BANK OF THE UNITED STATES—BILL FOR THE RECHARTER REPORTED IN THE SENATE—AND PASSED THAT BODY.
The first bank of the United States, chartered in 1791, was a federal measure, conducted under the lead of General Hamilton—opposed by Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison and the republican party; and became a great landmark of party, not merely for the bank itself, but for the latitudinarian construction of the constitution in which it was founded, and the great door which it opened to the discretion of Congress to do what it pleased, under the plea of being "necessary" to carry into effect some granted power. The non-renewal of the charter in 1811, was the act of the republican party, then in possession of the government, and taking the opportunity to terminate, upon its own limitation, the existence of an institution, whose creation they had not been able to prevent. The charter of the second bank, in 1816, was the act of the republican party, and to aid them in the administration of the government, and, as such, was opposed by the federal party—not seeming then to understand that, by its instincts, a great moneyed corporation was in sympathy with their own party, and would soon be with it in action—which this bank soon was—and now struggled for a continuation of its existence under the lead of those who had opposed its birth, and against the party which created it. Mr. Webster was a federal leader on both occasions—against the charter, in 1816; for the recharter, in 1832—and in his opening speech in favor of the renewal, according to the bill reported by the Senate's select committee, and in allusion to these reversals of positions, and in justification of his own, he spoke thus, addressing him self to the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun:
"A considerable portion of the active part of life has elapsed, said Mr. W., since you and I, Mr. President, and three or four other gentlemen, now in the Senate, acted our respective parts in the passage of the bill creating the present Bank of the United States. We have lived to little purpose, as public men, if the experience of this period has not enlightened our judgments, and enabled us to revise our opinions; and to correct any errors into which we may have fallen, if such errors there were, either in regard to the general utility of a national bank, or the details of its constitution. I trust it will not be unbecoming the occasion, if I allude to your own important agency in that transaction. The bill incorporating the bank, and giving it a constitution, proceeded from a committee of the House of Representatives, of which you were chairman, and was conducted through that House under your distinguished lead. Having recently looked back to the proceedings of that day, I must be permitted to say that I have perused the speech by which the subject was introduced to the consideration of the House, with a revival of the feeling of approbation and pleasure with which I heard it; and I will add, that it would not, perhaps, now, be easy to find a better brief synopsis of those principles of currency and of banking, which, since they spring from the nature of money and of commerce, must be essentially the same, at all times, in all commercial communities, than that speech contains. The other gentlemen now with us in the Senate, all of them, I believe, concurred with the chairman of the committee, and voted for the bill. My own vote was against it. This is a matter of little importance; but it is connected with other circumstances, to which I will, for a moment, advert. The gentlemen with whom I acted on that occasion, had no doubts of the constitutional power of Congress to establish a national bank; nor had we any doubts of the general utility of an institution of that kind. We had, indeed, most of us, voted for a bank, at a preceding session. But the object of our regard was not whatever might be called a bank. We required that it should be established on certain principles, which alone we deemed safe and useful, made subject to curtain fixed liabilities, and so guarded that it could neither move voluntarily, nor be moved by others out of its proper sphere of action. The bill, when first introduced, contained features, to which we should never have assented, and we set ourselves accordingly to work with a good deal of zeal, in order to effect sundry amendments. In some of those proposed amendments, the chairman, and those who acted with him, finally concurred. Others they opposed. The result was, that several most important amendments, as I thought, prevailed. But there still remained, in my opinion, objections to the bill, which justified a persevering opposition till they should be removed."
He spoke forcibly and justly against the evils of paper money, and a depreciated currency, meaning the debased issues of the local banks, for the cure of which the national bank was to be the instrument—not foreseeing that this great bank was itself to be the most striking exemplification of all the evils which he depicted. He said:
"A disordered currency is one of the greatest of political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social system, and encourages propensities destructive of its happiness. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy; and it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field, by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies, and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by law, or any way countenanced by government."
He also spoke truly on the subject of the small quantity of silver currency in the United States—only some twenty-two millions—and not a particle of gold; and deprecated the small bank note currency as the cause of that evil. He said:
"The paper circulation of the country is, at this time, probably seventy-five or eighty millions of dollars. Of specie we may have twenty or twenty-two millions: and this, principally, in masses in the vaults of the banks. Now, sir, this is a state of things which, in my judgment, leads constantly to overtrading, and to the consequent excesses and revulsions which so often disturb the regular course of commercial affairs.
"Why have we so small an amount of specie in circulation? Certainly the only reason is, because we do not require more. We have but to ask its presence, and it would return. But we voluntarily banish it by the great amount of small bank notes. In most of the States the banks issue notes of all low denominations, down even to a single dollar. How is it possible, under such circumstances, to retain specie in circulation? All experience shows it to be impossible. The paper will take the place of the gold and silver. When Mr. Pitt, in the year 1797, proposed in Parliament to authorize the Bank of England to issue one pound notes, Mr. Burke lay sick at Bath of an illness from which he never recovered; and he is said to have written to the late Mr. Canning, 'Tell Mr. Pitt that if he consents to the issuing of one pound notes, he must never expect to see guinea again.'"
The bill provided that a bonus of $500,000 in three equal annual instalments should be paid by the bank to the United States for its exclusive privileges: Mr. Webster moved to modify the section, so as to spread the payment over the entire term of the bank's proposed existence—$150,000 a year for fifteen years. I was opposed both to the bonus, and the exclusive privilege, and said:
"The proper compensation for the bank to make, provided this exclusive privilege was sold to it, would be to reduce the rate of interest on loans and discounts. A reduction of interest would be felt by the people; the payment of a bonus would not be felt by them. It would come into the treasury, and probably be lavished immediately on some scheme, possibly unconstitutional in its nature, and sectional in its application. He was not in favor of any scheme for getting money into the treasury at present. The difficulty lay the other way. The struggle now was to keep money out of the treasury,—to prevent the accumulation of a surplus; and the reception of this bonus would go to aggravate that difficulty, by increasing that surplus. Kings might receive bonuses for selling exclusive privileges to monopolizing companies. In that case his subjects would bear the loss, and he would receive the profit; but, in a republic, it was incomprehensible that the people should sell to a company the privilege of making money out of themselves. He was opposed to the grant of an exclusive privilege; he was opposed to the sale of privileges; but if granted, or sold, he was in favor of receiving the price in the way that would be most beneficial to the whole body of the people; and, in this case, a reduction of interest would best accomplish that object. A bank, which had the benefit of the credit and revenue of the United States to bank upon, could well afford to make loans and discounts for less than six per centum. Five per centum would be high interest for such a bank; and he had no doubt, if time was allowed for the application, that applications enough would be made to take the charter upon these terms."
I opposed action on the subject at this session. The bank charter had yet four years to run, and two years after that to remain in force for winding up its affairs; in all, six years before the dissolution of the corporation: and this would remit the final decision to the Congress which would sit between 1836 and 1838, and there was not only to be a new Congress elected before that time, but a new Congress under a new apportionment of the representation, in which there would be a great augmentation of members, and especially in the West, where the operation of the present bank was most injurious. The stockholders had not applied for the recharter at this session: that was the act of the directors and politicians, or rather of the politicians and directors; for the former governed the decision. The stockholders in their meeting last September only authorized the president and directors to apply at any time before the next triennial meeting—at any time within three years; and that would carry the application to the right time. I, therefore, inveighed against the present application, and insisted that:
"Many reasons oppose the final action of Congress upon this subject at the present time. We are exhausted with the tedium, if not with the labors of a six months' session. Our hearts and minds must be at home, though our bodies are here. Mentally and bodily we are unable to give the attention and consideration to this question, which the magnitude of its principles, the extent and variety of its details, demand from us. Other subjects of more immediate and pressing interest must be thrown aside, to make way for it. The reduction of the price of the public lands, for which the new States have been petitioning for so many years, and the modification of the tariff, the continuance of which seems to be weakening the cement which binds this Union together, must be postponed, and possibly lost for the session, if we go on with the bank question. Why has the tariff been dropped in the Senate? Every one recollects the haste with which that subject was taken up in this chamber; how it was pushed to a certain point; and how suddenly and gently it has given way to the bank bill! Is there any union of interest—any conjunction of forces—any combined plan of action—any alliance, offensive or defensive, between the United States Bank and the American system? Certainly they enter the field together, one here, the other yonder (pointing to the House of Representatives), and leaving a clear stage to each other, they press at once upon both wings, and announce a perfect non-interference, if not mutual aid, in the double victory which is to be achieved. Why have the two bills reported by the Committee on Manufactures, and for taking up which notices have been given: why are they so suddenly, so easily, so gently, abandoned? Why is the land bill, reported by the same committee, and a pledge given to call it up when the Committee on Public Lands had made their counter report, also suffered to sleep on the table? The counter report is made; it is printed; it lies on every table; why not go on with the lands, when the settlement of the question of the amount of revenue to be derived from that source precedes the tariff question, and must be settled before we can know how much revenue should be raised from imports.
"An unfinished investigation presented another reason for delaying the final action of Congress on this subject. The House of Representatives had appointed a committee to investigate the affairs of the bank; they had proceeded to the limit of the time allotted them—had reported adversely to the bank—and especially against the renewal of the charter at this session; and had argued the necessity of further examinations. Would the Senate proceed while this unfinished investigation was depending in the other end of the building? Would they act so as to limit the investigation to the few weeks which were allowed to the committee, when we have from four to six years on hand within which to make it? The reports of this committee, to the amount of some 15,000 copies had been ordered to be printed by the two Houses, to be distributed among the people. For what purpose? Certainly that the people might read them—make up their minds upon their contents—and communicate their sentiments to their representatives. But these reports are not yet distributed; they are not yet read by the people; and why order this distribution without waiting for its effect, when there is so much time on hand? Why treat the people with this mockery of a pretended consultation—this illusive reference to their judgment—while proceeding to act before they can read what we have sent to them? Nay, more; the very documents upon which the reports are founded are yet unprinted! The Senate is actually pushed into this discussion without having seen the evidence which has been collected by the investigating committee, and which the Senate itself has ordered to be printed for the information of its members.
"The decision of this question does not belong to this Congress, but to the Congress to be elected under the new census of 1830. It looked to him like usurpation for this Congress to seize upon a question of this magnitude, which required no decision until the new and full representation of the people shall come in; and which, if decided now, though prematurely and by usurpation, is irrevocable, although it cannot take effect until 1836;—that is to say, until three years after the new and full representation would be in power. What Congress is this? It is the apportionment of 1820, formed on a population of ten millions. It is just going out of existence. A new Congress, apportioned upon a representation of thirteen millions, is already provided for by law; and after the 4th of March next—within nine months from this day—will be in power, and entitled to the seats in which we sit. That Congress will contain thirty members more than the present one. Three millions of people—a number equal to that which made the revolution—are now unrepresented, who will be then represented. The West alone—that section of the Union which suffers most from the depredations of the bank—loses twenty votes! In that section alone a million of people lose their voice in the decision of this great question. And why? What excuse? What necessity? What plea for this sudden haste which interrupts an unfinished investigation—sets aside the immediate business of the people—and usurps the rights of our successors? No plea in the world, except that a gigantic moneyed institution refuses to wait, and must have her imperial wishes immediately gratified. If a charter was to be granted, it should be done with as little invasion of the rights of posterity—with as little encroachment upon the privileges of our successors—as possible. Once in ten years, and that at the commencement of each full representation under a new census, would be the most appropriate time; and then charters should be for ten, and not twenty years.
"Mr. B. had nothing to do with motives. He neither preferred accusations, nor pronounced absolutions: but it was impossible to shut his eyes upon facts, and to close up his reason against the induction of inevitable inferences. The presidental election was at hand;—it would come in four months;—and here was a question which, in the opinion of all, must affect that election—in the opinion of some, may decide it—which is pressed on for decision four years before it is necessary to decide it, and six years before it ought to be decided. Why this sudden pressure? Is it to throw the bank bill into the hands of the President, to solve, by a practical reference, the disputed problem of the executive veto, and to place the President under a cross fire from the opposite banks of the Potomac River? He [Mr. B.] knew nothing about that veto, but he knew something of human nature, and something of the rights of the people under our representative form of government; and he would be free to say that a veto which would stop the encroachment of a minority of Congress upon the rights of its successors—which would arrest a frightful act of legislative usurpation—which would retrieve for the people the right of deliberation, and of action—which would arrest the overwhelming progress of a gigantic moneyed institution—which would prevent Ohio from being deprived of five votes, Indiana from losing four, Tennessee four, Illinois two, Alabama two, Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri one each—which would lose six votes to New-York and two to Pennsylvania; a veto, in short, which would protect the rights of three millions of people, now unrepresented in Congress, would be an act of constitutional justice to the people, which ought to raise the President, and certainly would raise him, to a higher degree of favor in the estimation of every republican citizen of the community than he now enjoyed. By passing on the charter now, Congress would lose all check and control over the institution for the four years it had yet to run. The pendency of the question was a rod over its head for these four years; to decide the question now, is to free it from all restraint, and turn it loose to play what part it pleased in all our affairs—elections, State, federal, presidential.
"Mr. B. turned to the example of England, and begged the republican Senate of the United States to take a lesson from the monarchial parliament of Great Britain. We copied their evil ways; why not their good ones? We copied our bank charter from theirs; why not imitate them in their improvements upon their own work? At first the bank had a monopoly resulting from an exclusive privilege: that is now denied. Formerly the charter was renewed several years before it was out: it now has less than a year to run, and is not yet rechartered."
A motion was made by Mr. Moore of Alabama, declaratory of the right of the States to admit, or deny the establishment of branches of the mother bank within their limits, and to tax their loans and issues, if she chose to admit them: and in support of that motion Mr. Benton made this speech:
"The amendment offered by the senator from Alabama [Mr. Moore] was declaratory of the rights of the States, both to refuse admission of these branch banks into their limits, and to tax them, like other property, if admitted: if this amendment was struck out, it was tantamount to a legislative declaration that no such rights existed, and would operate as a confirmation of the decision of the Supreme Court to that effect. It is to no purpose to say that the rejection of the amendment will leave the charter silent upon the subject; and the rights of the States, whatsoever they may be, will remain in full force. That is the state of the existing charter. It is silent upon the subject of State taxation; and in that silence the Supreme Court has spoken, and nullified the rights of the States. That court has decided that the Bank of the United States is independent of State legislation! consequently, that she may send branches into the States in defiance of their laws, and keep them there without the payment of tax. This is the decision; and the decision of the court is the law of the land; so that, if no declaratory clause is put into the charter, it cannot be said that the new charter will be silent, as the old one was. The voice of the Supreme Court is now heard in that silence, proclaiming the supremacy of the bank, and the degradation of the States; and, unless we interpose now to countervail that voice by a legislative declaration, it will be impossible for the States to resit it, except by measures which no one wishes to contemplate.
"Mr. B. regretted that he had not seen in the papers any report of the argument of the senator from Virginia [Mr. Tazewell] in vindication of the right of the States to tax these branches. It was an argument brief, powerful, and conclusive—lucid as a sunbeam, direct as an arrow, and mortal as the stroke of fate to the adversary speakers. Since the delivery of that argument, they had sat in dumb show, silent as the grave, mute as the dead, and presenting to our imaginations the realization of the Abbé Sieyes's famous conception of a dumb legislature. Before the States surrendered a portion of their sovereignity to create this federal government, they possessed the unlimited power of taxation; in the act of the surrender, which is the constitution, they abridged this unlimited right but in two particulars—exports and imports—which they agreed no longer to tax, and therefore retained the taxing power entire over all other subjects. This was the substance of the argument which dumbfounded the adversary; and the distinction which was attempted to be set up between tangible and intangible, visible and invisible, objects of taxation; between franchises and privileges on one side, and material substances on the other, was so completely blasted and annihilated by one additional stroke of lightning, that the fathers of the distinction really believed that they had never made it! and sung their palinodes in the face of the House.
"The argument that these branches are necessary to enable the federal government to carry on its fiscal operations, and, therefore, ought to be independent of State legislation, is answered and expunged by a matter of fact, namely, that Congress itself has determined otherwise, and that in the very charter of the bank. The charter limits the right of the federal government to the establishment of a single branch, and that one in the District of Columbia! The branch at this place, and the parent bank at Philadelphia, are all that the federal government has stipulated for. All beyond that, is left to the bank itself; to establish branches in the States or not, as it suited its own interest; or to employ State banks, with the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury, to do the business of the branches for the United States. Congress is contented with State banks to do the business of the branches in the States; and, therefore, authorizes the very case which gentlemen apprehend and so loudly deprecate, that New-York may refuse her assent to the continuance of the branches within her limits, and send the public deposits to the State banks. This is what the charter contemplates. Look at the charter; see the fourteenth article of the constitution of the bank; it makes it optionary with the directors of the bank to establish branches in such States as they shall think fit, with the alternative of using State banks as their substitutes in States in which they do not choose to establish branches. This brings the establishment of branches to a private affair, a mere question of profit and loss to the bank itself; and cuts up by the roots the whole argument of the necessity of these branches to the fiscal operations of the federal government. The establishment of branches in the States is, then, a private concern, and presents this question: Shall non-residents and aliens—even alien enemies, for such they may be—have a right to carry on the trade of banking within the limits of the States, without their consent, without liability to taxation, and without amenability to State legislation? The suggestion that the United States owns an interest in this bank, is of no avail. If she owned it all, it would still be subject to taxation, like all other property is which she holds in the States. The lands which she had obtained from individuals in satisfaction of debts, were all subject to taxation; the public lands which she held by grants from the States, or purchases from foreign powers, were only exempted from taxation by virtue of compacts, and the payment of five per centum on the proceeds of the sales for that exemption."
The motion of Mr. Moore was rejected, and by the usual majority.
Mr. Benton then moved to strike out so much of the bill as gave to the bank exclusive privileges, and to insert a provision making the stockholders liable for the debts of the institution; and in support of his motion quoted the case of the three Scottish banks which had no exclusive privilege, and in which the stockholders were liable, and the superior excellence of which over the Bank of England was admitted and declared by English statesmen. He said:
"The three Scottish banks had held each other in check, had proceeded moderately in all their operations, conducted their business regularly and prudently, and always kept themselves in a condition to face their creditors; while the single English bank, having no check from rival institutions, ran riot in the wantonness of its own unbridled power, deluging the country, when it pleased, with paper, and filling it with speculation and extravagance; drawing in again when it pleased, and filling it with bankruptcy and pauperism; often transcending its limits, and twice stopping payment, and once for a period of twenty years. There can be no question of the incomparable superiority of the Scottish banking system over the English banking system, even in a monarchy; and this has been officially announced to the Bank of England by the British ministry, as far back as the year 1826, with the authentic declaration that the English system of banking must be assimilated to the Scottish system, and that her exclusive privilege could never be renewed. This was done in a correspondence between the Earl of Liverpool, first Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on one side, and the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England on the other. In their letter of the 18th January, 1826, the two ministers, adverting to the fact of the stoppage of payment, and repeated convulsions of the Bank of England, while the Scottish banks had been wholly free from such calamities, declared their conviction that there existed an unsound and delusive system of banking in England, and a sound and solid system in Scotland! And they gave the official assurance of the British government, that neither His Majesty's ministers, nor parliament, would ever agree to renew the charter of the Bank of England with their exclusive privileges! Exclusive privileges, they said, were out of fashion! Nor is it renewed to this day, though the charter is within nine months of its expiration!
"In the peculiar excellence of the Scottish plan, lies a few plain and obvious principles, closely related to republican ideas. First. No exclusive privileges. Secondly. Three independent banks to check and control each other, and diffuse their benefits, instead of one to do as it pleased, and monopolize the moneyed power. Thirdly. The liability of each stockholder for the amount of his stock, on the failure of the bank to redeem its notes in specie. Fourthly. The payment of a moderate interest to depositors. Upon these few plain principles, all of them founded in republican notions, equal rights, and equal justice, the Scottish banks have advanced themselves to the first rank in Europe, have eclipsed the Bank of England, and caused it to be condemned in its own country, and have made themselves the model of all future banking institutions in Great Britain. And now, it would be a curious political phenomenon, and might give rise to some interesting speculations on the advance of free principles in England, and their decline in America, if the Scottish republican plan of banking should be rejected here, while preferred there; and the British monarchial plan, which is condemned there, should be perpetuated here! and this double incongruity committed without necessity, without excuse, without giving the people time to consider, and to communicate their sentiments to their constituents, when there is four, if not six years, for them to consider the subject before final decision is required!"
The clause for continuing the exclusive privilege of the bank, was warmly contested in the Senate, and arguments against it drawn from the nature of our government, as well as from the example of the British parliament, which had granted the monopoly to the Bank of England in her previous charters, and denied it on the last renewal. It owed its origin in England to the high tory times of Queen Anne, and its extinction to the liberal spirit of the present century. Mr. Benton was the chief speaker on this point; and—
"Pointed out the clauses in the charter which granted the exclusive privilege, and imposed the restriction, which it was the object of his motion to abolish; and read a part of the 21st section, which enacted that no other bank should be established by any future law of the United States, during the continuance of that charter, and which pledged the faith of the United States to the observance of the monopoly thereby created. He said the privilege of banking, here granted, was an exclusive privilege, a monopoly, and an invasion of the rights of all future Congresses, as well as of the rights of all citizens of the Union, for the term the charter had to run, and which might be considered perpetual; as this was the last time that the people could ever make head against the new political power which raised itself in the form of the bank to overbalance every other power in the government. This exclusive privilege is contrary to the genius of our government, which is a government of equal rights, and not of exclusive privileges; and it is clearly unauthorized by the constitution, which only admits of exclusive privileges in two solitary, specified cases, and each of these founded upon a natural right, the case of authors and inventors; to whom Congress is authorized to grant, for a limited time, the exclusive privilege of selling their own writings and discoveries. But in the case of this charter there is no natural right, and it may be well said there is no limited time; and the monopoly is far more glaring and indefensible now than when first granted; for then the charter was not granted to any particular set of individuals, but lay open to all to subscribe to it; but now it is to be continued to a particular set, and many of them foreigners, and all of whom, or their assignees, had already enjoyed the privilege for twenty years. If this company succeeds now in getting their monopoly continued for fifteen years, they will so intrench themselves in wealth and power, that they will be enabled to perpetuate their charter, and transmit it as a private inheritance to their posterity. Our government delights in rotation of office; all officers, from the highest to the lowest, are amenable to that principle; no one is suffered to remain in power thirty-five years; and why should one company have the command of the moneyed power of America for that long period? Can it be the wish of any person to establish an oligarchy with unbounded wealth and perpetual existence, to lay the foundation for a nobility and monarchy in this America!
"The restriction upon future Congresses is at war with every principle of constitutional right and legislative equality. If the constitution has given to one Congress the right to charter banks, it has given it to every one. If this Congress has a right to establish a bank, every other Congress has. The power to tie the hands of our successors is nowhere given to us; what we can do our successors can; a legislative body is always equal to itself. To make, and to amend; to do, and to undo; is the prerogative of each. But here the attempt is to do what we ourselves cannot amend—what our successors cannot amend—and what our successors are forbidden to imitate, or to do in any form. This shows the danger of assuming implied powers. If the power to establish a national bank had been expressly granted, then the exercise of that power, being once exerted, would be exhausted, and no further legislation would remain to be done; but this power is now assumed upon construction, after having been twice rejected, in the convention which framed the constitution, and is, therefore, without limitation as to number or character. Mr. Madison was express in his opinions in the year 1791, that, if there was one bank chartered, there ought to be several! The genius of the British monarchy, he said, favored the concentration of wealth and power. In America the genius of the government required the diffusion of wealth and power. The establishment of branches did not satisfy the principle of diffusion. Several independent banks alone could do it. The branches, instead of lessening the wealth and power of the single institution, greatly increased both, by giving to the great central parent bank an organization and ramification which pervaded the whole Union, drawing wealth from every part, and subjecting every part to the operations, political and pecuniary, of the central institution. But this restriction ties up the hands of Congress from granting other charters. Behave as it may—plunge into all elections—convulse the country with expansions and contractions of paper currency—fail in its ability to help the merchants to pay their bonds—stop payment, and leave the government no option but to receive its dishonored notes in revenue payments—and still it would be secure of its monopoly; the hands of all future Congresses would be tied up; and no rival or additional banks could be established, to hold it in check, or to supply its place.
"Is this the Congress to do these things? Is this the Congress to impose restrictions upon the power of their successors? Is this the Congress to tie the hands of all Congresses till the year 1851? In nine months this Congress is defunct! A new and full representation of the people will come into power. Thirty additional members will be in the House of Representatives; three millions of additional people will be represented. The renewed charter is not to take effect till three years after this full representation is in power! And are we to forestall and anticipate them? Take their proper business out of their hands—snatch the sceptre of legislation from them—do an act which we cannot amend—which they cannot amend—which is irrevocable and intangible; and, to crown this act of usurpation, deliberately set about tying the hands, and imposing a restriction upon a Congress equal to us in constitutional power, superior to us in representative numbers, and better entitled to act upon the subject, because the present charter is not to expire, nor the new one to take effect, until three years after the new Congress shall be in power! It is in vain to say that this reasoning would apply to other legislative measures, and require the postponement of the land bill and the tariff bill. Both these bills require immediate decision, and therein differ from the bank bill, which requires no decision for three years to come. But the difference is greater still; for the land bill and tariff bill are ordinary acts of legislation, open to amendment, or repeal, by ourselves and successors; but the charter is to be irrevocable, unamendable, binding upon all Congresses till the year 1851. This is rank usurpation; and if perpetrated by Congress, and afterwards arrested by an Executive veto, the President will become the true representative of the people, the faithful defender of their rights, and the defender of the rights of the new Congress which will assemble under the new census.
"Mr. B. concluded his remarks by showing the origin, and also the extinction, of the doctrine in England. A tory parliament in the reign of Queen Anne had first granted an exclusive privilege to the Bank of England, and imposed a restriction upon the right of future parliaments to establish another bank; and the ministry of 1826 had condemned this doctrine, and proscribed its continuance in England. The charter granted to the old Bank of the United States and to the existing bank had copied those obnoxious clauses; but now that they were condemned in England as too unjust and odious for that monarchial country, they ought certainly to be discarded in this republic, where equal rights was the vital principle and ruling feature of all our institutions."
All the amendments proposed by the opponents of the bank being inexorably voted down, after a debate which, with some cessations, continued from January to June, the final vote was taken, several senators first taking occasion to show they had no interest in the institution. Mr. Benton had seen the names of some members in the list of stockholders; and early in the debate had required that the rule of parliamentary law should be read; which excludes the interested member from voting, and expunges his vote if he does, and his interest is afterwards discovered. Mr. Dallas said that he had sold his stock in the institution as soon as it was known that the question of the recharter would come before him: Mr. Silsbee said that he had disposed of his interest before the question came before Congress: Mr. Webster said that the insertion of his name in the list of stockholders was a mistake in a clerk of the bank. The vote was then taken on the passage of the bill, and Stood: YEAS: Messrs. Bell, of New Hampshire; Buckner, of Missouri; Chambers, of Maryland; Clay, of Kentucky; Clayton, of Delaware; Dallas of Pennsylvania; Ewing, of Ohio; Foot, of Connecticut; Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Hendricks, of Indiana; Holmes, of Maine; Josiah S. Johnston, of Louisiana; Knight, of Rhode Island; Naudain, of Delaware; Poindexter, of Mississippi; Prentiss, of Vermont; Robbins, of Rhode Island; Robinson, of Illinois; Ruggles, of Ohio; Seymour, of Vermont; Silsbee, of Massachusetts; Smith (Gen. Samuel), of Maryland; Sprague, of Maine; Tipton, of Indiana; Tomlinson, of Connecticut; Waggaman, of Louisiana; Webster, of Massachusetts; and Wilkins, of Pennsylvania: 28. Nays: Messrs. Benton, of Missouri; Bibb, of Kentucky; Brown, of North Carolina; Dickerson, of New Jersey; Dudley, of New-York; Ellis, of Mississippi; Forsyth, of Georgia; Grundy, of Tennessee; Hayne, of South Carolina; Hill, of New Hampshire; Kane, of Illinois; King, of Alabama; Mangum, of North Carolina; Marcy, of New-York; Miller, of South Carolina; Moore, of Alabama; Tazewell, of Virginia; Troup, of Georgia; Tyler, of Virginia; Hugh L. White, of Tennessee: 20.