The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1837-11-28
FaIDAs, Sept. 20, 1897.
I'M SENATE.

|
IN SENATE.
The bill TO provide for the collection and sae keeping
Of the public being before the Senate and Mr.
Calhouns amendment thereon being under considers
ton, Mr.. Buchanan concluded his remarks. and Mr..
Mr. PREsiDEsT,
The administration has distinctly avowed that il Is not
their purpose propose any for the relief Of
the country or the people Their sole object is de-
wise for the relief Of the government; and upon
the declared policy Of separation between the govern
nent and the people, they propose the receiving Of tho
public dues in specie-and that they be collected, and
kept and disbursed by executive agents throughout the
country.
This is the project Of the administration Another is
proposed for consideration by the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr.. Rvcs, who being distinguished menu
Der Of the party in power, may, reasonably than
member OF the opposition could, calculate pos
sibe success. His proposition 10 TO revive the joint
resolution of which has regulated the currency for
the last twenty years. and the currency bill
which was passed with such unexampled unsnimity at
the last session, and was unfortunately for the
try suppressed by the late President The main object
and purpose of tho proposed by the Senator
from Virginia, understand 10 be, restore, far as
the agency OF this government can effect it, sound
currency 10 the country and 10 that currency thus
re-established, in common with the States and the
people.
Between these two measures must decide II is
manifest that take the other go home
without having done any thing; for however gentlemen
may object to either OF these propositions, II Is obvious
that no third project be brought forward with any
possibility Of success. The opposition constitutes
small minority in, the Senate, and could suggest no
measure with the slightest prospect OF II would
be idle and absurd to make propositions doomed to in
evabc rejection; but by the division amongst the
administration Senators have small privilege OF
selecting what we may consider the least Objectionable
policy The opposition, therefore, has distinctly as
sumed the ground that it will propose measure and
especially have those gentlemen whose known policy
and long established predictions favor Of u s.
Bank declared that II not their purpose 10 bring for
ward proposition for the creation Of such nstu-
ton The policy Of such measure would be very
questionable its suggestion would be manifestly vain
and useless. 1t most properly not before Il is
not one OF the measures from which to select
All that has been said about it, therefore, either side.
is entirely grauitous and irrelevant. am wearied and
Disguised with the eternal iteration of unmeanng camor
about heU. S. Bank. Whatever is the subject Of our
deliberations, they into the Bank; whatever
to be driven upon the Bank the lash that urges
The Bank is the head and bloody bones with which
the administration and its friends down the rising
complaints Of the people; and he who here might lack
other Of entertaining the Senate, strut his
little hour denouncing Biddle and the Bank. Honor
and glory, and power given 10 the late admins
ration for having slain the monster and yet honorable
Senators roar him around this hall split the of the
groundlings Whenever is TO be defeated il
is the Bank in disguise whenever TO be
carried it is that the Bank. Three years since, he
who did not praise the State banks bank man
now, he who does not denounce them is q bank man.
The Bank drove into the pet banks-it drives
out Of them and into the SubTrcasury 1t is fact
and argument-pathos and satire-logic and declama-
ton ready made the hands Of honorable gentlemen.
II is the burden Of every mans speechthe alternative
of every mans proposition is the secret purpose Of
every opponent is the lurking Of every differ
ence Of opinion He who cool every other subject
is upon this and many burst of eloqucnce would
have been lost the world but for the inspiring
Of the Bank At present is only in the heated fancy
Of gentlemen by the plastic power Of their dalectc
Skill that the Bank before US and the administration
party alone is capable, by its misrule and reckless
plunging from mschiesous experiment the
rency to another Of bringing up in substantial
form When you have leased and worried the country
until its patience is exhaustedwhen you have destroy
ed all confdence-when you have broken down COM
merce--when you have made domestic exchanges i'm
possible, and have irritatod the whole body polite into
fever and phrensy then hs people will demand the bank
at your hands When your shallow expedents aud capri
cous experiments have reduced the country to that
Of confusion and suffering which existed twenty years
ago. the people will seek refuge from you in any insti-
tuition that will give them quiet and security for their
property and industry; and thus those who clamor with
ceaseless vocieratioh against the Bank, at the
same moment dragging the country towards it.
And not the less so, Mr.. President that now for the
first tme their denunciations Of the U. S. Bank, are
generaizcd denuncatons of all banks, and Of the
whole banking system. II is now said that the whole
system wrong and vicious and that there is and al
ways has been adverse feeling the community against
it, 1t is doubtless true, that in periods of commercial
disaster, like that under which suffer- in the
uneasiness Of mems minds complaints apt to be
made Of the banking system, and OF tho whole system Of
credit, TO snch extent indeed that some have said
that all who trade borrowed capital should break but
that the settled opinion Of any respectable portion Of this
community is opposed to the banking system, to
commerce, from which 1t springs, and which repro
duces, should very much regret to believe My own
opinion has always been that the banking system was
the child Of commerce and the handmade Of liberty II
one Of the main springs of the great civilization Of the
last $50 years II belongs to free States and free States
have grown reer under its influences It's birth place
was free and commercial Holland, and England and
America have fostered it, Run your eye sir, the
Map of the world and you will find that proportion
its nations are free civilized, and commercial this in
stituton has been cherished and developed All the
peaceful trumphs OF human intellect which, day by day,
startc into wonder and admiraton all the glorious
results Of modern society, all the magnificent achieve
ments Of human industry, whose aggregate has made
the last century replete with human happiness and
with the promise Of it for hereafter than the whole
tract of history before, all this has been accompanied
promoted and vivifed by that organized system Of
credit which is itself for efficiency, completely, and
con,robiy the most wonderful engine that the taskcd
excited and victorious ingenuity Of modern times has
produced 1t has made England miracle, and has, in
generation, built up into great nation. Is bank
ing England less happy than hard money Spain, or we
less moral than hard money Mexico Unquestonably
the banking system, like all other benefcen institutions
may be and has been occasionally perverted and abused
Constitutional government ITSELF is subject morbid
action or vicious control. We at this moment as
sembled here, to dcplore and remedy the effects Of
misrue and usurpation. Have republican insttu-
tons failed because they in this crisis Has the
Constitution run because has been abused Shall
we go back hard money and despo,ism abolish banks
and the Constitution, because smarting under
temporary evils produced by the NAL administration Of
both Denounce the breeze which watts your
through the world, because it may be dashed into