3. That all must admit that it had failed to establish or maintain a
sound and uniform currency; and
4. That the true bank for the use of the government of the United States
would be a bank which should be founded on the revenues and credit of
the government itself.
These propositions appeared to me, at the time, as very extraordinary,
and the last one as very startling. A bank founded on the revenue and
credit of the government, and managed and administered by the executive,
was a conception which I had supposed no man holding the chief executive
power in his own hands would venture to put forth.
But the question now is, what had wrought this great change of feeling
and of purpose in regard to the bank. What events had occurred between
March and December that should have caused the bank, so constitutional,
so useful, so peaceful, and so safe an institution, in the first of
these months, to start up into the character of a monster, and become so
horrid and dangerous, in the last?
Gentlemen, let us see what the events were which had intervened. General
Jackson was elected in December, 1828. His term was to begin in March,
1829. A session of Congress took place, therefore, between his election
and the commencement of his administration.
Now, Gentlemen, the truth is, that during this session, and a little
before the commencement of the new administration, a disposition was
manifested by political men to interfere with the management of the
bank. Members of Congress undertook to nominate or recommend individuals
as directors in the branches or offices of the bank. They were kind
enough, sometimes, to make out whole lists, or tickets, and to send them
to Philadelphia, containing the names of those whose appointments would
be satisfactory to General Jackson's friends. Portions of the
correspondence on these subjects have been published in some of the
voluminous reports and other documents connected with the bank, but
perhaps have not been generally heeded or noticed. At first, the bank
merely declined, as gently as possible, complying with these and similar
requests. But like applications began to show themselves from many
quarters, and a very marked case arose as early as June, 1829. Certain
members of the Legislature of New Hampshire applied for a change in the
presidency of the branch which was established in that State. A member
of the Senate of the United States wrote both to the president of the
bank and to the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly recommending a
change, and in his letter to the Secretary hinting very distinctly at
political considerations as the ground of the movement. Other officers
in the service of the government took an interest in the matter, and
urged a change; and the Secretary himself wrote to the bank, suggesting
and recommending it. The time had come, then, for the bank to take its
position. It did take it; and, in my judgment, if it had not acted as it
did act, not only would those who had the care of it have been most
highly censurable, but a claim would have been yielded to, entirely
inconsistent with a government of laws, and subversive of the very
foundations of republicanism.
A long correspondence between the Secretary of the Treasury and the
president of the bank ensued. The directors determined that they would
not surrender either their rights or their duties to the control or
supervision of the executive government. They said they had never
appointed directors of their branches on political grounds, and they
would not remove them on such grounds. They had avoided politics. They
had sought for men of business, capacity, fidelity, and experience in
the management of pecuniary concerns. They owed duties, they said, to
the government, which they meant to perform, faithfully and impartially,
under all administrations; and they owed duties to the stockholders of
the bank, which required them to disregard political considerations in
their appointments. This correspondence ran along into the fall of the
year, and finally terminated in a stern and unanimous declaration, made
by the directors, and transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, that
the bank would continue to be independently administered, and that the
directors once for all refused to submit to the supervision of the
executive authority, in any of its branches, in the appointment of local
directors and agents. This resolution decided the character of the
future. Hostility towards the bank, thenceforward, became the settled
policy of the government; and the message of December, 1829, was the
clear announcement of that policy. If the bank had appointed those
directors, thus recommended by members of Congress; if it had submitted
all its appointments to the supervision of the treasury; if it had
removed the president of the New Hampshire branch; if it had, in all
things, showed itself a complying, political, party machine, instead of
an independent institution;--if it had done this, I leave all men to
judge whether such an entire change of opinion, as to its
constitutionality, its utility, and its good effects on the currency,
would have happened between March and December.
From the moment in which the bank asserted its independence of treasury
control, and its elevation above mere party purposes, down to the end of
its charter, and down even to the present day, it has been the subject
to which the selectest phrases of party denunciation have been
plentifully applied.
But Congress manifested no disposition to establish a treasury bank. On
the contrary, it was satisfied, and so was the country, most
unquestionably, with the bank then existing. In the summer of 1832,
Congress passed an act for continuing the charter of the bank, by strong
majorities in both houses. In the House of Representatives, I think, two
thirds of the members voted for the bill. The President gave it his
negative; and as there were not two thirds of the Senate, though a large
majority were for it, the bill failed to become a law.
But it was not enough that a continuance of the charter of the bank was
thus refused. It had the deposit of the public money, and this it was
entitled to, by law, for the few years which yet remained of its
chartered term. But this it was determined it should not continue to
enjoy. At the commencement of the session of 1832-33, a grave and sober
doubt was expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his official
communication, whether the public moneys were safe in the custody of the
bank! I confess, Gentlemen, when I look back to this suggestion, thus
officially made, so serious in its import, so unjust, if not well
founded, and so greatly injurious to the credit of the bank, and
injurious, indeed, to the credit of the whole country, I cannot but
wonder that any man of intelligence and character should have been
willing to make it. I read in it, however, the first lines of another
chapter. I saw an attempt was now to be made to remove the deposits of
the public money from the bank, and such an attempt was made that very
session. But Congress was not to be prevailed upon to accomplish the end
by its own authority. It was well ascertained that neither house would
consent to it. The House of Representatives, indeed, at the heel of the
session, decided against the proposition by a very large majority.
The legislative authority having been thus invoked, and invoked in vain,
it was resolved to stretch farther the long arm of executive power, and
by that arm to reach and strike the victim. It so happened that I was in
this city in May, 1833, and here learned, from a very authentic source,
that the deposits would be removed by the President's order; and in
June, as afterwards appeared, that order was given.
Now it is obvious, Gentlemen, that thus far the changes in our financial
and fiscal system were effected, not by Congress, but by the executive;
not by law, but by the will and the power of the President. Congress
would have continued the charter of the bank; but the President
negatived the bill. Congress was of opinion that the deposits ought not
to be removed; but the President removed them. Nor was this all. The
public moneys being withdrawn from the custody which the law had
provided, by executive power alone, that same power selected the places
for their future keeping. Particular banks, existing under State
charters, were chosen. With these especial and particular arrangements
were made, and the public moneys were deposited in their vaults.
Henceforward these selected banks were to operate on the revenue and
credit of the government; and thus the original scheme, promulgated in
the annual message of December, 1829, was substantially carried into
effect. Here were banks chosen by the treasury; all the arrangements
with them made by the treasury; a set of duties to be performed by them
to the treasury prescribed; and these banks were to hold the whole
proceeds of the public revenue. In all this, Congress had neither part
nor lot. No law had caused the removal of the deposits; no law had
authorized the selection of deposit State banks; no law had prescribed
the terms on which the revenues should be placed in such banks. From the
beginning of the chapter to the end, it was all executive edict. And
now, Gentlemen, I ask if it be not most remarkable, that, in a country
professing to be under a government of laws, such great and important
changes in one of its most essential and vital interests should be
brought about without any change of law, without any enactment of the
legislature whatever? Is such a power trusted to the executive of any
government in which the executive is separated, by clear and
well-defined lines, from the legislative department? The currency of the
country stands on the same general ground as the commerce of the
country. Both are intimately connected, and both are subjects of legal,
not of executive, regulation.
It is worthy of notice, that the writers of the Federalist, in
discussing the powers which the Constitution conferred on the President,
made it matter of commendation, that it withdraws this subject
altogether from his grasp. "He can prescribe no rules," say they,
"concerning the commerce or _currency_ of the country." And so we have
been all taught to think, under all former administrations. But we have
now seen that the President, and the President alone, does prescribe the
rule concerning the currency. He makes it, and he alters it. He makes
one rule for one branch of the revenue, and another rule for another. He
makes one rule for the citizen of one State, and another for the citizen
of another State. This, it is certain, is one part of the treasury order
of July last.
But at last Congress interfered, and undertook to regulate the deposits
of the public moneys. It passed the law of July, 1836, placing the
subject under legal control, restraining the power of the executive,
subjecting the banks to liabilities and duties, on the one hand, and
securing them against executive favoritism, on the other. But this law
contained another important provision; which was, that all the money in
the treasury, beyond what was necessary for the current expenditures of
the government, should be deposited with the States. This measure passed
both houses by very unusual majorities, yet it hardly escaped a veto. It
obtained only a cold assent, a slow, reluctant, and hesitating approval;
and an early moment was seized to array against it a long list of
objections. But the law passed. The money in the treasury beyond the sum
of five millions was to go to the States. It has so gone, and the
treasury for the present is relieved from the burden of a surplus. But
now observe other coincidences. In the annual message of December, 1835,
the President quoted the fact of the rapidly increasing sale of the
public lands as proof of high national prosperity. He alluded to that
subject, certainly with much satisfaction, and apparently in something
of the tone of exultation. There was nothing said about monopoly, not a
word about speculation, not a word about over-issues of paper, to pay
for the lands. All was prosperous, all was full of evidence of a wise
administration of government, all was joy and triumph.
But the idea of a deposit or distribution of the surplus money with the
people suddenly damped this effervescing happiness. The color of the
rose was gone, and every thing now looked gloomy and black. Now no more
felicitation or congratulation, on account of the rapid sales of the
public lands; no more of this most decisive proof of national prosperity
and happiness. The executive Muse takes up a melancholy strain. She
sings of monopolies, of speculation, of worthless paper, of loss both of
land and money, of the multiplication of banks, and the danger of paper
issues; and the end of the canto, the catastrophe, is, that lands shall
no longer be sold but for gold and silver alone. The object of all this
is clear enough. It was to diminish the income from the public lands. No
desire for such a diminution had been manifested, so long as the money
was supposed to be likely to remain in the treasury. But a growing
conviction that some other disposition must be made of the surplus,
awakened attention to the means of preventing that surplus.
Toward the close of the last session, Gentlemen, a proposition was
brought forward in Congress for such an alteration of the law as should
admit payment for public lands to be made in nothing but gold and
silver. The mover voted for his own proposition; but I do not recollect
that any other member concurred in the vote. The proposition was
rejected at once; but, as in other cases, that which Congress refused to
do, the executive power did. Ten days after Congress adjourned, having
had this matter before it, and having refused to act upon it by making
any alteration in the existing laws, a treasury order was issued,
commanding that very thing to be done which Congress had been requested
and had refused to do. Just as in the case of the removal of the
deposits, the executive power acted in this case also against the known,
well understood, and recently expressed will of the representatives of
the people. There never has been a moment when the legislative will
would have sanctioned the object of that order; probably never a moment
in which any twenty individual members of Congress would have concurred
in it. The act was done without the assent of Congress, and against the
well-known opinion of Congress. That act altered the law of the land, or
purported to alter it, against the well-known will of the law-making
power.
For one, I confess I see no authority whatever in the Constitution, or
in any law, for this treasury order. Those who have undertaken to
maintain it have placed it on grounds, not only different, but
inconsistent and contradictory. The reason which one gives, another
rejects; one confutes what another argues. With one it is the joint
resolution of 1816 which gave the authority; with another, it is the law
of 1820; with a third, it is the general superintending power of the
President; and this last argument, since it resolves itself into mere
power, without stopping to point out the sources of that power, is not
only the shortest, but in truth the most just. He is the most sensible,
as well as the most candid reasoner, in my opinion, who places this
treasury order on the ground of the pleasure of the executive, and stops
there. I regard the joint resolution of 1816 as mandatory; as
prescribing a legal rule; as putting this subject, in which all have so
deep an interest, beyond the caprice, or the arbitrary pleasure, or the
discretion, of the Secretary of the Treasury. I believe there is not the
slightest legal authority, either in that officer or in the President,
to make a distinction, and to say that paper may be received for debts
at the custom-house, but that gold and silver only shall be received at
the land offices. And now for the sequel.
At the commencement of the last session, as you know, Gentlemen, a
resolution was brought forward in the Senate for annulling and
abrogating this order, by Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, a gentleman of much
intelligence, of sound principles, of vigorous and energetic character,
whose loss from the service of the country I regard as a public
misfortune. The Whig members all supported this resolution, and all the
members, I believe, with the exception of some five or six, were very
anxious in some way to get rid of the treasury order. But Mr. Ewing's
resolution was too direct. It was deemed a pointed and ungracious
attack on executive policy. It must therefore be softened, modified,
qualified, made to sound less harsh to the ears of men in power, and to
assume a plausible, polished, inoffensive character. It was accordingly
put into the plastic hands of friends of the executive to be moulded and
fashioned, so that it might have the effect of ridding the country of
the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to question executive
infallibility. All this did not answer. The late President is not a man
to be satisfied with soft words; and he saw in the measure, even as it
passed the two houses, a substantial repeal of the order. He is a man of
boldness and decision; and he respects boldness and decision in others.
If you are his friend, he expects no flinching; and if you are his
adversary, he respects you none the less for carrying your opposition to
the full limits of honorable warfare. Gentlemen, I most sincerely regret
the course of the President in regard to this bill, and certainly most
highly disapprove it. But I do not suffer the mortification of having
attempted to disguise and garnish it, in order to make it acceptable,
and of still finding it thrown back in my face. All that was obtained by
this ingenious, diplomatic, and over-courteous mode of enacting a law,
was a response from the President and the Attorney-General, that the
bill in question was obscure, ill penned, and not easy to be understood.
The bill, therefore, was neither approved nor negatived. If it had been
approved, the treasury order would have been annulled, though in a
clumsy and objectionable manner. If it had been negatived, and returned
to Congress, no doubt it would have been passed by two thirds of both
houses, and in that way have become a law, and abrogated the order. But
it was not approved, it was not returned; it was retained. It had passed
the Senate in season; it had been sent to the House in season; but there
it was suffered to lie so long without being called up, that it was
completely in the power of the President when it finally passed that
body; since he is not obliged to return bills which he does not approve,
if not presented to him ten days before the end of the session. The bill
was lost, therefore, and the treasury order remains in force. Here again
the representatives of the people, in both houses of Congress, by
majorities almost unprecedented, endeavored to abolish this obnoxious
order. On hardly any subject, indeed, has opinion been so unanimous,
either in or out of Congress. Yet the order remains.
And now, Gentlemen, I ask you, and I ask all men who have not
voluntarily surrendered all power and all right of thinking for
themselves, whether, from 1832 to the present moment, the executive
authority has not effectually superseded the power of Congress, thwarted
the will of the representatives of the people, and even of the people
themselves, and taken the whole subject of the currency into its own
grasp? In 1832, Congress desired to continue the bank of the United
States, and a majority of the people desired it also; but the President
opposed it, and his will prevailed. In 1833, Congress refused to remove
the deposits; the President resolved upon it, however, and his will
prevailed. Congress has never been willing to make a bank founded on the
money and credit of the government, and administered, of course, by
executive hands; but this was the President's object, and he attained
it, in a great measure, by the treasury selection of deposit banks. In
this particular, therefore, to a great extent, his will prevailed. In
1836, Congress refused to confine the receipts for public lands to gold
and silver; but the President willed it, and his will prevailed. In
1837, both houses of Congress, by more than two thirds, passed a bill
for restoring the former state of things by annulling the treasury
order; but the President willed, notwithstanding, that the order should
remain in force, and his will again prevailed. I repeat the question,
therefore, and I would put it earnestly to every intelligent man, to
every lover of our constitutional liberty, are we under the dominion of
the law? or has the effectual government of the country, at least in
all that regards the great interest of the currency, been in a single
hand?
Gentlemen, I have done with the narrative of events and measures. I have
done with the history of these successive steps, in the progress of
executive power, towards a complete control over the revenue and the
currency. The result is now all before us. These pretended reforms,
these extraordinary exercises of power from an extraordinary zeal for
the good of the people, what have they brought us to?
In 1829, the currency was declared to be _neither sound nor uniform_; a
proposition, in my judgment, altogether at variance with the fact,
because I do not believe there ever was a country of equal extent, in
which paper formed any part of the circulation, that possessed a
currency so sound, so uniform, so convenient, and so perfect in all
respects, as the currency of this country, at the moment of the delivery
of that message, in 1829.
But how is it now? Where has the improvement brought it? What has reform
done? What has the great cry for hard money accomplished? Is the
currency _uniform_ now? Is money in New Orleans now as good, or nearly
so, as money in New York? Are exchanges at par, or only at the same low
rates as in 1829 and other years? Every one here knows that all the
benefits of this experiment are but injury and oppression; all this
reform, but aggravated distress.
And as to the _soundness_ of the currency, how does that stand? Are the
causes of alarm less now than in 1829? Is there less bank paper in
circulation? Is there less fear of a general catastrophe? Is property
more secure, or industry more certain of its reward? We all know,
Gentlemen, that, during all this pretended warfare against all banks,
banks have vastly increased. Millions upon millions of bank paper have
been added to the circulation. Everywhere, and nowhere so much as where
the present administration and its measures have been most zealously
supported, banks have multiplied under State authority, since the decree
was made that the Bank of the United States should be suffered to
expire. Look at Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Virginia, and other
States. Do we not see that banking capital and bank paper are enormously
increasing? The opposition to banks, therefore, so much professed,
whether it be real or whether it be but pretended, has not restrained
either their number or their issues of paper. Both have vastly
increased.
And now a word or two, Gentlemen, upon this hard-money scheme, and the
fancies and the delusions to which it has given birth. Gentlemen, this
is a subject of delicacy, and one which it is difficult to treat with
sufficient caution, in a popular and occasional address like this. I
profess to be a _bullionist_, in the usual and accepted sense of that
word. I am for a solid specie basis for our circulation, and for specie
as a part of the circulation, so far as it may be practicable and
convenient. I am for giving no value to paper, merely as paper. I abhor
paper; that is to say, irredeemable paper, paper that may not be
converted into gold or silver at the will of the holder. But while I
hold to all this, I believe, also, that an exclusive gold and silver
circulation is an utter impossibility in the present state of this
country and of the world. We shall none of us ever see it; and it is
credulity and folly, in my opinion, to act under any such hope or
expectation. The States will make banks, and these will issue paper; and
the longer the government of the United States neglects its duty in
regard to measures for regulating the currency, the greater will be the
amount of bank paper overspreading the country. Of this I entertain not
a particle of doubt.
While I thus hold to the absolute and indispensable necessity of gold
and silver, as the foundation of our circulation, I yet think nothing
more absurd and preposterous, than unnatural and strained efforts to
import specie. There is but so much specie in the world, and its amount
cannot be greatly or suddenly increased. Indeed, there are reasons for
supposing that its amount has recently diminished, by the quantity used
in manufactures, and by the diminished products of the mines. The
existing amount of specie, however, must support the paper circulations,
and the systems of currency, not of the United States only, but of other
nations also. One of its great uses is to pass from country to country,
for the purpose of settling occasional balances in commercial
transactions. It always finds its way, naturally and easily, to places
where it is needed for these uses. But to take extraordinary pains to
bring it where the course of trade does not bring it, where the state of
debt and credit does not require it to be, and then to endeavor, by
unnecessary and injurious regulations, treasury orders, accumulations at
the mint, and other contrivances, there to retain it, is a course of
policy bordering, as it appears to me, on political insanity. It is
boasted that we have seventy-five or eighty millions of specie now in
the country. But what more senseless, what more absurd, than this boast,
if there is a balance against us abroad, of which payment is desired
sooner than remittances of our own products are likely to make that
payment? What more miserable than to boast of having that which is not
ours, which belongs to others, and which the convenience of others, and
our own convenience also, require that they should possess? If Boston
were in debt to New York, would it be wise in Boston, instead of paying
its debt, to contrive all possible means of obtaining specie from the
New York banks, and hoarding it at home? And yet this, as I think, would
be precisely as sensible as the course which the government of the
United States at present pursues. We have, beyond all doubt, a great
amount of specie in the country, but it does not answer its accustomed
end, it does not perform its proper duty. It neither goes abroad to
settle balances against us, and thereby quiet those who have demands
upon us; nor is it so disposed of at home us to sustain the circulation
to the extent which the circumstances of the times require. A great part
of it is in the Western banks, in the land offices, on the roads through
the wilderness, on the passages over the Lakes, from the land offices to
the deposit banks, and from the deposit banks back to the land offices.
Another portion is in the hands of buyers and sellers of specie; of men
in the West, who sell land-office money to the new settlers for a high
premium Another portion, again, is kept in private hands, to be used
when circumstances shall tempt to the purchase of lands. And, Gentlemen,
I am inclined to think, so loud has been the cry about hard money, and
so sweeping the denunciation of all paper, that private holding, or
hoarding, prevails to some extent in different parts of the country.
These eighty millions of specie, therefore, really do us little good. We
are weaker in our circulation, I have no doubt, our credit is feebler,
money is scarcer with us, at this moment, than if twenty millions of
this specie were shipped to Europe, and general confidence thereby
restored.
Gentlemen, I will not say that some degree of pressure might not have
come upon us, if the treasury order had not issued. I will not say that
there has not been over-trading, and over-production, and a too great
expansion of bank circulation. This may all be so, and the
last-mentioned evil, it was easy to foresee, was likely to happen when
the United States discontinued their own bank. But what I do say is,
that, acting upon the state of things as it actually existed, and is now
actually existing the treasury order has been, and now is productive of
great distress. It acts upon a state of things which gives extraordinary
force to its stroke, and extraordinary point to its sting. It arrests
specie, when the free use and circulation of specie are most important;
it cripples the banks, at a moment when the banks more than ever need
all their means. It makes the merchant unable to remit, when remittance
is necessary for his own credit, and for the general adjustment of
commercial balances. I am not now discussing the general question,
whether prices must not come down, and adjust themselves anew to the
amount of bullion existing in Europe and America. I am dealing only with
the measures of our own government on the subject of the currency, and I
insist that these measures have been most unfortunate, and most ruinous
in their effects on the ordinary means of our circulation at home, and
on our ability of remittance abroad.
Their effects, too, on domestic exchanges, by deranging and misplacing
the specie which is in the country, are most disastrous. Let him who has
lent an ear to all these promises of a more uniform currency see how he
can now sell his draft on New Orleans or Mobile. Let the Northern
manufacturers and mechanics, those who have sold the products of their
labor to the South, and heretofore realized the prices with little loss
of exchange,--let them try present facilities. Let them see what reform
of the currency has done for them. Let them inquire whether, in this
respect, their condition is better or worse than it was five or six
years ago.
Gentlemen, I hold this disturbance of the measure of value, and the
means of payment and exchange, this derangement, and, if I may so say,
this violation of the currency, to be one of the most unpardonable of
political faults. He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its
bread. He panders, indeed, to greedy capital, which is keen-sighted, and
may shift for itself; but he beggars labor, which is honest,
unsuspecting, and too busy with the present to calculate for the future.
The prosperity of the working classes lives, moves, and has its being in
established credit, and a steady medium of payment. All sudden changes
destroy it. Honest industry never comes in for any part of the spoils in
that scramble which takes place when the currency of a country is
disordered. Did wild schemes and projects ever benefit the industrious?
Did irredeemable bank paper ever enrich the laborious? Did violent
fluctuations ever do good to him who depends on his daily labor for his
daily bread? Certainly never. All these things may gratify greediness
for sudden gain, or the rashness of daring speculation; but they can
bring nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry
and honest labor. Who are they that profit by the present state of
things? They are not the many, but the few. They are speculators,
brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant interest.
Small capitalists are crushed, and, their means being dispersed, as
usual, in various parts of the country, and this miserable policy having
destroyed exchanges, they have no longer either money or credit. And all
classes of labor partake, and must partake, in the same calamity. And
what consolation for all this is it, that the public lands are paid for
in specie? that, whatever embarrassment and distress pervade the
country, the Western wilderness is thickly sprinkled over with eagles
and dollars? that gold goes weekly from Milwaukie and Chicago to
Detroit, and back again from Detroit to Milwaukie and Chicago, and
performs similar feats of egress and regress, in many other instances,
in the Western States? It is remarkable enough, that, with all this
sacrifice of general convenience, with all this sky-rending clamor for
government payments in specie, government, after all, never gets a
dollar. So far as I know, the United States have not now a single specie
dollar in the world. If they have, where is it? The gold and silver
collected at the land offices is sent to the deposit banks; it is there
placed to the credit of the government, and thereby becomes the property
of the bank. The whole revenue of the government, therefore, after all,
consists in mere bank credits; that very sort of security which the
friends of the administration have so much denounced.
Remember, Gentlemen, in the midst of this deafening din against all
banks, that, if it shall create such a panic as shall shut up the banks,
it will shut up the treasury of the United States also.
Gentlemen, I would not willingly be a prophet of ill. I most devoutly
wish to see a better state of things; and I believe the repeal of the
treasury order would tend very much to bring about that better state of
things. And I am of opinion, that, sooner or later, the order will be
repealed. I think it must be repealed. I think the East, West, North,
and South will demand its repeal. But, Gentlemen, I feel it my duty to
say, that, if I should be disappointed in this expectation, I see no
immediate relief to the distresses of the community. I greatly fear,
even, that the worst is not yet.[2] I look for severer distresses; for
extreme difficulties in exchange, for far greater inconveniences in
remittance, and for a sudden fall in prices. Our condition is one which
is not to be tampered with, and the repeal of the treasury order, being
something which government can do, and which will do good, the public
voice is right in demanding that repeal. It is true, if repealed now,
the relief will come late. Nevertheless its repeal or abrogation is a
thing to be insisted on, and pursued, till it shall be accomplished.
This executive control over the currency, this power of discriminating,
by treasury order, between one man's debt and another man's debt, is a
thing not to be endured in a free country; and it should be the
constant, persisting demand of all true Whigs, "Rescind the illegal
treasury order, restore the rule of the law, place all branches of the
revenue on the same grounds, make men's rights equal, and leave the
government of the country where the Constitution leaves it, in the hands
of the representatives of the people in Congress." This point should
never be surrendered or compromised. Whatever is established, let it be
equal, and let it be legal. Let men know, to-day, what money may be
required of them to-morrow. Let the rule be open and public, on the
pages of the statute-book, not a secret, in the executive breast.
Gentlemen, in the session which has now just closed, I have done my
utmost to effect a direct and immediate repeal of the treasury order.
I have voted for a bill anticipating the payment of the French and
Neapolitan indemnities by an advance from the treasury.
I have voted with great satisfaction for the restoration of duties on
goods destroyed in the great conflagration in this city.
I have voted for a deposit with the States of the surplus which may be
in the treasury at the end of the year. All these measures have failed;
and it is for you, and for our fellow-citizens throughout the country,
to decide whether the public interest would, or would not, have been
promoted by their success.
But I find, Gentlemen, that I am committing an unpardonable trespass on
your indulgent patience. I will pursue these remarks no further. And yet
I cannot persuade myself to take leave of you without reminding you,
with the utmost deference and respect, of the important part assigned to
you in the political concerns of your country, and of the great
influence of your opinions, your example, and your efforts upon the
general prosperity and happiness.
Whigs of New York! Patriotic citizens of this great metropolis! Lovers
of constitutional liberty, bound by interest and by affection to the
institutions of your country, Americans in heart and in principle!--you
are ready, I am sure, to fulfil all the duties imposed upon you by your
situation, and demanded of you by your country. You have a central
position; your city is the point from which intelligence emanates, and
spreads in all directions over the whole land. Every hour carries
reports of your sentiments and opinions to the verge of the Union. You
cannot escape the responsibility which circumstances have thrown upon
you. You must live and act, on a broad and conspicuous theatre, either
for good or for evil to your country. You cannot shrink from your public
duties; you cannot obscure yourselves, nor bury your talent. In the
common welfare, in the common prosperity, in the common glory of
Americans, you have a stake of value not to be calculated. You have an
interest in the preservation of the Union, of the Constitution, and of
the true principles of the government, which no man can estimate. You
act for yourselves, and for the generations that are to come after you;
and those who ages hence shall bear your names, and partake your blood,
will feel, in their political and social condition, the consequences of
the manner in which you discharge your political duties.
Having fulfilled, then, on your part and on mine, though feebly and
imperfectly on mine, the offices of kindness and mutual regard required
by this occasion, shall we not use it to a higher and nobler purpose?
Shall we not, by this friendly meeting, refresh our patriotism, rekindle
our love of constitutional liberty, and strengthen our resolutions of
public duty? Shall we not, in all honesty and sincerity, with pure and
disinterested love of country, as Americans, looking back to the renown
of our ancestors, and looking forward to the interests of our posterity,
here, to-night, pledge our mutual faith to hold on to the last to our
professed principles, to the doctrines of true liberty, and to the
Constitution of the country, let who will prove true, or who will prove
recreant? Whigs of New York! I meet you in advance, and give you my
pledge for my own performance of these duties, without qualification and
without reserve. Whether in public life or in private life, in the
Capitol or at home, I mean never to desert them. I mean never to forget
that I have a country, to which I am bound by a thousand ties; and the
stone which is to lie on the ground that shall cover me, shall not bear
the name of a son ungrateful to his native land.
[Footnote 1: President Jackson.]
[Footnote 2: On the 10th of June following the delivery of this speech,
all the banks in the city of New York, by common consent, suspended the
payment of their notes in specie. On the next day, the same step was
taken by the banks of Boston and the vicinity, and the example was
followed by all the banks south of New York, as they received
intelligence of the suspension of specie payments in that city. On the
15th of June, (just three months from the day this speech was
delivered,) President Van Buren issued his proclamation calling an extra
session of Congress for the first Monday of September.]