SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 AT NIBLO'S SALOON, IN NEW-YORK, 
 
 ON THE 15th MARCH, 1837. 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
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lEx IGtbrtfl 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 When you leave, please leave this hook 
 
 Because it has heen said 
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SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED BV 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 AT N1BL0 S SALOON, IN NEW- YORK, 
 ON THE 15th MARCH, 1837. 
 
 The proceedings and correspondence which preceded the delivery of 
 the speech now published are as follows : — 
 
 At a meeting of the political friends of the Hon. Daniel Webster, 
 held at Euterpian Hall, in the city of New- York, on Tuesday evening, 
 the 21st February, 1837, James Kent was called to the chair, and 
 Hiram Ketchum and Gabriel P. Dissosway were appointed secretaries. 
 
 The object of the meeting having been explained, the following 
 resolutions were, on motion, duly seconded and unanimously adopted. 
 
 Resolved, That this meeting has heard with deep concern of the in- 
 tention of the Hon. Daniel Webster to resign his seat in the Senate of 
 the United States at the close of the present session of Congress, or 
 early in the next session. 
 
 Resolved, That while we regret the resignation of Mr. Webster, it 
 would be most unreasonable to censure the exercise of his right to seek 
 repose, after fourteen years of unremitted, zealous, and highly distin- 
 guished labours in the Congress of the United States ; but we indulge 
 the hope that the nation will, at no distant day, again profit by his ripe 
 experience as a statesman and his extensive knowledge of public affairs, 
 by his wisdom in council and his eloquence in debate. 
 
 Resolved, That in the judgment of this meeting there is none among 
 the living or the dead who has given to the country more just or able 
 exposition of the Constitution of the United States ; none who has en- 
 forced, with more lucid and impassioned eloquence, the necessity and 
 importance of the preservation of the Union, or exhibited more zeal or 
 ability in defending the Constitution from foes without the government 
 and foes within it, than Daniel Webster. 
 
 Resolved, That there is no part of our widely-extended country mo r © 
 deeply interested in the preservation of the Union than the city of 
 New -York ; her motto should be " Union and Liberty, now and for ever. 
 
2 
 
 one and inseparable," and her gratitude should be shown to the states- 
 man who first gave utterance to this sentiment. 
 
 Resolved, That David B. Ogden, Peter Stagg, Jonathan Thompson, 
 James Brown, Philip Hone, Samuel Stevens, Robert Smith, Joseph 
 Tucker, Peter Sharpe, Egbert Benson, Hugh Maxwell, Peter A. Jay, 
 Aaron Clark, Ira B. Wheeler, William W. Todd, Seth Grosvenor, 
 Simeon Draper, Jr., Wm. Aspinwall, Nathaniel W T eed, Jonathan Good 
 hue, Caleb Barstow, Hiram Ketchum, Gabriel P. Dissosway, Henry K. 
 Bogert, James Kent, Wm. S. Johnson, and John W. Leavitt, Esqs., be 
 a committee authorized and empowered to receive the Hon. Daniel 
 Webster on his return from Washington, and make known to him, in 
 the form of an address or otherwise, the sentiments which this meet- 
 ing, in common with the friends of the Union and the Constitution in 
 this city, entertain for the services which he has performed for the 
 country ; that the committee correspond with Mr. Webster, and ascer- 
 tain the time when his arrival may be expected, and give public notice 
 of the same, together with the order of proceedings which may be 
 adopted under these resolutions. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions, signed by the Chairman and Secre- 
 taries, be published when the committee shall notify the public of the 
 expected arrival of Mr. Webster. 
 
 JAMES KENT, Chairman. 
 
 Hiram Ketchum, > Secretaries. 
 
 Gabriel P. Dissosway, J 
 
 New- York, March 1, 1837. 
 Sir — It having been currently reported that you have signified your 
 intention to resign your seat in the Senate of the United States, a num- 
 ber of the friends of the Union and the Constitution in this city were 
 convened on the evening of the 21st of last month, to devise measures 
 whereby they might signify to you the sentiments which they, in com- 
 mon with all the Whigs in this city, entertain for the eminent services 
 you have rendered to the country. At a meeting the Hon. James Kent 
 was called to the chair, and resolutions, a copy of which I enclose you, 
 were adopted, not only with entire unanimity, but with a feeling of 
 warm and hearty concurrence. On behalf of the committee appointed 
 under one of these resolutions, I now have the honour to address you. 
 It will be gratifying to the committee to learn from you at what time 
 you expect to arrive in this city on your return to Massachusetts ; if in- 
 formed of the time of your arrival, it will afford the committee pleasure 
 to meet you, and, in behalf of the Whigs of New-York, to welcome you, 
 and to present you, in a more extended form than the resolutions pre- 
 sent, their views of your public services. I am instructed by the com- 
 mittee to say, that whether you shall choose to appear among us as a 
 public man or as a private citizen, you will be warmly greeted by every 
 sound friend of that Constitution for which you have been so distin- 
 guished a champion. Should your resolution to resign your seat in the 
 Senate be relinquished, you will, in the opinion of the committee, im- 
 pose new obligations upon the friends of the Union and the Constitution. 
 I have the honour to be, very truly, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 D. B. OGDEN. 
 
 Hon. Daniel Webster, Washington. 
 
3 
 
 Washington, March 4th, 1837. 
 
 My dear Sir — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 letter of the 2d instant, communicating the resolutions at a meeting of a 
 number of political friends in New-York. 
 
 The character of these resolutions, and the kindness of the senti- 
 ments expressed in your letter, have filled me with unaffected gratitude. 
 
 I feel, at the same time, how little deserving any political services of 
 mine are of such commendation from such a source. To the discharge 
 of the duties of my public situation, sometimes both anxious and diffi- 
 cult, I have devoted time and labour without reserve ; and have made 
 sacrifices of personal and private convenience not always unimportant. 
 These, together with integrity of purpose and fidelity, constitute, I am 
 conscious, my only claim to the public regard : and for all these I find 
 myself richly compensated by proofs of approbation such as your com- 
 munication affords. 
 
 My desire to relinquish my seat in the Senate for the two years still 
 remaining of the term for which I was chosen, would have been car- 
 ried into execution at the close of the present session of the Senate, had 
 not circumstances existed which, in the judgment of others, rendered 
 it expedient to defer the fulfilment of that purpose for the present. 
 
 It is my expectation to be in New- York early in the week after next ; 
 and it will give me pleasure to meet the political friends who have ten- 
 dered me this kind and respectful attention in any manner most agree- 
 able to them. 
 
 I pray you to accept for yourself, and the other gentlemen of the com- 
 mittee, my highest regard. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 To D. B. Ogden, Esq., New-York. 
 
 At a meeting of the committee, appointed under the above resolution, 
 Philip Hone, Robert Smith, John W. Leavitt, Egbert Benson, Ira B. 
 Wheeler, Caleb Barstow, Simeon Draper, Jr., and Win. Samuel Johnson, 
 Esqrs., were appointed a sub-committee, to make arrangements for the 
 reception of Mr. Webster. The committee have corresponded with 
 Mr. Webster, and ascertained that he will leave Philadelphia on the 
 morning of Wednesday next — he will be met by the committee, and, on 
 landing at Whitehall, at about 2 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, 
 will thence be conducted by the committee, accompanied by such other 
 citizens as choose to join them, to a place hereafter to be designated. 
 In the evening, at half past six o'clock, he will be addressed by the 
 committee, in a public meeting of citizens, at Niblo's Saloon. 
 
 D. B. OGDEN, Chairman. 
 
 On the subsequent day, March 15th, the committee appointed for that 
 purpose met Mr. Webster at Amboy, and accompanied him to the city, 
 where he was met, on landing, by a very numerous assemblage of citi- 
 zens, who thronged to see the distinguished senator, and give him a 
 warm welcome ; after landing, he was attended by the committee and a 
 numerous cavalcade through Broadway, crowded with the most respect- 
 able citizens, to lodgings provided for him at the American Hotel. Here 
 he made a short address to the assembled citizens, and in the evening 
 was accompanied by the committee to Xiblo's Saloon. One of the lar- 
 gest meetings ever held in the city of New- York assembled in the Sa- 
 loon, and at half past six o'clock was called to order by Aaron Clark; 
 David B. Ogden was called to the chair as President of the meeting ; 
 Robert C. Cornell, Jonathan Goodhue, Joseph Tucker, and Nathaniel 
 
4 
 
 Weed were nominated Vice-Presidents ; and Joseph Hoxie and George 
 S. Robbins Secretaries. 
 
 After the meeting was formed, Philip Hone introduced Mr. Webster 
 with a few appropriate remarks, and he was received with the most en- 
 thusiastic greetings. Mr. Ogden then delivered to him the following 
 address : — 
 
 " On behalf of a committee, appointed at a meeting of a number of 
 your personal and political friends in this city, I have now the honour 
 of addressing you. 
 
 " It has afforded the committee, and, I may add, all your political friends, 
 unmingled pleasure to learn that you have, at least for the present, re- 
 linquished the intention which I know you had formed of resigning 
 your seat in the Senate of the United States. While expressing their 
 feelings upon this change in your determination, the committee cannot 
 avoid congratulating the country that your public services are not yet 
 to be lost to it, and that the great champion of the Constitution and of 
 the Union is still to continue in the field, upon which he has earned so 
 many laurels, and has so nobly asserted and defended the rights and lib- 
 erties of the People. 
 
 " The efforts made by you, and the honourable men with whom you 
 have acted in the Senate, to resist executive encroachments upon the 
 other departments of the government, will ever be remembered with 
 gratitude by the friends of American liberty. That these efforts were 
 not more successful, we shall long have reason to remember and regret. 
 The administration of General Jackson is fortunately at an end. Its ef- 
 fects upon the Constitution and upon the commercial prosperity of the 
 country are not at an end. Without attempting to review the leading 
 measures of his administration, every man engaged in business in New- 
 York feels, most sensibly, that his experiment upon the currency has 
 produced the evils which you foretold it would produce. It has brought 
 distress, to an extent never before experienced, upon the men of enter- 
 prise and of small capital, and has put all the primary power in the hands 
 of a few great capitalists. 
 
 " Upon the Senate our eyes and our hopes are fixed ; we know that 
 you and your political friends are in a minority in that body, but we 
 know that in that minority are to be found great talents, great experi- 
 ence, great patriotism, and we look fcyr great and continued exertions to 
 maintain the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties of this people. And 
 we take this opportunity of expressing our entire confidence, that what- 
 ever men can do in a minority will be done in the Senate to relieve 
 the country from the evils under which she is now labouring, and to 
 save her from being sacrificed by folly, corruption, or usurpation. 
 
 " It gives me, sir, pleasure to be the organ of the committee to ex- 
 press to you their great respect for your talents, their deep sense of the 
 importance of your public services, and their gratification to learn that 
 you will still continue in the Senate." 
 
 To this address Mr. Webster replied in the following 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 "WE HAVE ONE COUNTRY— ONE CONSTITUTION 
 —ONE DESTINY." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, and Fellow-Citizens : — 
 
 It would be idle in me to affect to be indifferent to the cir- 
 cumstances under which I have now the honour of addressing you. 
 
 I find mvself in the Commercial Metropolis of the Continent, 
 in the midst of a vast assembly of intelligent men, drawn from 
 all the classes, professions, and pursuits of life. 
 
 And you have been pleased, Gentlemen, to meet me, in this 
 imposing manner, and to offer me a warm and cordial welcome to 
 your city. I thank you. I feel the full force and importance 
 of this manifestation of your regard. In the highly flattering res- 
 olutions which invited me here, in the respectability of this vast 
 multitude of my Fellow- Citizens, and in the approbation and 
 hearty good-will which you have here manifested, I feel cause 
 for profound and grateful acknowledgment. 
 
 To every individual of this meeting, therefore, I would now 
 most respectfully make that acknowledgment ; and with every 
 one, as if with hands joined in mutual greeting, I reciprocate 
 friendly salutation, respect, and good wishes. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, although I am well assured of your personal 
 regard, I cannot fail to know that the times, the political and 
 commercial condition of things which exists among us, and an 
 intelligent spirit, awakened to new activity and a new degree of 
 an-iety, have mainly contributed to fill these avenues and crowd 
 these halls. At a moment of difficulty and of much alarm, you 
 come here, as Whigs of New-York, to meet one whom you sup- 
 pose to be bound to you by common principles and common 
 sentiments, and pursuing with you a common object. Gentle- 
 men, I am proud to admit this community of our principles and 
 this identity of our object. You are for the Constitution of the 
 Country ; so am I. You are for the Union of the States ; so am 
 I. You are for equal laws, for the equal rights of all men, for 
 constitutional and just restraints on power, for the substance and 
 not the shadowy image only of popular institutions, for a Govern- 
 ment which has liberty for its spirit and soul, as well as in its 
 forms; and so am I. You feel, that if in warm party times the 
 Executive Power is in hands distinguished fur boldness, for great 
 success, for perseverance, and other qualities which strike men's 
 
6 
 
 minds strongly, there is danger of derangement of the Powers 
 of Government, danger of a new division of those powers, in 
 which the Executive is likely to obtain the Lion's part ; and dan- 
 ger of a state of things in which the more popular branches of 
 the Government, instead of being guards and sentinels against 
 any encroachments from the Executive, seek, rather, support from 
 its patronage, safety against the complaints of the people in its 
 ample and all-protecting favour, and refuge in its power; and so 
 I feel, and so I have felt, for eight long and anxious years. 
 
 You believe that a very efficient and powerful cause, in the pro- 
 duction of the evils which now fall on the industrious and com- 
 mercial classes of the community, is the derangement of the cur- 
 rency, the destruction of exchanges, and the unnatural and un- 
 necessary misplacement of the specie of the country, by unau- 
 thorized and illegal Treasury orders. So do I believe. I pre- 
 dicted all this from the beginning, and from before the beginning. 
 I predicted it all last spring, when that was attempted to be done 
 by law which was afterward done by executive authority ; and 
 from the moment of the exercise of that executive authority to the 
 present time, I have both foreseen and seen the regular progress 
 of things under it, from inconvenience and embarrassment, to 
 pressure, loss of confidence, disorder, and bankruptcies. 
 
 Gentlemen, I mean on this occasion to speak my sentiments 
 freely on the great topics of the day. I have nothing to conceal^ 
 and shall therefore conceal nothing. In regard to political senti- 
 ments, purposes, or objects, there is nothing in my heart which I 
 am ashamed of ; I shall throw it all open, therefore, to you and to 
 all men. [That is right, said some one in the crowd — let us have 
 it — with no non-committal..] Yes, my friend (continued Mr. W.% 
 without non-committal or evasion* without barren generalities or 
 empty phrase, without if or but, without a single touch, in all I 
 say, bearing the oracular character of an Inaugural, I shall on 
 this occasion s-peak my mind plainly, freely, and independently, 
 to men who are just as free to concur or not to concur in my 
 sentiments as I am to utter them. I think you are entitled to 
 hear my opinions freely and frankly spoken ; but I freely acknowl- 
 edge that you are still more clearly entitled to retain and maintain 
 your own opinions, however they may differ or agree with mine. 
 
 It is true, Gentlemen, that I have contemplated the relinquish- 
 ment of my seat in the Senate for the residue of the term, now 
 two years, for which I was chosen. This resolution was not 
 taken from disgust or discouragement, although some tilings have 
 certainly happened which might excite both those feelings. But 
 in popular governments, men must not suffer themselves to be 
 permanently disgusted by occasional exhibitions of political 
 harlequinism, or deeply discouraged,' although their efforts to 
 awaken the people to what they deem the dangerous tendency of 
 public measures be not crowned with immediate success. It was 
 
7 
 
 altogether from other causes and other considerations, that, after 
 an uninterrupted service of fourteen or fifteen years, I naturally 
 desired a respite. But those whose opinions I am bound to re- 
 spect saw objections to a present withdrawal from Congress ; 
 and I have yielded my own strong desire to their convictions of 
 what the public good requires. 
 
 Gentlemen, in speaking here on the subjects which now so 
 much interest the community, I wish, in the outset, to disclaim 
 all personal disrespect towards individuals. He whose character 
 and fortune have exercised such a decisive influence on our poli- 
 tics for eight years, has now retired from public station. I pur- 
 sue him with no personal reflections, no reproaches. Between 
 him and myself there has always existed a respectful personal 
 intercourse. Moments have existed, indeed, critical and de- 
 cisive upon the general success of his Administration, in which 
 he has been pleased to regard my aid as not altogether unimpor- 
 tant. I now speak of him respectfully as a distinguished sol- 
 dier, as one who, in that character, has done the Slate much ser- 
 vice ; as a man, too, of strong and decided character, of unsub- 
 dued resolution and perseverance in whatever he undertakes. 
 In speaking of his civil administration, I speak without censori- 
 ousness or harsh imputation of motives ; 1 wish him health and 
 happiness in his retirement ; but I must still speak as I think of 
 his public measures, and of their general bearing and tendency, 
 not only on the present interests of the country, but also on the 
 well being and security of the Government itself. 
 
 There are, however, some topics of a less urgent present ap- 
 plication and importance, upon which I wish to say a few words 
 before I advert to those which are more immediately connected 
 with the present distressed state of things. 
 
 My learned and highly valued friend (Mr. Ogden), who has 
 addressed me in your behalf, has been kindly pleased to speak of 
 my political career as being marked by a freedom from local in- 
 terests and prejudices, and a devotion to liberal and comprehen- 
 si.e views of public policy. 
 
 I will not say that this compliment is deserved. I will only 
 say that I have earnestly endeavoured to deserve it. Gentlemen, 
 the General Government, to the extent of its power, is national. 
 It is not consolidated, it does not embrace all powers of Gov- 
 ernment. On the contrary, it is delegated, restrained, strictly 
 limited. 
 
 But what powers it does possess, it possesses for the general, 
 not for any partial or local good. It extends over a vast territory, 
 embracing now six-and-twenty States, with interests various, but 
 not irreconcilable, infinitely diversified, but capable of being 
 all blended into political harmony. 
 
 He, however, who would produce this harmony must survey 
 the whole field, as if all parts were as interesting to himself as 
 
8 
 
 they are to others, and with that generous patriotic feeling, 
 prompter and better than the mere dictates of cool reason, which 
 leads him to embrace the whole with affectionate regard, as con- 
 stituting, altogether, that object which he is so much bound to 
 respect, to defend, and to love — his Country. We have around 
 us, and more or less within the influence and protection of the 
 General Government, all the great interests of Agriculture, Nav 
 igation, Commerce, Manufactures, the Fisheries, and the Me 
 chanic Arts. The duties of the Government, then, certainly ex- 
 tend over all this territory, and embrace all these vast interests. 
 We have a maritime frontier, a seacoast of many thousand miles ; 
 and while no one doubts that it is the duty of Government to de- 
 fend this coast by suitable military preparations, there are those 
 who yet suppose that the powers of Government stop at this 
 point ; and that, as to works of peace and works of improvement, 
 they are beyond our constitutional limits. I have ever thought 
 otherwise. Congress has a right, no doubt, to declare w r ar, and 
 to raise armies and navies ; and it has necessarily the right to 
 build fortifications and batteries, to protect the coast from the ef- 
 fects of war. But Congress has authority also, and it is its duty 
 to regulate Commerce, and it has the whole power of collecting 
 duties on imports and tonnage. It must have ports and harbours, 
 ^nd dockyards also, for its navies. Very early in the history of 
 the Government, it was decided by Congress, on the report of a 
 highly respectable committee, that the transfer by the States to 
 Congress of the power of collecting tonnage and other duties, 
 and the grant of the authority to regulate Commerce, charged 
 Congress, necessarily, with the duty of maintaining such piers, 
 and wharves, and lighthouses, and of making such improvements 
 as might have been expected to be done by the States, if they 
 had retained the usual means, by retaining the power of collect- 
 ing duties on imports. The States, it was admitted, had parted 
 with this power; and the duty of protecting and facilitating Com- 
 merce by these means, had passed, along with this power, into 
 other hands. I have never hesitated, therefore, when the state 
 of the Treasury would admit, to vote for reasonable appropria- 
 tions for Breakwaters, Lighthouses, Piers, Harbours, and sim- 
 ilar improvements on any part of the whole Atlantic Coast, or the 
 Gulf of Mexico from Maine to Louisiana. 
 
 But how stands the inland frontier? How is it along the 
 vast lakes, and the mighty rivers of the North and West ? Do 
 our Constitutional rights and duties terminate when the water 
 ceases to be salt? or do they exist in full vigour on the shores 
 of these Inland Seas ? I never could doubt about this ; and yet, 
 Gentlemen, I remember even to "have participated in a warm de- 
 bate in the Senate some years ago, upon the Constitutional right 
 of Congress to make an appropriation for a Pier in the harbour 
 of Buffalo. What ! make a Harbour at Buffalo, where nature 
 
g 
 
 never made any, and where, therefore, it was never intended any 
 ever should be made ? Take money from the people to run 
 out piers from the sandy shores of Lake Eric, or deepen the 
 channels of her shallow rivers ? Where was the Constitutional 
 uithority for this ? Where would such strides of power stop? 
 How long would the Stales have any power at all left, if their 
 territory might be ruthlessly invaded for such unhallowed pur- 
 poses, or how long would the people have any money in their 
 pockets, if the Government of the United States might tax them 
 at pleasure for such extravagant projects as these ? Piers, 
 wharves, harbours, and breakwaters in the lakes ! These argu- 
 ments, Gentlemen, however earnestly put forth heretofore, do not 
 strike us with great power at the present day, if we stand on 
 the shores of Lake Erie, and see hundreds of vessels, with valu- 
 able cargoes, and thousands of valuable lives, moving on its 
 waters, with few shelters from the storm but havens created or 
 made useful by the aid of Government. These great lakes, 
 stretching aw r ay many thousands of miles, not in a straight line, 
 but with turns and deflexions, as if designed to reach, by water 
 communication, the greatest possible number of important points, 
 through a region of vast extent, cannot but arrest the attention of 
 any one who looks upon the map. They lie connected, but va- 
 riously placed ; and interspersed, as if with studied variety of 
 form and direction, over that part of the country. They were 
 made for man, and admirably adapted for his use and convenience. 
 Looking, Gentlemen, over our whole country, comprehending in 
 our survey the Atlantic coast, with its thick population, advanced 
 agriculture, its extended commerce, its manufactures, and me- 
 chanic arts, its varieties of communication, its wealth, and its 
 general improvements ; and looking, then, to the interior, to the 
 immense tracts of fresh, fertile, and cheap lands, bounded by so 
 many lakes, and watered by so many magnificent rivers, let me 
 ask if such a map was ever before presented to the eye of any 
 sU tesman as the theatre for the exercise of his wisdom and pat- 
 riotism ? And let me ask, too, if any man is fit to act a part on 
 such a theatre who does not comprehend the whole of it within 
 the scope of his policy, and embrace it all as his country ? 
 
 Again, Gentlemen, we are one in respect to the glorious Con- 
 stitution under which we live. We are all united in the great 
 brotherhood of American Liberty. Descending from the same 
 ancestors, bred in the same school, taught, in infancy, to imbibe 
 the same general political sentiments, Americans all, by birth, 
 education, and principle, what but a narrow mind, or woful igno- 
 rance, or besotted selfishness, or prejudice ten times ten times 
 blinded, can lead any of us to regard the citizens of any part of 
 the country as strangers and aliens ? 
 
 The solemn truth, moreover, is before us, that a common po- 
 litical fate attends us all. 
 
10 
 
 Under the present Constitution, wisely and conscientiously ad- 
 ministered, all are safe, happy, and renowned. The measure of 
 our country's fame may nil all our breasts. It is fame enough 
 for us all to partake in her glory, if we will carry her character 
 onward to its true destiny. But if the system is broken, its frag- 
 ments must fall alike on all. Not only the cause of American 
 Liberty, but the grand cause of Liberty, throughout the whole 
 earth, depends, in a great measure, on upholding the Constitution 
 and Union of these States. If shattered and destroyed, no matter 
 by what cause, the peculiar and cherished idea of United Ameri- 
 can Liberty will be no more for ever. There may be free States, 
 it is possible, when there shall be separate States. There may 
 be many loose, and feeble, and hostile confederacies, where there 
 is now one great and united confederacy. But the noble idea of 
 United American Liberty, of our Liberty, such as our fathers 
 established it, will be extinguished for ever. Fragments and 
 severed columns of the edifice may be found remaining ; and mel- 
 ancholy and mournful ruins will they be ; the august temple it- 
 self will be prostrate in the dust. Gentlemen, the citizens of this 
 republic cannot sever their fortunes. A common fate awaits us. 
 In the honour of upholding, or in the disgrace of undermining the 
 Constitution, we shall all necessarily partake. Let us, then, stand 
 by the Constitution as it is, and by our country as it is, one, 
 united, and entire ; let it be a truth engraven on our hearts, let it 
 be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, 
 that we have one Country, one Constitution, one Destiny. 
 
 Gentlemen, of our interior administration, the public lands con- 
 stitute a highly important part. This is a subject of great in- 
 terest, and it ought to attract much more attention than it has 
 hitherto received, especially from the people of the Atlantic States. 
 The public lands are public property. They belong to the peo- 
 ple of all the States. A vast portion of them is composed of ter- 
 ritories, which were ceded, by individual States, to the United 
 States, after the close of the Revolutionary War, and before the 
 adoption of the present Constitution. The history of these ces- 
 sions, and the reasons for making them, are familiar. Some of 
 the Old Thirteen possessed large tracts of unsettled lands within 
 their chartered limits. The Revolution had established their title 
 to these lands , and as the Revolution had been brought about by 
 the common treasure and the common blood of all the colonies, 
 it was thought not unreasonable that these unsettled lands should 
 be transferred to the United States, to pay the debt created by 
 the war, and afterward to remain as a fund for the use of all the 
 States. This is the well-known origin of the title possessed by 
 the United States to lands northwest of the river Ohio. 
 
 By Treaties with France and Spain, Louisiana and Florida, 
 with many millions of acres of public unsold land, have been 
 since acquired. The cost of these acquisitions was paid, of 
 
11 
 
 course, by the General Government, and was thus a charge upon 
 the whole people. The public lands, therefore, all and singular, 
 are national property ; granted to the United States, purchased 
 by the United States, paid for by all the People of the United 
 States. 
 
 The idea that when a new state is created, the public lands 
 lying within her Territory become the property of such new 
 State in consequence of her sovereignty, is loo preposterous for 
 serious refutation. Such notions have heretofore been advanced 
 in Congress, but nobody has sustained them. They were re- 
 jected and abandoned, although one cannot say whether they may 
 not be revived, in consequence of recent propositions which have 
 been made in the Senate. The new States are admitted on ex- 
 press conditions, recognising, to the fullest extent, the right of 
 the United States to the public lands within their borders ; and 
 it is no more reasonable to contend that some indefinite idea of 
 State sovereignty overrides all these stipulations, and makes the 
 lands the property of the States, against the provisions and con- 
 ditions of their own Constitution, and the Constitution of the 
 United States, than it would be that a similar doctrine entitled the 
 State of New-York to the moneys collected at the Custom House 
 in this City ; since it is no more inconsistent with sovereignty 
 that one Government should hold lands, for the purpose of sale, 
 within the territory of another, than it is that it should lay and 
 collect t-axes and duties within such Territory. Whatever ex- 
 travagant pretensions may have been set up heretofore, there 
 was not, I suppose, an enlightened man in the whole West who 
 insisted on any such right in the States, when the proposition to 
 cede the lands to the States was made in the late session of 
 Congress. The public lands being, therefore, the common prop- 
 erty of all the people of all the States, I shall never consent to 
 give them away to particular States, or to dispose of them other- 
 wise than for the general good, and the general use of the whole 
 G untry. 
 
 I felt bound, therefore, on the occasion just alluded to, to resist, 
 at the threshold, a proposition to cede the public lands to the 
 States in Which they lie, on certain conditions. 
 
 I very much regretted the introduction of such a measure, as 
 its effect must be, I fear, only to agitate what was well settled, 
 and to disturb that course of proceeding in regard to the public 
 lands which forty years of experience have shown to be so wise 
 and so satisfactory in its operation, both to the People of the old 
 States and to those of the new. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, although the public lands are not to be given 
 away or ceded to particular States, a very liberal policy in regard 
 to them ought undoubtedly to prevail. Such a policy has pre- 
 vailed, and I have steadily supported it, and shall continue to sup- 
 port it, so long as I may remain in public life. The main object 
 
12 
 
 in regard to these lands is undoubtedly to settle them so fast as 
 the growth of our population, and its augmentation by emigration, 
 may enable us to settle them. 
 
 The lands, therefore, should be sold at a low price, and, foi 
 one, I have never doubted the right or expediency of granting 
 portions of the lands themselves, or of making grants of money, 
 for objects of Internal improvements connected with them. 
 
 I have always supported liberal appropriations for the purpos& 
 of opening communications to and through these lands, by com- 
 mon Roads, Canals, and Railroads ; and where lands of little 
 value have been long in market, and on account of their indiffer- 
 ent quality are not likely to command the common price, I know 
 no objection to a reduction of price, as to such lands, so that they 
 may pass into private ownership. Nor do I feel any objections 
 to remove those restraints which prevent the States from taxing 
 the lands for five years after they are sold. But while in these 
 and all other respects I am not only reconciled to a liberal policy, 
 but espouse it and support it, and have constantly done so, I hold, 
 still, the national domain to be the general property of the Country, 
 confided to the care of Congress, and which Congress is solemnly 
 bound to protect and preserve for the common good. 
 
 The benefit derived from the public lands, after all, is and must 
 be, in the greatest degree, enjoyed by those who buy them and 
 settle upon them. The original price paid to Government con- 
 stitutes but a small part of their actual value. Their immediate 
 rise in value, in the hands of the settler, gives him competence. 
 He exercises a power of selection over a vast region of' fertile ter- 
 ritory, all on sale at the same price, and that price an exceedingly 
 low one. Selection is no sooner made, cultivation is no sooner 
 begun, and the first furrow turned, than he already finds himself a 
 man of property. These are the advantages of western emi- 
 grants and western settlers ; and they are such, certainly, as no 
 country on earth ever before afforded to her Citizens. This op- 
 portunity of purchase and settlement, this certainty of enhanced 
 value, these sure means of immediate competence and ultimate 
 wealth, all these are the rights and the blessings of the people of 
 the West, and they have my hearty wishes for their full and perfect 
 enjoyment. 
 
 I desire to see the public lands cultivated and occupied. I 
 desire the growth and prosperity of the West, and the fullest de- 
 velopment of its vast and extraordinary resources. I wish to 
 bring it near to us, by every species of useful communication. I 
 see, not without admiration and amazement, but yet without envy 
 or jealousy, states of recent origin already containing more peo- 
 ple than Massachusetts. These people I know to be part of our- 
 selves ; they have proceeded from the midst of us, and we may 
 trust that they are not likely to separate themselves, in interest or 
 in feeling, from their kindred, whom they have left on the farms 
 and around the hearths of their common fathers. 
 
13 
 
 A liberal policy, a sympathy with its interests, an enlightened 
 and generous feeling of participation in its prosperity, are due to 
 the West, and will be met, I doubt not, by a return of sentiments 
 equally cordial and equally patriotic. 
 
 Gentlemen, the general question of revenue is very much con* 
 nected with this subject of the public lands, and I will therefore, 
 in a very few words, express my opinions on that point. 
 
 The revenue involves not only the supply of the Treasury 
 with money, but the question of protection to manufactures. On 
 these connected subjects, therefore, Gentlemen, as I have prom* 
 ised to keep nothing back, I will state my opinions plainly, but 
 very shortly. 
 
 I am in favour of such a revenue as shall be equal to all the just 
 and reasonable wants of the government; and I am decidedly op- 
 posed to all collection or accumulation of revenue beyond this 
 point. An extravagant government expenditure and unnecessary 
 accumulation in the Treasury are both, of all things else, to be 
 most studiously avoided, 
 
 I am in favour of protecting American industry and labour, not 
 only as employed in large manufactories, but also, and more es- 
 pecially, as employed in the various mechanic arts, carried on by 
 persons acting on small capitals, and living by the earnings of their 
 own personal industry. Every City in the Union, and none more 
 than this, would feel severely the consequences of departing from 
 the ancient and continued policy of the Government respecting 
 this last branch of protection. If duties were to be abolished on 
 hats, boots, shoes, and other articles of leather, and on the arti- 
 cles fabricated of brass, tin, and iron, and on ready-made clothes, 
 carriages, furniture, and many similar articles, thousands of per- 
 sons would be immediately thrown out of employment in this 
 City and in other parts of the Union. Protection in this respect, 
 of our own labour, against the cheaper, ill paid, half fed, and pau- 
 per labour of Europe, is, in my opinion, a duty which the Coun- 
 try owes to its own citizens. I am, therefore, decidedly for pro- 
 tecting our own industry and our own labour. 
 
 In the next place, Gentlemen, I am of opinion, that with no 
 more than usual skill in the application of the well-tried piinciplcs 
 of discriminating and specific duties, all the branches of National 
 Industry may be protected without imposing such duties on im- 
 ports as shall overcharge the Treasury, 
 
 And as to the Revenues arising from the sales of the public 
 lands, I am of opinion that they ought to be set apart for the use 
 of the States. The States need the money. The Government 
 of the United States does not need it. Many of the States have 
 contracted large debts for objects of Internal improvement ; and 
 others of them have important objects which they would wish to 
 accomplish. The lands were originally granted for the use of the 
 several states ; and now that their proceeds arc not necessary for 
 
14 
 
 the purposes of the General Government, I am of opinien that 
 they should go to the states, and to the people of the states, upon 
 an equal principle. Set apart, then, the proceeds of the public 
 lands for the use of the states ; supply the Treasury from duties 
 on imports ; apply to these duties a just and careful discrimination 
 in favour of articles produced at home by our own labour, and 
 thus support, to a fair extent, our own Manufactures. These, 
 Gentlemen, appear to me to be the general outlines of that policy 
 which the present condition of the country requires us to adopt. 
 
 Gentlemen, proposing to express opinions on the principal sub- 
 jects of interest at the present moment, it is impossible to over 
 look the delicate question which has arisen from events which 
 have happened in the late Mexican Province of Texas. The In- 
 dependence of that Province has now been recognised by the 
 Government of the United States. The Congress gave the 
 President the means, to be used when he saw fit, of opening a 
 diplomatic intercourse with its Government, and the late Presi- 
 dent immediately made use of those means. 
 
 I saw no objection, under the circumstances, to voting an 
 appropriation to be used when the President should think the 
 proper time had come ; and he deemed, certainly very promptly, 
 that the time had already arrived. Certainly, Gentlemen, the 
 history of Texas is not a little wonderful. A very few people, 
 in a very short time, have established a Government for them- 
 selves against the authority of the parent State ; and which Gov- 
 ernment, it is generally supposed, there is little probability at the 
 present moment of the parent State being able to overturn. 
 
 This Government is, in form, a copy of our own. It is an 
 American Constitution, substantially after the great American 
 model. We all, therefore, must wish it success ; and there is 
 no one who will more heartily rejoice than I shall, to see an in- 
 dependent community, intelligent, industrious, and friendly to- 
 wards us, springing up, and rising into happiness, distinction, and 
 power, upon our own principles of Liberty and Government. 
 
 But it cannot be disguised, Gentlemen, that a desire, or an in- 
 tention, is already manifested to annex Texas to the United States. 
 On a subject of such mighty magnitude as this, and at a moment 
 when the public attention is drawn to it, I should feel myself 
 wanting in candour if I did not express my opinion ; since all 
 must suppose that on such a question it is impossible I should 
 be without some opinion. 
 
 I say then, Gentlemen, in all frankness, that I see objections, I 
 think insurmountable objections, to the annexation of Texas to 
 the United States. When the, Constitution was formed, it is not 
 probable that either its framers or the people ever looked to the 
 admission of any States into the Union, except such as then already 
 existed, and such as should be formed out of territories then al 
 • eady belonging to the United States. Fifteen years after the 
 
15 
 
 adoption of the Constitution, however, the case of Louisiana arose. 
 Louisiana was obtained by treaty with France, who had recently 
 obtained it from Spain ; but the object of this acquisition, cer- 
 tainly, was not mere extension of territory. Other great political 
 interests were connected with it. Spain, while she possessed 
 Louisiana, had held the mouths of the great rivers which rise in 
 the Western States, and flow into the Gulf of Mexico. She 
 had disputed our use of these rivers already ; and with a powerful 
 nation in possession of these outlets to the sea, it is obvious that 
 the commerce of all the West was in danger of perpetual vexa- 
 tion. The command of these rivers to the sea was, therefore, 
 the great object aimed at in the acquisition of Louisiana. But 
 that acquisition necessarily brought territory along with it, and 
 three States now exist formed out of that ancient province. 
 
 A similar policy, and a similar necessity, though perhaps not 
 entirely so urgent, led to the acquisition of Florida. 
 
 Now r , no such necessity, no such policy, requires the annexa- 
 tion of Texas. The accession of Texas to our territory is not 
 necessary to the full and complete enjoyment of all w hich we al- 
 ready possess. Her case, therefore, stands entirely different from 
 that of Louisiana and Florida. There being, then, no necessity for 
 extending the limits of the Union in that direction, we ought, I 
 think, for numerous and powerful reasons, to be content with our 
 present boundaries. 
 
 Gentlemen, we all see that by whomsoever possessed, Texas 
 is likely to be a slave-holding country ; and I frankly avow my 
 entire unwillingness to do any thing which shall extend the slavery 
 of the African race on this Continent, or add other slave-holding 
 States to the L^nion. When I say that I regard slavery in itself 
 as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language 
 'which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens 
 of slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favour 
 or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already 
 among us. The Constitution found it among us ; it recognised 
 it, and gave it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of these 
 guaranties we are all bound, in honour, in justice, and by the 
 Constitution. All the stipulations contained in the Constitution 
 in favour of the slave-holding States which are already in the 
 Union, ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall 
 be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness 
 of their letter. Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the 
 reach of Congress. It is a concern of the States themselves ; 
 they have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no 
 rightful power over it. I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no 
 measure, no menace, no indication of purpose, which shall inter- 
 fere, or threaten to interfere, with the exclusive authority of the 
 several States over the subject of Slavery, as it exists within 
 their respective limits. All this appears to me to be matter of 
 plain and imperative duty. 
 
16 
 
 But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the sub- 
 ject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our 
 duties are then both different. 
 
 The free States, and all the States, are then at liberty to ac- 
 cept or to reject. When it is proposed to bring new members 
 into this political partnership, the old members have a right to say 
 on what terms such new partners are to come in, and what they 
 are to bring along with them. In my opinion, the people of the 
 United States will not consent to bring a new, vastly extensive, 
 and slave-holding country, large enough for half a dozen or a dozen 
 States, into the Union. In my opinion, they ought not to consent 
 to it. Indeed, I am altogether at a loss to conceive what possible 
 benefit any part of this country can expect to derive from such 
 annexation. All benefit to any part is at least doubtful and un- 
 certain ; the objections obvious, plain, and strong. On the gen- 
 eral question of Slavery, a great portion of the community is al- 
 ready strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted atten- 
 tion as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned 
 chord. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country ; it has 
 taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, 
 indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially 
 has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people 
 of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be 
 trifled with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be re- 
 spected. It may be reasoned with, it may be made willing, I be- 
 lieve it is entirely willing, to fulfil all existing engagements, and 
 all existing duties, to uphold and defend the Constitution, as it is 
 established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which 
 it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence — to en- 
 deavour to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and 
 confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as sueh endeavours 
 would inevitably render it — should all this be attempted, I know 
 nothing, even in the Constitution, or in the Union itself, which 
 would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow. 
 
 I see, therefore, no political necessity for the annexation of 
 Texas to the Union ; no advantages to be derived from it ; and 
 objections to it of a strong, and, in my judgment, decisive charac- 
 ter. 
 
 I believe it to be for the interest and happiness of the whole 
 Union to remain as it is, without diminution and without addition. 
 
 Gentlemen, I pass to other subjects. The rapid advancement . 
 of the Executive authority is a topic which has already been al- 
 luded to. 
 
 I believe there is serious cause of danger from this source. 
 I believe the Power of the Executive has increased, is increas- 
 ing, and ought now to be brought back within its ancient Consti- 
 tutional limits. I have nothing to do with the motives which 
 have led to those acts which I believe to have transcended the 
 
17 
 
 boundaries of the Constitution. Good motives may always be 
 assumed, as bad motives may always be imputed. Good inten- 
 tions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power; but 
 they cannot justify it, even if we were sure that they existed. It 
 is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to 
 fliiard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or 
 pretended. When bad intentions are boldly avowed, the People 
 will promptly take care of themselves. On the other hand, they 
 will always be asked why they should resist or question that 
 exercise of power which is so fair in its object, so plausible and 
 patriotic in appearance, and which has the public good alone 
 confessedly in view ? Human beings, we may be assured, will 
 generally exercise power when they can get it ; and they will 
 exercise it most undoubtedly in popular Governments, under 
 pretences of public safety or high public interest. It may be 
 very possible that good intentions do really sometimes exist, 
 when Constitutional restraints are disregarded. There are men 
 in all ages who mean to exercise power usefully ; but who mean 
 to exercise it. They mean to govern well ; but they mean to 
 govern. They promise to be kind masters ; but they mean to be 
 masters. They think there need be but little restraint upon 
 themselves. Their notion of the public interest is apt to be 
 quite closely connected with their own exercise of authoritv. 
 They may not, indeed, always understand their own motives. 
 The love of power may sink too deep in their hearts even for 
 their own scrutiny, and may pass with themselves for mere pat- 
 riotism and benevolence. 
 
 A character has been drawn of a very eminent citizen of Mas- 
 sachusetts of the last age, which, though I think it does not en- 
 tirely belong to him, yet very well describes a certain class of 
 public men. It was said of this distinguished son of Massachu- 
 setts, that in matters of politics and government he cherished 
 the most kind and benevolent feelings towards the whole Earth. 
 He earnestly desired to see all nations well governed ; and, to 
 bring about this happy result, he wished that the United States 
 might govern the rest of the world ; that Massachusetts might 
 govern the United States ; that Boston might govern Massachu- 
 setts ; and as for himself, his own humble ambition would be sat- 
 isfied by governing the little town of Boston. 
 
 I do not intend, Gentlemen, to commit so unreasonable a tres- 
 pass on your patience as to discuss all those cases in which I 
 think Executive power has been unreasonably extended. 1 shall 
 only allude to some of them, and, as being earliest in the order of 
 time, and hardly second to any other in importance, I mention 
 the practice of removal from all offices, high and low, for opin- 
 ion's sake, and on the avowed ground of giving patronarje to the 
 President ; that is to say, of giving him the power of influencing 
 men's political opinions and political conduct by hopes and by 
 
18 
 
 fears addressed directly to their pecuniary interests. The great 
 battle on this point was fought and was lost in the Senate of 
 the United States, in the last session of Congress under Mr. 
 Adams's administration. After General Jackson was known to 
 be elected, and before his term of office began, many important 
 offices became vacant by the usual causes of death and resigna- 
 tion. Mr. Adams, of course, nominated persons to fill these 
 vacant offices, But a majority of the Senate was composed of 
 the friends of General Jackson ; and instead of acting on these 
 nominations, and filling the vacant offices with ordinary prompt- 
 itude, the nominations were postponed to a day beyond the 
 fourth of March, for the purpose, openly avowed, of giving the 
 patronage of the appointments to the President who was then 
 coming into office. And when the new President entered on his 
 office, he withdrew these nominations, and sent in nominations of 
 his own friends in their places. I was of opinion then, and am of 
 opinion now, that that decision of the Senate went far to unfix the 
 proper balance of the Government. It conferred on the President 
 the power of rewards for party purposes or personal purposes 
 without limit or control. It sanctioned, manifestly and plainly, 
 that exercise of power which Mr. Madison had said would de- 
 serve impeachment ; and it completely defeated one great object y 
 which we are told the framers of the Constitution contemplated, 
 in the manner of forming the Senate ; that is, that the Senate 
 might be a body, not changing with the election of a President, 
 and therefore likely to be able to hold over him some check or 
 restraint, in regard to bringing his own friends and partisans into 
 power with him, and thus rewarding their services to him at the 
 public expense. 
 
 The debates in the Senate on these questions w r ere long-con- 
 tinued and earnest. They were, of course, in secret session ; but 
 the opinions of those members w T ho opposed this course have 
 all been proved true by the result. The contest was severe and 
 ardent, as much so as any that 1 have ever partaken in ; and I 
 have seen some service in that sort of warfare. 
 
 Gentlemen, when I look back to that eventful moment, when 
 I remember who those were who upheld this claim for Execu- 
 tive power with so much zeal and devotion, as well as With such 
 great and splendid abilities ; and when I look round now, and in- 
 quire what has become of these gentlemen, where they have found 
 themselves at last, under the power which they thus helped to 
 establish ; what has become now of all their respect, trust, con- 
 fidence, and attachment ; how many of them, indeed, have not 
 escaped from being broken and crushed under the weight of the 
 wheels of that engine which they themselves set in motion, I feel 
 that an edifying lesson may be read' by those who, in the fresh- 
 ness and fulness of party zeal, are ready to confer the most dan- 
 gerous power, in the hope that they and their friends may bask 
 
19 
 
 in its sunshine, \vhile enemies only shall be withered by its 
 frown. 
 
 I will not go into the mention of names. I will give no enu- 
 meration of persons ; but I ask you to turn your minds back and 
 recollect who the distinguished men were who supported in the 
 Senate General Jackson's administration for the two first years ; 
 and I will ask you what you suppose they think now of that 
 power and that discretion which they so freely confided to Ex- 
 ecutive hands ? What do they think of the whole career of that 
 administration, the commencement of which, and indeed the exist- 
 ence of which, owed so much to their own great exertions ? 
 
 In addition to the establishment of this power of unlimited and 
 causeless removal, another doctrine has been put forth, more 
 vague, it is true, but altogether unconstitutional, and tending to 
 like dangerous results. In some loose, indefinite, and unknown 
 sense, the President has been called the Representative of the 
 whole American People. He has called himself so repeatedly ; 
 and been so denominated by his friends a thousand times. Acts 
 for which no specific authority has been found, cither in the Con- 
 stitution or the laws, have been justified on the ground that the 
 President is the Representative of the whole American People. 
 Certainly this is not Constitutional language. Certainly the 
 Constitution nowhere calls the President the Universal Repre- 
 sentative of the People. The Constitutional Representatives of 
 the People are in the House of Representatives, exercising pow- 
 ers of legislation. The President is an executive officer, ap- 
 pointed in a particular manner, and clothed with prescribed and 
 limited powers. It may be thought to be of no great consequence, 
 that the President should call himself, or that others should call 
 him, the sole Representative of all the People, although he has no 
 such appellation or character in the Constitution. But, in these 
 matters, words are things. If he is the People's Representative, 
 and as such may exercise power without any other grant, what is 
 the limit of that power ? And what may not an unlimited Rep- 
 re s( ntative of the People do ? 
 
 When the Constitution expressly creates Representatives as 
 members of Congress, it regulates, defines, and limits their au- 
 thority. 
 
 But if the Executive Chief Magistrate, merely because he is 
 the Executive Chief Magistrate, may assume to himself another 
 character, and call himself the Representative of the whole Peo- 
 ple, what is to limit or restrain this Representative power in his 
 hands ? 
 
 I fear, Gentlemen, that if these pretensions should be contin- 
 ued and justified, we might have many instances of summary po- 
 litical logic, such as I once heard in the House of Representa- 
 tives. A gentleman, not now living, wished very much to vote 
 for the establishment of a Bank of the United States. But ho 
 
20 
 
 had always stoutly denied the Constitutional power of Congress 
 to create such a Bank. The country, however, was in a state of 
 great financial distress, from which such an Institution, it was 
 hoped, might help to extricate it ; and this consideration led the 
 worthy member to review his opinions with care and delibera- 
 tion. Happily, on such careful and deliberate review, he altered 
 his former judgment. He came satisfactorily to the conclusion 
 that Congress might incorporate a Bank. The argument which 
 brought his mind to this result was short, and so plain and obvi- 
 ous, that he wondered how he should so long have overlooked it. 
 The power, he said, to create a Bank was either given to Con- 
 gress or it was not given. Very well. If it was given, Congress 
 of course could exercise it ; if it was not given, the People still 
 retained it, and, in that case, Congress, as the Representatives of 
 the People, might, upon an emergency, make free to use it. 
 
 Arguments and conclusions, in substance like these, Gentle- 
 men, will not be wanting, if men of great popularity, commanding 
 characters sustained by powerful parties, and full of good inten- 
 tions towards the public, may be permitted to call themselves the 
 Universal Representatives of the People. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, it is the currency, the currency of the Coun- 
 try — it is this great subject, so interesting, so vital to all classes 
 of the community, which has been destined to feel the most vio- 
 lent assaults of Executive Power. The consequences are around 
 us and upon us. Not unforeseen, not unforetold, here they come, 
 bringing distress for the present, and fear and alarm for the future. 
 If it be denied that the present condition of things has arisen 
 from the President's interference with the Revenue, the first an- 
 swer is, that when he did interfere, just such consequences were 
 predicted. It was then said, and repeated, and pressed upon the 
 public attention, that that interference must necessarily produce 
 derangement, embarrassment, loss of confidence, and commercial 
 distress. I pray you, Gentlemen, to recur to the debates of 1832, 
 1833, and 1834, and then to decide whose opinions have proved 
 to be correct. When the Treasury Experiment was first an- 
 nounced, who supported and who opposed it ? Who warned the 
 Country against it ? Who were they who endeavoured to stay 
 the violence of party, to arrest the hand of Executive authority, 
 and to convince the People that this Experiment was delusive ; 
 that its object was merely to increase Executive Power, and that 
 its effect, sooner or later, must be injurious and ruinous ? 
 
 Gentlemen, it is fair to bring the opinions of political men to the 
 test of experience. It is just to judge of them by their measures 
 and their opposition to measures ; and for myself, and those po- 
 litical friends with whom I have acted on this subject of the cur 
 rency, I am ready to abide the test. > 
 
 But, before the subject of the currency, and its present most 
 embarrassing state is discussed, I invite your attention, Gentle- 
 
21 
 
 men, to the history of Executive proceedings connected witli it. 
 I propose to state to you a series of facts ; not to argue upon them, 
 not to mystify them, not to draw any unjust inference from them; 
 but merely to state the case in the plainest mariner as I under 
 stand it. And I wish, Gentlemen, that in order to be able to d* 
 this in the best and most convincing manner, I had the ability ot 
 my learned friend (Mr. Ogden), whom you have all so ofteij 
 heard, and who state-s his case, usually, in such a manner that, 
 when stated, it is already very well argued. 
 
 Let us see, Gentlemen, what the train of occurrences has been 
 in regard to our revenue and finances ; and when these occur- 
 rences are stated, I leave to every man the right to decide for him- 
 self whether our present difficulties have or have not arisen 
 from attempts to extend the Executive authority. In giving this 
 detail, I shall be compelled to speak of the late Bank of the 
 United States, but I shall speak of it historically only. My 
 opinion of its utility, and of the extraordinary ability and success 
 with which its affairs were conducted for many years before the 
 termination of its charter, is well known. I have often expressed 
 it, and I have not altered it. But at present I speak of the Bank 
 only as it makes a necessary part in the history of events which I 
 wish now to recapitulate. 
 
 Mr. Adams commenced his administration in March, 1625. 
 He had been elected by the House of Representatives, and began 
 his career as President under a strong and powerful opposition. 
 From the very first day, he was warmly, even violently opposed 
 in all his measures ; and this opposition, as we all know, continued 
 without abatement, either in force or asperity, through his whole 
 term of four years. Gentlemen, I am not about to say whether 
 this opposition was w r ell or ill founded, just or unjust. I only 
 state the fact as connected with other facts. The Bank of the 
 United States during these four years of Mr. Adams's administra- 
 tion was in full operation. It was performing the fiscal duties 
 enjoined on it by its charter ; it had established numerous offices 
 — was maintaining a large circulation, and transacting a vast busi- 
 ness in Exchange. Its character, conduct, and manner of admin- 
 istration were all well known to the whole country. 
 
 Now there are two or three things worthy of especial notice. 
 One is, that during the whole of this heated political controversy, 
 from 1825 to 1829, the Party which was endeavouring to produce 
 a change of administration brought no charge of political inter- 
 ference against the Bank of the United States. If anything, it 
 was rather a favourite with the party generally. Certainly, the 
 party, as a party, did not ascribe to it undue attachment to other 
 parties, or to the then existing administration. 
 
 Another important fact is, that during the whole of the same 
 period, those who had espoused the cause of Gen. Jackson, and 
 who sought to bring about a revolution under his name, did not 
 
22 
 
 propose the destruction of the Bank or its discontinuance as one 
 of the objects which were to be accomplished by the intended 
 revolution. They did not tell the country that the Bank was un- 
 constitutional ; they did not declare it unnecessary ; they did not 
 propose to get along without it when they should come into 
 power themselves. If individuals entertained any such purposes, 
 they kept them much to themselves. The part}-, as a party, 
 avowed none such. A third fact, worthy of all notice, is, that 
 during this period there was no complaint about the state of the 
 currency, either by the Country generally, or by the party then 
 in opposition. 
 
 In March, 1829, Gen. Jackson was inaugurated. He came in 
 on professions of Reform. He announced reform of all abuses 
 to be the great and leading object of his future administration ; and 
 m his inaugural address he pointed out the main subjects of this 
 reform. But the Bank was not one of them. It was not said 
 the Bank was unconstitutional. It was not said it was unneces- 
 sary or useless. It was not said that it had failed to do all that 
 had been hoped or expected from it in regard to the currency. 
 
 In March, 1S29, then, the Bank stood well, very well, with the 
 new T administration. It was regarded, so far as appears, as entirely 
 constitutional, free from political or party taint, and highly useful. 
 It had, as yet, found no place in the catalogue of abuses to be re- 
 formed. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, nine months wrought a wonderful change. 
 New lights broke forth before these months had rolled away ; 
 and the President, in his message to Congress, in Dec, 1&29, held 
 very different language, and manifested very different purposes. 
 
 Although the Bank had then five or six years of its charter un- 
 expired, he yet called the attention of Congress very pointedly 
 to the subject, and declared : — 
 
 1 . That the constitutionality of the Bank w^as well doubted by 
 many ; 
 
 2. That its utility or expediency was also well doubted; 
 
 3. That all must admit that it had failed in undertaking to es- 
 tablish 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 extra- 
 ordinary, and the last one as very startling. A Bank, founded on 
 the revenue and credit of the Government, and managed and ad- 
 ministered by the Executive, was a conception which I had sup- 
 posed 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 
 
23 
 
 caused the Bank, so constitutional, so useful, so peaceable, 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 inter 
 vcned. 
 
 Gen. 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 ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, the truth is, that during this session, and a 
 little before the commencement of the new administration, a dis- 
 position 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 sat- 
 isfactory to Gen. Jackson's friends. Portions of the correspond- 
 ence on these subjects have been published in some of the volu- 
 minous 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 tht> 
 Bank and to the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly recommend- 
 ing a change, and, in his letter to the Secretary, hinting very dis- 
 tinctly 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 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 Trensurv 
 and the President of the Bank ensued. The Directors determined 
 that thev would not surrender either their rights or their duties to 
 the control or supervision of the Executive Government. They 
 said thev had never appointed Directors of their Branches on po- 
 litical grounds, and they would net remove them on such grounds. 
 They had avoided politics. They had sought for men of business, 
 
24 
 
 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 Secre- 
 tary df the Treasury, that the Bank would continue to be inde- 
 pendently administered, and that the Directors, once for all, re- 
 fused 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 ap- 
 pointed those Directors thus recommended by members of Con- 
 gress ; 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 com- 
 plying, political party machine, instead of an independent institu- 
 tion ; 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 efTects 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 de- 
 nunciation 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 sum- 
 mer of 1832, Congress passed an act for continuing the char- 
 ter 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 depositc 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 enjoy. At the commencement of the session of 
 1832-3, a grave and sober doubt was expressed by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury, in his official communication, whether the pub- 
 lic moneys were safe in the custody of the Bank ! I confess, 
 Gentlemen, when I look back to this suggestion, thus officially 
 
25 
 
 made, so serious in its import, so unjust if not well founded, and 
 bo greatly injurious to the credit of the Bank, and injurious, in- 
 deed, 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 Deposites, 
 and such an attempt was made that very session. But Con- 
 gress 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 in- 
 voked 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 Deposites would 
 be removed by the President's order; and in June, as afterward 
 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 Deposites ought not to be removed ; but the 
 President removed them. Nor was this all. The public mon- 
 eys being withdrawn from the custody which the law had provi- 
 ded 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 op- 
 erate on the revenue and credit of the Government; and thus the 
 original scheme, promulgated in the Annual Message of Decem- 
 ber, 1829, was substantially carried into effect. Here were 
 Banks chosen by the Treasury ; all the arrangements made with 
 them made bv the Treasury; a set of duties prescribed to be 
 performed by them to the Treasury ; and these Banks were to 
 hold the whole proceeds of the public revenue. In all this Con- 
 gress had neither part nor lot. No law had caused the removal 
 of the Deposites; no law had authorized the selection of Depos- 
 its 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 im- 
 portant changes in one of its most essential and vital interests 
 should be brought about without any change of law, without any 
 
26 
 
 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 inti- 
 mately connected, and both are subjects of legal, not of Execu- 
 tive regulation. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that the writers of the Federalist, in dis- 
 cussing the powers which the Constitution conferred on the Pres- 
 ident, 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 coun- 
 try." 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 cur- 
 rency. 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 
 Deposites 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 favouritism 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 ob- 
 tained only a cold assent, a slow, reluctant, and hesitating ap- 
 proval ; 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 deposite or distribution of the surplus monev 
 with the people suddenly damped this effervescing happiness. 
 The colour of the rose was gone, and everything now looked 
 
27 
 
 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 be no longer sold but for gold and silver alone. 
 The object of all this is clear enough. It was to diminish the in- 
 come from the Public Lands. But no desire for such a diminu- 
 tion 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. 
 
 Towards the end 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 prop- 
 osition ; 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 
 pow r er 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 com- 
 manding the very thing to be done which Congress had been re- 
 quested to do and had refused to do. Just as in the case of the 
 removal of the Deposites, 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 purports to alter it, against the well-known will of 
 the law-making power. 
 
 For one, I confess I see no authority whatever in the Consti- 
 tution or in any law for this Treasury order. Those who have 
 undertaken to maintain it have placed it on "rounds 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 au- 
 thority; with another it is the law of 18£0 ; with a third it is the 
 general superintending power of the President ; and this last 
 argument, since it resolves itself into mere power, without stop- 
 ping to point out the sources of that power, is not only the short- 
 est, but in truth the most just. He is the most sensible, as well 
 as the most candid rcasoncr, in my opinion, who places this 
 
28 
 
 Treasury order on the ground of the pleasure of the Executive, 
 and stops there. I regard the joint Resolution of 1816 as man- 
 datory; 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 Treas- 
 ury. 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, Gen- 
 tlemen, a Resolution was brought forward in the Senate for an- 
 nulling and abrogating this order by Mr. Ewing, 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 di- 
 rect. It was deemed a pointed and ungracious attack on Exec- 
 utive policy. Therefore it must 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 ac- 
 cordingly 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 sub- 
 stantial repeal of the order. He is a man of boldness and de- 
 cision ; and he respects boldness and decision in others. If you 
 are his friend, he expects no flinching ; and if you are his ad- 
 versary, he respects you none the less for carrying your opposi- 
 tion to the full limits of honourable 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 overcourteous 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 become a 
 law, and abrogated the order. But it was not approved, it was 
 
29 
 
 not returned ; it was retained. It had passed the Senate in sea- 
 son ; it had been sent to the House in season ; but there it wa3 
 suffered to lie so long without being called up, that it was com- 
 pletely 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 in 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, 
 endeavoured to abolish this obnoxious order. On hardly any sub- 
 ject, 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 Exec- 
 utive authority has not effectually superseded the power of Con- 
 gress, 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 Deposites ; 
 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 De- 
 posite 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 v ill 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 greatest interest of the currency, been in a 
 single hand ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I have done with the narrative of events and meas- 
 ures. I have done with the history of these successive steps in 
 the progress of Executive power towards a complete control ovef 
 the revenue and the currency. 
 
 The result is now all before us. These pretended reforms, 
 these extraordinary exercises of power from an extraordinary y.csL 
 for the good of the People — what have thev brought us to 7 
 
 In 1829, the currency was declared to be neither sound n(A 
 
30 
 
 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 catas- 
 trophe ? Is property more secure, or industry more certain of 
 its reward ? We all know, Gentlemen, that during all this pre- 
 tended warfare against all Banks, Banks have vastly increased. 
 Millions upon millions of Bank paper have been added to the cir- 
 culation. Everywhere, and nowhere so much as where the pres- 
 ent 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 occa- 
 sional 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 
 
81 
 
 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 re- 
 cently diminished by tiie 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 com- 
 mercial transactions. It always finds its way naturally and easily 
 to places where it is needed for these uses. But to take extraor- 
 dinary 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 endeavour, 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 po- 
 litical 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, requires that they should possess ? 
 If Boston were in debt to New-York, would it be w r ise in Boston, 
 instead of paying its debt, to contrive all possible means of ob- 
 taining 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. W T e have, without 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 de- 
 mands upon us ; nor is it so disposed of at home as 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 Depositc Banks, 
 and from the Depositc 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 
 
32 
 
 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 denuncia- 
 tion 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 overtrading, and overpro- 
 duction, 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 ex- 
 isting 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 on the ordinary means of our circulation at home, 
 and on our ability of remittance abroad. 
 
 Their effects, too, by deranging and misplacing the specie 
 which is in the country, are most disastrous on domestic ex- 
 changes. Let him who has lent an ear to all these promises of 
 a more uniform currency see how he can now sell his draught on 
 New-Orleans or Mobile. Let the Northern manufacturers and 
 mechanics, those who have sold the products of their labour to 
 the South, and heretofore realized the prices, with little loss of. 
 exchange, let them try present facilities. Let them see what re- 
 form 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 ] 
 may so say, this violation of the currency, to be one of the most 
 unpardonable of political faults. He who tampers with the cur- 
 
33 
 
 rency robs labour of its bread. He panders, indeed, to greedy 
 capital, which is keen-sighted, and may shift for itself; but he 
 beggars labour, 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 en- 
 rich the laborious ? Did violent fluctuations ever do good to him 
 who depends on his daily labour 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 
 labour. 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 mis- 
 erable policy having destroyed exchanges, they have no longer 
 either money or credit. And all classes of labour 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 dol- 
 lars ? 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 clamour 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 Deposite Banks ; it is there placed to the credit of 
 the Government, and thereby becomes the property of the Bank. 
 The whole revenues of the Government, therefore, after all, con- 
 sists 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 or such 
 alarm 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, Gentle- 
 
34 
 
 men, that 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 dis- 
 appointed in this expectation, I see no immediate relief to the 
 distresses of the community. I greatly fear, even, that the worst 
 is not yet. 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 re- 
 pealed 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 de- 
 mand 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. What- 
 ever 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 deposite 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-citi- 
 zens throughout the country, to decide whether the public inter- 
 est 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 hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Whigs of New-York ! Patriotic Citizens of this great metrop- 
 
35 
 
 olis ! 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 abroad and conspicuous the- 
 atre, either for good or for evil to your country. You cannot shrink 
 away 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 pres- 
 ervation of the Union, of the Constitution, and of the true prin- 
 ciples 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 con- 
 sequences 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 re- 
 gard 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 Coun- 
 try, 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 recre- 
 ant ? 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. 
 
 THE 
 
 END.