The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1837-10-24

two additional topics and have done. Ii has been
argued If the currency given 10 bank paper IN thls
country were due almost exclusively 10 the counte-
nance which government affords 1t, by receiving
in payment OF public dues. Certainly, or, me pa
| tronage of government is an important concufrlhg
cause of this credit but il Is not true thai Is essen
tia to it, What does the House of Rohehhd owe
10 the governments Of Europe; that House 70 winch
all the governments on the continent are ob8eu 70
have recourse in their financial exigencies And
here let call the attention OF those VINO declal 50
yehemently against the agency OF banking corpora
tons to the fact, that this mighty mouse, WIN iS
scarcely less than royal influence and spiendor, IKE
most OF the other establishments OF the same KIND IN
Europe is no corporation at ALL but mere private
partnership and to the additional FACT that inns CO
iossa fortune has been amassed in lille more ihan
4 single generation, by an obscure person DoTh IN
corner Of the Juden-Strasse of Frankfort on the
maine and his four sons. DO you not see then, SIT,
that the odous common places about ne money
power" and the political powers, elmer nave no
meaning or apply with all their force 10 every ac-
cumulaton of capital and all the great results OF
modern commerce. The "money power, ! pre-
sumo signifies the power OF money, when Is
widely difused in this country, thanks 10 inc pro-
lection of equal laws and which will exist and con-
tinue to have its influence, so long as those laws
shall protect il from c0nfscaion, whether II shall Dor
row the credit ofthe government or the government
shall borrow its credit. II is scarcely necessary TO
notice idea analogous TO the last which has been
very much insisted on, and that IS, that the com
merce of New York has been built up by govern
ment credits Why, Sir, this does appear to me too
| giant 10 need exposure. New YORK has been
! built up by her unreasonable natural advantages,
| and there is no measure Of this government-there
| is only one event. that can possibly deprive her OF
i her immense commercial ascendancy,-lhe dis-
| solution of the Union-that, and nothing but Hat,
| can do IT, Commerce as have already remarked
leads every where TO Capitalization: look al Liver
! pool-look at HARE the last in hard money coun-
try. But this head there is very important CON
| sideraon which has been urged with all his adm-
|
Senate (Mr. Preston) Ifthis concentration OF com
+ mercial business at that city be injurious 10 the
others now, what will it become If by collecting the
revenue in gold and silver, and thus making gold
and silver merchandise, you add TO The disad-
vantages of Capitalization, all the difficulties OF pro-
curing coin-make New York the great specie
market-and render the whole country tributary 10
| the money changers Of Wal street
| Sir, a word more to the South and for the South.
When your system of protection was still in all its
vigor, We Ct mean the people Of South Carolina)
sent you Protest against its principles and lenden-
cy, which contained among other objections to 1t,
one that deserves To be repeated here we tod you
| that we depended absolutely upon commerce-com-
merce the largest scale-commerce carried on,
| as it has been for the last half century, with an
ever increasing production, provoking and creating
an ever increasing consumption, and permitting us
to send million CHOW a million and half OF
bales of cotton into the mar ket without any danger
of a giu We told you the staple commodities,
| especially the principal which we produced,
were among the very few in the production Of which
slave labor can enter into competition with Tree
We reminded you that great revolutions In trade,
| sometimes arose from apparently slight causes and
that however far it might be from your purpose, or
even your apprehensions il was possible that your
legislation might occasion the loss OF our foreign
market, our only resource-that the result OF that
loss would be poverty and utter desolaon, that
our people in despair wonld emigrate to more fortu-
nate regions and the whole frame and constitution
of our society would be seriously impaired and en-
dangered, if not dissolved entirely. And we adJured
| pOun not IN DerS a legislation
! the benefit to yourselves, even were they unqueS-
| tionable, nothing in comparison OF The danger
| TO which they exposed us--a danger which, how
| ever contingent remote involve d our whole
existence, and could not be contemplated without
well founded aarn-Sir, repeat to you now-l
repeat to the representatives OF the whole Souh up
on this foor-the words then addressed to the House
on different subject Let well alone. ReslS inns
uncalled for innovation, Of which no one can fore
see the whole extent the ultimate results. Mark
what your Secretary of the Treasury has told you
in the very paper in which he reveals the project
/ the tabe-you PRODUCE TOO MUCH COTTON. Go home
gentlemen of the South, and tell your people that
their successful industry is yice-hat the fertility
OF their soil is cursethat their excessive produc-
tion occasional disorders in the state-and that the
remedy for or troubles, is that they should live on
| short commons
Let them cooperate with our political economy,
! by depriving themselves of the little mercantile
capital they have-let them abolish those corpora
| tons to which people who cannot themselves do
! business with the widow and the orphan have con-
tributed their means for the accommodation of COM
mcrce-let them but do this, and their docility will
be admirable and shall have appreciation
Sir before take my seat there is one other topic
that feel it my duty TO advert to-l mean to the sup
! posed injurious effects of Banking institutions upon
the laboring classes of society. Although have
doubt but that there are many defects in the con-
stitution as well the management of those instu-
tons in this country and should be most willing 10 CO.
operate, if occasion served in reforming them lhave
hesitation in acqung them at least of this charge
Who that has ever heard of the relation between capt.
tai and labor between wages and profits, but must see
at once, that it is untounded; and accordingly Hume
objects banks that by their issues they raise wages
and hurt the manufacturing interests Of nation
have already remarked that one of the effects OF
an increasing currency is to make a distribution OF
the wealth of society more favorable to the indus
triouS classes of ito conflscate, in manner, the
property of those who live fixed incomes, for the
benefit of those who produce the commodities on
which those incomes are laid out. It is for this rea-
son that the radicals of England-Mr. Atwood, for
example-are all strenuous advocates OF paper
money and even of inconverble paper. The idea
that the poor to gain by return to metallic cur
rency, is so far as | know confined to their friends
in this country whose zeal is certainly greater than
their knowledge. 1t is true, sir, that among other
disadvantages attending frequent fluctuations in the
currency, ii is said that wages are the last thing that
rises in of expansion. And that may be so in
countries where the supply of labor is greater than
the demand but the very reverse is most certainly the
| fact here where the demand-eSpcciay, when Stimu-
aedby any extraordinary increase realor fictitious of
capitals always greater than the supply All price
is question of potccr, relative necessity between
two parties and every body knows that in period of
excitement here wages rise Immediately, and out
of all proportion more than any thing else, because
the population of the country is entirely inadequate
to its wants During the last year, for instance, the
price of labor became SO exorbitant, that some of
| the most fertile land in South Carolina rice fields
which have been cultivated n hundred years. were
| In danger of being abandoned from the impoSsiby
| of paying for it, Sir, as a Southern man, | repre-
sent equally rent, capital and wages which are all
COMPOUNDED in our estates-and protest against at
| tempS to array without cause without color of
pretex or pausbly, the different classes of society
/