REM ARKS 
 
 HON. W. S. MILLER, OF NEW YORK, 
 
 ON THE BILL 
 
 “AUTHORIZING THE ISSUE OF TREASURY NOTES, A 
 LOAN, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES,” 
 
 WHICH PASSED 
 
 THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 January 21 , 1847 . 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED BY J. & G. S. GIDEON, 
 
 1 . 847 . 
 
TO IT CONSTITUENTS. 
 
 I deem it my duty to publish the following speech, which I had prepared 
 to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States 
 on the bill “authorizing the issue.of Treasury notes, a loan, and for other 
 purposes.” In view of the constitutional organization of that body, a de¬ 
 cent regard to public opinion would seem to require that all bills authorizing 
 the creation of a national debt should (here receive a deliberate considera¬ 
 tion. Yet, on the 21 st day of January instant, a bill for raising, on the 
 credit of the United States, and a pledge of the public domain, the large 
 sum of |2S,000,000 was called up and put on its passage by the arbitrary 
 application of the previous question— allowing for discussion just one hour 
 and twenty minutes! —without any exposition from the Secretary of the 
 Treasury—withoutany report from thecommittee—without any explanation 
 even from their chairman, of its effects upon the credit of the country, its 
 currency) or its business. I privately appealed to the chairman of the com¬ 
 mittee reporting the bill, and other Administration members, to postpone its 
 passage one day only, in order to give me and others a chance of being 
 hea/d on its merits. But it was unavailing; no debate could be permitted'. 
 Thus are the most important measures, deeply involving the honor and 
 welfare of the American people, hurried through the House without dis¬ 
 cussion, without illustration—whilst day after day is frequently consumed 
 on some unimportant or frivolous subject. 
 
 If this system continues to be pursued, the House of Representatives 
 might be superseded, without public loss or inconvenience, by the Treasury 
 bureau, which dictates, in this instance, at least, its legislation. 
 
 WM. S. MILLER, 
 
 Representative of 3d Congressional district, New York . 
 
 Washington, January 22,184T. 
 
REMARKS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : The Secretary of the Treasury comes into the market 
 of the world for a loan of $28,000/100! He must, in his emergency, ap¬ 
 ply to the capitalists of his own country or of Europe. He must negotiate- 
 on the Exchange of London, or the Bourse of Paris, or in Holland; or he 
 must be accommodated in Wall street, State street, or Chestnut street. He 
 is driven to deal with those odious monopolists, the banks, and to make 
 himself at home with brokers and money dealers. The country is in war, 
 and must have money. 
 
 Mr. Walker, then, must go to capitalists; and the first question which 
 these gentlemen ask him is, “Well, Mr. Secretary, how stand the United 
 States securities?” ‘‘Why,” says Mr. Walker, “it must be confessed they 
 are but poorly; they stood at 115 when I took hold of the Treasury; and 
 now I find they are below par!” “But what other inducement can you 
 hold out than a fall of about one per cent, a month in your securities? 
 Give us some better proof of your financiering skill, Mr. Walker.” 
 
 “I have reduced the tariff,” says Mr. Walker, “till I find I cannot get 
 along with the ordinary disbursements of Government without a tax on tea 
 and coffee.” “Good again,” says the capitalist. “And what else have 
 you done to facilitate your borrowing negotiation?” “I have prevailed 
 upon Congress to christen sundry strong boxes in a certain act mentioned 
 Hhe Treasury of the United States,’ and to set apart the gold and silver in 
 the country-for the special uses of the Government, to be weighed and 
 counted, and piled up in my strongboxes.” 
 
 Such'are the inducements which the Secretary of the Treasury can hold 
 out to the capitalists! It is on "such arguments that he goes out to borrow 
 money! The disastrous result of his measures on the credit of his country 
 has no influence on him,and he obstinately persists in them,in contempt of 
 the experience of mankind, and as if reckless at what cost to the nation he 
 should*avoid the humiliation of his own vanity and self-esteem. War to 
 the knife against manufacturing establishments and protected industry! 
 War to the knife against banking institutions and moneyed men! Crush 
 them, trample them, strip them; and yet go to them, cap in hand, and 
 modestly beg a loan of $28,000,000, which would enable the Treasury,with 
 the aid of their strong boxes anti clumsy financiering, to beggar half the 
 business men in the land. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, we have got large loans to make. With the in¬ 
 creasing expenses of a war extending daily the area of its operations, and 
 with a remoter prospect of concluding it than we had at its commence¬ 
 ment, it is idle to doubt that millions on millions of dollars will be required 
 for its prosecution and completion. However we may regard this war. it 
 will he carried on. Our fleets and armies must be maintained; supplies 
 will be voted to any and every extent that may be deemed necessary, and 
 our free Republic will be added to the long list of the nations which have 
 squandered their substance in wars for the glory of their rulers, and the c-u- 
 ■ailment of poverty, distress, debt, and dishonor upon the people. 
 
6 
 
 The Mexican war will continue at an annual expense of $50,000,000. 
 And I am only anxious that it should be conducted at the cost of those 
 who are waging it, and not at the cost of the rising or coming generations. 
 You cannot legislate public slocks into a value which they do not intrinsi¬ 
 cally possess; and. by merely passing a loan bill, whether of stocks or Trea- 
 suiy notes, you cannot substantially relieve the distresses of the Secretary. 
 By giving Mr. Walker authority merely to borrow money, you are doing 
 nothing, absolutely nothing, to retrieve the waning credit and honor of the 
 country. You are doing nothing to increase public confidence, or to enable 
 him to borrow the first dollar with any additional facility. We may go on, 
 sir. and raise the money in spile of a reduced tariff, in spite of a Subtrea¬ 
 sury, in spite of a war with Mexico, in spite of increased expenditures and 
 an increased debt. In spite of any and all these evils, on some terms or 
 other, in some market or other, the United States can get all the money 
 they want for this war. or any other war in which they may be unfortu¬ 
 nately engaged. It is not the withholding of a petty tax upon tea and cof¬ 
 fee; it is not the waging of a war of conquest and aggrandizement; it is not 
 (he accumulation of blundering and stupid measures of public policy, moral, 
 military, or financial; it is not any one of these causes, nor all combined, 
 that can utterly destroy the credit of twenty millions of people, hacked by 
 the resources of a continent, and enjoying the markets of the world. I ad¬ 
 mit. however, that these combined causes may compel even tire United 
 States to raise money at desperate sacrifices, and at discreditable rates; at 
 sacrifices too desperate,and rates too discreditable, to authorize us to pass this 
 bill, or any similar bill, whilst these causes are in full operation. 
 
 I am ready, however, to vote supplies to any extent the Administration 
 may ask. The credit and honor of the country must be sustained, cost 
 what it may. The bill specially provides that none of the proposed loan, 
 or stocks, or notes, shall he issued at less than par. Do we not all know, 
 sir, the impossibility of giving a fictitious value to public securities by legis¬ 
 lation? This game has been tried in other countries, and laws have been 
 passed making it penal in subjects to refuse lire paper money of Govern¬ 
 ment ar its face. Untied States stocks are rrow selling at 97. Will they rise 
 when Mr. M aker sends a new supply of them into market? But, if the 
 stocks do not rise, where is Mr. Walker to get tire money from? Borrow it 
 on a pledge of Treasury notes! He cannot, sell at less than par; but the 
 act is intended to give him, I believe, authority to pledge tire Treasury 
 notes at par. and to obtain such sums on them as Ire can. Ke can pledge 
 an hundred thousand dollars at six per cent, at par, and receive thereon 
 only §15,000 or .s-50.000, as he can bargain, leaving the difference as ad¬ 
 ditional security. If such is not the intention of the last clause of the fourth 
 section, it is a useless one. But when he has pledged all that the capital¬ 
 ists can take of him, wiiat then? He will pay public creditors with them; 
 he will buy with them. How, Mr. Chairman? Will he force those cre¬ 
 ditors to take Treasury notes selling at 97 or 90 for their face in specie? 
 Thai is out of the question. How then? Why he must pay just as much 
 more in Treasury notes as the Treasury notes are bringing in the market 
 less than par. If the notes are at ten per cent, discount, the War and 
 Navy Departments are charged just ten per cent, more for the articles they 
 purchase than is paid by those who deal in the. common currency of the 
 country. It amounts ro the same thing in the end. This provision by 
 'aw, that these notes should never be, sold at less than par, would be wel! 
 
7 
 
 enough if we could also provide that they should never be worth less than 
 par. Suppose an individual merchant should take the ground that he 
 would never pay more than six per cent, for money, and money is worth 
 ten per cent. He finds himself compelled to borrow, but adheres to his 
 determination; he goes to the wall, of coarse. He fails. The Government 
 can no more keep its notes at par, when they are not worth par, than a 
 merchant can. 
 
 I will hope, therefore, that the provision for pledging, at least, may be 
 stricken out. Let the Secretary go into the market as any merchant in 
 good credit would do; get his money openly and fairly for what it is worth. 
 The country will have to pay what it is worth in one shape or oilier. We 
 all know that. Let it be done in the light of day. Let the people see it. 
 Do not disguise it by shuffling about with pawnbrokers, and by huckstering 
 with public creditors. 
 
 Sir, I intend to vote the supplies whatever shape the bill may take, pro¬ 
 testing against the means by which they are raised, and exposing these fla¬ 
 grant absurdities (o the people. For, sir, though it is not in the power of 
 the minority in this House to control events; though we cannot avert the 
 evils Which threaten us; though we cannot save the credit and honor of 
 the country; though we cannot put aside the burdens which, successful or 
 unsuccessful, war always binds upon the neck of the people; yet we can 
 show the people how and why it is that they suffer, and call to a fearful 
 reckoning the authors and architects of all this mischief. Suppose we pass 
 this bill. Mr. Walker himself tells us that without a “tax upon tea and 
 coffee” he shall be hard pushed to get his money on decent terms. And 
 
 First of all, on account of the Suhtreasury. I do not propose to exam¬ 
 ine in detail the objections to this barbarous system of collecting and dis¬ 
 bursing the public moneys; though it strikes at the root of civilization, and 
 lends all the aid and authority of our great Republic to the undoing of that 
 credit and confidence among men which have been for centuries the substi¬ 
 tutes for gold and silver, and have multiplied , to an indefinite extent, the 
 resources and tile comforts of mankind. It is enough for me, sir, that on 
 its first suggestion it met with the decided condemnation of our people. Mr. 
 Fan Bureti made an appeal to the “sober second thought” of that people, 
 and the answer was more emphatic and more indignant than at first. It 
 swept from the board all the men who had been mainly iustrumeinai in in¬ 
 troducing and recommending this odious and despotic measure. Once, 
 twice, thrice, the people pronounced against it; and it. wastlead and buried, 
 as we all thought, in the common grave of “obsolete ideas.” No one seri¬ 
 ously imagined that any sane politician would attempt to revive it; and yet 
 one of the first measures of this Administration, and of this Congress, among 
 many other equally extreme and violent manifestations of parly feeling and 
 purpose, was to set this machine agoing again, armed with all its original 
 powers of destruction. And, in Heaven’s name, for what possible good 
 purpose? What evil was it to remedy? What desirable result was it to ac¬ 
 complish? What was it but a monstrous project to sever the mutual money¬ 
 ed relations and dependencies of the people and the Government? What 
 was it but the introduction of settled and permanent distinctions between 
 the currency of'the community and the currency of its rulers? What but 
 the annihilation of tiiose financial sympathies between Ike head and ihs 
 members of the body politic, which can best give, or that can alone give. 
 
8 
 
 life and impulse to the whole? What but vesting in the great financial ope¬ 
 rator of the country a monopoly of the coin, and thus an unlimited control 
 over all our business and enterprise? What but giving to politicians in place 
 an absolute money power , uncontrollable, irresponsible, to attain which we 
 have laughed to scorn the improvements and the experience of ages, and 
 sacrificed the business and hopes of the nation? 
 
 Why, sir, what a spectacle does this legislation exhibit! We are near the 
 middle of the nineteenth century, and, by the agency of the printing press 
 and the steam engine in the diffusion of intelligence, and the interchange of 
 communication, we are enabled to profit by the accumulated wisdom of all 
 time and space. What has been done in past ages, is laid up for us and 
 spread abroad in the land. What is doing for the advancement of science 
 and civilization, travels with almost lightning celerity from nation to nation. 
 Never was a people better situated than ours are, to know and profit by eve¬ 
 ry thing that the mind of man has accomplished or can devise for the ame¬ 
 lioration of our condition, and the general progress of our race. We had 
 largely profited by our noble opportunities. We had seen a system of con¬ 
 fidence and credit supplanting the hard money system of earlier and ruder 
 ages, substituting an inexpensive scrip of paper for ingots of gold and silver 
 in conducting the complicated transactions'of mankind, and carrying mil¬ 
 lions on millions from one extremity of the world to the other by a mere 
 stroke of the pen. Gold iu New York gave us credit at Canton; credit in 
 New York or Canton, gave us credit in London or New Orleans. Thus 
 the decreasing supply of the precious nretals did not diminish the general 
 circulation of the world. The deficiencies of gold and silver were made 
 good by the immaterial substitute and representative of property that existed, 
 and still exists, in the shape of commercial confidence and credit. In the 
 enjoyment and use of these substitutes for the precious metals—the equally 
 precious substitutes of integrity, enterprise, skill, ingenuity—we have seen 
 the resources and energy of this country developed to an extent, that with 
 the old currency of the world would have been impracticable; and under 
 any system of things is almost incredible. It is because men have had con¬ 
 fidence in each other and their Government, and because the masses through¬ 
 out the world have had confidence in our free institutions, and because we 
 have been able to give form and substance to this confidence by a cheap, in¬ 
 stead of a costly, representative, that from three millions of people we have be¬ 
 come twenty millions; that from an impoverished and exhausted Confederacy 
 of thirteen States, we have become the mighty, rich ,aud powerful empire that 
 we now are, proudly rivalling the only free nation on the face of the earth that 
 has profited to tiie same extent that we have by these improved instruments 
 and agencies of commerce. If we were to break up our noble fleets of mer¬ 
 chantmen, strip them of sails, and explode our steam engines, and under¬ 
 take to carry on our immense commerce with the remotest nations by means 
 of Roman galleys or Indian canoes, we should exhibit but a faint type of 
 the fatuilv wmcn contemplates the abandonment or destruction of the credit 
 svsieni. anu a return to the sole use of the precious metals, as either the 
 commercin' or tne nopular currency of the country. 
 
 Atm now. sir, what is the trreat evil—the paramount,overshadowing, in- 
 e\t'—\ 1 i h e nits from the repudiation of this system byGo- 
 
 n i t t t ~i their part, to the barbarous system of hard 
 
 ‘ i ) on 'he withdrawal of the aid and countenance of 
 
 Government from the system of confidence and credit, if this system is not 
 
safe for the Government, it is not safe for the people. The credit system 
 rests on the mutual trust, favor, and sympathy of the Government and the 
 people. Both must have an interest in maintaining it. Withdraw from it 
 the countenance of Government, to that extent you impair its efficiency and 
 usefulness, and to the same extent you cripple the energies and the indus¬ 
 trial resources of the people; all classes of the people, sir, farmers, mechan¬ 
 ics, laborers, manufacturers, merchants. This inevitably reacts upon the 
 Government, and Mr. Walker finds this reaction when he goes into the 
 market to borrow money. 
 
 To illustrate some of the topics I have thus discussed by reference to de¬ 
 tails. A merchant myself, I know something practically of these matters; 
 *nd we may say pretty safely, that even the best of shoemakers cannot know 
 where the shoe pinches, like him who wears it. 
 
 I have a statement before me, which may convince gentlemen that Go¬ 
 vernment can carry on all its operations with the same facility as banks and 
 merchants in the ordinary currency of the country. The operations of Go¬ 
 vernment are not so large, nor of such a nature, as to demand any different 
 or any better currency for their transactions, or compel them to resort to any 
 legislation exclusively for their supposed benefit. The statement to which 
 I refer is a memorandum of the business of only six of the twenty-three 
 banks in the city of New York, showing their business for ten consecutive 
 days, from the first to the tenth of December, inclusive. The sum total of 
 receipts, for that period, exceeds sixty millions two hundred thousand dol¬ 
 lars, and the sum total of payments also exceeds sixty millions; making 
 transactions exceeding the amount of one hundred and twenty millions, or 
 about twelve millions a day. On all these transactions there was received 
 and paid out in specie under two hundred thousand dollars, or something 
 less than twenty thousand dollars a day. The vast residue was received 
 and paid out without disturbing a single dollar of coin; and this whole bu¬ 
 siness completed easily in the banking period of five hours. Now, sir, if 
 the Subtreasurv system is necessary or judicious in conducting the moneyed 
 operations of Government, it must be equally wise in its application to the 
 moneyed affairs of individuals. Suppose, for a moment, that the $12,- 
 000,000 in question were daily weighed and counted in the six banks I have 
 mentioned, bagged or barrelled, and carted about the city, to be carted back 
 again probably to their original places of deposite. To all this trouble and 
 vexation must be added the loss of time, the liability of mistake in the count¬ 
 ing, the expense of transportation, and the risk of dishonesty in the carriers. 
 
 And when we reflect, Mr. Chairman, that these daily twelve millions of 
 dollars represent transactions with every State, and every depot of provisions 
 and merchandise in the Union, and with every commercial city, and with, 
 every quarter of the globe, we cannot but wonder at the simplicity and 
 cheapness of the contrivances by which the necessary transfers of value are 
 so readily effected; and we cannot but still more wonder at the utter folly 
 and ignorance which would withdraw the Government of this country from 
 the enjoyment or the recognition of their manifold advantages. 
 
 The specie basis of all these transactions does not exceed three millions 
 of dollars in'the vaults of the banks to which I have referred. The actual 
 basis is millions of property, which is passed from hand to hand by'the 
 symbols of credit and confidence in use among merchants. Now, this spe¬ 
 cie basis, by the Sublreasury act, is put under the control, or into the hands, 
 of the receiver of public moneys in the city of New York. He can abstract 
 
10 
 
 it from the banks, and pile it up in the Treasury of the United States. The 
 law makes it imperative on him to receive ii, and nothing else, in discharge 
 of the public dues, and to keep it after it is collected in his own coffers, and 
 to make his own payments in it. IVliat a state of things must this produce 
 in time of peace, at the season of the year when there is a large amount of 
 duties receivable. Why, sir, it makes gold and silver no longer a currency, 
 but an article of merchandise. Specie will derive a fictitious value from 
 the fact of there being large amounts wanted for the payment of duties at 
 (he custom house, which mint be paid, and for which gold and silver must 
 be got at all hazards. The law is inexorable; there can be no relief. 
 
 Look at the power that is thus given to a statute, that must have its 
 operation under any and all circumstances. The evil may be postponed, 
 by neutralizing evils. The curse of the Subtreasury may be averted by 
 wars, and the expenditures wars bring with them, and the necessity of 
 Treasury loans and Treasury notes; or the issue, in other words, of Govern¬ 
 ment paper, receivable in the payment of public dues. This course of 
 things may for a while disarm the Subtreasury of some of its mischief. But 
 sooner or later the mischief must come; and at that moment the Secretary 
 of the Treasury will hold in his hands the destinies of the trading com¬ 
 munity. 
 
 You have given to an act of yours a power, which it will inevitably one 
 day exercise, despotic over private rights,commercial interests, and the gen¬ 
 eral welfare—a despotism more monstrous and hideous than any other on 
 (he face of the globe, because there is no human discretion or human charity 
 which can be invoked to arrest its career of widespread ruin. It is only 
 your intervention which, can prevent such a calamity as I have foreshadowed, 
 and that must anticipate its coming. When the evil is at work, it will be 
 too late. 
 
 This act, sir, must and will be repealed. If we are wise we shall re¬ 
 peal it ourselves. Repealed it will be, for its practical inconvenience: re¬ 
 pealed, as a financial absurdity: repealed, as a relapse into the darkness of 
 barbarism: repealed, as at variance with the habits of our people, and a 
 statute insult to their intelligence: repealed, as a reproach to civilization and 
 the spirit of the age. Repealed it will be—if not by tile present or the next 
 Congress, at furthest by that which will greet the advent of a new adminis¬ 
 tration—an administration which I fondly hope will repair the evils, correct 
 the blunders, supply the deficiencies of the present, and exhibit more energy 
 ana devotion in works that may benefit and bless mankind, than the present 
 has exhibited in its works of overthrow, subjugation, and destruction. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I remember among the arguments urged against this sys¬ 
 tem in formci debates, was the suggestion that it created one currency for 
 the officeholders and another for the people, and tended to monopolize what 
 its authors called die better currency for the officeholders. Mow, sir, did 
 you ever see a pay day in the Departments 1 The time was when a clerk 
 took his wages in a bit of.paper, perhaps that he could put into his waistcoat 
 pocket, and which answered his purposes without any inconvenience. Now, 
 I am informed, his monthly or quarterly stipend is sent to every employe of 
 the Government in a canvass bag, which is kindly loaned him by the dis¬ 
 bursing officer to carry home his ponderous wages in. Each of these bags 
 is marked and numbered, and is labelled in conspicuous characters, “Bring 
 back the bag!" Mi. Chairman, I fancy I can see this interesting proces¬ 
 sion, on the first or last day of the month, as the case may be, wending 
 
11 
 
 their way from the respective Government buildings, each member of it 
 bearing his bag. They make the circuit-of the city, paying here and there 
 their little monthly bills, and soon find they have nothing left but their bags. 
 They unite again, in a melancholy procession, to replace their empty bags, 
 valued one cent each, in the Treasury of lire United States. The only ad¬ 
 vantage that has hitherto accrued to the officeholders from the introduction 
 of the Subtreasury has been the privilege of paying their debts in gold and 
 silver, and of a bringing back the bag.” The tradesmen who receive the 
 coin deposite a large amount of it forthwith in their banks, while some little 
 of it passes into dip general circulation of the country. 
 
 However, Mr. Chairman, it must be confessed, if we can ciedit the Sec¬ 
 retary of the Treasury, we are growing so immensely rich under the bene¬ 
 ficent operation of the new' tariff that W'e ought to submit to all these absurd¬ 
 ities without repining. 1 do suppose, sir, that no country ever became so 
 suddenly enriched in literally less than no lime by the operation of any le¬ 
 gislative act. Jack’s bean, in the nursery story, that climbed to die housetop 
 in a single night, need excite no further marvel in infant, minds. Fairy¬ 
 tales may be culled henceforth from die reports of our Secretaries of the 
 
 There occurs in the last annual report of the Secretary the following ex¬ 
 traordinary passage: ;£ The aggregate value of cotton, rice, wheat, rye, In¬ 
 dian corn, oats and barley, was, on theSOlh July, 1846, under the old tariff, 
 $493,331,906; and on the 1st December, 1846, when the new tariff went 
 into effect, $609,287,565—making an aggregate difference in the prices of 
 $115,955,659.” Here the implication is of course that this great increase 
 of value is the result of the prospective tariff. Mr. Walker, by this state¬ 
 ment, intends this, or he intends nothing but an attempt at. juggling and 
 deception too gross to deceive or juggle any body. True, it may be that a 
 short crop of cotton on this side die water , and a short crop of breadstulls on 
 the oilier side, have stimulated demand somewhat, partly real and partly 
 speculative, and created a rise in prices to some extent, but in no manner 
 or form connected with the new tariff or old tariff. 
 
 Why,sir,on the 1st of December, 1S45, when the old tariff was in opera¬ 
 tion, flour was worth one dollar and a half more per barrel than it was on 
 the 1st of December. 1846, when the new tariff commenced to operate. 
 Yes, sir, on that very last mcniionctl 1st of December, when the English 
 free trade was in operation, Hour, as shown by a table prepared from actual 
 sales by a flour dealer, was one dollar and eight cents a barrel less than it 
 has averaged for the last fourteen years. Was this the consequence of the 
 netv tariff? If I followed the implied reasoning of Mr. Walker, I should 
 say that il was; but, as long as my sanity is spared, I never shall run the 
 risk of losing the reputation of it by propounding any such absurdities. 
 
 But I must cite one more paragraph from Mr. Walker, pushing this mat¬ 
 ter a little further: “ Supposing,” says Mr. Walker, “ the agricultural pro- 
 ‘ ducts of the United Slates to have been of the value of Jiftcen hundred 
 ‘ millions of dollars, at New York prices, in July; and supposing other ar- 
 ' tides to have risen in price in the same proportion as those in the table, 
 ‘ the increase in value in December is equal to three hundred and fifty mil- 
 ' lions five hundred thousand dollars.” Here, surely, is an accession to the 
 national wealth—nearly four hundred millions of dollars in the space of four 
 months. And yet, sir, supposing Mr. Walker to be correct in his state¬ 
 ment—which, to be sure, is a matter of guesswork, mere idle gossip— and 
 
12 
 
 -ickat a small per cenlage of all this increase is realized from foreign mar¬ 
 kets, orforms any real addition to the national wealth! How trifling a 
 portion, comparatively, of all this produce, is exported. 'But Mr. Walker 
 himself seems to feel that he has been drawing rather a long bow in this 
 business, and “ supposes” another case for the edification of the President 
 and Congress. “ Supposing the average rise in prices to be equal to only 
 4 one half of what is slated in the table, the increase in value is equal to 
 4 $1765-50,000.” Even this, sir, is certainly a very large sum of money, 
 and it would take Mr. Walker’s clerks and receivers a long time to count it 
 over in hard coin; and, if the nation has been so largely enriched by the 
 anticipated benefits of Mr. Walker’s tariff, how doubly disgraceful to the 
 Administration is the impoverished condition of the public Treasury, and 
 the miserable condition of the national credit! The people are becoming 
 so very rich, while the Government is becoming bankrupt! And Mr. 
 Walker tells us, in this state of things, he wants always to keep on hand 
 four millions at least of specie, locked up in the Treasury. He is not the 
 first man who has made this use of gold and silver. We read in holy writ 
 of another “ unprofitable servant,” who was no wiser than Mr. Walker, 
 though we may sincerely hope that Mr. Walker may be more fortunate in 
 his fate. But, in spile of his predilection for coin, Mr. Walker, by his own 
 acts, is reduced to the miserable makeshift of Treasury notes; or, in other 
 words, mere paper post notes, sent out on a credit! There is not a bank 
 in the city of New York from which a loan at six per cent, could not be 
 procured. And yet the Treasury, which repudiates these institutions, and 
 pretends to establish for itself a better currency and a better credit , suffers 
 its paper to be hawked about at a discount, and is quoted daily in the public 
 prints at two or three per cent, below par. Yes,sir, with all this vast addi¬ 
 tion to the wealth of the people that Mr. Walker claims for his measures, in 
 spite of this one hundred and seventy-six millions of increase, his graceless 
 constituents refuse him the trifle of a two or three million tax upon tea and 
 coffee, though he tells them, with tears in his eyes, that he cannot possibly 
 get along without it. And, rich as we are growing, Mr. Walker proposes 
 to mortgage the fair and free domains of this great country to Dutch or 
 English money-lenders: to pledge die future revenues of this magnificent 
 empire to foreign capitalists, or to any body who will consent to take his 
 bonds. 
 
 Why, sir, foreign nations may well suppose us to be til imminent danger 
 of bankruptcy, repudiation, and every imaginable disaster and disgrace, 
 when the Secretary of the Treasury himself so far trifles with the credit and 
 honor of the country as to publish to the world that he could not negotiate 
 his loan on favorable terms, unless Congress would tax tea and coffee. And 
 when Congress, by a marked vote, refuse to grant him this indispensable 
 requisition^he proposes no substitute, but comes to us with a new demand 
 for three and twenty millions of dollars, which he himself has pronounced 
 to the world cannot be disposed of except on unfavorable terms. 
 
 And permit me to add, Mr. Chairman,it is to lie attributed somewhat to 
 this lauded tariff of 1S46, as well as to the Subtreasury which I have just 
 been considering, that Mr. Walker owes the difficulties which must embar¬ 
 rass the negotiation of his loan. Capitalists want to see clearly where the 
 money is to come from to pay before they lend. They are not so fond as 
 some of our friends are of operating in the dark. 
 
 We were told by a gentleman from Indiana, in the Oregon debate of last 
 
13 
 
 winter, that the western Democracy “ went it blind” on the Texas ques¬ 
 tion, in the expectation that their southern brethren would return the com¬ 
 pliment by going it blind for Oregon up to fifty-four-forty. I imagine that 
 the Texas question is not the only one in which those gentlemen “ went it 
 blind.” On this very tariH'they “went it blind,” as they will ere long 
 themselves discover. On the Sublreasury they “ went it blind,” and con¬ 
 tinue to go it in all their original blindness. Nor is this propensity confined 
 to (he members of the House. Looking to the Cabinet, we find (hat it is 
 still the story of the blind leading the blind, and we all know where this 
 march terminated. Mr. Marcy “ went it blind” when he published to the 
 world, a few days before Mr. Walker’s last public appeal to the money-lend¬ 
 ers in Wall street, that there would be no more troops called out for the 
 prosecution of this war. Mr. Walker “ went it blind” when he wrote his 
 letter to the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, staking his 
 financial success on the.passage of the tea and coffee tax. And, as for the 
 President himself, we all know that Santa Anna threw dust in his eyes! 
 
 The policy of the Administration, Mr. Chairman, seems to be a game of 
 cross purposes. Looking at the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, the 
 end and aim of Government seem to be to divert labot from manufactures to 
 agriculture. Immense estimates are presented of our agricultural products, 
 and of the vast accession to our national wealth by the increasing value or 
 prices of our cotton and breadstuff's. We are sent back to the soil. There 
 we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and grow rich by con¬ 
 suming ninety-five-hundredths, of our products within our own territory, 
 provided we pass them from one to another at considerable prices. But, 
 whilst we are to be an agricultural people, we are to indulge in expensive 
 wars of conquest, and to depreciate the value of our own lands and their pro¬ 
 ducts by -vast territorial accessions. To carry on wars, sir, we must be a 
 rich people. It is an expensive game for the country. We must build, 
 and create, and bring the aid of machinery and the steam engine to the 
 production of the means of war. A late popular English writer says, “ it 
 is the spinning jenny and the steam engine that we must look to as the true 
 moving powers of our fleets and armies, and the chief support also of a 
 long-continued agricultural prosperity.” 
 
 Nations purely agricultural are, and must continue to be, comparatively 
 poor; and, if they would be prosperous, they must enjoy permanent and un¬ 
 interrupted peace. Invincible while acting on the defensive, they must en¬ 
 tertain no scheme of aggrandizement—no project of aggression. Their cit¬ 
 izens cannot be withdrawn from their daily labors. They cannot reap in 
 the autumn when they have not sown in the seed-time, and watered and 
 watched in the summer. Personal and constant attention must be given to 
 their crops, and the whole process must be conducted by the slow toil of 
 human hands. From men devoted to such pursuits you cannot takfe the 
 means of war, without robbing them of the means of life. True it is that 
 our brilliant Secretary informed the Senate, in his lecture —for it can haidly 
 be called a report—under date of August last, that the operation of the tariff 
 adds nothing to “ the aggregate wealth of the country, because it does not 
 increase labor." Now, sir, it is the labor-saving machinery which the tar¬ 
 iff puts in operation—by the aid of the winds, the waters, or the steam en¬ 
 gine, doing the labor of a thousand bands by the guidance of a single pair, 
 that multiplies to an extent incalculable the productive labor, and conse¬ 
 quently (he aggregate wealth of nations. 
 
14 
 
 Strange it is, and almost without parallel in The annals of political infat¬ 
 uation, that, at the very time the country has the most need of its wealth; 
 at the very lime, of all others, when it is most necessary to stimulate manu¬ 
 facturing production, and augment the national revenue; at the very time 
 it is most essential to nurse all our economical resources, to cherish the na¬ 
 tional credit to the utmost, and increase the facilities of financial operations, 
 individual and national, the Administration should descend upon the coun¬ 
 try with a series of measures calculated only to cripple, embarrass, and im¬ 
 poverish it. 
 
 You disturb the commercial woild by a pretended adoption of a Govern¬ 
 ment currency exclusively metallic, and the actual issue of mere Govern¬ 
 ment paper. You venture upon an experimental tariff of revenue, substi¬ 
 tuting it for one of known and tried sufficiency, and provide for your extra 
 expenditures in the conduct of a foreign war bv the mortgage of vour na¬ 
 tional domain. And as to this aimless and destructive war, which was be¬ 
 gun Heaven only knows why, and which will be ended Heaven only knows 
 how, or when, or on what terms, no two members of the Cabinet. I pre¬ 
 sume. agree upon the questions which the termination of this war involves. 
 One would be satisfied with indemnity from a nation which is unable to 
 pay: another would like soil with slavery, and a third without it. One 
 would go to the Rio Grande; another would take all west and north of a 
 line drawn from the month of the Rio Grande to the Pacific ; and a third 
 would be satisfied with nothing short of a revel in the halls of the Montezu- 
 mas, and the territory down to the isthmus. And it is to the prosecution of 
 such a warfare that all other interests, public and private, are to be sacrificed. 
 Our rivers and harbors must go unprotected and unimproved,that Mr. Polk 
 may carry on his war. We must continue to pay tribute to English steam¬ 
 ers for carrying our letters and passengers across tire Atlantic and the world 
 over, because the Postmaster General cannot see his way clear to advise any 
 recognition or aid to private enterprise in tin's behalf. Money honestly due 
 for nearly half a century, on the score of French spoliations, must be with¬ 
 held from its rightful owners, because it is wanted "to help along Mr. Polk’s 
 war. Private claimants of every name and nature are turned away from 
 your Departments, and turned away with neglect, if not insolence, from this 
 Hall; and we cannot even hear, much less consider their demands, because 
 Mr. Polk wants their money to carry 7 on his war! And with what fairness, 
 Mr. Chairman, can this military chieftain of ours, as he has done in the an¬ 
 nual message, in one breath contend that we have good cause of war against 
 Mexico for not paying her debts, and in the next advise Congress to with¬ 
 hold the paying of our own debts, in order that we may prosecute this war! 
 
 And by this policy, Mr. Chairman, in what relation are we placing our¬ 
 selves to the other nations of the earth? What is England about, while 
 we are sacrificing all our industrial and national interests to this unnecessary 
 warfare? Doing as she always does—lending a helping hand to her people 
 in all quarters ; letting in wheat and breadsluffs to feed the starving popu¬ 
 lation of Ireland; and' cozening Mr. Walker into the relief of Manchester 
 and Birmingham, by putting the screws upon Providence and Lowell; and 
 into the aid of Newcastle and Wales, at the expense of Maryland and 
 Pennsylvania. It was the failure of the potato crop to the amount of se¬ 
 venty-five millions of dollars, aud the dangers of dealing with a famished 
 population, diat brought about all this seeming complaisance which theEn, 
 srlish Government and the English journals extend to our democratic Presi, 
 
dent and Secretary, by their remedial measures of relaxation and repeal. 
 England is not growing rich—as we are tinder Mr. Walker’s auspices—by 
 merely marking up the price of her goods, bill by improving her machinery 
 and pushing her manufactures; opening, by steam communication, new 
 markets for them in all quarters of the globe; and bringing to the aid of 
 her merchants, and of her skilful and enterprising citizens, the favor and 
 encouragement, of public protection and patronage. It is thus that she has 
 suddenly become the great steam-carrier of the mail and of travellers in 
 every quarter of the civilized world; and the world, consequently, has be- ' 
 COMIC dependant upon her for locomotion and intelligence. Every letter, 
 every traveller, contributes towards the support of this enlightened and libe¬ 
 ral police, whichyearlv adds immensely to England's wealth and England’s 
 power. ' Would to God that wc might profit by her wisdom! 
 
 But, after all, Mr. Chairman, stripped of its disguises, what is this mea¬ 
 sure hut a clumsy attempt, on (lie part of the Secretary, to do away, as far 
 as possible, tiic evils of one bad act through the medium of another bad 
 act. It is a mere temporary repeal, to all intents ami purposes, of the Sub- 
 treasury, by the passage of a bill which renders ii practically inoperative 
 and unavailing. It is extending our metallic currency by the issue of that 
 worst possible of “rag money,” its our Democratic friends rejoiced at one 
 time in calling it—Government paper. The evil of the Sublrcasiuy re¬ 
 coils upon tlie heads of its inventors, and they now petition us to relieve 
 •them from its disastrous consequences—not in a fair, open, and honorable 
 manner, but covertly and by a trick. Instead of proposing manfully to 
 repeal that oppressive and absurd measure, and relieve the country forever 
 from (be curse of it, Mr. Walker proposes to flood the land with §28,000,- 
 000 of treasury paper, in denominations as small as fifty dollar bills. 
 
 But what will be the immediate effect of this immense issue of paper 
 money? Ten millions or so of the issue the country may possibly bear 
 without injurious effects; but as you augment the supply beyond this amount, 
 will come the risk of depreciation; and who will be the sufferers? Already, 
 if reports are true, have our poor soldiers been the losers of some 10 to 15 
 per cent, of their hard-earned wages in the exchange of treasury paper now 
 issued for their necessities, and we shall hardly improve their value by in¬ 
 creasing (he issue $23,000,000 more. In the passage of Ibis bill the pre¬ 
 dictions of the Opposition are all realized. The specie Subtreasmy act is 
 about to form the basis of an immense Government-paper bank, which 
 will lend, by its own issues, to create an inflated value of properly, and 
 lead to a future revulsion of distress and ruin. 
 
 And wlrat will he the situation of Government a year hence 1 ) If the war 
 continues, as it no doubt will, and continues to be as unwisely managed at 
 headquarters as it has been, at least a loan of fifty millions of dollars more 
 will be required. Willi a floating paper debt already of $28,000,000, 
 what must then take place? Will you add this $50,000,000, too, to your' 
 paper currency? Or will you compel the Administration to counsel together 
 for tlie welfare of the countrv, rather than for the preservation of mere