Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 1 (of 2)

by George Ticknor Curtis

The Senator from Virginia has informed us, that in his State, a law exists, prohibiting any man who holds office under the Federal Government from holding, at the same time, a State office. This law prevents the same individual from serving two masters. A similar law, I believe, exists in every State of this Union. If there is not, there ought to be. The Federal and State Governments ought to be kept as distinct and independent of each other as possible. The General Government ought never to be permitted to insinuate itself into the concerns of the States, by using their officers as its officers. These incompatible laws proceed from a wise and wholesome jealousy of federal power, and a proper regard for State rights. I heartily approve them. Then, sir, if there be danger in trusting a postmaster of the General Government with the commission of a magistrate under State authority, how infinitely more dangerous would it be to suffer the administration to connect itself with all the State banks of the country? What immense influence over the people of the States could the Federal Government thus acquire! Suffer it to deposit the public money at pleasure with these banks, and permit them to loan it out for their own benefit, and you establish a vast federal influence, not over weighers and gaugers and postmasters, but over the presidents, and directors, and cashiers, and debtors, and creditors of these institutions. You bind them to you by the strongest of all ties, that of self-interest; and they are men who, from their position, cannot fail to exercise an extensive influence over the people of the States. I am a State rights man, and am therefore opposed to any connection between this Government and the State banks; and last of all to such a connection with the Bank of the United States, which is the most powerful of them all. This is one of the chief reasons why I am in favor of an independent Treasury. And yet, friendly to State rights as the Senator professes to be, he complains of the President for opposing such a connection with the State banks, and thereby voluntarily depriving himself of the power and influence which must ever result from such an union.

There are other reasons why I am friendly to an independent Treasury; but this is not the proper occasion to discuss them. I shall merely advert to one which, in my opinion, renders an immediate separation from the banks indispensable to the public interest. The importation of foreign goods into New York, since the commencement of the present year, very far exceeds, according to our information, the corresponding importations during the year 1836, although they were greater in that year than they had ever been since the origin of our Government. This must at once create a large debt against us in England. Meanwhile, what is our condition at home? New York has established what is called a free banking law, under whose provisions more than fifty banks had been established in the beginning of January last, and I know not how many since, with permission to increase their capital to four hundred and eighty-seven millions of dollars. These banks do not even profess to proceed upon the ancient, safe and well established principle of making the specie in their vaults bear some just and reasonable proportion to their circulation and deposits. Another and a novel principle is adopted. State loans and mortgages upon real estate are made to take the place of gold and silver; and an amount of bank notes may be issued equal to the amount of these securities deposited with the comptroller. There is no restriction whatever imposed on these banks in regard to specie, except that they are required to hold eleven pence in the dollar, not of their circulation and deposits united, but of their circulation alone. Well may that able officer have declared, in his report to the legislature, that “it is now evident that the point of danger is not an exclusive metallic currency, but an exclusive paper currency, so redundant and universal as to excite apprehensions for its stability.” The amount of paper issues of these banks, and the amount of bank credits, must rapidly expand the paper circulation, and again produce extravagant speculation. The example of New York will have a powerful influence on the other States of the Union. Already has Georgia established a free banking law; and a bill for the same purpose is now before the legislature of Pennsylvania. If the signs of the times do not deceive me, we shall have another explosion sooner, much sooner than I had anticipated. The Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster) nods his assent. [Here Mr. Webster said, “I think so also.”] This paper bubble must, from its nature, go on rapidly expanding, until it reaches the bursting point. The recent suspension of specie payments by the Branch Bank of Mobile, in the State of my friend from Alabama, (Mr. King), may be the remote and distant thunder premonitory of the approaching storm. This is all foreign, however, to the subject before the Senate. I desire now to declare solemnly in advance, that if this explosion should come, and the money of the people in the Treasury should again be converted into irredeemable bank paper and bank credits, the administration will be guiltless of the deed. We have tried, but tried in vain, to establish an independent Treasury, where this money would be safe, in the custody of officers responsible to the people.

There is one incident in relation to the Bank of the United States which my friend from Virginia may be curious to know. Under the Pennsylvania charter it was prohibited from issuing notes under ten dollars. I had fondly hoped that this example might be gradually followed by our legislature in regard to the other banks, until the time should arrive when our whole circulation under ten dollars should consist of gold and silver. The free banking law of New York has enabled the bank to nullify this restriction. Under this law it has established a bank in the city of New York, the capital of which may be increased to $50,000,000, and has transferred to the comptroller of that State Michigan State loan to the amount of $200,000. And what notes, Mr. President, do you suppose it has taken in lieu of this amount of loan? Not an assortment of different denominations, as the other banks have done, but forty thousand five dollar notes. These five dollar notes will be paid out and circulated by the bank at Philadelphia; and thus the wise ten dollar restriction contained in its Pennsylvania charter is completely annulled.

If, therefore, I could believe for a moment that this Government intended to form a permanent connection with the Bank of the United States, and again make it the general depository and fiscal agent of the Treasury, even if no other principle were involved than that of the enormous increase of executive patronage which must necessarily follow, I should at once stand with my friend from Virginia in opposition to the administration. But I would not go over with him to the enemy’s camp. I have somewhere read a eulogy on the wisdom of the Catholic church, for tolerating much freedom of opinion in non-essentials among its members. A pious, an enthusiastic, and an ardent spirit, which, if it belonged to any Protestant church, might produce a schism, is permitted to establish a new order, and thus to benefit, instead of injuring, the ancient establishment. I might point to a St. Dominick and a Loyola for examples. Now, sir, I admit that the Whig party is very Catholic in this respect. It tolerates great difference of opinion. Its unity almost consists in diversity. In that party we recognize “the Democratic Antimasonic” branch. Yes, sir, this is the approved name. I need not mention the names of its two distinguished leaders. The peculiar tenet of this respectable portion of the universal political Whig church is a horrible dread of the murderers of Morgan, whose ghost, like that of Hamlet’s father, walks abroad, and revisits the pale glimpses of the moon, seeking vengeance on his murderers. I wish they could be found, and punished as they deserve. Though not abolitionists in the mass, they do not absolutely reject, though they may receive with an awkward grace, the overtures and aid of the abolitionists. In my portion of the country, at least, the abolitionists are either incorporated with this branch of the party, or hang upon its outskirts. The Senator from Virginia and myself could not, I think, go over to this section of the party, nor would we be received by it into full communion. The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay) will, I think, find to his cost that he has done himself great injury with this branch of the opposition, by the manly and patriotic sentiments which he expressed a few days ago on the subject of abolition.

Then comes the Whig party proper, in which the Senator from Kentucky stands pre-eminent. I need not detail its principles. Now, I humbly apprehend, that even if the President of the United States should determine to ally himself with the bank, and force us to abandon him on that account, neither the Senator from Virginia nor myself could find refuge in the bosom of this party. We have both sinned against it beyond forgiveness. We were both in favor of the removal of the deposits—an offence which, with them, like original sin, “brought death into the world, and all our woe.” For this, no penitence can atone.

Again: we both voted for the expunging resolution, which, in their opinion, was an act of base subserviency and man worship, and, withal, a palpable violation of the Constitution. So dreadful was this offence, that my friend from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] will never get over it. He has solemnly pledged himself to cry aloud and spare not, until this foul blot shall be removed from the journals of the Senate. I should be glad to know why he has not yet introduced his annual resolution to efface this unsightly stain from the record of our proceedings.

In short, we should be compelled to form a separate branch of the Whig party. We should be the deposit-removing, expunging, force bill, anti-bank Jackson Whigs. We should carry with us enough of locofocoism and other combustible materials to blow them all up. They had better have a care of us.

I hope the Senator may yet remain with us, and be persuaded that his old friends upon this floor do not resemble either the servile band in the Roman Senate under the first Cæsar, or that which afterwards degraded themselves so low as to make the favorite horse of one of his successors high priest and consul. He can never be fully received into the communion of the faithful Whigs. Although the fathers of the church here may grant him absolution, yet the rank and file of the party throughout the country will never ratify the deed.

I was pleased to hear the Senator from Virginia, on yesterday, make the explanation which he did to the Senator from North Carolina, [Mr. Strange] in regard to what he had said in favor of the British government. I cheerfully take the explanation. I did suppose he had pronounced a high-wrought eulogy upon that government; but it would not be fair to hold him, or any other Senator, to the exact meaning of words uttered in the heat and ardor of debate.

I agree with him that we are indebted for several of our most valuable institutions to our British ancestors. We have derived from them the principles of liberty established and consecrated by magna charta, the trial by jury, the petition of right, the habeus corpus act, and the revolution of 1688. And yet, notwithstanding all this, I should be very unwilling to make the British government a model for our legislation in Republican America. Look at its effects in practice. Is it a government which sheds its benign influence, like the dews of Heaven, upon all its subjects? Or is it not a government where the rights of the many are sacrificed to promote the interest of the few? The landed aristocracy have controlled the election of a majority of the members of the House of Commons; and they, themselves, compose the House of Lords. The main scope and principal object of their legislation was to promote the great landed interest, that of the large manufacturers, and of the fund holders of a national debt, amounting to more than seven hundred and fifty millions sterling. In order to accomplish these purposes, it became necessary to oppress the poor. Where is the country beneath the sun in which pauperism prevails to such a fearful extent? Is it not known to the whole world that the wages both of agricultural and manufacturing labor are reduced to the very lowest point necessary to sustain human existence? Look at Ireland,—the fairest land I have ever seen. Her laboring population is confined to the potatoe. Rarely, indeed, do they enjoy either the wheat or the beef which their country produces in such plentiful abundance. It is chiefly sent abroad for foreign consumption.