The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1840-07-14

! Initiate them! and in few years you will not only
be lifted from the misery, degradation denomination
superabundance of real money gold enough for all
your own uses, and TO lend 10 all America besides-
/ You will become the specie warehouse of the com
nercia world; towhch all nations will resort to borrow
gold and which will return 10 you the instant they
have borrowed il. Your hundred millions Of exporta-
| BILE productions, and augmenting every year, will
quickly produce this magic change it, emerging from
the Serbosunk, you plant yourselves the solid rock
OF gold and silver To the other States would say
do the like and the like results TO less extent will
he your reward and your blessings Al least initiate
France and eschew all paper below hundred dol
lars But this is their own affair. As things now
stand II belongs to them to act bless themselves
10 the Federal Government il belongs the preser-
walton of the sacred fire belonged the Roman YES
tals-to this Government II belongs To preserve the
sacred currency Of the Constitution. To this Co
vernment belongs to do this and to long series Of
measures pursued for this purpose, for the last
years the establishment Of the Independent Treasury
now comes in as the browning to seal and consu-
mate the WHOLE
shall, Mr.. Chairman, with your permission
hereafter recur to some old promises of this
same Mr.. Benton about the currency, which
will show how much this new one is worth.
Now, sir will read an elegant extract from
a speech delivered in the Senate, on the 2lst Of
January by Mr.. Walker, and will leave the evil
dence ! shall have offered of design TO de-
stroy the banks, for such consideration as il may
seem 10 be entitled TO.
Yes, sir throughout this Union, and throughout
the globe, wherever you find the banking system to
prevail, you will be to find periodical suspensions
and rcvulsons, and widespread ruin. Explosion is
nseparable from the system; and when YOU speak To
me of well regulated banks of circulation you speak
10 of what never has been or will be. You might
as well speak to me Of well regulated devils, whom
even Almighty power found it impossible TO regulate
in any other manner than by casting in chains into
hi lnxy nf aycrl fire And hank
system, if not abandoned may yet be regulated in the
all-consuming blaze of popular Indignation"
The bill now under consideration, provides
that the revenues shall be collected in specie
progressively, SO that in four years the whole
shall be paid in coin. The specie now in the
country may be seventy-iive millions, in the
banks and in circulation; the expenditures
of the Government cannot be much less than
one-thrd of that sum, and this is TO be paid out
only when and where the wants of the public
service may require. The friends of this mea-
sure say that not more than five millions will
be locked up in the Treasury at once. How,
sir, do they know this? AT this time there is
nothing in the Treasury-but three years ago
there were forty millions. Suppose the ave-
rage balance be but FIVE millions, is that all that
will be distracted from circulation, or from use,
as the basis of a paper circulation, if there be
one Specie, if my theory be right, will be in
request and an article Of merchandise, difficult
TO be had, and will be laid by for months in anti
cipation of payments into the Treasury and
after payment to the public creditors, it will not
be readily put IN circulation again; this incden-
tai abstraction will, think equal the direct one
But there is another important consideration TO
be looked at; this money is to be collected IN
all the parts Of the country but will be expend
ed only in few it will be in constant process
of draft from the centre TO the circumference,
without any returning stream The State OF
Ohio, which have the honor in part to repre-
sent, must pay about one-tenth OF the revenue,
say two millions and half; il has been decreed
that no more appropriations shall be made to i'm
prove our harbors and rivers, or even to finish
the Cumbeand road, and how are we TO get
dollar back? The army and navy expenditures
are on the sea-coast; the civil expenditures are
mostly in the large cities and in this district
We have sunk in the swamps of Florida 1926
100000, enough to plate with silver the surface
of the whole Territory, and ere long we shall
have TO pour out money like water, along the
whole Western frontier, far beyond the Misss-
sippi.
Sir, ask, if under such state Of things, the
banks, especially in the interior, can live either
pro6tablv TO their stockholders or benefcially TO
the people-it seems to me not and that if they
do not die at once of cholera they finally will of
consumptlon-if they continue they cannot pay
specie, and if they do not pay specie, they
ought not 10 continue. Ill any eNcUt, the result
must be that our business, wages, produce and
property, must all be measured by specie cir
culation, and correspond nearly with prices in
other hard money countries. Thus are we to
be driven from The palmy condition OF prosperi-
ty we lately enjoyed, to one OF degradation and
misery; and for what good end can any body
tell meg And out Of all this, after the people
shall have been STEPPED in misfortune and suf-
fering, for time, and have become ready to
4, fhaf 10
issue treasury bank, Of which the Executive
will be President, Directors, and Company and
having thus acquired not only the control of the
public funds but of the value Of property every
where he will never find il necessary again to
appeal TO the 'ssober second thoughts of the
people"
Mr.. Chairman, ! am opposed TO the Sub
treasury proposition because II Is another expe-
riment. Ten years ago we Were wel-you
gave us physc and here we are, $50 poor that
none will do US reverence" The country was
prosperous and the people happy, and with a
currency as sound and uniform as the world
ever looked upon, and yet the dominant party
undertook to give us better. This is a matter
of deep moment, and ! must beg leave there
fore to quote some few items from high autho-
rity.
in December, 1929, General jackson, in his
annual Message, to the surprise of every body
spoke thus:
The charter of the Bank of the United States
expires in 1896, and its stockholders will most proba-
bly, apply for renewal of their privileges In order
to avoid the evils resulting from precpitancy in n mea-
sure involving such important principles and such
deep pccunary interests, feel that cannot in JUS
tice to the parties interested too present il to the
deliberate consideration of the Legislature and the
People Both the constitutionality and the expe-
dency of the law creating this bank are well question
ed by large portion of fellow citizens and il
must be admitted by all that it has failed in the great
end of Establishing uniform and sound currency"