power to furnish the means of carrying on commerce between the states, &c., then we think the advocates of a National Bank might well have pointed to that provision, as affording the strongest guarantee for the action which they propose to have. The facilities in the shape of exchanges, bank notes, &c., which an institution of this kind is capable of affording, may well be regarded as a convenient means of carrying on trade. But how these facilities can be regarded as regulating commerce, we are at a loss to determine. We have accustomed ourselves to regard this as a government in which the equality of human rights was respected. If we are correct in this, we do not readily perceive how it is that the commercial part of our citizens can justly claim at the hands of the government a degree of assistance in their business, which is not extended to those engaged in other pursuits. Money, it will readily be admitted, is the article by which the merchant carries on his tradelawyers carry on theirs with books-the farmer or mechanic, his with tools and utensils of various kinds. The merchant is claiming of the government, that it should afford him the cheapest and most convenient method of conveying his money to the place where he intends using it. But at the same time, he, no doubt, would think it a monstrous exaction if the lawyer, the farmer, or the mechanic, should each claim the same assistance, and demand the right to have the means afforded him by the government of conveying in the cheapest, most speedy, and convenient manner, the implements of his trade from one place to another, wherever he may chance to need them. And yet, if this is a government of equal rights, we do not perceive the reasons which render one of these demands more unwarrantable than the other. The opinion that Congress should regulate exchanges, is of recent origin. In the early establishment of the Bank of the United States, its friends urged incidentally the advantages it would afford as a cheap and convenient medium of exchange. But they urged this as argument, merely why the government should exercise the power elsewhere given it, to charter a bank, and not as affording of itself that power. By regulating commerce between the states and foreign nations, your committee understand nothing more to be meant, than that the whole power is surrendered to the general government of establishing ports of entry, providing by law what vessels may enter them, and under what legal restrictions, and generally to protect the commerce of all the states alike, and to see that one state does not conduct its commerce with any foreign power on terms detrimental to the interests of another. If anything more than this is meant, we are unable to determine what it is.

The third subject claiming attention, is that clause in the Constitution which provides for collecting duties, imposts, and excises in a uniform manner throughout the United States. It is contended, that under this clause a National Bank can and ought to be chartered. Your committee are of a different opinion, the assertion is evidently based upon the assumption that it is wholly impracticable to collect the revenue in thing else than a paper currency. If the premises are yielded, the reasoning may follow. But are the premises founded in reason and good conscience, according to the spirit of the Constitution? We think not. The framers of the Constitution have not done their work by halves; wherever it is made the duty of government to do a particulai

any

act, the means are afforded to effect that act, fully, perfectly, and entirely. Hence, the power of coining money, and regulating the value thereof, is conferred upon the general government, to enable it to carry into effect that other clause, which requires it to collect duties, imposts, &c., in a uniform manner." Else how could they do it? Taxes are to be collected in dollars and cents; and if Virginia made dollars to consist of seventy-five cents, New York of eighty, and Massachusetts of sixty-eight and three-fourth cents, as might probably have been the case, if the whole power of coining and regulating the value of money had not been surrendered to the general government; and under this state of affairs, with coin thus adulterated, it would have created as much embarrassment to the general government, to collect its revenue, &c., in a uniform manner, as it would thus be collected in the notes of local banks, at present depreciated to greater and less amounts in every state in the Union. Your committee do not hesitate to pronounce, that the means of collecting the public dues is clearly pointed out by the Constitution.

Besides, your committee are of opinion, that the Constitution never contemplated that the general government should oblige itself to receive, in payment of its dues, an article which it could not offer in discharge of its liabilities. It would be a monstrous construction of the Constitution, to say that the general government might properly force bank-bills upon a creditor in discharge of a debt! No such power is yet claimed by that government, certainly none such was ever given.

Your committee, upon a full and impartial investigation of this whole. subject, can find in the Constitution no warrant for the erection of such an institution. Precedent gives it the strongest claim which it has upon your attention; but precedent is not law, much less can it be made to alter or amend the Constitution. So far, however, as precedent goes, we are willing it should have its due weight; it is ground, however, upon which the advocates of a National Bank should lightly tread. The opponents of the bank can show five precedents against it where its friends can show one in its favor. One Congress in 1791 decided in favor of a bank, and another in 1811 decided against it; one Congress in 1815 decided against a bank, and another in 1816 in its favor; again, in 1832, 1834, and in 1837, Congress successively decided against the measure. The precedents in the national councils are, therefore, more than two to one against it.

If, then, we refer to state legislatures, and to the decision of state courts, the precedents, so far as they go, are as four to one. So far then as precedent is concerned, we think there can be nothing found which militates in favor of a bank. The mere fact of a National Bank having existed for four-fifths of the time, since the organization of the government, carries with it but little force, when urged as evidence that the people have, during that time, acquiesced in its establishment, if we reflect that it has only been at the expiration of each charter that the people have been favored with an opportunity of expressing their views as to its expediency or constitutionality. There is no means of ascertaining whether the people, during that time, acquiesced in its creation or existence, since all means of giving expression to their sentiments was denied by the terms of its charter, which for each successive term con

tinued for twenty years. It is urged as a further argument in favor of a bank, that General Washington sanctioned it in 1791; but it will be recollected, that at that time the tenth article of the amendment to the Constitution, restricting the general government in its action, and specially declaring that all powers not delegated are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people, was not adopted. The line between the sovereignty of the states and national government was not distinctly drawn, and the rights of the states were not at that period regarded with the same jealous eye as at present. And it was the encroachments of the general government upon the rights of the states, in the nature of federal alien and sedition laws, that first aroused the fears of the states for their reserved rights, and caused them to make the express declaration contained in the tenth section. What General Washington would have done after the adoption of that section, must ever remain a matter of doubt. But if his general devotion to the rights of the people afford any criterion, we may reasonably infer that he never would have yielded his assent to such a measure. Your committee, having thus embodied their opinions upon this division of the subject, will submit briefly their views upon the second point: to wit, as to the expediency or propriety of establishing such an institution at this time, and its probable effects upon state banks and local interests. Banks are not money, nor is the paper which they issue a safe substitute for money, any further than it represents coin, into which it may be converted at the will of the holder. The first care then of those who incorporate banks, should be to inquire from what source is the money to be derived, with which we propose to fill the vaults and enable it to commence the process of issuing?

Perhaps we are told that this stock will readily sell in a foreign market. But we hear a thousand voices from every point of the compass answering, No! No! We want no foreign subject fattening on our labor, and controlling with his money our politics in peace, and our commerce in peace and in war. The indignant voice of the American people has been too often raised against this monstrous scheme, any longer to permit a lingering hope that they may ever sanction it. How then are we to obtain the capital? Our citizens will unhesitatingly buy the stock, but by what means are they to pay for it? Certainly not in the notes of local banks, they form no basis upon which a national bank would dare to issue. You must force them to resume specie payment, to enable your stockholders to convert the paper (with which they propose to pay their stock) into specie, and thereby drive them to bankruptcy, or allow the stock to remain unpaid. For we hold it to be absolutely certain, that the local banks never would, unless driven to it, attempt so rash an act as the resumption of specie payment, whilst thousands of hungry expectants waited at their doors, ready to rush in and devour their little substance; and if driven to it, is there not great danger, that finding themselves thwarted in their calculations, that many of them who might be able, by prudent conduct, to discharge all their liabilities, would venture upon the desperate expedient of confessing their bankruptcy, dividing the spoil, and saying to anxious creditors, "go your way, we have not wherewith to relieve your demand." If these thoughts are entitled to any consideration, we think they afford some reason why we

should not be too hasty in calling into existence a creature like this, which can only live by feasting on our substance. But by what other means can it affect our real interests? We reply, that whilst it does not add to the value of our great staple, it does, by augmenting the amount of an article called paper money, increase the price of every article of domestic consumption.

Does a proposition so clear as this need reason to elucidate it, or argument to sustain it? We assert that the charter of a National Bank does not increase the value of cotton; all experience proves that this great article of commerce is not regulated by the existence of banks, but by the demand for it, by those who fabricate it into cloth and other things. If we see a remarkable rise in the price of cotton, we are apt to inquire the cause; the answers, be they ever so numerous, at length resolve themselves into one, plain and simple; the demand is greater now than it was before. Hence, we find that in 1827, '28, '29, and '30, when the bank was in the fullest tide of its operation, cotton was worth seven pence (equal to twelve cents); but in 1836, when the bank was virtually out of existence, the demand increased, and cotton rose from sixteen to twenty-two cents.

If, then, it does not render the labor of the citizens more valuable, we are at a loss to discern the great advantages which the working man is to derive from its creation. But we are satisfied of its effects, when the redundancy of paper money which it circulates, has swelled in a twofold relation the value of every horse, plough, harrow, and other articles of husbandry or family consumption which the laborer buys. Then we find it is an institution, which, instead of lightening the poor man's toils, in fact levies a heavy contribution upon the wages of his industry. It is an institution which makes the weak weaker, and the potent more powerful; ever filching from the poor man's hand to replenish the rich man's purse. Your committee have mistaken the duties of legislators, if it is their province to guard over the peculiar interest of the speculator and gambler, who live by the patronage of banks, to the detriment and ruin of the honest yeomen, whose toils have raised our happy republic from a few dependent colonies to the highest pinnacle of national fame, causing Indian wigwams to give place to splendid cities, and the whole wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose. It is well said that "the laborer is worthy of his hire;" and the illustrious Burke never uttered a sentiment which better deserved to be embalmed in the hearts of freemen, than that the working man should feel the wages of his labor in his pocket, and hear it jingle.

In conclusion, we recommend, as an expression of this body on the subject of a National Bank, the adoption of the following resolutions:1. Resolved, That the government of the United States has no constitutional right to charter a National Bank.

2. Resolved, That it is inexpedient and improper to charter such an institution at this time, even if Congress had the constitutional right to do so.

MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION.

Speech in the House of Representatives, April 17, 1840-In Committee of the Whole, on the general appropriation bill.

The House having resolved itself into Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, on the bill to provide for the civil and diplomatic expenditures of the government for the year 1840, and the general policy of the administration being under discussion, Mr. BROWN spoke substantially as follows:

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MR. CHAIRMAN: Since the commencement of the present session of Congress, it has been my custom rather to listen to the views of other gentlemen than to present any of my own. I have hitherto been a silent member, not from any indifference on my part as to what was passing, or any unwillingness to give expression to my opinion, but from an almost insuperable aversion to engaging in a general scramble for place on this floor. And now that I have arisen to address the committee, it would be a fraud upon its members if I did not frankly admit that it is not so much my purpose to discuss the bill under consideration, as to take part in a desultory debate which has been going on for the last ten or fifteen days. If, in the course of remark in which I design indulging, it shall become necessary for me to allude to the public or private character of any distinguished citizen of this country, I shall do it in that spirit of courtesy which becomes one gentleman speaking of another, and with all due regard to the station which it is my good fortune to occupy. I shall not indulge myself in a train of remark better suited to the medium of a grog shop than to the hall of legislation. The example has been set me by one gentleman [Mr. Ogle], of speaking of a prominent member of the other branch of the Legislature as liar;" and by another [Mr. Stanly], of declaring that a distinguished Senator is a fiend incarnate, fit only to be associated with the howling spirits of the vasty deep. I cannot consent, sir, to follow such an example, however distinguished the source from which it comes. I leave the classical and beautiful phrases of liar and fiend to the exclusive use of the more refined and elegant gentlemen who belong to the party that claims for itself all the wealth, all the talents, and all the decency of the country. Plain, unpretending Loco Foco as I am, rude and uncouth, I will not attempt to soar with these gentlemen into the regions of space, but shall content myself with appearing what I really am-respectful and courteous to every man, and demanding from every man that respect and courtesy which I extend to others. I assure you, Mr. Chairman, I have not the slightest inclination to distinguish myself by the use of expressions better suited to the mouth of a street bully than to the lips of a member of Congress; and I leave honorable gentlemen to the sole occupancy of this new field into which they have gone, free to reap and enjoy all the laurels that may be gathered there, undisturbed by any act or expression of mine. My object is to discuss principles, not characters. I am now about to enter the grand political arena,