Jefferson Davis1 to Martin Van Buren." (near) Warrenton Missi. M. Van Buren Ex President of the U. S. Sir, Though I have often recurred to the period when I had the honor to enjoy your personal acquaintance and have always remembered it with pleasure, the probability of your having forgotten me is not the less understood-To excuse myself for the liberty I take in thus addressing you, I will state that the democratic convention of this state which decided in your favor as the candidate of the Democracy for the next presidency, placed me on the electoral ticket for the state-and in view of the approaching presidential canvass, and with no doubt of the ratification by the National Convention of so much of our action as refers to yourself, I have determined to call upon you for answers to three points which I expect to be opened and think could not be otherwise as well closed During a visit to Washington in 1838 Mr. Davis had been a guest of President Van Buren. 'Van Buren, Martin (1782-1862), eighth President of the United States, was born, of Dutch descent, in Kinderhook, N. Y., December 5, 1782; was educated in the common schools and Kinderhook academy, studied law in New York City, and was admitted to the bar in 1803. He was a member of the New York Senate, 1813-1820; Attorney General of New York from January 1 to March 12, 1829; Secretary of State from March 12, 1829, to August 1, 1831; Vice President of the United States from March 4, 1833, to March 4, 1837; and President from March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1841. Van Buren was appointed Minister to Great Britain in 1831 but the Senate refused to confirm the appointment. He was defeated in the presidential campaign of 1840 for re-election and was the unsuccessful antislavery candidate in 1848. He died in Kinderhook, N. Y., July 24, 1862. Consult Edward M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren, 499 pp., Boston, 1900, Jefferson Davis to Martin Van Buren.1 (From The South in the Building in the Nation, Vol. XI, p. 262.) M. Van Buren Ex President of the U. S. Sir, Warren County Mi. 25th March 1844 You will oblige me and many other democrats of this section of the country by giving your opinion on the following questions— First, The annexation of "Texas" to the Territory of the United States Second, The constitutional power of Congress over slavery in the District of Columbia Third, The Tariff of 1828 and whether your vote on that bill was entirely the result of the instructions you receivedWith great consideration I am very truly yrs. Jeffn. Davis Jefferson Davis to J. A. Quitman.2 (From Mississippi Department of Archives and History.) S. B. Ambassador 11th Dec. 1844 Dear Sir, Herewith I send you the paper on currency of which I spoke to you when I last had the pleasure to see you-valuable only 'Mr. Van Buren was a candidate for the presidential nomination at this time, and the Mississippi delegation to the Democratic Convention at Baltimore had been instructed for him. ง Quitman, John Anthony (1799-1858), an American soldier and political leader, was born in Rhinebeck, N. Y., September 1, 1799; graduated from Hartwick seminary in 1816; was instructor in Mount Airy college, Penn., 1818-1819; studied law in Chillicothe, Ohio, and in 1821 was practicing law at Natches, Miss. He was a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives 1826-1827; Chancellor of the State 1828-1834; State Senator 1834-1836, serving as president of the Senate and acting governor 18351836; served with distinction as brigadier general and as major general in the Mexican war; was Governor of Mississippi 1850-1851; and a member of the national House of Representatives from March 4, 1855, until his death in Natchez, Miss., July 17, 1858. While governor he engaged in negotiations with General Lopez relative to a filibustering expedition to capture Cuba. He was indicted, resigned office, and was tried. The jury disagreed. He was arrested on a similar charge in 1854 but was not tried. Consult J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, 2 vols., 792 pp., New York, 1860, as one of the branches of the besiegers against which we should be prepared to countermine.1 Please offer my respectful regards to your family and believe me very sincerely yrs. &c Jefferson Davis to Editor of the Sentinel. (From Mississippi Department of Archives and History.) To the Editor of the Sentinel, Sir, Brierfield July 5th 1845. In your Paper of the 30th ulto. I find a communication calling on me for my views in relation to the Bank act:-commonly known as the "Briscoe Bill." 2 Your correspondent attaches 'During the presidential campaign of 1844 Jefferson Davis was one of the candidates for elector on the Democratic ticket. Says S. H. Fulkerson in his "Random Recollections," describing the times following the speculative collapse of 1837, "Litigated cases were very numerous owing to the financial troubles of the day, and though circuit court would hold for four weeks, the docket was never cleared.'' After judgment was rendered the attorneys would resort to writs of supersedeas and certiorari, and after the passage by the legislature of the State, in 1843, of what was known as the Briscoe bill, the writ of quo warranto would be invoked in the bank cases, of which there were many. The farmers who visited Fulkerson as deputy clerk called the latter "the euranter." The writ of quo warranto was of course nothing new, but the Briscoe bill gave it special sanction against the banks, which were not able to redeem their bills. Under the Briscoe bill "proceedings by quo warranto were instituted against nearly every bank in the State to have them dissolved and thus to get rid of the debts due to them." (Mayes.) The bill was introduced by Briscoe, of Claiborne, and amended by Judge Guion to protect creditors. The bill passed July, 1843, over great opposition. Fulkerson points out the curious coincidence that there was a Briscoe proposition before the house of commons in 1693 for supplying the king with easy money and exempting the nobility from taxation by a national land bank. But it was the collapse of a scheme of this kind that the Briscoe bill applied to. At the January term, 1846, of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, Justice Clayton delivered an opinion sustaining the Guion amendment to the Briscoe bill; Chief Justice Sharkey concurred, and Justice Thatcher dissented. The sections of the law against which the contest was made required that when a judgment of forfeitures is entered against a bank, its debtors shall not be thereby released from their debts and liabilities, but that the court rendering such judgment shall appoint one or more trustees to take charge of the banks and assets of the same-to sue for and collect all debts due it-to sell all its property and apply the same as to my opinions a value to which they are not entitled and attributes to me an influence I certainly do not possess. Others as I have been informed also desire from me such a statement and as I have no opinions which I wish to conceal they are herein submitted, with no other hesitation than that which arises from an unwillingness to appear before the public, and with no other request than that this answer shall not be construed into an admission of my being a candidate for any office. Of the question, in its strictly legal character I am not able to judge, and will not offer an opinion. As a measure of policy and justice, every man's political right constitutes him an umpire and every man's conscience must dictate his decision. It seems to me that the question has been changed from its true nature, the rights of Creditors against the obligations of Debtors, into an issue of the Banks against the Country, and its Laws. Were the latter the true question, I certainly have no favor for the Banks which could draw me from my duty to the country. From my earliest inquiries into the policy of a paper currency, I have believed it to be an unqualified evil to an agricultural people, especially one like ourselves engaged in the product of a staple of export. As we sell for the currency of the world, if we have a local currency which is cheaper, we must pay the enhanced price for all that we buy, and thus lose the difference. Its action may be likened to selling by a large measure and buying by a small one. To show that my opinion on the subject of Bank forfeitures is free from the bias. of any personal interest, I will state that I have never owned a share of Bank stock nor borrowed a dollar from a Bank. The various opinions in relation to this question may be arranged in three classes. 1st,-those who hold that when forfeiture is adjudged against a Bank all debts to and from it shall be expunged, the personal effects ("escheat to") become the property of the state and the real estate revert to the original grantor. 2nd, that after forfeiture the state shall appoint a receiver to collect the assets of the Bank for the benefit of the state. 3rd, that after forfeiture of franchise, trustees shall be appointed under penal restraints, and with sufficient security, to collect the assets and dispose of the property of the corporation for the benefit of the creditors and stockholders. Among might be thereafter directed by law, to the payment of its debts." The opinion of the court sustained this law. About the same time the legislature voted against the proposed repeal of the quo warranto law, but the bank-indebted interest obtained "the passage of a new law which was regarded by many as much worse than the original Briscoe bill. the third class, Sir, I arrange myself. No one has openly contended for special legislation to relieve Bank debtors; but it is argued that statutory provision is necessary to give effect to the common law, the operation of which a forfeiture being declared, is asserted to be to wipe out all debts to and from a corporation. The common law is the ancient customs or memorial usages of England and there could have been no such usages in relation to banking corporations for the simple reason that the thing did not exist among them. At the present day, the trade of banking is conducted in that country by private bankers and joint stock companies, deriving their powers and suffering their restraints and penalties, under general acts of Parliament. They do not exist by special grants or charters, and so far as I have learned are proceeded against in the same manner as a mercantile firm which has committed an act of bankruptcy. The bank of England is an exception to this remark, but there the charter provides a mode for terminating its existence, and so far from allowing the government of England to pay its immense debt to that bank by a judgement of forfeiture, expressly provides that the debt shall be paid before the privilege granted be taken away. Lawyers say that the common law is nothing more than the rules of reason and justice, the definition must be wrong, if the common law will permit an agent to lend out the money of his employers to personal or business friends, and then by an act contravening his duties as an agent, debar the employer from pursuing his money in the hands of the borrower, or if it will permit a banking corporation to throw its notes into circulation and then by refusing to redeem them, deprive the note holders of his remedy against the effects of the bank, or if it will release the debtor from the obligation of his bill given for the notes of the bank and throw the loss upon the note holder who gave the debtor, labor, or property in exchange for the notes, he had borrowed. If this be common law, it is high time it were substituted by statutes accordant with the mandates of reason and of right. Forfeiture, as I have seen it treated in the argument for the first and second class of opinion, constantly carries the mind back to the feudal system, with its Lord paramount. We have no original grantor of lands retaining reversionary rights, and nothing could be more preposterous than that a man who had sold a house and lot to a banking corporation should claim that the property for which he had been paid, reverted to him as the original grantor, whenever the bank |