by throwing cobwebs about his mane, as to attempt, by legal restrictions, to keep a fifty million bank within any prescribed limits.

Permit me, Mr. Chairman (and only for the sake of argument), to submit a proposition to honorable gentlemen; and as I only submit it by way of argument, I beg that gentlemen may not be alarmed. Instead of giving up the powers of government, to be exercised by an invisible. moneyed aristocracy, in the form of a National Bank, I propose to give them to the President of the United States. That is, sir, instead of having commerce, currency, exchanges, local banks, and political opinions, the wages of labor, and the value of property, subjected to the controlling influence of one grand consolidated National Bank, I propose to place them under the control of the President of the United States; and I am not particular whether that President be William Henry Harrison or Martin Van Buren; nor even, sir, in the language of Mr. Clay, if it be Thomas H. Benton, Amos Kendall, Francis P. Blair, or the Devil. To the President of the United States, whoever he may be, I propose intrusting these powers. What objection do gentlemen make? Here is the man of the people's choice, selected by them from fifteen millions of freemen, in consideration of his talents, his patriotism, and his exalted moral and political worth, to preside over their destinies. To this man, thus chosen, holding his office for a limited tenure, with no motive to act corruptly, and with every inducement to act leniently, reached by the smiles and subjected to the frowns of his countrymen, with a hard-earned reputation at stake, with, in fact, all to lose and nothing to gain, I propose intrusting these powers. Methinks I hear my friend over the way, to whom executive patronage is even more terrible than the ghost of Banquo was to the affrighted Macbeth, lifting his eloquent and impressive voice against it. Why, says he, this is worse than war, pestilence, and famine-more terrible than standing. armies. Hark ye, friend, the people can do no wrong; they are sovereign; they are capable of governing themselves; at least so you and I persuade them; and these powers are only to be intrusted to the man of the people's choice. If he act corruptly-if he play the tyrant--the people, the sovereign people, have the correction in their own hands; they have only to exercise their reserved high constitutional privilege at the ballotbox, and all is right; the corruption is made pure, and the tyrant is dethroned. But, says my friend, give these powers to the Executive, and he will rise above the people and above the influence of the ballotbox. If you give him these powers, you constitute him king, emperor, autocrat, supreme ruler of the land. You may still keep up the name of freedom-still cling to the withered skeleton of the Constitution; you may go through the forms of an election, but its influence is not felt; all political power is merged in the Executive, and the voice of the people is hushed, or has become as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." Why, says the gentleman, in the fulness of his patriotism, and in the plenitude. of trepidation at the horrors of executive patronage, there is not a crowned head in all Europe who possesses one tithe of the power you propose to confer on the American President. Ay, sir, and upon whom do you propose to confer all this power? Not upon the man of the people's choicenot upon the man who is elected by the people, and amendable to the people-but upon a soulless, unfeeling, and irresponsible corporation. If the

possession of the powers by the President constitutes him king, emperor, autocrat, pray, sir, tell me, tell me, in the name of all that is reasonable and right-in the name of God and our beloved country, what does it constitute the bank? Says the gentleman, the bank once exercised all these powers, and we did not feel its tyranny. It is not the possession of power that constitutes the tyrant, but the exercise of it. Elizabeth ruled over England, and her people were prosperous and happy; but the Stuarts succeeded to the throne, and with the same powers they threw terror and consternation over the land, and filled the hearts of the people with mourning. I know not, sir, by what feelings and motives other gentlemen are moved, but, for myself, if these powers are to pass out of the hands of the people, I want to see them put in the possession of a man-a thing of life-a real thing of flesh and blood. If we are to have any king or tyrant in this country, I want that he may be a living, creeping thing-something that I may see, that I may feel, into whose face I can look, and upon whose brow I can place my burning curses as he bends about these uncaptive limbs the fetters of despotism-and not a soulless, unfeeling corporation-an invisible, intangible, and immaterial thing-a thing not responsible to man on earth, or God in heaven. So help me Heaven, I could not intrust these powers to Washington himself, though his sainted and canonized spirit (which I trust is ever hovering around this Capitol, and rendering up its devoutest orisons to God, invoking His benedictions upon this people) could return to reanimate his body and quicken it into renewed existence. I could not, sir; because these powers once given away, no residuary power could make us free; and that which I could not intrust to the Father of his country, I surely would not intrust to a corporation, even though that corporation consisted of thirteen New York merchants, and they not only honest but above suspicion. Here I am met by the declaration that I expect the Sub-treasury to perform all these various functions, and that the Sub-treasury is the creature of the President and under his control. Without saying how far the Sub-treasury scheme, when it shall get into successful operation, will affect the commerce, exchanges, currency, and local banks of the country, I will suggest that it will control them, if at all, by a fixed and determined rule-a rule not under the control of the President, but one settled by law, and which must ever remain the same until it is altered by an act of Congress. The power in a bank which makes it dangerous, and which, in truth, gives to it influence, is its ability to issue paper money otherwise than on a metallic basis, make discounts, and receive money on deposit. Give it these, and it will not be, like Archimedes, in want of a place on which to rest its fulcrum; it has this; it has, in addition, all the elements of power and strength, and it needs but the will to apply them, which it is too apt to have, to repel the government itself. Deprive it of these, and it is a shorn Sampson, a fangless serpent, which may have the will, but not the ability, to do mischief. The Sub-treasury possesses none of these powers--not one of them. Another, and not the least by far of the advantages which it claims over a National Bank, is that it is ever subject to the controlling influence of the people. The people, in the person of their representatives, may alter, amend, or abolish it, at pleasure. And this, sir, seems to be in accordance with the spirit and meaning of our free institutions.

But a bank presents the singular anomaly of a creature rising above the creator; of an institution in a government of the people rising above the people; for, according to Whig ethics, a bank charter is not alterable, or amendable, except at the discretion of the bank.

I regret, Mr. Chairman, that I have pursued this subject so far. I have said more, much more, than I had intended; and yet I do not well see how I could have said less; finding it incidentally connected with the defence of the administration against the general charge of having produced a state of calamity and ruin, and now neglecting or refusing any corrective, I have been insensibly led into these observations. If they produce the slightest effect here or elsewhere, I shall be more than compensated for all the trouble they have cost me. Asking pardon of the committee for the aggression, I return to the bill, and to the arguments of gentlemen who have spoken in opposition to its passage.

I am told that this bill is an executive measure-that it comes here with the impress of the tenant of the White House upon it, and that it does not give evidence of that rigid economy which we were informed in the beginning of this session was to become the order of the day. Again, Mr. Chairman, I appeal to gentlemen to show me in what this bill gives earnest of the extravagance, profligacy, and corruption, of which we hear so much. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ogle] is the only member, of the dozen and one Opposition orators who have spoken on this bill, that has deigned to tell us in what its extravagance does consist. He desires to have our Ministers recalled from foreign courts, and their places supplied by chargés d'affaires. But he has not shown us how we are to avoid national dishonor in such an act. What, sir, will be said of a nation of fifteen millions of freemen, who, refusing to reciprocate an honor extended to it by a foreign power, by sending here their resident Minister Plenipotentiary, assigns for it the ridiculous reason "that we are too poor to bear the expense.' I am for economy and retrenchment; but I spurn them if they are to be purchased at the expense of national pride and national honor. Economy is wanted; but this is not the way to economize. Retrenchment is demanded; but it must not, and so far as I am concerned it shall not, commence here. I would, sir, have you commence this work of economy and reform as the physician ministers to his patient-first learning the seat of the disease, and then applying the remedy. If an arm be affected, I would not have you amputate the leg; and if a man's head be sick, I would not have you pierce his heart. And so, sir, of the body politic. If the disease, the extravagance, the profligacy, of which you speak, exist in the War Department, go there with your remedy: if in the Navy, go there and if in the Treasury or Post Office, go there. But do not, I pray you, stretch the government on the Procrustean bed, and, under pretence of curing a diseased part, cut off a leg on this side, and an arm on that, until you have so mutilated its fair proportions that it withers and dies, or hobbles out a miserable existence, "the pity of its friends and the scorn of its enemies." Much, very much, has been said, Mr. Chairman, about "frauds and corruption" in all the departments of government, and it is given out that this bill is its hiding-place. The great recluse, who is ever present, and always invisible, has his cavern, his mysterious and undiscovered home, in this bill. I am rejoiced that the discovery

has been made. I congratulate gentlemen and the country that we are at least so close upon the heels of the many-headed monster; and to prevent every possibility of his escape, I propose that we station some of our best tacticians around this bill, after the fashion of surrounding the Pontine marshes, and that gentlemen go with fire and sword, if they please, and drag this monster from his den. Sir, I rejoice that this grand crusade, after the far-famed "fraud and corruption," is at last drawing to a close. Unlike the Seminoles in Florida, you have traced him to his hiding-place. You have the soldiery under your command, and if the enemy be not now taken it is your fault. Then be not sleeping on your posts-gird on your armor, and let the work of war be heard with the coming in of to-morrow's dawn. Hitherto you have complained that the soldiery were not of yours; that their cause was not your cause; that their feelings and attachments were with the enemy, and that they did not carry on that relentless warfare which the emergency of the hour and the perfidy of the enemy so imperiously demanded. Sir, you can no longer make that complaint. The captain-general of this House (the Speaker) is he whom you have chosen to the high command-and he has not betrayed you. He has chosen the captains and lieutenants and drill sergeants from your own ranks, and, after a campaign of three months, they return, throw down their armor, declare that there is no enemy in the country, and ask to be disbanded. But the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise], whose quick ear detects the slightest sound, and from whose watchful eye no phantom can escape, avers that there is an enemy in the country; that he has seen him and felt him; and with a zeal and energy which does equal justice to his head and heart, he demands, in the name of his besieged country, that the army be not dispersed. Sir, I agree with him, and I will go with the honorable gentleman in his opposition to this abrupt termination of a seven years' war. If for nothing else, in very charity I will do it. For it would be an unkind cut, after all we have heard about this monstrous enemy of our country for the last seven years, to permit gentlemen now to acknowledge that there was indeed no such enemy in the land. Nay, sir, I will do more. I will give my humble aid (and I can say as much for my honorable colleague) to the elevation of the honorable gentleman [Mr. Wise] himself to command. If he is not pleased with the conduct of his honorable friend [Mr. Briggs, chairman of Expenditures, &c.], perhaps he could be pleased with his own mode of warfare. The gentleman has some experience, too. His celebrated cruise to New York (on the Swartwout Committee) won for him laurels, green and glorious, but laurels on which one so young and valiant would not be content to recline, when others, still more rich, were to be gathered in the same field. I thought myself that the celebrated Swartwout campaign was a little too Quixotic-had a little too much of the windmill about it; but in this I may have erred; and, in the error, may have done the honorable gentleman some injustice. I am, therefore, the more anxious that he should assume the command, and by an exercise of that chivalry and high bearing, which I know he possesses, terminate the worst of all our wars-the war against "fraud and corruption."

If the gentleman will allow me, and will receive the suggestion in all kindness, I will remark that the country expects him to take the lead

in this war. If my memory does not betray me into error, the honorable member made pledges to the country on this subject-pledges which the country is anxious to see fulfilled. And I again tender my humble services to the distinguished gentleman in enabling him to carry out those pledges.

But, Mr. Chairman, in all sober seriousness, I do beg of gentlemen, either to cease this eternal clamor about frauds and corruption, or go to work and expose them. They have ample verge and scope; they elected their Speaker, and have all the committees organized to their liking; and if this is not satisfactory, if committees of their own friends, whose duty it is to investigate the frauds and expenditures of government, will not perform their trust, let them ask for another organization of committees; or, if they please, for select committees. Let them ask for anything and everything, and I, and the party with whom I am associated, are prepared to give it to them. We ask one of two things, either that they cease their clamor about frauds, corruptions, and perjury, or that they go with committees, organized after their own fashion, and ferret out the evidence of these abuses. One of these things I ask, in the name of the party with whom I act-in the name of the whole country-in the name of justice, decency, and propriety; and from this day forward I want it distinctly understood, that the Whig party have had, now have, and will continue to have, full, ample, and unlimited power to search, winnow, and investigate, every department of this government, from the State down to the Post Office, in all their various ramifications.

When I came here, Mr. Chairman, I expected the first note that would have fallen upon my ear had been a Whig lamentation, that the party in power would not permit investigation; that the most enormous frauds were daily perpetrated, and that the spacious mantle of executive and legislative connivance was thrown over to conceal them; and I left home with the firm purpose, without regard to consequences to my party or to myself, to assist in removing that mantle, and in exposing this perfidy. Imagine, sir, my surprise, when almost four months of the session had gone, to hear for the first time, an anxiety expressed to see these frauds investigated; and how much greater was my surprise, when I heard the very gentlemen who had been loudest and longest in their outery against these things, the most reluctant to engage in the work of investigation--one gentleman [Mr. Briggs] wishing to have his committee discharged, and another [Mr. Wise] lecturing him for his want of devotion to the country, but still reluctant to take his place. Why, sir, I expected, after the annunciation of the last winter, by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise], that the clerks of the departments were in the habit of coming secretly to his chamber at midnight, and disclosing to him the enormous frauds that were going on, that no space would have contained him, if he had been denied the privilege of carrying on his investigations; but, instead of this, the gentleman has been as quiet as a lamb, and even now shows no inclination to commence the great work. I submit to the honorable gentleman, whether it is quite patriotic in him, convinced as he doubtless is of the existence of these enormous frauds, not to be more vigilant and industrious in ferreting them out? Or has the gentleman concluded with me, that it was no real thing that