neighbor, and his another, and anon a general crash is heard-terror and consternation possess the community. The importunities for money become greater and still more great. The wealthy Mr. Humbug determines to sell a portion of his lands, pay his debts and live independent. He starts out with this honest purpose; but what is his surprise to find everybody selling, and no one buying! He returns dispirited, disappointed, disheartened. He is sued, harassed with executions, and finally breaks; at this point he turns Whig, curses General Jackson, swears that Van Buren is the greatest scoundrel that ever lived, and starts to Texas. Such, sir, is a faint picture of the causes which have produced much of the embarrassments in my own country-such a brief outline of the rise, expansion, and final explosion of the greatest bubble that ever floated on the wide ocean of popular folly. But, Mr. Chairman, there is a more interesting inquiry touching this subject than the one usually discussed in this hall. The real inquiry with the great mass of the people, is not who or what produced the mischief, but what means are to be resorted to to get clear of it. I find that on all the essential points we differ; we differ radically and essentially. It never has, perhaps it never will be, otherwise. There is no such thing as a concurrence among us as to what produced this calamity for years has it been discussed by the ablest men in the nation, and with as little prospect of arriving at any harmonious result now as when they began. Let us not, then, waste our time in this unprofitable disputation. Let us rather act for the attainment of some present and permanent good. If the house be on fire, let us first extinguish the flames, and then go out into the streets and high places in search of the incendiary. One of the first steps to be taken, is to introduce a rigid system of economy into all the various departments of business, public and private. In republics like ours, if the people become extravagant, the government is likely to be infected with the same mania, since it draws its subsistence and vitality directly from the people; and I call upon members here to set an example to their constituents, worthy of emulation: let them show by their public actions that economy and reform is to be the order of the day, and it will exert a benign and happy influence over all classes of the community. But gentlemen tell me that something else must be done; that it is useless to talk of economy to a man in the last stage of mortal existence; that the community is sick to death, and, if relief be not soon procured, the patient must expire. Sir, we have proposed our remedy. That remedy, which, we grant, must be slow in its operations, but will, we think, be more speedy, as well as more certain, than any other, to effect a final and permanent cure. And what have you done? You have stood between our ministering hand and the lips of an expiring patient; and you have exhorted him not to receive our remedy. Still you persuade him that he is growing worse, and that each day he is drawing nearer and nearer to his final dissolution. But what, says the alarmed, exhausted, and dying man, shall I do to be saved? And you modestly respond, Turn off your present attendant, and take us into your service. Ay, sir, take you into his service; and, pray, what will you do? How will you minister to his wants? Upon this subject you are non-committal. You refuse our remedy; and yet you have no panacea of your own. Will

the change which you propose be so salutary in its influence as to heal our afflictions? Will the defeat of Mr. Van Buren and the election of General Harrison act like a charm upon the country? Is this new political Messiah to work by miracles? Is he a sort of political faith doctor? Tell me, sir, what he is to do for the country, and how he is to do it. Upon what principles will he administer the government? What great measure of reform is proposed? And how and by what means is it to be carried out? General Harrison has been before the American people for more than four months, and no man can say-no man holding a position in the Whig ranks, to give force and efficiency to his declarations, dare say-what are his opinions upon any great question of national interest. Dare any man say that General Harrison is for or against a National Bank, Internal Improvement, the Tariff, or even Abolition itself? Dare any member of the Whig party on this floor rise in his place and commit his party to the support of any measure of any kind? No, sir, they come, in the impressive language of friend from Tennessee [Mr. Watterson], as the architects of ruin, to pull down everything and put up nothing. That I may distinctly understand the position which gentlemen intend to assume, I now, sir, call upon them individually, and as a party of honorable men, to come out and give us their principles. Do you commit yourselves to the support of a National Bank?

my

[Mr. CHINN, from his seat. I do.]

But does the gentleman speak for his party? Will his party link their destiny to a National Bank? Will it be the policy of General Harrison's administration, in the event of his election, to create such an institution? I put the categorical question to gentlemen of the opposition, on all sides of the House, and I shall be content to receive a categorical answer. I am impatient for an answer, but it shall be my good pleasure to await the response of honorable gentlemen. I pause for a reply. No one answers. Then, Mr. Chairman, I am justified in concluding, that gentlemen either support a man without knowing his principles, or else they are afraid or ashamed to let his principles be known to the country, and to the very people whose suffrages they ask. If gentlemen can find ease and comfort in either position, I give them joy. Though, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen here will not commit themselves or their party to the support of a United States Bank-though, sir, they do not, and will not, and dare not, designate this as their means of relief, yet I choose so to regard it. All of us agree that something must be done to relieve the country, purify the currency, and move again the stagnant pools of commerce. We (the Democrats, or the Loco Focos, if it please you better) say that that something must be the adoption of the Sub-treasury. You, gentlemen, say what? You are loud and long in your denunciations of our scheme, and swear to it an eternal hate. What may we expect of you? What do you bring forward as the great antagonist of the Sub-treasury? Nothing; literally nothing.

I think proper to say, Mr. Chairman, to my constituents, through the medium of this House, that the present state of things must continue, or the Sub-treasury must be adopted. Nothing else can be done-nothing else is proposed; and those who oppose our scheme, and produce none of their own, must be in favor of the existing state of affairs. If I can get

no one here to take up a National Bank, and oppose it as the great rival to the Sub-treasury, I will leave this hall and discuss the question with particular reference to the state of political feeling in Mississippi. There the Whigs are more unflinching than their brethren in this latitude. They come out boldly, and avow their preference for such an institution. And now, sir, permit me to institute a brief comparison between the two schemes; first premising that in all our legislative action it becomes our solemn and imperative duty to make our acts conform to the letter of the Constitution, and to the spirit and meaning of our republican form of government. Our venerable forefathers first conceived the idea of throwing off the British forms, and when they had done so, they resolved to crown the bold adventure by establishing what had been hitherto unknown in the science of government, to wit: a government of the people. They gave us a representative democracy, and so admirably constructed, that once in two, four, and six years, all political power reverted to the people; and so long as we adhere to that form of government, it is our duty to do no act which will take those powers out of the hands where our forefathers reposed them. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether it is not a species of political treason to do so.

And now, sir, pray what is a Bank of the United States? For want of better data, I take the proposition of the distinguished statesman and orator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], regarded everywhere as Sir Oracle, the Jupiter Tonans of the Whig party. His bank was to have a corporate existence of fifty years, and an incorporated capital of fifty millions of dollars. And what are the important functions it is to perform? One gentleman on my right says it is to "regulate the currency." Another, on my left, says it will regulate commerce. My friend who sits before me thinks it will regulate the state banks; and the member near me wants it as the fiscal agent to collect and disburse the revenues of government; and my friend from Louisiana [Mr. Chinn], who is the only man of his party that has had the boldness to come out in favor of such an institution, thinks, I have no doubt, it would perform all these various offices.

[Mr. CHINN. It did do so once.]

I hear the response of my friend, and it is sufficient for my purpose. I admire his honesty, and I would compliment his frankness, but I cannot, except at the expense of his discretion. Yes, Mr. Chairman, a bank such as that of which I have spoken, might, perhaps it would, perform all these various offices. But, sir, what is the bank to which you propose to intrust these powers, and under what influence is it placed? An association of thirteen merchants of the city of New York, under a corporate name, elevated, by a solemn act of Congress, above the great mass of the people; not subject to their will, and not reached by any influence of theirs; under no control other than that of their unbridled will, conducting their proceedings in secret chambers, and with an eye single to the interest of the stockholders and favorites of the bank. And this is the institution to which you are to intrust the regulation of commerce, the regulation of the currency, the regulation of state banks, the fiscal agency of the government; and, I will add, the regulation of the wages of labor, the prices of property, and the opinions of members of Congress. And for what period of time? For fifty years, or until your

bank charter expires by its own limitation, it exercises all these various powers supremely, independently, without control. Are these powers among the essential ingredients of government? Are they not in fact the very elements of government itself? May that be called a government of the people, where the power to regulate commerce, to regulate exchanges, and fix at pleasure the quality and quantity of the circulating medium of the country, is taken out of the hands of the people, and intrusted, for a period of fifty years, to a coterie of bank directors, owing no responsibility to the people or to their representatives, but acting by sanction of law, in a sphere above and beyond the power and influence of the ballot-box? Is that, sir, a representative democracy, where all the essential elements of government are taken from the representatives chosen by the people, and placed in the custody of a corporation-an immaterial thing; a thing not visible or tangible? Answer me these things; and if you answer, as I know you must, then tell me, sir, whether you are violating the letter of the Constitution, immolating our forms of government, insulting the shades of our fathers, and converting what they intended should ever remain a representative democracy, into a sort of incorporated political oligarchy-whether, sir, you are wresting from the people the powers of government, and surrendering them into the custody and keeping of a corporation. Gentlemen insist that the United States Bank is to regulate the local or state banks. By this I understand it is to control the amount of their issues. If it expands, they expand; if it contracts, they contract: thus, at its beck and nod, money is plenty or scarce. If the Bank of the United States wills it so, money is plenty, property rises in value, and wages grow higher. Presently, from inclination or necessity, it contracts its issues, money becomes scarce, wages go down, and property sinks in value. Thus, by contracting and expanding its issues, which it does at will, it regulates the wages of every man's labor, and fixes the value of every species of property, and with as much ease and facility as you, sir, would regulate a clock by raising and sinking the pendulum; and all this is done in a government where the people are flattered with the story of their supremacy, and cajoled into the belief that they are in fact the sovereigns of the land.

But, says my distinguished friend over the way, we must tie up the bank with the strong cords of the law-subject it to the frowns and indignation of the people-let the thunders of an outraged constituency fall upon the ears of our bantling, and bid it pause in its career of ruin. Alas! sir, it has no ear; it will be deaf to your lamentations, here and elsewhere. You may scowl upon its conduct, but it is blind to your indignation; it is a mere ideal thing. You hear the winds, but you do not see them; you feel the rays of the sun, but cannot put your hand upon them; and as well might you attempt to lock up these invisible and intangible things, as to attempt, by legal enactments, to restrain a bank within its chartered limits. Eolus locked up the winds in the mountain caverns, and the sun stood still at the bidding of Joshua. But, alas! there are no Æoluses, no Joshuas now. All time, all experience, has shown that the tendency of corporations and of associated wealth is to place themselves above the law, the Constitution and people; and as well, sir, in my opinion, might you attempt to chain the lion to his lair,

3

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