to make war upon the merchants, the bankers, the corporations, the business of the community.

But shall there be no such thing as "specific aid" to the citizen on the part of the Government? Is that a just inference from the doctrine of equal laws? By no means. Thus, in ordinary cases of justice, the law is to be equal, to all within its purview, but it is a " specific" law for a "specific" set of facts; and the application of the law must of necessity be in any given instance limited or individual, in the very nature of things. So in greater things. Suppose an assault to be made, unconstitutionally, upon the freedom of the press or speech, or upon any given public right. Will you refuse to guard it, because of its being an exigency calling for "specific aid?" All questions of government come up in specific cases. It would be a disastrous crisis, indeed, if it were one of equal universality of evil. Will you not apply specific remedies to specific evils? If not, then it is impossible ever to remedy any given evil. Accordingly, the President himself recommends to Congress measures of "specific aid;" as the extension of custom-house bonds, forbearance to the deposite banks, a bankrupt law for bankers, which last is, it seems to me, one of the most specific of all specific measures. What labors at the present time, is the currency, and the business of the country, in its various commercial relations. Why not apply to the case such remedial legislation, as the particular nature of the subject demands?

NON-INTERFERENCE OF GOVERNMENT.

I

Once more. I welcome the general idea, that Government should not be over-prone to interfere in the private pursuits of the citizen. One of the mischiefs of the times has been the meddlesome interference of General Jackson in the business of the country, his prurient tampering with the currency under pretext of reforming it. This is the very thing I would prevent. It is one reason why I am against a marriage of bank and state. wish to have banks the business-agents, not the party-hacks, of the Administration. I oppose the sub-treasury scheme for the same reason. If adopted, it would enable the Government to put up exchange or put down exchange, and to produce fluctuations in the money-market at will. It would place the whole commerce and business of the United States at the arbitrary mercy of the Government. That is a state of things, which I do not wish to see; and I hold the President to his professions and his pledges on this point.

At the same time, I deny that, because Government is "to avoid every unnecessary interference with the pursuits of the citizen," therefore Government is never to do any thing, or attempt any thing, for the relief or advantage of the People. It has powers given it, for the express purpose of those powers being beneficially exercised.

General Jackson's idea seemed to be, to spare no occasion to deny, dispute, and fritter away the powers of Congress; but he had no scruples in the exercise of power by the Executive. That was his doctrine of constitutional limitations. All the professions of limited powers, made by the late President, were of this description; they were practically applied only to the action of Congress. He had no opinion of Congress-powers; but a very broad one of President-powers. Thus it was that he removed the deposites, and established the State-bank system, by Executive legislation, and then called on Congress to ratify it. That is the way he understood the Constitu

tion.

Mr. Van Buren seems, in one respect, to be treading in the same path.

He first establishes sub-treasuries, and then calls on Congress to accept and legalize them.

But, whereas General Jackson could never leave meddling with the curs rency, Mr. Van Buren, it would appear, has adopted a theory the reverse of that of the former, namely, that, in regard to the currency, the Government of the United States and the People of the United States are to have sepa rate and adverse interests. All the anxiety of the Administration in the present crisis is for the Government: it has no cares, no thought, it absolutely disavows all powers, in reference to the good of the People.

Each of these opposite courses of policy is wholly unwise, unjust, and pernicious to the public weal. General Jackson was for stretching the finance-powers of the Constitution, the EXECUTIVE finance-powers,-until they snapped, throwing the country and all its fiscal and business concerns into the most deplorable disorder; whilst his successor, confounded at the spectacle of ruin which surrounds him, proposes to abandon and to repudiate those powers altogether, and to leave the currency and the business-interests of the country to their fate. But the Administration will find it impossible to shrink, in this way, like a tortoise, into its shell. It must act. Inaction is, to all practical purposes, action. Government can neither move, nor decline to move, without deeply affecting the interests of the People. The act of Congress rechartering the Bank, the veto of that act by the late President, the transfer of the public deposites to the State banks, the Treasury Circular, the proposition to divorce bank and state,-all these are, in their visible effects upon the business of the country, pertinent illustrations of the impossibility of separating the Government and the People.

THE TRUE ISSUE.

And the question for the people now to decide is, whether their Govern ment is to be active in the perpetration of mischief ONLY? Potent as it is for evil, shall it be suffered to make itself utterly impotent for good? Shall it, in the hour of public distress and peril, coward-like slink into a corner, in wilful neglect and abandonment of its public duty? Shall it stand upon its safe elevation, and halloo on to mischief all the furies of rapine and disorder, which the evil times have drawn forth from their lurking-places, refusing meanwhile to stir a step itself for the welfare and happiness of the country, amid the disasters which its own misrule has brought upon us? Doubtless it is true, as the President suggests, that the country will, in time, recover itself. It has elastic and recuperative energies within it, which no power on earth can subdue. Our forests and our fields, our oceans, lakes, and rivers, our enterprise, industry, and intelligence, our free institutions, the favor of Providence which has never forsaken us,these are elements of greatness and prosperity, which baffle and defy all the errors and faults of misgovernment. But is it any apology for your striking off my arm, that its bones and muscles are endowed with a natural power to knit together again, and regain their pristine health and strength? Doubtless, the country will recover itself; but, if the recommendations of the Message are to be enforced, it has got to recover, not only without aid from the Federal Government, but in spite of the Government.

Will the people sanction such a doctrine? In the concluding paragraph of the Message, the President reminds us that we are fresh from the People, that we know their embarrassments, and the relief they need. We do so. We have submitted this question to the arbitrement of the People. We cheerfully abide their decision. We tell you, that North Carolina, Tennes3

see, Kentucky, Indiana, Rhode Island, Maine, have pronounced judgment on the Administration. I congratulate Maine, especially, on her emancipation from the thraldom of degrading assentation to every caprice of the Executive, to which her own peculiar interests have so long been sacrificed, We hail the auspicious omen of the bright star in the East. Maine has rung the knell of radicalism, Well may she hold up to the eye of her sister States the DIRIGO in her escutcheon, The People have spoken out, and in a voice of thunder, which should be re-echoed by their Representatives in this hall, until it penetrate into the innermost recesses of the White House, And if the assembled Representatives of the nation do nothing else for the public good in this emergency,-if all the power and influence of the Executive are to be exerted as a drag on the wheels of legislation, to preclude the adoption of any measures of general relief,-this at least we may and we will do ;we may and we will enter up an APPEAL to the People, against the conduct now pursued, and the purposes professed, by this Administration,

WHAT IT TEACHES AND WHAT IT MEANS.

SPEECH

OF

ROSCOE CONKLING,

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

APRIL 24, 1879.

{{ 'Corruption wins not more than honesty."

WASHINGTON, D. C.:

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

1879.