PAPER MONEY PAYMENTS: ATTEMPTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
RESISTED: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.
The long continued struggle between paper money and gold was now
verging to a crisis. The gold bill, rectifying the erroneous
valuation of that metal, had passed in 1834: an influx of gold
coin followed. In seven years the specie currency had gone up from
twenty millions to one hundred. There was five times as much specie
in the country as there was in 1832, when the currency was boasted
to be solid under the regulation of the Bank of the United States.
There was as much as the current business of the country and of the
federal government could use: for these 100 millions, if allowed
to circulate and to pass from hand to hand, in every ten hands
that they passed through, would do the business of one thousand
millions. Still the administration was persistent in its attempts
to obtain a paper money currency: and the national bank having
failed, and all the efforts to get up paper money machines (under
the names of fiscal agent, fiscal corporation, and exchequer board)
having proved abortive, recourse was had to treasury notes, with
the quality of re-issuability attached to them. Previous issues
had been upon the footing of any other promissory note: when once
paid at the treasury, it was extinguished and cancelled. Now they
were made re-issuable, like common bank notes; and a limited issue
of five millions of dollars became unlimited from its faculty of
successive emission. The new administration converted these notes
into currency, to be offered to the creditors of the government in
the proportion of two-thirds paper, and one-third specie; and, from
the difficulty of making head against the government, the mass of
the creditors were constrained to take their dues in this compound
of paper and specie. Mr. Benton determined to resist it, and to
make a case for the consideration and judgment of Congress and the
country, with the view of exposing a forced unconstitutional tender,
and inciting the country to a general resistance. For this purpose
he had a check drawn for a few days' compensation as senator, and
placed it in the hands of a messenger for collection, inscribed,
"the hard, or a protest." The hard was not delivered: the protest
followed: and Mr. Benton then brought the case before the Senate,
and the people, in a way which appears thus in the register of the
Congress debates (and which were sufficient for their objects as the
forced tender of the paper money was immediately stopped):
Mr. Benton rose to offer a resolution, and to precede it with some
remarks, bottomed upon a paper which he held in his hand, and which
he would read. He then read as follows:
[COMPENSATION NO. 149.]
OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF THE SENATE OF THE U. S. A.
WASHINGTON, _31st January, 1842_.
Cashier of the Bank of Washington,
Pay to Hon. THOMAS H. BENTON, or order one hundred and forty-two
dollars. $142 (Signed) ASBURY DICKENS,
Secretary of the Senate.
(Endorsed). [pointing finger symbol] "_The hard, or a protest._
"THOMAS H. BENTON."
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
Washington County, Set:
Be it known, That on the thirty-first day of January, 1842,
I, George Sweeny, Notary Public, by lawful authority duly
commissioned and sworn, dwelling in the County and District
aforesaid, at the request of the honorable Thomas H. Benton,
presented at the bank of Washington, the original check whereof
the above is a true copy, and demanded there payment of the sum
of money in the said check specified, whereunto the cashier of
said bank answered: "The whole amount cannot be paid in specie,
as treasury notes alone have been deposited here to meet the
Secretary of the Senate's checks; but I am ready to pay this
check in one treasury note for one hundred dollars, bearing six
per cent. interest, and the residue in specie."
Therefore I, the said notary, at the request aforesaid, have
protested, and by these presents do solemnly protest, against
the drawer and endorser of this said check, and all others whom
it doth or may concern, for all costs, exchange, or re-exchange,
charges, damages, and interests, suffered and to be suffered for
want of payment thereof.
[SEAL]
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my
Seal Notarial, this first day of February, 1842.
GEORGE SWEENY,
Notary Public.
Protesting, $1 75.
Recorded in Protest Book, G. S. No. 4, page 315.
Mr. B. said this paper explained itself. It was a check and a
protest. The check was headed "_compensation_," and was drawn by
the Secretary of the Senate for so much pay due to him (Mr. B.) for
his per diem attendance in Congress. It had been presented at the
proper place for payment, and it would be seen by the protest that
payment was refused, unless he (Mr. B.) would consent to receive
two-thirds paper and about one-third specie. He objected to this,
and endorsed upon the check, as an instruction to the messenger
who carried it, these words: "_The hard, or a protest._" Under
instructions the protest came, and with it notarial fees to the
amount of $1,75, which were paid in the hard. Mr. B. said this was
what had happened to himself, here at the seat of government; and he
presumed the same thing was happening to others, and all over the
Union. He presumed the time had arrived when paper money payments,
and forced tenders of treasury notes, were to be universal, and
when every citizen would have to decide for himself whether he
would submit to the imposition upon his rights, and to the outrage
upon the Constitution, which such a state of things involved. Some
might not be in a situation to submit. Necessity, stronger than any
law, might compel many to submit; but there were others who were
in a situation to resist; and, though attended with some loss and
inconvenience, it was their duty to do so. Tyranny must be resisted;
oppression must be resisted; violation of the Constitution must be
resisted; folly or wickedness must be resisted; otherwise there is
an end of law, of liberty, and of right. The government becomes
omnipotent, and rides and rules over a prostrate country, as it
pleases. Resistance to the tyranny or folly of a government becomes
a sacred duty, which somebody must perform, and the performance of
which is always disagreeable, and sometimes expensive and hazardous.
Mr. Hampden resisted the payment of ship money in England: and his
resistance cost him money, time, labor, losses of every kind, and
eventually the loss of his life. His share of the ship money was
only twenty shillings, and a suggestion of self-interest would
have required him to submit to the imposition, and put up with the
injury. But a feeling of patriotism prompted him to resist for
others, not for himself--to resist for the benefit of those who
could not resist for themselves; and, above all, to resist for the
sake of the Constitution of the country, trampled under foot by
a weak king and a profligate minister. Mr. Hampden resisted the
payment of ship money to save the people of England from oppression,
and the constitution from violation. Some person must resist the
payment of paper money here, to save the people from oppression, and
the Constitution from violation; and if persons in station, and at
the seat of government will not do it, who shall? Sir, resistance
must be made; the safety of the country, and of the Constitution
demands it. It must be made here: for here is the source and
presence of the tyranny. It must be made by some one in station: for
the voice of those in private life could not be heard. Some one must
resist, and for want of a more suitable person, I find myself under
the necessity of doing it--and I do it with the less reluctance
because it is in my line, as a hard-money man; and because I do not
deem it quite as dangerous to resist our paper money administration
as Hampden found it to resist Charles the First and the Duke of
Buckingham.
There is no dispute about the fact, and the case which I present is
neither a first one, nor a solitary one. The whig administration,
in the first year of its existence, is without money, and without
credit, and with no other means of keeping up but by forced
payments of paper money, which it strikes from day to day to force
into the hands, and to stop the mouths of its importunate creditors.
This is its condition; and it is the natural result of the folly
which threw away the land revenue--which repealed the hard money
clause of the independent treasury--which repealed the prohibition
against the use of small notes by the federal government--which
has made war upon gold, and protected paper--and which now demands
the establishment of a national manufactory of paper money for the
general and permanent use of the federal government. Its present
condition is the natural result of these measures; and bad as it
is, it must be far worse if the people do not soon compel a return
to the hard money and economy of the democratic administrations.
This administration came into power upon a promise to carry on the
government upon thirteen millions per annum; the first year is not
yet out; it has already had a revenue of twenty odd millions, a loan
bill for twelve millions, a tax bill for eight or ten millions, a
treasury note bill for five millions: and with all this, it declares
a _deficit_, and shows its insolvency, by denying money to its
creditors, and forcing them to receive paper, or to go without pay.
In a season of profound peace, and in the first year of the whig
administration, this is the condition of the country! a condition
which must fill the bosom of every friend to our form of government
with grief and shame.
Sir, a war upon the currency of the constitution has been going on
for many years; and the heroes of that war are now in power. They
have ridiculed gold, and persecuted it in every way, and exhausted
their wits in sarcasms upon it and its friends. The humbug gold bill
was their favorite phrase; and among other exhibitions in contempt
of this bill and its authors, were a couple of public displays--one
in May, 1837, the other in the autumn of 1840--at Wheeling, in
Virginia, by two gentlemen (Mr. Tyler and Mr. Webster), now high
functionaries in this government, in which empty purses were held
up to the contemplation of the crowd, in derision of the gold bill
and its authors. Sir, that bill was passed in June, 1834; and from
that day down to a few weeks ago, we were paid in gold. Every one
of us had gold that chose it. Now the scene is reversed. Gold is
gone; paper has come. Forced payments, and forced tenders of paper,
is the law of the whig administration! and empty purses may now
be held up with truth, and with sorrow, as the emblem both of the
administration and its creditors.
The cause of this disgraceful state of things, Mr. B. said, he
would not further investigate at present. The remedy was the point
now to be attended to. The government creditor was suffering; the
constitution was bleeding; the character of the country was sinking
into disgrace; and it was the duty of Congress to apply a remedy
to so many disasters. He, Mr. B. saw the remedy; but he had not
the power to apply it. The power was in other hands; and to them
he would wish to commit the inquiry which the present condition of
things imperiously required of Congress to make.
Mr. B. said here was a forced payment of paper money--a forced
tender of paper money--and forced loans from the citizens. The loan
to be forced out of him was $100, at 6 per cent.; but he had not
the money to lend, and should resist the loan. Those who have money
will not lend it, and wisely refuse to lend it to an administration
which throws away its rich pearl--the land revenue. The senator from
North Carolina [Mr. MANGUM] proposes a reduction of the pay of the
members by way of relief to the Treasury, but Mr. B. had no notion
of submitting to it: he had no notion of submitting to a deduction
of his pay to enable an administration to riot in extravagance, and
to expend in a single illegal commission in New York (the Poindexter
custom house inquisition), more than the whole proposed saving from
the members' pay would amount to. He had no notion of submitting
to such curtailments, and would prefer the true remedy, that of
restoring the land revenue to its proper destination; and also
restoring economy, democracy, and hard money to power.
Mr. Benton then offered the following resolution, which was adopted:
"_Resolved_, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to
inquire into the nature of the payments now made, or offered to
be made, by the federal government to its creditors. Whether
the same are made in hard money or in paper money? Whether the
creditors have their option? Whether the government paper is at
a discount? And what remedy, if any, is necessary to enable the
government to keep its faith with its creditors, so as to save
them from loss, the Constitution from violation, and the country
from disgrace?"