictions, Mr. B. said

it was a case in which the emphatic ejaculation might well be

repeated: Oh! that mine enemy would write a book!

To put the seal of the bank's contempt on the order prohibiting

the receipt of these drafts, to show its disregard of law, and its

ability to sustain its drafts upon its own resources, and without

the advantage of government receivability, Mr. B. read the order

which the president of the bank addressed to all the branches on

the receipt of the circular which gave him information of the

rejection of these drafts. It was in these words: "This will make

no alteration whatever in your practice, with regard to issuing

or paying these drafts, which you will continue as heretofore."

What a pity, said Mr. B., that the president of the bank could not

have thought of issuing such an order as this in January, instead

of sending forth the mandate for curtailing debts, embarrassing

exchange, levying three millions and a half, alarming the country

with the cry of danger, and exhibiting President Jackson as a

vindictive tyrant, intent upon the ruin of the bank!

2. The hostility of the President to the bank. This assertion, said

Mr. B., so incontinently reiterated by the president of the bank,

is taken up and repeated by our Finance Committee, to whose report

he was now paying an instalment of those respects which he had

promised them. This assertion, so far as the bank and the committee

are concerned in making it is an assertion without evidence, and, so

far as the facts are concerned, is an assertion against evidence. If

there is any evidence of the bank or the committee to support this

assertion, in the forty pages of the report, or the three hundred

pages of the appendix, the four members of the Finance Committee

can produce it when they come to reply. That there was evidence to

contradict it, he was now ready to show. This evidence consisted

in four or five public and prominent facts, which he would now

mention, and in other circumstances, which he would show hereafter.

The first was the fact which he mentioned when this report was first

read on the 18th of December last, namely, that President Jackson

had nominated Mr. Biddle at the head of the government directors,

and thereby indicated him for the presidency of the bank, for

three successive years after this hostility was supposed to have

commenced. The second was, that the President had never ordered a

_scire facias_ to issue against the bank to vacate its charter,

which he has the right, under the twenty-third section of the

charter, to do, whenever he believed the charter to be violated. The

third, that during many years, he has never required his Secretaries

of the Treasury to stop the governmental receipt of the branch bank

drafts, although his own mind upon their illegality had been made up

for several years past. The fourth, that after all the clamor--all

the invocations upon heaven and earth against the tyranny of

removing the deposits--those deposits have never happened to be

quite entirely removed! An average of near four millions of dollars

of public money has remained in the hands of the bank for each

month, from the 1st of October, 1833, to the 1st of January, 1835,

inclusively! embracing the entire period from the time the order

was to take effect against depositing in the Bank of the United

States down to the commencement of the present year! So far are the

deposits from being quite entirely removed, as the public are led

to believe, that, at the distance of fifteen months from the time

the order for the removal began to take effect, there remained in

the hands of the bank the large sum of three millions eight hundred

and seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-one dollars and

ninety-seven cents, according to her own showing in her monthly

statements. That President Jackson is, and always has been, opposed

to the existence of the bank, is a fact as true as it is honorable

to him; that he is hostile to it, in the vindictive and revengeful

sense of the phrase, is an assertion, Mr. B. would take the liberty

to repeat, without evidence, so far as he could see into the proofs

of the committee, and against evidence, to the full extent of all

the testimony within his view. Far from indulging in revengeful

resentment against the bank, he has been patient, indulgent, and

forebearing towards it, to a degree hardly compatible with his duty

to his country, and with his constitutional supervision over the

faithful execution of the laws; to a degree which has drawn upon

him, as a deduction from his own conduct, an argument in favor of

the legality of this very branch bank currency, on the part of

this very committee, as may be seen in their report. Again, the

very circumstance on which this charge of hostility rests in the

two-and-twenty letters of Mr. Biddle, proves it to be untrue: for

the stoppage of the drafts, understood to be in contemplation, was

not in contemplation, and did not take place until the pecuniary

concerns of the country were tranquil and prosperous; and when it

did thus take place, the president of the bank declared it to have

been always the exclusive right of the government to do it, in which

the bank had no interest, and for which it cared nothing. No, said

Mr. B., the President has opposed the recharter of the bank; he has

not attacked its present charter; he has opposed its future, not its

present existence; and those who characterize this opposition to a

future charter as attacking the bank, and destroying the bank, must

admit that they advocate the hereditary right of the bank to a new

charter after the old one is out; and that they deny to a public man

the right of opposing that hereditary claim.

3. That there was no necessity for this third curtailment ordered

in January. Mr. B. said, to have a full conception of the truth of

this position, it was proper to recollect that the bank made its

first curtailment in August, when the appointment of an agent to

arrange with the deposit banks announced the fact that the Bank of

the United States was soon to cease to be the depository of public

moneys. The reduction under that first curtailment was $4,066,000.

The second was in October, and under that order for curtailment the

reduction was $5,825,000. The whole reduction, then, consequent

upon the expected and actual removal of deposits, was $9,891,000.

At the same time the whole amount of deposits on the first day of

October, the day for the removal, or rather for the cessation to

deposit in the United States Bank to take effect, was $9,868,435;

and on the first day of February, 1834, when the third curtailment

was ordered, there were still $3,066,561 of these deposits on hand,

and have remained on hand to near that amount ever since; so

that the bank in the two first curtailments, accomplished between

August and January, had actually curtailed to the whole amount,

and to the exact amount, upon precise calculation, of the amount

of deposits on hand on the first of October; and still had, on the

first of January, a fraction over three millions of the deposits

in its possession. This simple statement of sums and dates shows

that there was no necessity for ordering a further reduction of

$3,320,000 in January, as the bank had already curtailed to the

whole amount of the deposits, and $22,500 over. Nor did the bank put

the third curtailment upon that ground, but upon the new measures

in contemplation; thus leaving her advocates every where still to

attribute the pressure created by the third curtailment to the old

cause of the removal of the deposits. This simple statement of facts

is sufficient to show that this third curtailment was unnecessary.

What confirms that view, is that the bank remitted to Europe, as

fast as it was collected, the whole amount of the curtailment, and

$105,000 over; there to lie idle until she could raise the foreign

exchange to eight per cent. above par; which she had sunk to five

per cent. below par, and thus make two sets of profits out of one

operation in distressing and pressing the country.

4. No excuse for doubling the rates of exchange, breaking up the

exchange business in the West, forbidding the branch at New Orleans

to purchase a single bill on the West, and concentrating the

collection of exchange on the four great commercial cities. For

this, Mr. B. said, no apology, no excuse, no justification, was

offered by the bank. The act stood unjustified and unjustifiable.

The bank itself has shrunk from the attempt to justify it; our

committee, in that report of which the bank proclaims itself to be

proud, gives no opinion in its brief notice of a few lines upon

this transaction; but leaves it to the Senate to pronounce upon its

wisdom and necessity! The committee, Mr. B. said, had failed in

their duty to their country by the manner in which they had veiled

this affair of the exchanges in a few lines; and then blinked the

question of its enormity, by referring it to the judgment of the

Senate. He made the same remark upon the contemporaneous measure of

the third curtailment; and called on the author of the report [Mr.

Tyler] to defend his report, and to defend the conduct of the bank

now, if he could; and requested him to receive all this part of his

speech as a further instalment paid of what was due to that report

on the bank.

5. That the curtailment and exchange regulations of January were

political and revolutionary, and connect themselves with the

contemporaneous proceedings of the Senate for the condemnation of

the President. That this curtailment, and these regulations were

wanton and wicked, was a proposition, Mr. B. said, which resulted

as a logical conclusion from what had been already shown, namely,

that they were causeless and unnecessary, and done upon pretexts

which have been demonstrated to be false. That they were political

and revolutionary, and connected with the proceedings in the Senate

for the condemnation of the President, he would now prove. In the

exhibition of this proof, the first thing to be looked to is the

chronology of the events--the time at which the bank made this

third curtailment, and sent forth these exchange regulations--and

the time at which the Senate carried on the proceeding against

the President. Viewed under this aspect, the two movements are

not only connected, but identical and inseparable. The time for

the condemnation of the President covers the period from the 25th

of December, 1833, to the 28th of March, 1834; the bank movement

is included in the same period; the orders for the pressure were

issued from the 21st of January to the 1st of February, and were to

accomplish their effect in the month of March, and by the first of

April; except in one place, where, for a reason which will be shown

at a proper time, the accomplishment of the effect was protracted

till the 10th day of April. These, Mr. B. said, were the dates of

issuing the orders and accomplishing their effect; the date of the

adoption of the resolution in the bank for this movement is not

given in the report, but must have been, in the nature of things,

anterior to the issue of the orders; it must have been some days

before the issue of the orders; and was, in all probability, a few

days after the commencement of the movement in the Senate against

the President. The next point of connection, Mr. B. said, was in

the subject matter; and here it was necessary to recur to the

original form, and to the second form, of the resolution for the

condemnation of the President. In the first, or primordial form,

the resolution was expressly connected with the cause of the bank.

It was, for dismissing Mr. Duane because he would not remove the

deposits, and appointing Mr. Taney because he would remove them.

In the second form of the resolution--that form which naturalists

would call its aurelia, or chrysalis state--the phraseology of

the connection was varied, but still the connection was retained

and expressed. The names of Mr. Duane and Mr. Taney were dropped;

and the removal of the deposits upon his own responsibility, was

the alleged offence of the President. In its third and ultimate

transformation, all allusion to the bank was dropped, and the vague

term "revenue" was substituted; but it was a substitution of phrase

only, without any alteration of sense or meaning. The resolution

is the same under all its phases. It is still the bank, and Mr.

Taney, and Mr. Duane, and the removal of the deposits, which are

the things to be understood, though no longer prudent to express.

All these substantial objects are veiled, and substituted by the

empty phrase "revenue;" which might signify the force bill in South

Carolina, and the bank question in Philadelphia! The vagueness of

the expression left every gentleman to fight upon his own hook, and

to hang his vote upon any mental reservation which could be found

in his own mind! and Mr. B. would go before the intelligence of

any rational man with the declaration that the connection between

the condemnation of the President and the cause of the bank was

doubly proved; first by the words of the resolution, and next by

the omission of those words. The next point of connection, Mr. B.

said, was detected in the times, varied to suit each State, at which

the pressure under the curtailment was to reach its maximum; and

the manner in which the restrictions upon the sale and purchase of

bills of exchange was made to fall exclusively and heavily upon the

principal commercial cities, at the moment when most deeply engaged

in the purchase and shipment of produce. Thus, in New-York, where

the great charter elections were to take place during the first

week in April, the curtailment was to reach its maximum pressure

on the first day of that month. In Virginia, where the elections

are continued throughout the whole month of April, the pressure

was not to reach its climax until the tenth day of that month.

In Connecticut, where the elections occurred about the first of

April, the pressure was to have its last turn of the screw in the

month of March. And in these three instances, the only ones in

which the elections were depending, the political bearing of the

pressure was clear and undeniable. The sympathy in the Senate in

the results of those political calculations, was displayed in the

exultation which broke out on receiving the news of the elections

in Virginia, New-York, and Connecticut--an exultation which broke

out into the most extravagant rejoicings over the supposed downfall

of the administration. The careful calculation to make the pressure

and the exchange regulations fall upon the commercial cities at the

moment to injure commerce most, was also visible in the times fixed

for each. Thus, in all the western cities, Cincinnati, Louisville,

Lexington, Nashville, Pittsburg, Saint Louis, the pressure was

to reach its maximum by the first day of March; the shipments of

western produce to New Orleans being mostly over by that time; but

in New Orleans the pressure was to be continued till the first of

April, because the shipping season is protracted there till that

month, and thus the produce which left the upper States under the

depression of the pressure, was to meet the same pressure upon

its arrival in New Orleans; and thus enable the friends of the

bank to read their ruined prices of western produce on the floor

of this Senate. In Baltimore, the first of March was fixed, which

would cover the active business season there. So much, said Mr.

B., for the pressure by curtailment; now for the pressure by bills

of exchange, and he would take the case of New Orleans first.

All the branches in the West, and every where else in the Union,

were authorized to purchase bills of exchange at short dates, not

exceeding ninety days, on that emporium of the West; so as to

increase the demand for money there; at the same time the branch in

New Orleans was forbid to purchase a single bill in any part of the

valley of the Mississippi. This prohibition was for two purposes;

first, to break up exchange; and next, to make money scarce in

New Orleans; as, in default of bills of exchange, silver would be

shipped, and the shipping of silver would make a pressure upon all

the local banks. To help out this operation, Mr. B. said, it must be

well and continually remembered that the Bank of the United States

itself abducted about one million and a quarter of hard dollars from

New Orleans during the period of the pressure there; thus proving

that all her affected necessity for curtailment was a false and

wicked pretext for the cover of her own political and revolutionary

views.

The case of the western branches was next adverted to by Mr. B.

Among these, he said, the business of exchange was broken up _in

toto_. The five western branches were forbid to purchase exchange

at all; and this tyrannical order was not even veiled with the

pretext of an excuse. Upon the North Atlantic cities, Mr. B. said,

unlimited authority to all the branches was given to purchase

bills, all at short dates, under ninety days; and all intended

to become due during the shipping season, and to increase the

demand for money while the curtailment was going on, and the screw

turning from day to day to lessen the capacity of getting money,

and make it more scarce as the demand for it became urgent. Thus

were the great commercial cities, New Orleans, New-York, Baltimore,

and Philadelphia, subject to a double process of oppression; and

that at the precise season of purchasing and shipping crops, so

as to make their distress recoil upon the planters and farmers;

and all this upon the pretext of new measures understood to be in

contemplation. Time again becomes material, said Mr. B. The bank

pressure was arranged in January, to reach its climax in March and

the first of April; the debate in the Senate for the condemnation of

President Jackson, which commenced in the last days of December, was

protracted over the whole period of the bank pressure, and reached

its consummation at the same time; namely, the 28th day of March.

The two movements covered the same period of time, reached their

conclusions together, and co-operated in the effect to be produced;

and during the three months of this double movement, the Senate

chamber resounded daily with the cry that the tyranny and vengeance

of the President, and his violation of laws and constitution, had

created the whole distress, and struck the nation from a state of

Arcadian felicity--from a condition of unparalleled prosperity--to

the lowest depth of misery and ruin. And here Mr. B. obtested and

besought the Senate to consider the indifference with which the bank

treated its friends in the Senate, and the sorrowful contradiction

in which they were left to be caught. In the Senate, and all over

the country, the friends of the bank were allowed to go on with

the old tune, and run upon the wrong scent, of removal of the

deposits creating all the distress; while, in the two-and-twenty

circular letters dispatched to create this distress, it was not

the old measure alone, but the new measures contemplated, which

constituted the pretext for this very same distress. Thus, the bank

stood upon one pretext, and its friends stood upon another; and for

this mortifying contradiction, in which all its friends have become

exposed to see their mournful speeches exploded by the bank itself,

a just indignation ought now to be felt by all the friends of the

bank, who were laying the distress to the removal of the deposits,

and daily crying out that nothing could relieve the country but the

restoration of the deposits, or the recharter of the bank; while

the bank itself was writing to its branches that it was the new

measures understood to be in contemplation that was occasioning

all the mischief. Mr. B. would close this head with a remark which

ought to excite reflections which should never die away; which

should be remembered as long as national banks existed, or asked for

existence. It was this: That here was a proved case of a national

bank availing itself of its organization, and of its power, to send

secret orders, upon a false pretext, to every part of the Union,

to create distress and panic for the purpose of accomplishing an

object of its own; and then publicly and calumniously charging all

this mischief on the act of the President for the removal of the

deposits. This recollection should warn the country against ever

permitting another national bank to repeat a crime of such frightful

immorality, and such enormous injury to the business and property of

the people. Mr. B. expressed his profound regret that the report of

the bank committee was silent upon these dreadful enormities, while

so elaborate upon trifles in favor of the bank. He was indignant

at the mischief done to private property; the fall in the price of

staples, of stocks, and of all real and personal estate; at the ruin

of many merchants, and the injury of many citizens, which took place

during this hideous season of panic and pressure. He was indignant

at the bank for creating it, and still more for its criminal

audacity in charging its own conduct upon the President; and he was

mortified, profoundly mortified, that all this should have escaped

the attention of the Finance Committee, and enabled them to make a

report of which the bank, in its official organ, declares itself to

be justly proud; which it now has undergoing the usual process of

diffusion through the publication of supplemental gazettes; which

it openly avers would have insured the recharter if it had come

out in time; and to which it now looks for such recharter as soon

as President Jackson retires, and the country can be thrown into

confusion by the distractions of a presidential election.

Mr. B. now took up another head of evidence to prove the fact that

the curtailment and exchange regulations of January were political

and revolutionary, and connected with the proceedings of the

Senate for the condemnation of the President; and here he would

proceed upon evidence drawn from the bank itself. Mr. B. then read

extracts from Mr. Biddle's letters of instructions (January 30,

1834) to Joseph Johnson, Esquire, president of the branch bank at

Charleston, South Carolina. They were as follows: "With a view to

meet the coming crisis in the banking concerns of the country, and

especially to provide against new measures of hostility understood

to be in contemplation by the executive officers at Washington,

a general reduction has been ordered at the several offices, and

I have now to ask your particular attention to accomplish it." *

* * * "It is as disagreeable to us as it can be to yourselves to

impose any restrictions upon the business of the office. But you are

perfectly aware of the effort which has been making for some time

to prostrate the bank, to which this new measure to which I have

alluded will soon be added, unless the projectors become alarmed at

it. On the defeat of these attempts to destroy the bank depends, in

our deliberate judgment, not merely the pecuniary interests, but the

whole free institutions of our country; and our determination is,

by even a temporary sacrifice of profit, to place the bank entirety

beyond the reach of those who meditate its destruction."

Mr. B. would invoke the deepest attention to this letter. The

passages which he had read were not in the circulars addressed

at the same time to the other branches. It was confined to this

letter, with something similar in one more which he would presently

read. The coming crisis in the banking concerns of the country is

here shadowed forth, and secretly foretold, three months before it

happened; and with good reason, for the prophet of the evil was to

assist in fulfilling his prophecy. With this secret prediction,

made in January, is to be connected the public predictions

contemporaneously made on this floor, and continued till April,

when the explosion of some banks in this district was proclaimed as

the commencement of the general ruin which was to involve all local

banks, and especially the whole safety-fund list of banks, in one

universal catastrophe. The Senate would remember all this, and spare

him repetitions which must now be heard with pain, though uttered

with satisfaction a few months ago. The whole free institutions

of our country was the next phrase in the letter to which Mr. B.

called attention. He said that in this phrase the political designs

of the bank stood revealed; and he averred that this language was

identical with that used upon this floor. Here, then, is the secret

order of the bank, avowing that the whole free institutions of the

country are taken into its holy keeping; and that it was determined

to submit to a temporary sacrifice of profit in sustaining the bank,

which itself sustains the whole free institutions of the country!

What insolence! What audacity! But, said Mr. B., what is here meant

by free institutions, was the elections! and the true meaning of

Mr. Biddle's letter is, that the bank meant to submit to temporary

sacrifices of money to carry the elections, and put down the Jackson

administration. No other meaning can be put upon the words; and if

there could, there is further proof in reserve to nail the infamous

and wicked design upon the bank. Another passage in this letter, Mr.

B. would point out, and then proceed to a new piece of evidence.

It was the passage which said this new measure will soon be added,

unless the projectors become alarmed at it. Now, said Mr. B., take

this as you please; either that the projectors did, or did not,

become alarmed at their new measure; the fact is clear that no new

measure was put in force, and that the bank, in proceeding to act

upon that assumption, was inventing and fabricating a pretext to

justify the scourge which it was meditating against the country.

Dates are here material, said Mr. B. The first letters, founded on

these new measures, were dated the 21st of January; and spoke of

them as being understood to be in contemplation. This letter to Mr.

Johnson, which speaks hypothetically, is dated the 30th of January,

being eight days later; in which time the bank had doubtless heard

that its understanding about what was in contemplation was all

false; and to cover its retreat from having sent a falsehood to

two-and-twenty branches, it gives notice that the new measures which

were the alleged pretext of panic and pressure upon the country

were not to take place, because the projectors had got alarmed. The

beautiful idea of the projectors--that is to say, General Jackson,

for he is the person intended--becoming alarmed at interdicting the

reception of illegal drafts at the treasury, is conjured up as a

salvo for the honor of the bank, in making two-and-twenty instances

of false assertion. But the panic and pressure orders are not

countermanded. They are to go on, although the projectors do become

alarmed, and although the new measure be dropped.

Mr. B. had an extract from a second letter to read upon this

subject. It was to the president of the New Orleans branch, Mr.

W. W. Montgomery, and dated Bank of the United States the 24th of

January. He read the extract: "The state of things here is very

gloomy; and, unless Congress takes some decided step to prevent the

progress of the troubles, they may soon outgrow our control. Thus

circumstanced, our first duty is, to the institution, to preserve

it from all danger; and we are therefore anxious, for a short time

at least, to keep our business within manageable limits, and to

make some sacrifice of property to entire security. It is a moment

of great interest, and exposed to sudden changes in public affairs,

which may induce the bank to conform its policy to them; of these

dangers, should any occur, you will have early advice." When he

had read this extract, Mr. B. proceeded to comment upon it; almost

every word of it being pregnant with political and revolutionary

meaning of the plainest import. The whole extract, he said, was the

language of a politician, not of a banker, and looked to political

events to which the bank intended to conform its policy. In this

way, he commented successively upon the gloomy state of things at

the bank (for the letter is dated in the bank), and the troubles

which were to outgrow their control, unless Congress took some

decided step. These troubles, Mr. B. said, could not be the dangers

to the bank; for the bank had taken entire care of itself in the

two-and-twenty orders which it had sent out to curtail loans and

break up exchanges. Every one of these orders announced the power

of the bank, and the determination of the bank, to take care of

itself. Troubles outgrow our control! What insolence! When the bank

itself, and its confederates, were the creators and fomenters of all

these troubles, the progress of which it affected to deplore. The

next words--moment of great interest, exposed to sudden changes in

public affairs, induce the bank to conform its policy to them--Mr.

B. said, were too flagrant and too barefaced for comment. They were

equivalent to an open declaration that a revolution was momently

expected, in which Jackson's administration would be overthrown, and

the friends of the bank brought into power; and, as soon as that

happened, the bank would inform its branches of it; and would then

conform its policy to this revolution, and relieve the country from

the distress which it was then inflicting upon it. Sir, said Mr.

B., addressing the Vice-President, thirty years ago, the prophetic

vision of Mr. Jefferson foresaw this crisis; thirty years ago, he

said that this bank was an enemy to our form of government; that,

by its ramification and power, and by seizing on a critical moment

in our affairs, it could upset the government! And this is what it

would have done last winter, had it not been for one man! one man!

one single man! with whom God had vouchsafed to favor our America in

that hour of her greatest trial. That one man stood a sole obstacle

to the dread career of the bank; stood for six months as the

rampart which defended the country, the citadel upon which the bank

artillery incessantly thundered! And what was the conduct of the

Senate all this time? It was trying and condemning that man, killing

him off with a senatorial condemnation, removing the obstacle which

stood between the bank and its prey; and, in so doing, establishing

the indissoluble connection between the movement of the bank

in distressing the country, and the movement of the Senate in

condemning the President.

Mr. B. said that certainly no more proof was necessary, on this

head, to show that the designs of the bank were political

and revolutionary, intended to put down General Jackson's

administration, and to connect itself with the Senate; but he had

more proof, that of a publication under the editorial head of the

_National Gazette_, and which publication he assumed to say, was

written by the president of the bank. It was a long article of four

columns; but he would only read a paragraph. He read: "The great

contest now waging in this country is between its free institutions

and the violence of a vulgar despotism. The government is turned

into a baneful faction, and the spirit of liberty contends against

it throughout the country. On the one hand is this miserable cabal,

with all the patronage of the Executive; on the other hand, the

yet unbroken mind and heart of the country, with the Senate and

the bank;--[in reading these words, in which the bank associated

itself with the Senate, Mr. B. repeated the famous expression of

Cardinal Wolsey, in associating himself with the king: '_Ego et

rex meus_;']--the House of Representatives, hitherto the intuitive

champion of freedom, shaken by the intrigues of the kitchen,

hesitates for a time, but cannot fail before long to break its own

fetters first, and then those of the country. In that quarrel, we

predict, they who administer the bank will shrink from no proper

share which the country may assign to them. Personally, they must be

as indifferent as any of their fellow-citizens to the recharter of

the bank. But they will not suffer themselves, nor the institution

intrusted to them, to be the instruments of private wrong and public

outrage; nor will they omit any effort to rescue the institutions

of the country from being trodden under foot by a faction of

interlopers. To these profligate adventurers, whether their power is

displayed in the executive or legislative department, the directors

of the bank will, we are satisfied, never yield the thousandth part

of an inch of their own personal rights, or their own official

duties; and will continue this resistance until the country, roused

to a proper sense of its dangers and its wrongs, shall drive the

usurpers out of the high places they dishonor." This letter, said

Mr. B., discloses, in terms which admit of no explanation or denial,

the design of the bank in creating the pressure which was got up

and continued during the panic session. It was to rouse the people,

by dint of suffering, against the President and the House of

Representatives, and to overturn them both at the ensuing elections.

To do this, now stands revealed as its avowed object. The Senate

and the bank were to stand together against the President and the

House; and each to act its part for the same common object: the

bank to scourge the people for money, and charge its own scourging

upon the President; the Senate to condemn him for a violation of

the laws and constitution, and to brand him as the Cæsar, Cromwell,

Bonaparte--the tyrant, despot, usurper, whose head would be cut

off in any kingdom of Europe for such acts as he practised here.

Mr. B. said, the contemplation of the conduct of the bank, during

the panic session, was revolting and incredible. It combined every

thing to revolt and shock the moral sense. Oppression, falsehood,

calumny, revolution, the ruin of individuals, the fabrication of

false pretences, the machinations for overturning the government,

the imputation of its own crimes upon the head of the President; the

enriching its favorites with the spoils of the country, insolence

to the House of Representatives, and its affected guardianship

of the liberties of the people and the free institutions of the

country; such were the prominent features of its conduct. The

parallel of its enormity was not to be found on this side of Asia;

an example of such remorseless atrocity was only to be seen in

the conduct of the Paul Benfields and the Debi Sings who ravaged

India under the name of the Marquis of Hastings. Even what had been

casually and imperfectly brought to light, disclosed a system of

calculated enormity which required the genius of Burke to paint.

What was behind would require labors of a committee, constituted

upon parliamentary principles, not to plaster, but to probe the

wounds and ulcers of the bank; and such a committee he should hope

to see, not now, but hereafter, not in the vacation but in the

session of Congress. For he had no idea of these peripatetic and

recess committees, of which the panic session had been so prolific.

He wanted a committee, unquestionable in the legality of its own

appointment, duly qualified in a parliamentary sense for discovering

the misconduct they are set to investigate; and sitting under the

wing of the authority which can punish the insolent, compel the

refractory, and enforce the obedience which is due to its mandates.

6. The distress of the country occasioned by the Bank of the United

States and the Senate of the United States.--This, Mr. B. said,

might be an unpleasant topic to discuss in the Senate; but this

Senate, for four months of the last session, and during the whole

debate on the resolution to condemn the President, had resounded

with the cry that the President had created all the distress; and

the huge and motley mass, throughout the Union, which marched under

the _oriflamme_ of the bank, had every where repeated and reiterated

the same cry. If there was any thing unpleasant, then, in the

discussion of this topic in this place, the blame must be laid on

those who, by using that argument in support of their resolution

against the President, devolved upon the defenders of the President

the necessity of refuting it. Mr. B. would have recourse to facts

to establish his position. The first fact he would recur to was the

history of a reduction of deposits, made once before in this same

bank, so nearly identical in every particular with the reduction

which took place under the order for the late removal of deposits,

that it would require exact references to documentary evidence to

put its credibility beyond the incredulity of the senses. Not only

the amount from which the reduction was made, its progress, and

ultimate depression, corresponded so closely as each to seem to be

the history of the same transaction, but they began in the same

month, descended in the same ratio, except in the instances which

operate to the disadvantage of the late reduction, and, at the end

of fifteen months, had reached the same point. Mr. B. spoke of the

reduction of deposits which took place in the years 1818 and 1819;

and would exhibit a table to compare it with the reductions under

the late order for the removal of the deposits.

Here, said Mr. B., is a similar and parallel redaction of deposits

in this same bank, and that at a period of real pecuniary distress

to itself; a period when great frauds were discovered in its

management; when a committee examined it, and reported it guilty

of violating its charter; when its stock fell in a few weeks from

one hundred and eighty to ninety; when propositions to repeal

its charter, without the formality of a _scire facias_, were

discussed in Congress; when nearly all presses, and nearly all

voices, condemned it; and when a real necessity compelled it to

reduce its discounts and loans with more rapidity, and to a far

greater comparative extent, than that which has attended the late

reduction. Yet, what was the state of the country? Distressed, to

be sure, but no panic; no convulsion in the community; no cry of

revolution. And why this difference? If mere reduction of deposits

was to be attended with these effects at one time, why not at the

other? Sir, said Mr. B., addressing the Vice-President, the reason

is plain and obvious. The bank was unconnected with politics, in

1819; it had no desire, at that time, to govern the elections, and

to overturn an administration; it had no political confederates; it

had no president of the bank then to make war upon the President of

the United States, and to stimulate and aid a great political party

in crushing the President, who would not sign a new charter, and

in crushing the House of Representatives which stood by him. There

was no resolution then to condemn the President for a violation of

the laws and the constitution. And it was this fatal resolution,

which we now propose to expunge, which did the principal part of the

mischief. That resolution was the root of the evil; the signal for

panic meetings, panic memorials, panic deputations, panic speeches,

and panic jubilees. That resolution, exhibited in the Senate

chamber, was the scarlet mantle of the consul, hung out from his

tent; it was the signal for battle. That resolution, and the alarm

speeches which attended it, was the tocsin which started a continent

from its repose. And the condemnation which followed it, and which

left this chamber just in time to reach the New-York, Virginia,

and Connecticut elections, completed the effect upon the public

mind, and upon the politics and commerce of the country, which the

measures of the bank had been co-operating for three months to

produce. And here he must express his especial and eternal wonder

how all these movements of bank and Senate co-operating together,

if not by arrangement, at least by a most miraculous system of

accidents, to endanger the political rights, and to injure the

pecuniary interests of the people of the United States, could so far

escape the observation of the investigating committee of the Senate,

as not to draw from them the expression of one solitary opinion, the

suggestion of one single idea, the application of one single remark,

to the prejudice of the bank. Surely they ought to have touched

these scenes with something more than a few meagre, stinted, and

starved lines of faint allusion to the "new measures understood to

be in contemplation;" those new measures which were so falsely, so

wickedly fabricated to cover the preconcerted and premeditated plot

to upset the government by stimulating the people to revolution,

through the combined operations of the pecuniary pressure and

political alarms.

The table itself was entitled to the gravest recollection, not only

for the comparison which it suggested, but the fact of showing

the actual progress and history of the removal of the deposits,

and blasting the whole story of the President's hostility to the

bank. From this table it is seen that the deposits, in point of

fact, have never been all taken from the bank; that the removal,

so far as it went, was gradual and gentle; that an average of

three millions has always been there; that nearly four millions

was there on the 1st day of January last; and before these facts,

the fabricated story of the President's hostility to the bank, his

vindictiveness, and violent determination to prostrate, destroy, and

ruin the institution, must fall back upon its authors, and recoil

upon the heads of the inventors and propagators of such a groundless

imputation.

Mr. B. could give another fact to prove that it was the Senate and

the bank, and the Senate more than the bank, which produced the

distress during the last winter. It was this: that although the

curtailments of the bank were much larger both before and after

the session of Congress, yet there was no distress in the country,

except during the session, and while the alarm speeches were in a

course of delivery on this floor. Thus, the curtailment from the 1st

of August to the 1st of October, was $4,066,000; from the 1st of

October to the meeting of Congress in December, the curtailment was

$5,641,000--making $9,707,000 in four months, and no distress in the

country. During the session of Congress (seven months) there was a

curtailment of $3,428,138; and during this time the distress raged.

From the rise of Congress (last of June) to the 1st of November, a

period of four months, the curtailment was $5,270,771, and the word

distress was not heard in the country. Why? Because there were no

panic speeches. Congress had adjourned; and the bank, being left

to its own resources, could only injure individuals, but could not

alarm and convulse the community.

Mr. B. would finish this view of the conduct of the bank in creating

a wanton pressure, by giving two instances; one was the case of

the deposit bank in this city; the other was the case of a senator

opposed to the bank. He said that the branch bank at this place

had made a steady run upon the Metropolis Bank from the beginning

to the ending of the panic session. The amount of specie which it

had taken was $605,000: evidently for the purpose of blowing up

the pet bank in this district; and during all that time the branch

refused to receive the notes, or branch drafts, of any other branch,

or the notes of the mother bank; or checks upon any city north

of Baltimore. On the pet bank in Baltimore it would take checks,

because the design was to blow up that also. Here, said Mr. B.,

was a clear and flagrant case of pressure for specie for the mere

purpose of mischief, and of adding the Metropolis Bank to the list

of those who stopped payment at that time. And here Mr. B. felt

himself bound to pay his respects to the Committee on Finance, that

went to examine the bank last summer. That committee, at pages

16 and 22, of their report, brought forward an unfounded charge

against the administration for making runs upon the branches of

the United States Bank, to break them; while it had been silent

with respect to a well-founded instance of the same nature from

the Bank of the United States towards the deposit bank in this

district. Their language is: "The administrative department of the

government had manifested a spirit of decided hostility to the

bank. It had no reason to expect any indulgence or clemency at

its hands; and in this opinion, if entertained by the directors,

about which there can be but little question, subsequent events

very soon proved they were not mistaken. The President's address

to his cabinet; the tone assumed by the Secretary (Mr. Taney)

in his official communication to Congress, and the developments

subsequently made by Mr. Duane in his address to the public, all

confirm the correctness of this anticipation. The measure which

the bank had cause to fear was the accumulation by government of

large masses of notes, and the existence thereby of heavy demands

against its offices" (p. 16). "In persevering in its policy of

redeeming its notes whenever presented, and thereby continuing them

as a universal medium of exchange, in opposition to complaints on

that head from some of the branches (see copies of correspondence),

the security of the institution and the good of the country were

alike promoted. The accumulation of the notes of any one branch

for the purpose of a run upon it by any agent of the government,

when specie might be obtained at the very places of collection, in

exchange for the notes of the most distant branches, would have

been odious in the eyes of the public, and ascribed to no other

feeling than a feeling of vindictiveness" (p. 22). Upon these

extracts, Mr. B. said, it was clear that the committee had been so

unfortunate as to commit a series of mistakes, and every mistake to

the advantage of the bank, and to the prejudice of the government

and the country. First, the government is charged, for the charge

is clear, though slightly veiled, that the President of the United

States in his vindictiveness against the bank, would cause the

notes of the branches to be accumulated, and pressed upon them

to break them. Next, the committee omit to notice the very thing

actually done, in our very presence here, by the Bank of the United

States against a deposit bank, which it charges without foundation

upon the President. Then it credits the bank with the honor of

paying its notes every where, and exchanging the notes of the most

distant branches for specie, when the case of the Metropolis Bank,

here in our presence, for the whole period of the panic session,

proves the contrary; and when we have a printed document, positive

testimony from many banks, and brokers, testifying that the branches

in Baltimore and New-York, during the fall of 1833, positively

refused to redeem the notes of other branches, or to accept them

in exchange for the notes of the local banks, though taken in

payment of revenue; and that, in consequence, the notes of distant

branches fell below par, and were sold at a discount, or lent for

short periods without interest, on condition of getting specie for

them; and that this continued till Mr. Taney coerced the bank, by

means of transfer drafts, to cause the notes of her branches to be

received and honored at other branches as usual. In all this, Mr. B.

said, the report of the committee was most unfortunate; and showed

the necessity for a new committee to examine that institution; a

committee constituted upon parliamentary principles--a majority in

favor of inquiry--like that of the Post Office. The creation of such

a committee, Mr. B. said, was the more necessary, as one of the main

guards intended by the charter to be placed over the bank was not

there during the period of the pressure and panic operations; he

alluded to the government directors; the history of whose rejection,

after such long delays in the Senate to act on their nomination, is

known to the whole country.

The next instance of wanton pressure which Mr. B. would mention,

was the case of an individual, then a member of the Senate from

Pennsylvania, now minister to St. Petersburg (Mr. Wilkins). That

gentleman had informed him (Mr. B.), towards the close of the last

session, that the bank had caused a _scire facias_ to be served

in his house, to the alarm and distress of his wife, to revive a

judgment against him, whilst he was here opposing the bank.

[Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, here rose, and wished to know of Mr. B. whether

it was the Bank of the United States that had issued this _scire

facias_ against Mr. Wilkins.]

Mr. B. was very certain that it was. He recollected not only the

information, but the time and the place when and where it was given;

it was the last days of the last session, and at the window beyond

that door (pointing to the door in the corner behind him); and he

added, if there is any question to be raised, it can be settled

without sending to Russia; the _scire facias_, if issued, will be

on record in Pittsburg. Mr. B. then said, the cause of this conduct

to Mr. Wilkins can be understood when it is recollected that he had

denied on this floor the existence of the great distress which had

been depicted at Pittsburg; and the necessity that the bank was

under to push him at that time can be appreciated by seeing that two

and fifty members of Congress, as reported by the Finance Committee,

had received "accommodations" from the bank and its branches in the

same year that a senator, and a citizen of Pennsylvania, opposed to

the bank, was thus proceeded against.[10]

[10] At pages 37 and 38 of the report, the Finance Committee fully

acquits the bank of all injurious discriminations between borrowers

and applicants, of different politics.

Mr. B. returned to the resolution which it was proposed to expunge.

He said it ought to go. It was the root of the evil, the father

of the mischief, the source of the injury, the box of Pandora,

which had filled the land with calamity and consternation for six

long months. It was that resolution, far more than the conduct

of the bank, which raised the panic, sunk the price of property,

crushed many merchants, impressed the country with the terror of

an impending revolution, and frightened so many good people out of

the rational exercise of their elective franchise at the spring

elections. All these evils have now passed away. The panic has

subsided; the price of produce and property has recovered from

its depression, and risen beyond its former bounds. The country

is tranquil, prosperous, and happy. The States which had been

frightened from their propriety at the spring elections, have

regained their self-command. Now, with the total vanishing of its

effects, let the cause vanish also. Let this resolution for the

condemnation of President Jackson be expunged from the journals of

the Senate! Let it be effaced, erased, blotted out, obliterated from

the face of that page on which it should never have been written!

Would to God it could be expunged from the page of all history,

and from the memory of all mankind. Would that, so far as it is

concerned, the minds of the whole existing generation should be

dipped in the fabulous and oblivious waters of the river Lethe. But

these wishes are vain. The resolution must survive and live. History

will record it; memory will retain it; tradition will hand it down.

In the very act of expurgation it lives; for what is taken from

one page is placed on another. All atonement for the unfortunate

calamitous act of the Senate is imperfect and inadequate. Expunge,

if we can, still the only effect will be to express our solemn

convictions, by that obliteration, that such a resolution ought

never to have soiled the pages of our journal. This is all that

we can do; and this much we are bound to do, by every obligation

of justice to the President, whose name has been attainted; by

every consideration of duty to the country, whose voice demands

this reparation; by our regard to the constitution, which has been

trampled under foot; by respect to the House of Representatives,

whose function has been usurped; by self-respect, which requires

the Senate to vindicate its justice, to correct its errors, and

re-establish its high name for equity, dignity, and moderation. To

err is human; not to err is divine; to correct error is the work of

supereminent and also superhuman moral excellence, and this exalted

work now remains for the Senate to perform.