The North-Carolina standard., 1838-06-27
COMMUNICATIONS 5.
FOR THE NORTH CAROLINA STANDARD.
Shall the Constitution or the Banks,
rule in this country

Shall the constitution or IhG baHAs,
rule i'm this cOHntFy9
MR. LoRlNc: Having, in my previous essays,
shown the deleterious influence Of Banks, upon the
property, morality and happiness of the good people
of these States and the utter unconstitutionaty OF
the whole SYSTEM permit me, by way OF strengthen
ing the arguments already urged, to add few more
pertinent extracts; which, coming from two such
conspicuous Iuminaries as Messrs. WebSter and
Clay, must be good authority, especially with the
" Wings" IT. after reading these, they can find it
in their hearts to suppor either of these gentlemen
for the Presidency considering their present posi-
ton, as advocates of the United States Bank and
the paper system in its worst form, why then must
acknowledge have formed an erroneous estimate
of their principles and general intelligence
But to the extracts:
"This government has a right, in all cases,
to protect its own revenues, and to guard them
against defalcation or bad and deprecated pa
per- 1t is bound also to collect the taxes OF
the people on a uniform system. The great
object is that our legal currency is to be pre-
served, and that we are NOT to EMBARK ON
THE OCEAN OF PAPER MONEY"
" No nation had a better currency than the
United States. There was no nation which
had guarded its currency with more care for
the trainers of the Constitution, and those who
enacted the early statutes on this subject,
were HARD MONEY MEN; they had felt, and
therefore duly appreciated the eviLS Of a pa
per medium they studiously guarded the
currency of the United States from debase-
ment. The legal currency acas GOLD AND
SILVER Com" Daniel Webster, 1916.
"GoLD and SILVER CURRENCY was, he
said, the LGa0 of the land at home, and the
Law of the eoorld abroad; there could, he
maintained, in the present state of the world,
be no other currency"
{" If Congress were to pass forty statutes on
the subject they would not make the law
more conclusive than it now was, that nothing
should be received IN payment Of duties to
the Government but SPECIE and yet no re-
gard was paid to the imperative injunctions
of the law in this respect The actole strength
Of the GOUe17an1e1at, he. was ofopinlon, ought
to be put forth to compel the payment of the
duties and taxes to the Government, in the
legal currency Of the country" Daniel
Webster, 1916.
Such was the language of the great, the wise, the
God-like Daniel, III 1916, when the government
was, and hal been connected with the banking in
stitutions of the country, for many years; when
there were not twenty millions of specie in the
whole Union when to have carried into effect the
policy then recommended, would have been ruin
GUS to the government az well as the Banks; and
yet, in 1897 when the Banks by general suspen-
sion of specie payments, voluntarily disconnected
themselves from the Government, when there were
80 millions of specie in the country and when the
President, upon his high authority recommended
% Congress the passage of Law, requiring all
lues to the government to be paid in the legal cur
re1acy, when the country was in better condition
o carry out this great measure, than it be-
ore; this same consistent Mr.. Webster, comes out
urously and opposes the very Identical principles
lie had formerly zealously maintained. Yes, he |
lot only now opposes what he then recommended, |
'ut recommends what he then bitterly opposed
Gold and Silrer were then the measure of his song
now he worships at the shrine of paper God
say can such man be trusted ? No. verify, not
" the Democracy, at least, however much he may
,e admired by the Federali.ts.
Now for the sentiments of that pure and imnld-
ulate patriot, Henry Clay, in his speech in 1Sl1 |
gainst the United States Bank, the Idol yea the
ivnity itself of the modern whIg party, in 1888:
g What is corporation, such "a the bill |
II is splendid association
i. faUored individuals, taken from the mass
If society, and vested with exemption and sur
ounded with immunities and privileges
Where is the Limitation upon this power to
yet up corporations You establish one in the |
leart of State, the basis of whose capital is
money!. You may erect others whose capital
shall consist of lands, SLaUeS, and personal
Estate, and then the WHOLE PROPERTY acith-
~ the jurisdiction Of STATE, might be o6-
'orbed by these Political Bodies The ex-
sting Bank contends that it is beyond the !
power of the States to tax it; and if this pre-
ension be we'll founded, it is in the power of
Congress, by chartering companies, to dry up
Ill the sources Of State reUenue"
Henry Clay, IN 1911.
Such were the sentiments of the uncontdn.inated
lLr. Clay in 1911. Then, as an honest States
lights republican, in his in the Senate of the
United States, he sounded the toscin of alarm in
he ears of his countrymen, and portrayed in vivid
olors, the ruinous tendency of such chartered mo-
lopolies as the United States Bank Even then,
While the capital of the Bank consisted of only 1Ol
Millions, he saw, affected to see, to use his own
words, that "the 1rhole property a0ittin the jris
fiction of State might be absorbed by these Po-
'uical Bodies.' And yet, in 1888, this self same
Henry Clay has recently introduced into the Sen