Chapter LXVIII: The Veto (2)

"Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had rebuked the President for his
allusion to the manner in which the bank charter had been
pushed through Congress, pending an unfinished investigation,
reluctantly conceded. Mr. B. demanded if that was not true? He
asked if it was not wrong to push the charter through in that
manner, and if the President had not done right to stop it,
to balk this hurried process, and to give the people time for
consideration and enable them to act? He had only brought the
subject to the notice of the Congress and the people, but had
not recommended immediate legislation, before the subject had
been canvassed before the nation. It was a gross perversion
of his messages to quote them in favor of immediate decision
without previous investigation. He was not evading the question.
The veto message proved that. He sought time for the people, not
for himself, and in that he coincided with a sentiment lately
expressed by the senator himself (from Kentucky) at Cincinnati;
he was coinciding with the example of the British parliament,
which had not yet decided the question of rechartering the
Bank of England, and which had just raised an extraordinary
committee of thirty-one members to examine the bank through
all her departments; and, what was much more material, he had
coincided with the spirit of our constitution, and the rights
of the people, in preventing an expiring minority Congress
from usurping the powers and rights of their successors. The
President had not evaded the question. He had met it fully. He
might have said nothing about it in his messages of 1829, '30,
and '31. He might have remained silent, and had the support
of both parties; but the safety and interest of the country
required the people to be awakened to the consideration of the
subject. He had waked them up; and now that they are awake, he
has secured them time for consideration. Is this evasion?

"Messrs. C. and W. had attacked the President for objecting
to foreign stockholders in the Bank of the United States. Mr.
B. maintained the solidity of the objection, and exposed the
futility of the argument urged by the duplicate senators. They
had asked if foreigners did not hold stock in road and canal
companies? Mr. B. said, yes! but these road and canal companies
did not happen to be the bankers of the United States! The
foreign stockholders in this bank were the bankers of the United
States. They held its moneys; they collected its revenues; they
almost controlled its finances; they were to give or withhold
aid in war as well as peace, and, it might be, against their own
government. Was the United States to depend upon foreigners in
a point so material to our existence? The bank was a national
institution. Ought a national institution to be the private
property of aliens? It was called the Bank of the United States,
and ought it to be the bank of the nobility and gentry of Great
Britain? The senator from Kentucky had once objected to foreign
stockholders himself. He did this in his speech against the
bank in 1811; and although he had revoked the constitutional
doctrines of that speech, he [Mr. B.] never understood that
he had revoked the sentiments then expressed of the danger of
corruption in our councils and elections, if foreigners wielded
the moneyed power of our country. He told us then that the power
of the purse commanded that of the sword--and would he commit
both to the hands of foreigners? All the lessons of history,
said Mr. B., admonish us to keep clear of foreign influence.
The most dangerous influence from foreigners is through money.
The corruption of orators and statesmen, is the ready way to
poison the councils, and to betray the interest of a country.
Foreigners now own one fourth of this bank; they may own
the whole of it! What a temptation to them to engage in our
elections! By carrying a President, and a majority of Congress,
to suit themselves, they not only become masters of the moneyed
power, but also of the political power, of this republic. And
can it be supposed that the British stockholders are indifferent
to the issue of this election? that they, and their agents,
can see with indifference, the re-election of a man who may
disappoint their hopes of fortune, and whose achievement at New
Orleans is a continued memento of the most signal defeat the
arms of England ever sustained?

"The President, in his message, had characterized the exclusive
privilege of the bank as 'a monopoly.' To this Mr. Webster had
taken exception, and ascended to the Greek root of the word to
demonstrate its true signification, and the incorrectness of
the President's application. Mr. B. defended the President's
use of the term, and said that he would give authority too,
but not Greek authority. He would ascend, not to the Greek
root, but to the English test of the word, and show that a whig
baronet had applied the term to the Bank of England with still
more offensive epithets than any the President had used. Mr. B.
then read, and commented upon several passages of a speech of
Sir William Pulteney, in the British House of Commons, against
renewing the charter of the Bank of England, in which the term
monopoly was repeatedly applied to that bank; and other terms to
display its dangerous and odious charter. In one of the passages
the whig baronet said: 'The bank has been supported, and is
still supported, by the fear and terror which, by the means of
its monopoly, it has had the power to inspire.' In another, he
said: 'I consider the power given by the monopoly to be of the
nature of all other despotic power, which corrupts the despot
as much as it corrupts the slave!' In a third passage he said:
'Whatever language the private bankers may feel themselves
bound to hold, he could not believe they had any satisfaction
in remaining subject to a power which might destroy them at any
moment.' In a fourth: 'No man in France was heard to complain
of the Bastile while it existed; yet when it fell, it came down
amidst the universal acclamations of the nation!'

"Here, continued Mr. B., is authority, English authority, for
calling the British bank in England a monopoly; and the British
bank in America is copied from it. Sir Wm. Pulteney goes further
than President Jackson. He says, that the Bank of England rules
by fear and terror. He calls it a despot, and a corrupt despot.
He speaks of the slaves corrupted by the bank; by whom he
doubtless means the nominal debtors who have received ostensible
loans, real douceurs--never to be repaid, except in dishonorable
services. He considers the praises of the country bankers as the
unwilling homage of the weak and helpless to the corrupt and
powerful. He assimilates the Bank of England, by the terrors
which it inspires, to the old Bastile in France, and anticipates
the same burst of emancipated joy on the fall of the bank, which
was heard in France on the fall of the Bastile. And is he not
right? And may not every word of his invective be applied to the
British bank in America, and find its appropriate application in
well-known, and incontestable facts here? Well has he likened
it to the Bastile; well will the term apply in our own country.
Great is the fear and terror now inspired by this bank. Silent
are millions of tongues, under its terrors which are impatient
for the downfall of the monument of despotism, that they may
break forth into joy and thanksgiving. The real Bastile was
terrible to all France; the figurative Bastile is terrible to
all America; but above all to the West, where the duplicate
senators of Kentucky and Massachusetts, have pointed to the
reign of terror that is approaching, and drawn up the victims
for an anticipated immolation. But, exclaimed Mr. B., this is
the month of July; a month auspicious to liberty, and fatal to
Bastiles. Our dependence on the crown of Great Britain ceased in
the month of July; the Bastile in France fell in the month of
July; Charles X. was chased from France by the three glorious
days of July; and the veto message, which is the Declaration of
Independence against the British bank, originated on the fourth
of July, and is the signal for the downfall of the American
Bastile, and the end of despotism. The time is auspicious; the
work will go on; down with the British bank; down with the
Bastile; away with the tyrant, will be the patriotic cry of
Americans; and down it will go.

"The duplicate senators, said Mr. B., have occupied themselves
with criticising the President's idea of the obligation of his
oath in construing the constitution for himself. They also
think that the President ought to be bound, the Congress ought
to be bound, to take the constitution which the Supreme Court
may deal out to them! If so, why take an oath? The oath is to
bind the conscience, not to enlighten the head. Every officer
takes the oath for himself; the President took the oath for
himself; administered by the Chief Justice, but not _to_ the
Chief Justice. He bound himself to observe the constitution,
not the Chief Justice's interpretation of the constitution;
and his message is in conformity to his oath. This is the oath
of duty and of right. It is the path of Jefferson, also, who
has laid it down in his writings, that each department judges
the constitution for itself, and that the President is as
independent of the Supreme Court as the Supreme Court is of the
President.

"The senators from Kentucky and Massachusetts have not only
attacked the President's idea of his own independence in
construing the constitution, but also the construction he
has put upon it in reference to this bank. They deny its
correctness, and enter into arguments to disprove it, and have
even quoted authorities which may be quoted on both sides. One
of the senators, the gentleman from Kentucky, might have spared
his objection to the President on this point. He happened to
think the same way once himself; and while all will accord to
him the right of changing for himself, few will allow him the
privilege of rebuking others for not keeping up with him in the
rigadoon dance of changeable opinions.

"The President is assailed for showing the drain upon the
resources of the West, which is made by this bank. How assailed?
With any documents to show that he is in error? No! not at all!
no such document exists. The President is right, and the fact
goes to a far greater extent than is stated in his message. He
took the dividend profits of the bank,--the net, and not the
gross profits; the latter is the true measure of the burthen
upon the people. The annual drain for net dividends from the
West, is $1,600,000. This is an enormous tax. But the gross
profits are still larger. Then there is the specie drain, which
now exceeds three millions of dollars per annum. Then there is
the annual mortgage of the growing crop to redeem the fictitious
and usurious bills of exchange which are now substituted for
ordinary loans, and which sweeps off the staple products of
the South and West to the Northeastern cities.--The West is
ravaged by this bank. New Orleans, especially, is ravaged by
it; and in her impoverishment, the whole West suffers; for she
is thereby disabled from giving adequate prices for Western
produce. Mr. B. declared that this British bank, in his opinion,
had done, and would do, more pecuniary damage to New Orleans,
than the British army would have done if they had conquered it
in 1815. He verified this opinion by referring to the immense
dividend, upwards of half a million a year, drawn from the
branch there; the immense amounts of specie drawn from it; the
produce carried off to meet the domestic bills of exchange;
and the eight and a half millions of debt existing there, of
which five millions were created in the last two years to
answer electioneering purposes, and the collection of which
must paralyze, for years, the growth of the city. From further
damage to New Orleans, the veto message would save that great
city. Jackson would be her saviour a second time. He would save
her from the British bank as he had done from the British army;
and if any federal bank must be there, let it be an independent
one; a separate and distinct bank, which would save to that
city, and to the Valley of the Mississippi, of which it was the
great and cherished emporium, the command of their own moneyed
system, the regulation of their own commerce and finances, and
the accommodation of their own citizens.

"Mr. B. addressed himself to the Jackson bank men, present and
absent. They might continue to be for a bank and for Jackson;
but they could not be for _this_ bank, and for Jackson. This
bank is now the open, as it long has been the secret, enemy of
Jackson. It is now in the hands of his enemies, wielding all
its own money--wielding even the revenues and the credit of
the Union--wielding twelve millions of dollars, half of which
were intended to be paid to the public creditors on the first
day of July, but which the bank has retained to itself by a
false representation in the pretended behalf of the merchants.
All this moneyed power, with an organization which pervades
the continent, working every where with unseen hands, is now
operating against the President; and it is impossible to be
in favor of this power and also in favor of him at the same
time. Choose ye between them! To those who think a bank to be
indispensable, other alternatives present themselves. They are
not bound nor wedded to this. New American banks may be created.
Read, sir, Henry Parnell. See his invincible reasoning, and
indisputable facts, to show that the Bank of England is too
powerful for the monarchy of Great Britain! Study his plan for
breaking up that gigantic institution, and establishing three
or four independent banks in its place, which would be so much
less dangerous to liberty, and so much safer and better for the
people. In these alternatives, the friends of Jackson, who are
in favor of national banks, may find the accomplishment of their
wishes without a sacrifice of their principles, and without
committing the suicidal solecism of fighting against him while
professing to be for him.

"Mr. B. addressed himself to the West--the great, the generous,
the brave, the patriotic, the devoted West. It was the selected
field of battle. There the combined forces, the national
republicans, and the national republican bank, were to work
together, and to fight together. The holy allies understand each
other. They are able to speak in each other's names, and to
promise and threaten in each other's behalf. For this campaign
the bank created its debt of thirty millions in the West; in
this campaign the associate leaders use that debt for their own
purposes. Vote for Jackson! and suits, judgments, and executions
shall sweep, like the besom of destruction, throughout the vast
region of the West! Vote against him! and indefinite indulgence
is basely promised! The debt itself, it is pretended, will,
perhaps, be forgiven; or, at all events, hardly ever collected!
Thus, an open bribe of thirty millions is virtually offered
to the West; and, lest the seductions of the bribe may not
be sufficient on one hand, the terrors of destruction are
brandished on the other! Wretched, infatuated men, cried Mr. B.
Do they think the West is to be bought? Little do they know of
the generous sons of that magnificent region! poor, indeed, in
point of money, but rich in all the treasures of the heart! rich
in all the qualities of freemen and republicans! rich in all the
noble feelings which look with equal scorn upon a bribe or a
threat. The hunter of the West, with moccasins on his feet, and
a hunting shirt drawn around him, would repel with indignation
the highest bribe that the bank could offer him. The wretch
(said Mr. Benton, with a significant gesture) who dared to offer
it, would expiate the insult with his blood.

"Mr. B. rapidly summed up with a view of the dangerous power of
the bank, and the present audacity of her conduct. She wielded
a debt of seventy millions of dollars, with an organization
which extended to every part of the Union, and she was sole
mistress of the moneyed power of the republic. She had thrown
herself into the political arena, to control and govern the
presidential election. If she succeeded in that election, she
would wish to consolidate her power by getting control of all
other elections. Governors of States, judges of the courts,
representatives and senators in Congress, all must belong to
her. The Senate especially must belong to her; for, there lay
the power to confirm nominations and to try impeachments;
and, to get possession of the Senate, the legislatures of a
majority of the States would have to be acquired. The war is
now upon Jackson, and if he is defeated, all the rest will
fall an easy prey. What individual could stand in the States
against the power of the bank, and that bank flushed with a
victory over the conqueror of the conquerors of Bonaparte? The
whole government would fall into the hands of this moneyed
power. An oligarchy would be immediately established; and that
oligarchy, in a few generations, would ripen into a monarchy.
All governments must have their end; in the lapse of time, this
republic must perish; but that time, he now trusted, was far
distant; and when it comes, it should come in glory, and not
in shame. Rome had her Pharsalia, and Greece her Chæronea; and
this republic, more illustrious in her birth than Greece or
Rome, was entitled to a death as glorious as theirs. She would
not die by poison--perish in corruption--no! A field of arms,
and of glory, should be her end. She had a right to a battle--a
great, immortal battle--where heroes and patriots could die with
the liberty which they scorned to survive, and consecrate, with
their blood, the spot which marked a nation's fall.

"After Mr. B. had concluded his remarks, Mr. Clay rose and
said:--

"The senator from Missouri expresses dissatisfaction that the
speeches of some senators should fill the galleries. He has no
ground for uneasiness on this score. For if it be the fortune
of some senators to fill the galleries when they speak, it is
the fortune of others to empty them, with whatever else they
fill the chamber. The senator from Missouri has every reason to
be well satisfied with the effect of his performance to-day;
for among his auditors is a lady of great literary eminence.
[Pointing to Mrs. Royal.] The senator intimates, that in my
remarks on the message of the President, I was deficient in
a proper degree of courtesy towards that officer. Whether my
deportment here be decorous or not, I should not choose to be
decided upon by the gentleman from Missouri. I answered the
President's arguments, and gave my own views of the facts and
inferences introduced by him into his message. The President
states that the bank has an injurious operation on the interests
of the West, and dwells upon its exhausting effects, its
stripping the country of its currency, &c., and upon these
views and statements I commented in a manner which the occasion
called for. But, if I am to be indoctrinated in the rules of
decorum, I shall not look to the gentleman for instruction. I
shall not strip him of his Indian blankets to go to Boon's Lick
for lessons in deportment, nor yet to the Court of Versailles,
which he eulogizes. There are some peculiar reasons why I should
not go to that senator for my views of decorum, in regard to
my bearing towards the chief magistrate, and why he is not a
fit instructor. I never had any personal rencontre with the
President of the United States. I never complained of any
outrages on my person committed by him. I never published any
bulletins respecting his private brawls. The gentleman will
understand my allusion. [Mr. B. said: He will understand you,
sir, and so will you him.] I never complained, that while a
brother of mine was down on the ground, senseless or dead, he
received another blow. I have never made any declaration like
these relative to the individual who is President. There is
also a singular prophecy as to the consequences of the election
of this individual, which far surpasses, in evil foreboding,
whatever I may have ever said in regard to his election. I never
made any prediction so sinister, nor made any declaration so
harsh, as that which is contained in the prediction to which I
allude. I never declared my apprehension and belief, that if he
were elected, we should be obliged to legislate with pistols and
dirks by our side. At this last stage of the session I do not
rise to renew the discussion of this question. I only rose to
give the senator from Missouri a full acquittance, and I trust
there will be no further occasion for opening a new account with
him.

"Mr. B. replied. It is true, sir, that I had an affray with
General Jackson, and that I did complain of his conduct. We
fought, sir; and we fought, I hope, like men. When the explosion
was over, there remained no ill will, on either side. No
vituperation or system of petty persecution was kept up between
us. Yes, sir, it is true, that I had the personal difficulty,
which the senator from Kentucky has had the delicacy to bring
before the Senate. But let me tell the senator from Kentucky
there is no 'adjourned question of veracity' between me and
General Jackson. All difficulty between us ended with the
conflict; and a few months after it, I believe that either party
would cheerfully have relieved the other from any peril; and now
we shake hands and are friendly when we meet. I repeat, sir,
that there is no 'adjourned question of veracity' between me
and General Jackson, standing over for settlement. If there had
been, a gulf would have separated us as deep as hell.

"Mr. B. then referred to the prediction alleged by Mr. Clay,
to have been made by him. I have seen, he said, a placard,
first issued in Missouri, and republished lately. It first
appeared in 1825; and stated that I had said, in a public
address, that if General Jackson should be elected, we must
be guarded with pistols and dirks to defend ourselves while
legislating here. This went the rounds of the papers at the
time. A gentleman, well acquainted in the State of Missouri
(Col. Lawless), published a handbill denying the truth of the
statement, and calling upon any person in the State to name
the time and place, when and where, any such address had been
heard from me, or any such declaration made. Colonel Lawless was
perfectly familiar with the campaign, but he could never meet
with a single individual, man, woman, or child, in the State,
who could recollect to have ever heard any such remarks from me.
No one came forward to reply to the call. No one had ever heard
me make the declaration which was charged upon me. The same
thing has lately been printed here, and, in the night, stuck
up in a placard upon the posts and walls of this city. While
its author remained concealed, it was impossible for me to hold
him to account, nor could I make him responsible, who, in the
dark, sticks it to the posts and walls: but since it is in open
day introduced into this chamber I am enabled to meet it as it
deserves to be met. I see who it is that uses it here, and to
his face [pointing to Mr. Clay] I am enabled to pronounce it, as
I now do, an atrocious calumny.

"Mr. Clay.--The assertion that there is 'an adjourned question
of veracity' between me and Gen. Jackson, is, whether made by
man or master absolutely false. The President made a certain
charge against me, and he referred to witnesses to prove it.
I denied the truth of the charge. He called upon his witness
to prove it. I leave it to the country to say, whether that
witness sustained the truth of the President's allegation.
That witness is now on his passage to St. Petersburg, with
a commission in his pocket. [Mr. B. here said aloud, in his
place, the Mississippi and the fisheries--Mr. Adams and the
fisheries--every body understands it.] Mr. C. said, I do not yet
understand the senator. He then remarked upon the 'prediction'
which the senator from Missouri had disclaimed. Can he, said
Mr. C, look to me, and say that he never used the language
attributed to him in the placard which he refers to? He says,
Col. Lawless denies that he used the words in the State of
Missouri. Can you look me in the face, sir [addressing Mr. B.],
and say that you never used that language out of the State of
Missouri?

"Mr. B. I look, sir, and repeat that it is an atrocious calumny;
and I will pin it to him who repeats it here.

"Mr. Clay. Then I declare before the Senate that you said to me
the very words--

"[Mr. B. in his place, while Mr. Clay was yet speaking, several
times loudly repeated the word 'false, false, false.']

Mr. Clay said, I fling back the charge of atrocious calumny upon
the senator from Missouri.

A call to order was here heard from several senators.

"The President, pro tem., said, the senator from Kentucky is not
in order, and must take his seat.

"Mr. Clay. Will the Chair state the point of order?

"The Chair, said Mr. Tazewell (the President pro tem.), can
enter in no explanations with the senator.

"Mr. Clay. I shall be heard. I demand to know what point of
order can be taken against me, which was not equally applicable
to the senator from Missouri.

"The President, pro tem., stated, that he considered the whole
discussion as out of order. He would not have permitted it, had
he been in the chair at its commencement.

"Mr. Poindexter said, he was in the chair at the commencement of
the discussion, and did not then see fit to check it. But he was
now of the opinion that it was not in order.

"Mr. B. I apologize to the Senate for the manner in which I have
spoken; but not to the senator from Kentucky.

"Mr. Clay. To the Senate I also offer an apology. To the senator
from Missouri none.

"The question was here called for, by several senators, and it
was taken, as heretofore reported."

The conclusion of the debate on the side of the bank was in the most impressive form to the fears and apprehensions of the country, and well calculated to alarm and rouse a community.' Mr. Webster concluded with this peroration, presenting a direful picture of distress if the veto was sustained, and portrayed the death of the constitution before it had attained the fiftieth year of its age. He concluded thus--little foreseeing in how few years he was to invoke the charity of the world's silence and oblivion for the institution which his rhetoric then exalted into a great and beneficent power, indispensable to the well working of the government, and the well conducting of their affairs by all the people:

"Mr. President, we have arrived at a new epoch. We are entering
on experiments with the government and the constitution of
the country, hitherto untried, and of fearful and appalling
aspect. This message calls us to the contemplation of a future,
which little resembles the past. Its principles are at war
with all that public opinion has sustained, and all which the
experience of the government has sanctioned. It denies first
principles. It contradicts truths heretofore received as
indisputable. It denies to the judiciary the interpretation of
law, and demands to divide with Congress the origination of
statutes. It extends the grasp of Executive pretension over
every power of the government. But this is not all. It presents
the Chief Magistrate of the Union in the attitude of arguing
away the powers of that government over which he has been
chosen to preside; and adopting, for this purpose, modes of
reasoning which, even under the influence of all proper feeling
towards high official station, it is difficult to regard as
respectable. It appeals to every prejudice which may betray
men into a mistaken view of their own interests; and to every
passion which may lead them to disobey the impulses of their
understanding. It urges all the specious topics of State rights,
and national encroachment, against that which a great majority
of the States have affirmed to be rightful, and in which all
of them have acquiesced. It sows, in an unsparing manner, the
seeds of jealousy and ill-will against that government of which
its author is the official head. It raises a cry that liberty
is in danger, at the very moment when it puts forth claims to
power heretofore unknown and unheard of. It affects alarm for
the public freedom, when nothing so much endangers that freedom
as its own unparalleled pretences. This, even, is not all. It
manifestly seeks to influence the poor against the rich. It
wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose
of turning against them the prejudices and resentments of other
classes. It is a state paper which finds no topic too exciting
for its use; no passion too inflammable for its address and its
solicitation. Such is this message. It remains, now, for the
people of the United States to choose between the principles
here avowed and their government. These cannot subsist together.
The one or the other must be rejected. If the sentiments of the
message shall receive general approbation, the constitution will
have perished even earlier than the moment which its enemies
originally allowed for the termination of its existence. It will
not have survived to its fiftieth year."

On the other hand, Mr. White, of Tennessee, exalted the merit of the veto message above all the acts of General Jackson's life, and claimed for it a more enduring fame, and deeper gratitude than for the greatest of his victories: and concluded his speech thus:

"When the excitement of the time in which we act shall have
passed away, and the historian and biographer shall be employed
in giving his account of the acts of our most distinguished
public men, and comes to the name of Andrew Jackson; when he
shall have recounted all the great and good deeds done by
this man in the course of a long and eventful life, and the
circumstances under which this message was communicated shall
have been stated, the conclusion will be, that, in doing this,
he has shown a willingness to risk more to promote the happiness
of his fellow-men, and to secure their liberties, than by the
doing of any other act whatever."

And such, in my opinion, will be the judgment of posterity--the judgment of posterity, if furnished with the material to appreciate the circumstances under which he acted when signing the message which was to decide the question of supremacy between the bank and the government.