Chapter LXVIII: The Veto (1)

The act which had passed the two Houses for the renewal of the bank charter, was presented to the President on the 4th day of July, and returned by him to the House in which it originated, on the 10th, with his objections. His first objection was to the exclusive privileges which it granted to corporators who had already enjoyed them, the great value of these privileges, and the inadequacy of the sum to be paid for them. He said:

"Every monopoly, and all exclusive privileges, are granted
at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair
equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow
on the stockholders of the existing bank, must come directly
or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people. It
is due to them, therefore, if their government sell monopolies
and exclusive privileges, that they should at least exact
for them as much as they are worth in open market. The value
of the monopoly in this case may be correctly ascertained.
The twenty-eight millions of stock would probably be at an
advance of fifty per cent., and command, in market, at least
forty-two millions of dollars, subject to the payment of the
present loans. The present value of the monopoly, therefore, is
seventeen millions of dollars, and this the act proposes to sell
for three millions, payable in fifteen annual instalments of
$200,000 each.

"It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can
have any claim to the special favor of the government. The
present corporation has enjoyed its monopoly during the period
stipulated in the original contract. If we must have such a
corporation, why should not the government sell out the whole
stock, and thus secure to the people the full market value of
the privileges granted? Why should not Congress create and sell
the twenty-eight millions of stock, incorporating the purchasers
with all the powers and privileges secured in this act, and
putting the premium upon the sales into the treasury?

"But this act does not permit competition in the purchase of
this monopoly. It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea
that the present stockholders have a prescriptive right, not
only to the favor, but to the bounty of the government. It
appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by
foreigners, and the residue is held by a few hundred of our
citizens, chiefly of the richest class. For their benefit does
this act exclude the whole American people from competition
in the purchase of this monopoly, and dispose of it for many
millions less than it is worth. This seems the less excusable,
because some of our citizens, not now stockholders, petitioned
that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to
take a charter on terms much more favorable to the government
and country.

"But this proposition, although made by men whose aggregate
wealth is believed to be equal to all the private stock in
the existing bank, has been set aside, and the bounty of our
government is proposed to be again bestowed on the few who have
been fortunate enough to secure the stock, and at this moment
wield the power of the existing institution. I cannot perceive
the justice or policy of this course. If our government must
sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing
less than their full value; and if gratuities must be made
once in fifteen or twenty years, let them not be bestowed on
the subjects of a foreign government, nor upon a designated or
favored class of men in our own country. It is but justice and
good policy, as far as the nature of the case will admit, to
confine our favors to our own fellow-citizens, and let each in
his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty. In the
bearings of the act before me upon these points, I find ample
reasons why it should not become a law."

The President objected to the constitutionality of the bank, and argued against the force of precedents in this case, and against the applicability and the decision of the Supreme Court in its favor. That decision was in the case of the Maryland branch, and sustained it upon an argument which carries error, in point of fact, upon its face. The ground of the decision was, that the bank was "necessary" to the successful conducting of the "fiscal operations" of the government; and that Congress was the judge of that necessity. Upon this ground the Maryland branch, and every branch except the one in the District of Columbia, was without the constitutional warrant which the court required. Congress had given no judgment in favor of its necessity--but the contrary--a judgment against it: for after providing for the mother bank at Philadelphia, and one branch at Washington City, the establishment of all other branches was referred to the judgment of the bank itself, or to circumstances over which Congress had no control, as the request of a State legislature founded upon a subscription of 2000 shares within the State--with a dispensation in favor of substituting local banks in places where the Secretary of the Treasury, and the directors of the national bank should agree. All this was contained in the fourteenth fundamental article of the constitution of the corporation--which says:

"The directors of said corporation shall establish a competent
office of discount and deposit in the District of Columbia,
whenever any law of the United States shall require such an
establishment: also one such office of discount and deposit
in any State in which two thousand shares shall have been
subscribed or may be held, whenever, upon application of the
legislature of such State, Congress may, by law, require the
same: _Provided_, the directors aforesaid shall not be bound
to establish such office before the whole of the capital of
the bank shall be paid up. And it shall be lawful for the
directors of the corporation to establish offices of discount
and deposit where they think fit, within the United States or
the territories thereof, and to commit the management of the
said, and the business thereof, respectively to such persons,
and under such regulations, as they shall deem proper, not
being contrary to the laws or the constitution of the bank. Or,
instead of establishing such offices, it shall be lawful for the
directors of the said corporation, from time to time, to employ
any other bank or banks, to be first approved by the Secretary
of the Treasury, at any place or places that they may deem
safe and proper, to manage and transact the business proposed
aforesaid, other than for the purposes of discount; to be
managed and transacted by such offices, under such agreements,
and subject to such regulations as they shall deem just and
proper."

These are the words of the fourteenth fundamental article of the constitution of the bank, and the conduct of the corporation in establishing its branches was in accordance with this article. They placed them where they pleased--at first, governed wholly by the question of profit and loss to itself--afterwards, and when it was seen that the renewed charter was to be resisted by the members from some States, governed by the political consideration of creating an interest to defeat the election, or control the action of the dissenting members. Thus it was in my own case. A branch in St. Louis was refused to the application of the business community--established afterwards to govern me. And thus, it is seen the Supreme Court was in error--that the judgment of Congress in favor of the "necessity" of branches only extended to one in the District of Columbia; and as for the bank itself, the argument in its favor and upon which the Supreme Court made its decision, was an argument which made the constitutionality of a measure dependent, not upon the words of the constitution, but upon the opinion of Congress for the time being upon the question of the "necessity" of a particular measure--a question subject to receive different decisions from Congress at different times--which actually received different decisions in 1791, 1811, and 1816: and, we may now add the decision of experience since 1836--during which term we have had no national bank; and the fiscal business of the government, as well as the commercial and trading business of the country, has been carried on with a degree of success never equalled in the time of the existence of the national bank. I, therefore, believe that the President was well warranted in challenging both the validity of the decision of the Supreme Court, and the obligatory force of precedents: which he did, as follows:

"It is maintained by the advocates of the bank, that its
constitutionality, in all its features, ought to be considered
as settled by precedent, and by the decision of the Supreme
Court. To this conclusion I cannot assent. Mere precedence is
a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as
deciding questions of constitutional power, except where the
acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as
well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject,
an argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One
Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811,
decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a
bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the
present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that
source were equal. If we report to the States, the expressions
of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the
bank have been, probably, to those in its favor, as four to
one. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its
authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act
before me.

"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of
this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities
of this government. The Congress, the Executive, and the
court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of
the constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to
support the constitution, swears that he will support it as he
understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as
much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate,
and of the President, to decide upon the constitutionality
of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for
passage or approval, as it is of the supreme judges, when it may
be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the
judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of
Congress has over the judges; and on that point the President
is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must
not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress, or the
Executive, when acting in their legislative capacities, but to
have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may
deserve.

"But in the case relied upon, the Supreme Court have not decided
that all the features of this corporation are compatible with
the constitution. It is true that the court have said that the
law incorporating the bank is a constitutional exercise of
power by Congress. But taking into view the whole opinion of
the court, and the reasoning by which they have come to that
conclusion, I understand them to have decided that, inasmuch
as a bank is an appropriate means for carrying into effect
the enumerated powers of the general government, therefore
the law incorporating it is in accordance with that provision
of the constitution which declares that Congress shall have
power 'to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying those powers into execution.' Having satisfied
themselves that the word 'necessary,' in the constitution, means
'needful,' 'requisite,' 'essential,' 'conducive to,' and that
'a bank' is a convenient, a useful, and essential instrument
in the prosecution of the government's 'fiscal operations,'
they conclude that to 'use one must be within the discretion
of Congress;' and that 'the act to incorporate the Bank of the
United States, is a law made in pursuance of the constitution.'
'But,' say they, 'where the law is not prohibited, and is
really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the
government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its
necessity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes the
judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground.'

"The principle, here affirmed, is, that the 'degree of its
necessity,' involving all the details of a banking institution,
is a question exclusively for legislative consideration. A bank
is constitutional; but it is the province of the legislature
to determine whether this or that particular power, privilege,
or exemption, is 'necessary and proper' to enable the bank to
discharge its duties to the government; and from their decision
there is no appeal to the courts of justice. Under the decision
of the Supreme Court, therefore, it is the exclusive province
of Congress and the President to decide whether the particular
features of this act are 'necessary and proper,' in order to
enable the bank to perform, conveniently and efficiently, the
public duties assigned to it as a fiscal agent, and therefore
constitutional; or unnecessary and improper, and therefore
unconstitutional."

With regard to the misconduct of the institution, both in conducting its business and in resisting investigation, the message spoke the general sentiment of the disinterested country when it said:

"Suspicions are entertained, and charges are made, of gross
abuses and violations of its charter. An investigation
unwillingly conceded, and so restricted in time as necessarily
to make it incomplete and unsatisfactory, discloses enough to
excite suspicion and alarm. In the practices of the principal
bank, partially unveiled in the absence of important witnesses,
and in numerous charges confidently made, and as yet wholly
uninvestigated, there was enough to induce a majority of the
committee of investigation, a committee which was selected
from the most able and honorable members of the House of
Representatives, to recommend a suspension of further action
upon the bill, and a prosecution of the inquiry. As the charter
had yet four years to run, and as a renewal now was not
necessary to the successful prosecution of its business, it was
to have been expected that the bank itself, conscious of its
purity, and proud of its character, would have withdrawn its
application for the present, and demanded the severest scrutiny
into all its transactions. In their declining to do so, there
seems to be an additional reason why the functionaries of the
government should proceed with less haste, and more caution, in
the renewal of their monopoly."

The appearance of the veto message was the signal for the delivery of the great speeches of the advocates of the bank. Thus far they had held back, refraining from general debate, and limiting themselves to brief answers to current objections. Now they came forth in all their strength, in speeches elaborate and studied, and covering the whole ground of constitutionality and expediency; and delivered with unusual warmth and vehemence. Mr. Webster, Mr. Clay, Mr. Clayton of Delaware, and Mr. Ewing of Ohio, thus entered the lists for the bank. And why these speeches, at this time, when it was certain that speaking would have no effect in overcoming the veto--that the constitutional majority of two thirds of each House to carry it, so far from being attainable, would but little exceed a bare majority? The reason was told by the speakers themselves--fully told, as an appeal to the people--as a transfer of the question to the political arena--to the election fields, and especially to the presidential election, then impending, and within four months of its consummation--and a refusal on the part of the corporation to submit to the decision of the constituted authorities. This was plainly told by Mr. Webster in the opening of his argument; frightful distress was predicted: and the change of the chief magistrate was presented as the only means of averting an immense calamity on one hand, or of securing an immense benefit on the other. He said:

"It is now certain that, without a change in our public
councils, this bank will not be continued, nor will any other be
established, which, according to the general sense and language
of mankind, can be entitled to the name. In three years and
nine months from the present moment, the charter of the bank
expires; within that period, therefore, it must wind up its
concerns. It must call in its debts, withdraw its bills from
circulation, and cease from all its ordinary operations. All
this is to be done in three years and nine months; because,
although there is a provision in the charter rendering it lawful
to use the corporate name for two years after the expiration of
the charter, yet this is allowed only for the purpose of suits,
and for the sale of the estate belonging to the bank, and for no
other purpose whatever. The whole active business of the bank,
its custody of public deposits, its transfers of public moneys,
its dealing in exchange, all its loans and discounts, and all
its issues of bills for circulation, must cease and determine
on or before the 3d day of March, 1836; and, within the same
period, its debts must be collected, as no new contract can be
made with it, as a corporation, for the renewal of loans, or
discount of notes or bills, after that time."

Mr. Senator White of Tennessee, seizing upon this open entrance into the political arena by the bank, thanked Mr. Webster for his candor, and summoned the people to the combat of the great moneyed power, now openly at the head of a great political party, and carrying the fortunes of that party in the question of its own continued existence. He said:

"I thank the senator for the candid avowal that unless the
President will sign such a charter as will suit the directors,
they intend to interfere in the election, and endeavor to
displace him. With the same candor I state that, after this
declaration, this charter shall never be renewed with my consent.

"Let us look at this matter as it is. Immediately before the
election, the directors apply for a charter, which they think
the President at any other time will not sign, for the express
purpose of compelling him to sign contrary to his judgment,
or of encountering all their hostility in the canvass, and
at the polls. Suppose this attempt to have succeeded, and
the President, through fear of his election, had signed this
charter, although he conscientiously believes it will be
destructive of the liberty of the people who have elected him
to preside over them, and preserve their liberties, so far as
in his power. What next? Why, whenever the charter is likely to
expire hereafter, they will come, as they do now, on the eve
of the election, and compel the chief magistrate to sign such
a charter as they may dictate, on pain of being turned out and
disgraced. Would it not be far better to gratify this moneyed
aristocracy, to the whole extent at once, and renew their
charter for ever? The temptation to a periodical interference in
our elections would then be taken away.

"Sir, if, under these circumstances, the charter is renewed,
the elective franchise is destroyed, and the liberties and
prosperity of the people are delivered over to this moneyed
institution, to be disposed of at their discretion. Against this
I enter my solemn protest."

The distress to be brought upon the country by the sudden winding up of the bank, the sudden calling in of all its debts, the sudden withdrawal of all its capital, was pathetically dwelt upon by all the speakers, and the alarming picture thus presented by Mr. Clayton:

"I ask, what is to be done for the country? All thinking men
must now admit that, as the present bank must close its concerns
in less than four years, the pecuniary distress, the commercial
embarrassments, consequent upon its destruction, must exceed
any thing which has ever been known in our history, unless
some other bank can be established to relieve us. Eight and a
half millions of the bank capital, belonging to foreigners,
must be drawn from us to Europe. Seven millions of the capital
must be paid to the government, not to be loaned again, but to
remain, as the President proposes, deposited in a branch of the
treasury, to check the issues of the local banks. The immense
available resources of the present institution, amounting, as
appears by the report in the other House, to $82,057,483, are
to be used for banking no longer, and nearly fifty millions of
dollars in notes discounted, on personal and other security,
must be paid to the bank. The State banks must pay over all
their debts to the expiring institution, and curtail their
discounts to do so, or resort, for the relief of their debtors,
to the old plan of emitting more paper, to be bought up by
speculators at a heavy discount."

This was an alarming picture to present, and especially as the corporation had it in its power to create the distress which it foretold--a consummation frightfully realized three years later--but a picture equally unjustifiable and gratuitous. Two years was the extent of the time, after the expiration of its charter, that the corporation had accepted in its charter for winding up its business; and there were now four years to run before these two years would commence. The section 21, of the charter, provided for the contingency thus:

"And notwithstanding the expiration of the term for which the
said corporation is created, it shall be lawful to use the
corporate name, style and capacity, for the purpose of suits for
the final settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts
of the corporation, and for the sale and disposition of their
estate real, personal and mixed: but not for any other purpose,
or in any other manner whatever, nor for a period exceeding two
years after the expiration of said term of incorporation."

Besides the two years given to the institution after the expiration of its charter, it was perfectly well known, and has since been done in its own case, and was done by the first national bank, and may be by any expiring corporation, that the directors may appoint trustees to wind up their concerns; and who will not be subject to any limited time. The first national bank--that which was created in 1791, and expired in 1811--had no two years, or any time whatever, allowed for winding up its affairs after the expiration of its charter--and the question of the renewal was not decided until within the last days of the existence of its charter--yet there was no distress, and no pressure upon its debtors. A trust was created; and the collection of debts conducted so gently that it is not yet finished. The trustees are still at work: and within this year, and while this application for a renewed charter to the second bank is going on, they announce a dividend of some cents on the share out of the last annual collections; and intimate no time within which they will finish; so that this menace of distress from the second bank, if denied a renewal four years before the expiration of its charter, and four years before the commencement of the two years to which it is entitled, was entirely gratuitous, and would have been wicked if executed.

Mr. Clay concluded the debate on the side of the bank application, and spoke with great ardor and vehemence, and with much latitude of style and topic--though as a rival candidate for the Presidency, it was considered by some, that a greater degree of reserve might have been commendable. The veto, and its imputed undue exercise, was the theme of his vehement declamation. Besides discrediting its use, and denouncing it as of monarchial origin, he alluded to the popular odium brought upon Louis the 16th by its exercise, and the nickname which it caused to be fastened upon him. He said:

"The veto is hardly reconcilable with the genius of
representative government. It is totally irreconcilable with
it, if it is to be frequently employed in respect to the
expediency of measures, as well as their constitutionality. It
is a feature of our government borrowed from a prerogative of
the British King. And it is remarkable that in England it has
grown obsolete, not having been used for upwards of a century.
At the commencement of the French Revolution, in discussing the
principles of their constitution, in the national convention,
the veto held a conspicuous figure. The gay, laughing population
of Paris bestowed on the King the appellation of Monsieur Veto,
and on the Queen that of Madame Veto."

Mr. Benton saw the advantage which this denunciation and allusion presented, and made relentless use of it. He first vindicated the use and origin of the veto, as derived from the institution of the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and its exercise always intended for the benefit of the people; and, under our constitution, its only effect to refer a measure to the people, for their consideration, and to stay its execution until the people could pass upon it, and to adopt or reject it at an ensuing Congress. It was a power eminently just and proper in a representative government, and intended for the benefit of the whole people; and, therefore, placed in the hands of the magistrate elected by the whole. On the allusion to the nickname on the King and Queen of France, he said:

"He not only recollected the historical incident to which the
senator from Kentucky had alluded, but also the character
of the decrees to which the unfortunate Louis the 16th had
affixed his vetoes. One was the decree against the emigrants,
dooming to death and confiscation of estate every man, woman,
and child who should attempt to save their lives by flying
from the pike, the guillotine, and the lamp-post. The other
was a decree exposing to death the ministers of religion who
could not take an oath which their consciences repulsed. To
save tottering age, trembling mothers, and affrighted children
from massacre--to save the temples and altars of God from
being stained by the blood of his ministers--were the sacred
objects of those vetoes; and was there any thing to justify a
light or reproachful allusion to them in the American Senate?
The King put his constitutional vetoes to these decrees; and
the _canaille_ of Saint Antoine and Marceau--not the gay and
laughing Parisians, but the bloody _canaille_, instigated by
leaders more ferocious than themselves--began to salute the King
as Monsieur Veto, and demand his head for the guillotine. And
the Queen, when seen at the windows of her prison, her locks
pale with premature white, the effect of an agonized mind at the
ruin she witnessed, the _poissardes_ saluted her also as Madame
Veto; and the Dauphin came in for the epithet of the Little
Veto. All this was terrible in France, and in the disorders of a
revolution; but why revive their remembrance in this Congress,
successor to those which were accustomed to call this king our
great ally? and to compliment him on the birth of that child,
stigmatized _le petit veto_, and perishing prematurely under the
inhumanities of the convention inflicted by the hand of Simon,
the jailer? The two elder vetoes, Monsieur and Madame, came to
the guillotine in Paris, and the young one to a death, compared
to which the guillotine was mercy. And now, why this allusion?
what application of its moral? Surely it is not pointless; not
devoid of meaning and practical application. We have no bloody
guillotines here, but we have political ones: sharp axes falling
from high, and cutting off political heads! Is the service of
that axe invoked here upon 'General Andrew Veto?' If so, and
the invocation should be successful, then Andrew Jackson, like
Louis 16th, will cease to be in any body's way in their march to
power."

Mr. Clay also introduced a fable, not taken from Æsop--that of the cat and the eagle--the moral of which was attempted to be turned against him. It was in allusion to the President's message in relation to the bank, and the conduct of his friends since in "attacking" the institution; and said:

"They have done so; and their condition now reminds mo of the
fable invented by Dr. Franklin, of the Eagle and the Cat, to
demonstrate that Æsop had not exhausted invention, in the
construction of his memorable fables. The eagle, you know, Mr.
President, pounced, from his lofty flight in the air, upon a
cat, taking it to be a pig. Having borne off his prize, he
quickly felt most painfully the claws of the cat thrust deeply
into his sides and body. Whilst flying, he held a parley with
the supposed pig, and proposed to let go his hold, if the other
would let him alone. No, says puss, you brought me from yonder
earth below, and I will hold fast to you until you carry me
back; a condition to which the eagle readily assented."

Mr. Benton gave a poetical commencement to this fable; and said:

"An eagle towering in his pride of height was--not by a
mousing owl, but by a pig under a jimpson weed--not hawked and
killed, but caught and whipt. The opening he thought grand;
the conclusion rather bathotic. The mistake of the sharp-eyed
bird of Jove, he thought might be attributed to old age dimming
the sight, and to his neglect of his spectacles that morning.
He was rather surprised at the whim of the cat in not choosing
to fall, seeing that a cat (unlike a politician sometimes),
always falls on its legs; but concluded it was a piece of pride
in puss, and a wish to assimilate itself still closer to an
æronaut; and having gone up pendant to a balloon, it would come
down artistically, with a parachute spread over its head. It was
a pretty fable, and well told; but the moral--the application?
Æsop always had a moral to his fable; and Dr. Franklin, his
imputed continuator in this particular, though not yet the rival
of his master in fabulous reputation, yet had a large sprinkling
of practical sense; and never wrote or spoke without a point and
an application. And now, what is the point here? And the senator
from Kentucky has not left that to be inferred; he has told it
himself. General Jackson is the eagle; the bank is the cat; the
parley is the proposition of the bank to the President to sign
its charter, and it will support him for the presidency--if not,
will keep his claws stuck in his sides. But, Jackson, different
from the eagle with his cat, will have no compromise, or bargain
with the bank. One or the other shall fall! and be dashed into
atoms!

"Having disposed of these preliminary topics Mr. B. came to
the matter in hand--the debate on the bank, which had only
commenced on the side of the friends of that institution since
the return of the veto message. Why debate the bank question
now, he exclaimed, and not debate it before? Then was the time
to make converts; now, none can be expected. Why are lips
unsealed now, which were silent as the grave when this act was
on its passage through the Senate? The senator from Kentucky
himself, at the end of one of his numerous perorations, declared
that he expected to make no converts. Then, why speak three
hours? and other gentlemen speak a whole day? Why this _post
facto_--_post mortem_--this _posthumous_--debate?--The deed is
done. The bank bill is finished. Speaking cannot change the
minds of senators, and make them reverse their votes; still
less can it change the President, and make him recall his veto.
Then why speak? To whom do they speak? With what object do
they speak? Sir! exclaimed Mr. B., this _post facto_ debate is
not for the Senate, nor the President, nor to alter the fate
of the bank bill. It is to rouse the officers of the bank--to
direct the efforts of its mercenaries in their designs upon
the people--to bring out its stream of corrupting influence,
by inspiring hope, and to embody all its recruits at the polls
to vote against President Jackson. Without an avowal we would
all know this; but we have not been left without an avowal. The
senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), who opened yesterday,
commenced his speech with showing that Jackson must be put down;
that he stood as an impassable barrier between the bank and a
new charter; and that the road to success was through the ballot
boxes at the presidential election. The object of this debate
is then known, confessed, declared, avowed; the bank is in the
field; enlisted for the war; a battering ram--the _catapulta_,
not of the Romans, but of the National Republicans; not to beat
down the walls of hostile cities, but to beat down the citadel
of American liberty; to batter down the rights of the people;
to destroy a hero and patriot; to command the elections, and to
elect a Bank President by dint of bank power.

"The bank is in the field (said Mr. B.), a combatant, and a
fearful and tremendous one, in the presidential election. If
she succeeds, there is an end of American liberty--an end of
the republic. The forms of election may be permitted for a
while, as the forms of the consular elections were permitted
in Rome, during the last years of the republic; but it will be
for a while only. The President of the bank, and the President
of the United States, will be cousins, and cousins in the
royal sense of the word. They will elect each other. They will
elect their successors; they will transmit their thrones to
their descendants, and that by legislative construction. The
great Napoleon was decreed to be hereditary emperor by virtue
of the 22d article of the constitution of the republic. The
conservative Senate and the Tribunitial Assembly made him
emperor by construction; and the same construction which was
put upon the 22d article of the French constitution of the year
VIII. may be as easily placed upon the 'general welfare' clause
in the constitution of these United States.

"The Bank is in the field, and the West,--the Great West, is
the selected theatre of her operations. There her terrors, her
seductions, her energies, her rewards and her punishments, are
to be directed. The senator from Massachusetts opened yesterday
with a picture of the ruin in the West, if the bank were not
rechartered; and the senator from Kentucky, Mr. Clay, wound up
with a retouch of the same picture to day, with a closeness of
coincidence which showed that this part of the battle ground had
been reviewed in company by the associate generals and duplicate
senators. Both agree that the West is to be ruined if the bank
be not rechartered; and rechartered it cannot be, unless the
_veto_ President is himself _vetoed_. This is certainly candid.
But the gentlemen's candor did not stop there. They went on to
show the _modus operandi_; to show how the ruin would be worked,
how the country would be devastated,--if Jackson was not put
down, and the bank rechartered. The way was this: The West owes
thirty millions of dollars to the bank; the bank will sue every
debtor within two years after its charter expires; there will
be no money in the country to pay the judgments, all property
will be sold at auction; the price of all property will fall;
even the growing crops, quite up to Boon's Lick, will sink in
value and lose half their price! This is the picture of ruin
now drawn by the senator from Massachusetts; these the words
of a voice now pleading the cause of the West against Jackson,
the sound of which voice never happened to be heard in favor of
the West during the late war, when her sons were bleeding under
the British and the Indians, and Jackson was perilling life and
fortune to save and redeem her.

"This is to be the punishment of the West if she votes for
Jackson; and by a plain and natural inference, she is to
have her reward for putting him down and putting up another.
Thirty millions is the bank debt in the West; and these thirty
millions they threaten to collect by writs of execution if
Jackson is re-elected; but if he be not elected, and somebody
else be elected, then they promise no forced payments shall be
exacted,--hardly any payment at all! The thirty millions it is
pretended will almost be forgiven; and thus a bribe of thirty
millions is deceitfully offered for the Western vote, with a
threat of punishment, if it be not taken! But the West, and
especially the State of Ohio, is aware that Mr. Clay does not
use the bank power, in extending charities--coercion is his
mode of appeal--and when President Clay and President Biddle
have obtained their double sway, all these fair promises will
be forgotten. Mr. B. had read in the Roman history of the
empire being put up to sale; he had read of victorious generals,
returning from Asiatic conquests, and loaded with oriental
spoil, bidding in the market for the consulship, and purchasing
their elections with the wealth of conquered kingdoms; but he
had never expected to witness a bid for the presidency in this
young and free republic. He thought he lived too early,--too
near the birth of the republic,--while every thing was yet
too young and innocent,--to see the American presidency put
up at auction. But he affirmed this to be the case now; and
called upon every senator, and every auditor, who had heard the
senator from Massachusetts the day before, or the senator from
Kentucky on that day, to put any other construction, if they
could, upon this seductive offer to the West, of indefinite
accommodation for thirty millions of debt, if she would vote for
one gentleman, and the threat of a merciless exaction of that
debt, if she voted for another?

"Mr. B. demanded how the West came to be selected by these two
senators as the theatre for the operation of all the terrors and
seductions of the bank debt? Did no other part of the country
owe money to the bank? Yes! certainly, fifteen millions in the
South, and twenty-five millions north of the Potomac. Why then
were not the North and the South included in the fancied fate
of the West? Simply because the presidential election could not
be affected by the bank debt in those quarters. The South was
irrevocably fixed; and the terror, or seduction, of the payment,
or non-payment, of her bank debt, would operate nothing there.
The North owed but little, compared to its means of payment, and
the presidential election would turn upon other points in that
region. The bank debt was the argument for the West; and the
bank and the orators had worked hand in hand, to produce, and
to use, this argument. Mr. B. then affirmed, that the debt had
been created for the very purpose to which it was now applied;
an electioneering, political purpose; and this he proved by a
reference to authentic documents.

"_First_: He took the total bank debt, as it existed when
President Jackson first brought the bank charter before the view
of Congress in December, 1829, and showed it to be $40,216,000;
then he took the total debt as it stood at present, being
$70,428,000; and thus showed an increase of thirty millions
in the short space of two years and four months. This great
increase had occurred since the President had delivered opinions
against the bank, and when as a prudent, and law abiding
institution, it ought to have been reducing and curtailing its
business, or at all events, keeping it stationary. He then
showed the annual progress of this increase, to demonstrate
that the increase was faster and faster, as the charter drew
nearer and nearer to its termination, and the question of its
renewal pressed closer and closer upon the people. He showed
that the increase the first year after the message of 1829 was
four millions and a quarter; in the second year, which was
last year, about nineteen millions, to wit, from $44,052,000,
to $63,026,452; and the increase in the four first mouths of
the present year was nearly five millions, being at the rate
of about one million and a quarter a month since the bank had
applied for a renewal of her charter! After having shown this
enormous increase in the sum total of the debt, Mr. B. went
on to show where it had taken place; and this he proved to be
chiefly in the West, and not merely in the West, but principally
in those parts of the West in which the presidential election
was held to be most doubtful and critical.

"He began with the State of Louisiana, and showed that the
increase there, since the delivery of the message of 1829, was
$5,061,161; in Kentucky, that the increase was $3,009,838; that
in Ohio, it was $2,079,207. Here was an increase of ten millions
in three critical and doubtful States. And so on, in others.
Having shown this enormous increase of debt in the West, Mr. B.
went on to show, from the time and circumstances and subsequent
events, that they were created for a political purpose, and had
already been used by the bank with that view. He then recurred
to the two-and-twenty circulars, or writs of execution, as he
called them, issued against the South and West, in January
and February last, ordering curtailments of all debts, and
the supply of reinforcements to the Northeast. He showed that
the reasons assigned by the bank for issuing the orders of
curtailments were false; that she was not deprived of public
deposits, as she asserted; for she then had twelve millions, and
now has twelve millions of these deposits; that she was not in
distress for money, as she asserted, for she was then increasing
her loans in other quarters, at the rate of a million and a
quarter a month, and had actually increased them ten millions
and a half from the date of the first order of curtailment,
in October, 1831, to the end of May, 1832! Her reasons then
assigned for curtailing at the Western branches, were false,
infamously false, and were proved to be so by her own returns.
The true reasons were political: a foretaste and prelude to what
is now threatened. It was a manoeuvre to press the debtors--a
turn of the screw upon the borrowers--to make them all cry out
and join in the clamors and petitions for a renewed charter!
This was the reason, this the object; and a most wanton and
cruel sporting it was with the property and feelings of the
unfortunate debtors. The overflowing of the river at Louisville
and Cincinnati, gave the bank an opportunity of showing its
gracious condescension in the temporary and slight relaxation of
her orders at those places; but there, and every where else in
the West, the screw was turned far enough to make the screams
of the victims reach their representatives in Congress. In
Mobile, alone, half a million was curtailed out of a million
and a half; at every other branch, curtailments are going on;
and all this for political effect, and to be followed up by the
electioneering fabrication that it is the effect of the veto
message. Yes! the veto message and President, are to be held up
as the cause of these curtailments, which have been going on for
half a year past!

"Connected with the creation of this new debt, was the
establishment of several new branches, and the promise of many
more. Instead of remaining stationary, and awaiting the action
of Congress, the bank showed itself determined to spread and
extend its business, not only in debts, but in new branches.
Nashville, Natchez, St. Louis, were favored with branches at the
eleventh hour. New-York had the same favor done her; and, at one
of these (the branch at Utica), the Senate could judge of the
necessity to the federal government which occasioned it to be
established, and which necessity, in the opinion of the Supreme
Court, is sufficient to overturn the laws and constitution of
a State: the Senate could judge of this necessity, from the
fact that twenty-five dollars is rather a large deposit to the
credit of the United States Treasurer, and that, at the last
returns, the federal deposit was precisely two dollars and fifty
cents! This extension of branches and increase of debt, at the
approaching termination of the charter, was evidence of the
determination of the bank to be rechartered at all hazards. It
was done to create an interest to carry her through, in spite
of the will of the people. Numerous promises for new branches,
is another trick of the same kind. Thirty new branches are said
to be in contemplation, and about three hundred villages have
been induced each to believe that itself was the favored spot of
location; but, always upon the condition, well understood, that
Jackson should not be re-elected, and that they should elect a
representative to vote for the re-charter.

"Mr. B., having shown when and why this Western debt was
created, examined next into the alleged necessity for its prompt
and rigorous collection, if the charter was not renewed; he
denied the existence of any such necessity in point of law. He
affirmed that the bank could take as much time as she pleased to
collect her debts, and could be just as gentle with her debtors
as she chose. All that she had to do was to convert a few of
her directors into trustees, as the old Bank of the United
States had done, the affairs of which were wound up so gently
that the country did not know when it ended. Mr. B. appealed to
what would be admitted to be bank authority on this point: it
was the opinion of the senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), not
in his speech against renewing the bank charter, in 1811, but
in his report of that year against allowing it time to wind up
its affairs. The bank then asked time to wind up its affairs;
a cry was raised that the country would be ruined, if time
was not allowed; but the senator from Kentucky then answered
that cry, by referring the bank to its common law right to
constitute trustees to wind up its affairs. The Congress acted
upon the suggestion by refusing the time; the bank acted upon
the suggestion by appointing trustees; the debtors hushed their
cries, and the public never heard of the subject afterwards. The
pretext of an unrenewed charter is not necessary to stimulate
the bank to the pressure of Western debtors. Look at Cincinnati!
what but a determination to make its power felt and feared
occasioned the pressure at that place? And will that disposition
ever be wanting to such an institution as that of the Bank of
the United States?

"The senator from Kentucky has changed his opinion about the
constitutionality of the bank; but has he changed it about the
legality of the trust? If he has not, he must surrender his
alarms for the ruin of the West; if he has, the law itself is
unchanged. The bank may act under it; and if she does not, it
is because she will not; and because she chooses to punish the
West for refusing to support her candidate for the presidency.
What then becomes of all this cry about ruined fortunes, fallen
prices, and the loss of growing crops? All imagination or cruel
tyranny! The bank debt of the West is thirty millions. She has
six years to pay it in; and, at all events, he that cannot pay
in six years, can hardly do it at all. Ten millions are in bills
of exchange; and, if they are real bills, they will be payable
at maturity, in ninety or one hundred and twenty days; if not
real hills, but disguised loans, drawing interest as a debt, and
premium as a bill of exchange, they are usurious and void, and
may be vacated in any upright court.

"But, the great point for the West to fix its attention upon is
the fact that, once in every ten years, the capital of this debt
is paid in annual interest; and that, after paying the capital
many times over in interest, the principal will have to be paid
at last. The sooner, then, the capital is paid and interest
stopped, the better for the country.

"Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had dilated largely upon the
withdrawal of bank capital from the West. Mr. B. showed, from
the bank documents, that they had sent but 938,000 dollars of
capital there; that the operation was the other way, a ruinous
drain of capital, and that in hard money, from the West. He went
over the tables which showed the annual amount of these drains,
and demonstrated its ruinous nature upon the South and West.
He showed the tendency of all branch bank paper to flow to the
Northeast; the necessity to redeem it annually with gold and
silver, and bills of exchange, and the inevitable result, that
the West would eventually be left without either hard money, or
branch bank paper.

"Mr. Clay had attributed all the disasters of the late war,
especially the surrender of Detroit, and the Bladensburg rout,
to the want of this bank. Mr. B. asked if bank credits, or
bank advances, could have inspired courage into the bosom of
the unhappy old man who had been the cause of the surrender
of Detroit? or, could have made those fight who could not
be inspired by the view of their capitol, the presence of
their President, and the near proximity of their families and
firesides? Andrew Jackson conquered at New Orleans, without
money, without arms, without credit--aye, without a bank. He got
even his flints from the pirates. He scouted the idea of brave
men being produced by the bank. If it had existed, it would have
been a burthen upon the hands of the government. It was now,
at this hour, a burthen upon the hands of the government, and
an obstacle to the payment of the public debt. It had procured
a payment of six millions of the public debt to be delayed,
from July to October, under the pretext that the merchants
could not pay their bonds, when these bonds were now paid, and
twelve millions of dollars--twice the amount intended to have
been paid--lies in the vaults of the bank to be used by her in
beating down the veto message, the author of the message, and
all who share his opinions. The bank was not only a burthen
upon the hands of the government now, but had been a burthen
upon it in three years after it started--when it would have
stopped payment, as all America knows, in April 1819, had it not
been for the use of eight millions of public deposits, and the
seasonable arrival of wagons loaded with specie from Kentucky
and Ohio.

"Mr. B. defended the old banks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee,
from the aspersions which had been cast upon them. They had
aided the government when the Northern bankers, who now scoff
at them, refused to advance a dollar. They had advanced the
money which enabled the warriors of the West to go forth to
battle. They had crippled themselves to aid their government.
After the war they resumed specie payments, which had been
suspended with the consent of the legislatures, to enable them
to extend all their means in aid of the national struggle. This
resumption was made practicable by the Treasury deposit, in
the State institutions. They were withdrawn to give capital to
the branches of the great monopoly, when first extended to the
West. These branches, then, produced again the draining of the
local banks, which they had voluntarily suffered for the sake of
government during the war. They had sacrificed their interests
and credit to sustain the credit of the national treasury--and
the treasury surrendered them, as a sacrifice to the national
bank. They stopped payment under the pressure and extortion of
the new establishments, introduced against the consent of the
people and legislatures of the Western States. The paper of
the Western banks depreciated--the stock of the States and of
individual stockholders was sacrificed--the country was filled
with a spurious currency, by the course of an institution which,
it was pretended, was established to prevent such a calamity.
The Bank of the United States was thus established on the ruins
of the banks, and foreigners and non-residents were fattened on
their spoils. They were stripped of their specie to pamper the
imperial bank. They fell victims to their patriotism, and to the
establishment of the United States bank; and it was unjust and
unkind to reproach them with a fate which their patriotism, and
the establishment of the federal bank brought upon them.